The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

[Green Gecko]

Well, thank strawberry float I'm not dealing with that.

I'm pausing public orders at the studio until mid November. Then I'm rebranding as a Studio, doubling all of my service prices, and declining all requests for business/volume rates on far lower volumes than it can be justified. My competition will scoop that up. I'm going to let them have it. I'm done doing boring gooseberry fool and redrawing crap artwork as I thought about spending the rest of my 30s as just another print shop and it just felt dread.

Now I ONLY handle commissions and high end repro print orders. I might put down a few grand on machines to do that. But that's me. If someone doesn't want to pony up for the level of service I offer, that's just fine. I'm an artist. A painter. And a bloody good one at that. So I'll strawberry floating paint and they can walk on until I find customer that want the high end products, the full service package, and pay for it. I'll help them. The rest of the time, I need to help myself, my family, and pursue the things I care about.

[Joer]

Anyone have any experience of writing a job description? We’ve been asked to come up with a job description to advertise for call centre staff that essentially says we’re willing to give anyone a chance whether you’re fresh out of school, old, career gaps and no experience necessary but I’m not sure on the best way to go about it.

[poshrule_uk]

I applied for a job over 2 weeks ago and it's still being advertised and I have had some inside information they were looking at CV'S yesterday but I still haven't heard anything, do we think a polite e-mail asking if they have my application in is worth doing?

[Tomous]

Currently on a training session titled How To Hold An Effective Virtual Meeting and the host has been having sound issues for 15 mins so we cant hear her

[That's not a growth]

that's brilliant. Also, the idea of holding a meeting so people know how to set up a zoom call is not something my company would do at all. You'd just be expected to figure it out for yourself.

[Jenuall]

There definitely is value in teaching this stuff, even as someone who has been in the office for the whole of this pandemic I've still had to join a few virtual meetings with people at home and it has always been a bit gooseberry fool.

But yeah it sounds like they may not have picked the right host for that session!

[pjbetman]

Well, thank strawberry float I'm not dealing with that.

I'm pausing public orders at the studio until mid November. Then I'm rebranding as a Studio, doubling all of my service prices, and declining all requests for business/volume rates on far lower volumes than it can be justified. My competition will scoop that up. I'm going to let them have it. I'm done doing boring gooseberry fool and redrawing crap artwork as I thought about spending the rest of my 30s as just another print shop and it just felt dread.

Now I ONLY handle commissions and high end repro print orders. I might put down a few grand on machines to do that. But that's me. If someone doesn't want to pony up for the level of service I offer, that's just fine. I'm an artist. A painter. And a bloody good one at that. So I'll strawberry floating paint and they can walk on until I find customer that want the high end products, the full service package, and pay for it. I'll help them. The rest of the time, I need to help myself, my family, and pursue the things I care about.

That's it mate. You have to value your services and skills. It doesnt matter what anyone else charges as their customer base is different to you. It's like, say, BMW/Mercedes arent in competition with Skoda - totally different client base.

Me personally i prefer to pay more for my goods and services if i know im getting a better quality.

The trick is to get these people ringing your phone.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

It might just be because I've been in literally hundreds of hours of the things now but I don't really understand why some people find them difficult.

1. Keep your microphone on mute if you're not talking
2. Put your hand up (using the tool, obviously) if you want to speak and wait for the chair to hand over to you
3. Utilise screen-sharing, which is also really really easy

Can't go wrong!

[Kezzer]

unless you get caught jerking your cock and balls.

[Jenuall]

It might just be because I've been in literally hundreds of hours of the things now but I don't really understand why some people find them difficult.

1. Keep your microphone on mute if you're not talking
2. Put your hand up (using the tool, obviously) if you want to speak and wait for the chair to hand over to you
3. Utilise screen-sharing, which is also really really easy

Can't go wrong!

Yeah but most things with technology can be boiled down into simple steps like this and people still manage to strawberry float them up!

One of the biggest issues I have is also one of the most simple - where you sit and how you frame yourself in the call. So many people sit in strawberry floating weird configurations that make it difficult to see and interact with them. Things like not even having the camera properly pointed at their face, or sitting with a window directly behind them so all you see is a silhouette etc.

[Dual]

I sit facing a window so I'm lit up like some form of divine being

[Oblomov Boblomov]

I sit facing a window so I'm lit up like some form of divine being

Same here got a massive window in front of me and a skylight above, so I always look ridiculously bright compared with everyone else.

Wonder if it provides me with any sort of subconscious advantage (or disadvantage!).

[Green Gecko]

Well, thank strawberry float I'm not dealing with that.

I'm pausing public orders at the studio until mid November. Then I'm rebranding as a Studio, doubling all of my service prices, and declining all requests for business/volume rates on far lower volumes than it can be justified. My competition will scoop that up. I'm going to let them have it. I'm done doing boring gooseberry fool and redrawing crap artwork as I thought about spending the rest of my 30s as just another print shop and it just felt dread.

Now I ONLY handle commissions and high end repro print orders. I might put down a few grand on machines to do that. But that's me. If someone doesn't want to pony up for the level of service I offer, that's just fine. I'm an artist. A painter. And a bloody good one at that. So I'll strawberry floating paint and they can walk on until I find customer that want the high end products, the full service package, and pay for it. I'll help them. The rest of the time, I need to help myself, my family, and pursue the things I care about.

That's it mate. You have to value your services and skills. It doesnt matter what anyone else charges as their customer base is different to you. It's like, say, BMW/Mercedes arent in competition with Skoda - totally different client base.

Me personally i prefer to pay more for my goods and services if i know im getting a better quality.

The trick is to get these people ringing your phone.

Thanks for the support mate. Bad news in the family has had a real knock on effect, and I'm taking time to think.

I'm not meant to be working but.. Well, Ricoh are doing some deals at the moment. Can get what was a $5000 direct to garment printer, they're offering £1,650. I'd have to pay off half of it upfront, and then recoup the investment quick enough to cover the interest at least, but it would save me time for all orders, regardless of quality. And give me time to paint, and make other stuff.

Was considering 5k for a large format printer but... I just don't have that kind of money! Even if I maxed out my credit, I'd never pay it off in time.

It's really hard considering these kinds of things because, just think about what else you can get for these kinds of capital investments in a small business, for example

Multiple power tools
Top end bandsaw
Laser cutter
3D printer
Yet more printers (I already have two, but one is pretty much done)
Holidays
Musical instruments
Expensive fees for entering or participating in art exhibitions
Marketing expenses to grow the business
Nintendo Switch

All of these things.. Could fit into the cost of one single investment!! But if it can make money...

I've done this three times now and it doesn't get any easier. It would be a total no brainier if the orders were flying in, but not only do I not want hundreds of orders (I want better customers instead of more of them), the point here is I want to be able to provide a high quality product, that doesn't take days to sort out, for people paying low prices.

I am actually only talking about maybe 25% of my customers to be fair. But in a real wobbly place with regards to how to proceed with the next 5 years, or just take all of my means and skills and just play music, travel, make art or whatever for a year until I figure something else out.

The most painful thing as a creative businessperson, is the sheer amount of time you spend thinking about, working on, working in the business, but not really doing much at all of your own creative output, which is what got you here to begin with. That's why you learn these things, because you enjoy them, you enjoy the process of experimenting and making new things. As soon as you commoditise that, it becomes another exercise in efficiency or comprimise to some degree.

Hopefully taking a month out, and I've got piles of art materials arriving any moment now (pouring resin, tabletop easel, clay etc), to just focus on my true product, my own art practice/development, helps give me perspective. And then come Christmas, hopefully I can kill it with a new, considerably more efficient machine, for the tees etc, when it comes to custom orders for gifts etc. I only need to sell about 100-200 shirts in a year to pay off the gear, so, that really isn't a lot. Surely I an sell 100 T-shirts in 365 days, otherwise what the strawberry float am I doing?

Maybe part of this is recognising my own mortality, maybe it's wanting to do my mum proud before she leaves this earth, I'm really not sure at the moment. It's certainly been a crazy couple of weeks.

[Lagamorph]

unless you get caught jerking your cock and balls.

IT WAS JUST A TUCK!

[Memento Mori]

People who put the entire email message as the email subject and leave the rest of the email blank.

[Qikz]

People who put the entire email message as the email subject and leave the rest of the email blank.

If it's something really simple I don't hate this.

[DarkRula]

I was going to try that in this reply, but I don't think that'd work without something in the message box.

So have the entire message twice.

[Jenuall]

[Green Gecko]

Oh god, when people realise they can edit the subject on message boards

Going back and forth with printer manufacturer today, seem to have hit the bottom line in terms of what they can offer me.

After reclaiming VAT, it's still close to 2 grand which is a strawberry floating huge spend for me, but it would make processing my current line of work a lot easier, and it seems they are in it for the long haul in terms of supporting the machine. I can crash out of tee printing and sell up the machine after 12 months if I just don't manage to pay off the lending and that would only put me back where I am now, which course be worse. I'm not in any kind of serious debt, I haven't lost any meaningful amount of money that I wouldn't have spent in some other way (rent, utility expenses etc) and, well, you could say a recession is a time to beat the competition to death because they won't be investing and their customer base will be going down. And they absolutely cannot do what this machine would be able to do, and neither can another local outfit (way too expensive to be practical). So, might actually have found myself a little local niche here. If I can make 2k into 2.5k that's still worthwhile.

Got to decide by Friday so the pressure is on! Investing in future odds is always such a roller coaster.

[DarkRula]

Yeah, okay. I completely forgot about the BBcode stuff.