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No Job is Too Small but Some Jobs Are Too Big One of the really embarrassing things about putting yourself forward as an expert is the fact that there will come a time when you will be proved wrong. It's even more embarrassing when the person who is proving you wrong is yourself. Earlier today I suggested that you should never turn work away and I backed that up from personal experience. I proudly stated that we never turn work away but now, after thinking about it for a few hours, I have to say that there are times when we do. Before I tell you about those times let me try and decorate the bitter truth with some 'good' advice. Over the years we have found that no job is too small to take on. We are currently working on orders worth many thousands of dollars for several clients, we are also working on a number of jobs worth only a few hundred dollars for many more clients. But they are all the same to us, each one is important and we treat our clients like gold. We know that the big spenders will come back for more and so will the little guys as well and that will keep our cash flowing. At the same time, if someone approaches us to do a $50.00 job we won't turn them away because experience has taught us those small, almost insignificant jobs often turn into big orders somewhere down the track. For example we are currently working on a very big order for a company in Spain. We have never met them but we have talked often via email and instant messaging systems and they have entrusted us with a lot of up-front payments and even some expensive equipment to complete the work. But before they did that they tested us. Their first order was for some very simple text work that cost them around $30.00. Their next order was for around $40.00, then $45.00 and then came an order worth several hundred dollars. Each time we delivered on time and made sure that the quality of the work was up to our usual high standards. Two months ago we got their first big order and since then the orders have just kept on coming. We could have so easily missed all that work because that first small order arrived at a time when we were busy with other things and $30.00 was neither here nor there to us. The same thing has happened on at least three other occasions with three different clients. Small initial orders have turned into ongoing orders that have continued for years so we have certainly learned the lesson that no job is too small. On the other hand we have also realised that some jobs are just too big. We certainly never find that with our regular clients but a new client, who wants to deluge us with an order that may never be repeated is always treated with some reserve. Can we fit that order into our already hectic schedule? Are they expecting us to jump through their hoops to fulfill their order? How will it impact on our regular clients? And are they expecting to get this work at a bargain-basement price or are they willing to pay a reasonable rate? Those are the questions that we now apply to any big order that comes in from a business that we have never done work for before. Only two weeks ago we gently suggested that a potential client find someone else to fill a big order, not because we couldn't do the work, but because they expected us to re-arrange our entire work schedule to suit them. There would have been an immediate impact on some of our other clients and there was no indication that there would be any ongoing work after the initial order. In fact we were left with the impression that there may be no follow up orders because they were always searching for someone better. I have to
admit that turning away the work made us feel uncomfortable and it's not
something that we are going to make a habit of doing but sometimes, turning
away work can help to keep your business going. |