Hi Guys,
Background:
I have owned my own shop since 2018 and worked there nights and weekends up until about the end of October 2022. I am now full time. I have a business partner who is an engineer turned salesman. He and I met while working for an aerospace company years ago. He does know some stuff, certainly more than most salesman. He can even do a little programming / setup. Also good as an operator in a pinch.
I am the machinist. I have a degree in mechanical engineering, but I never liked sitting at my desk all the time so I ended up on this side of the industry about 12 or 13 years ago. I'm not really good at sales, but I'm noticing a trend that I'm not a fan of and I wanted to reach out to some people who have more experience running their own shop (I wish I had a local mentor).
The Issue:
The trend I'm noticing is that we get a lot of work - we struggle to hit our deliveries (mostly on "one-offs") and then there is a slow down while we look for more work. Sometimes we have to take the jobs nobody else wants just because we need money.
My partner feels like we need to finish what we're working on so that we keep our customers happy. I want him to look for work always and quote jobs we want but can't get to with longer leads times. The lead times will always be different based on capacity. I feel like if we are constantly quoting and looking for work we will be able to better pick and choose what we work on. He says that if he quotes longer lead times we might never hear from a customer again.
I know this is just us learning but I wanted to know if anyone else out there is willing to share what their strategies are for this sort of thing. I know it's probably tough to balance even when you have a good system.
Welcome to job shop life, most shops got old doing same way, and everyday that goes on
getting harder, foreign competition, slow economy, new technologies.
my friends depend of sub-boing job shops, 90 days pay, always fighting to pay rent and
workers salaries, and most bought their houses when worked for other companies, no vacations
as we say we bought a job, it helps making your own product, I never open to do a job shop.
reason being i was more production guy than a thenth machinist, making your own its lots of
fun, also i bought my house when was employee, even when i was doing good making money hard
to buy property because one week came 10k but next week may be $10 bucks and bank want to
see your history pay stubs, not trying to dicouraged you but seems to me when young work for
established company, so you can get good social security retierment than later go on your own
job shop is brutal no easy way to put it.
