MOst important Business mistakes

[8thsinner]

There are a lot of new business related threads popping up at the moment.

Thus I propose this thread.

I want this to be a reference library of FAILED and OVERCOME business mistakes you have made on the journey.

Do not discuss responses here, leave it as a library and maybe we can add html links to index the contents later on, or even turn it into a pdf for download.

Try to list them something like this...

SUB TITLE (In bold at thread headings)

FAILED STOCK SYSTEM

Taking a desposit in order to guarantee christmas delivery, and using that deposit in order to buy materials for the job is NEVER a good idea

WHY

The future is unwritten, you never know when your suppliers wil be burned to the ground or have flood damage, disscontinue stock or close for family berevment.

METHOD OF OVERCOMING OBSTACLE

Always keep a minimum of three sources of all materials and non permenent tools, Better yet, never take on an order unless you have the materials and tools to get the job done and well. If you might not have time to take the job on completely then don't. Be professional about this, if you fail you may spend money trying to be professional in fixing your mistakes.

I hope this helps us all out, in this trying time of recession and long beyond.

[wildrose]

Okay, so kick me 'cuz I'm gonna reply/discuss:

I always take a deposit to cover the cost of materials, before I proceed. Example, from just this past weekend:

Customer approaches me and wants me to make a wallet for her husband's birthday in January. She picks out a Tandy kit from the catalog I keep handy. She wants me to carve a Basset hound on it. I set a price with her. I tell her, then, that I take the cost of materials up front. She gives me a check to cover the kit's price. I call Tandy today and find it's been sold out, and more are expected but not immediately (guess they'd had a huge sale!). Here, no prob because b'day isn't 'til January. I'm going to update the customer and see how she'd like to proceed. Honestly, this is the FIRST time I've not been able to get the product immediately. If it were urgent, I'd have called a few other locations to see if they had it. But I can wait.

However, back to the deposit part. I do this because it covers what it will cost me to buy the kit. If I had a large enough bank account, I'd likely have fronted the money in a case like this, since I could likely sell the piece to someone else (it's not personalized - if it were, I'd be taking the full amount up front).

Anyhow, that's my .02.

[mulefool]

Boy, I'm really surprised there haven't been more replies to this thread. Guess nobody here makes any mistakes! LOL. I could probably fill a whole forum with the many mistakes I've made. But one which I think encompasses many of them was the idea that because saddlemaking is such a unique craft and business that I didn't have to pay attention to the basic rules that other businesses do to be successful. This was many years ago and with the emergence of publications like Shop Talk and LeatherCrafter and Saddlemakers journal stressing the importance of good business practices perhaps there aren't as many folks making those same mistakes that I did. Chris