Mainly asking those of you who are either working solo or with a very limited staff. How are you managing client expectations and keeping a steady backlog as a one man or small shop? I realize my scenario is slightly different than most doing this, as I started out just a couple years ago and went full time roughly 15months ago. Many clients and potential clients know I’m capable, but almost every one of them who has called me in the past couple months is doing so because their mainstay surveying or civil engineering firm can’t keep up. Which is good for me but I’m starting to slowly build a back log myself.
First in first out is ok only if all your clients are of the same quality. I prefer to rank the quality of the clients (pay on time, happy to pay for value, reasonable time expections given your market) from A to D. A’s get the attention, you try to turn B’s into A’s, C’s are only for quiet times and D’s, run for the hills.
Good clients are reasonable about timeframes where you communicate well. Regarding your 7am – 7pm problem that is also a client training problem; don’t answer them out of your office hours. Burning yourself out will make problem worse.
When I really need to concentrate on a task I close my inbox so I can’t get distracted (and if I got a large volume of calls turn phone off too). I then just check inbox at start of day/lunchtime/end of day. Surveying is hardly ever a life/death matter, if clients can’t wait half a day then they are usually not great clients to have.
This content was originally published here.
