Homebased workshop part 2 - systems and team
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ก.ย. 2024
- Follow up from my popular video touring my home based workshop and office, in this video I show you some of the systems and procedures we use to keep on top of projects as a team; and show you more of Graeme and Brady’s roles in the business.
How do you grow a small woodworking / fitted furniture business from one man to employing staff? It’s not easy!! Putting systems and procedures in place to make communication easier definitely helps. Communication is key! And finding good people.
The original video from 9 months ago is here:
• Home based woodworking...
Started watching your videos for abit of advice as I’m currently saving and studying / learning to do this and to set up a team and business, these videos are a massive help cheers bud
This is an old video. Glad it’s helpful. We have since moved to a large new workshop and I’ve created a Vlog series detailing every step of the process of setting it up, bringing in machinery etc. I’ve made that available at www.buymeacoffee.com/Freebird
Here’s the new space: th-cam.com/video/_UPuOOnn0hU/w-d-xo.html with some brief excerpts from the vlog series videos at the start.
Interesting to see what goes on in the background 👍
I think you know my business better than I do by now! I forget what I said in old videos, occasionally I look back and it’s interesting to see what I was thinking at that stage. I guess it must be quite an interesting overview for you watching varied videos from different stages of the business
Great video as usual,real grass roots info. For a self taught cabinet guy it's working great.
Really great video. Not seen anything like this anywhere else. Such an interesting insight into how a business like yours works. Really impressive actually - you've put a lot of thought into it all. Good luck to you, really hope you keep growing.
desreed1 thanks!
Some invaluable advice for someone like myself who is in the early stages of setting up a work from home business. I'd pay for some of the excel/spreadsheet templates you have!
masterLJpoker I have so much content, spreadsheets etc that I want to tidy up and present for other woodworkers but I’m just not finding the time at the moment! Did you know I’ve got a lot of useful extra content already available on my membership site though? See what you think: www.buymeacoffee.com/freebird
It's a good thing your distractions have a nice table to play at! 😁 I'm suprised to see you haven't got a new unit yet, but I can see the tremendous value in getting your team ready and your processes perfected first, makes so much sense!... and your home workshop is pretty good really! I have one very small shed 😢 so am looking at growing differently I think.
Matt Kindon yeah the thing is we do have about as much space as we need right now, the pressure to move is more from the perspective of family. We want to move house too, and have more privacy etc. So business wise I’m sort of dragging my feet, or to put it more positively I’m trying to make absolutely sure it makes financial sense to make the move rather than jumping from the frying pan into the fire!
@@Alastair_Freebirdthat all makes absolute total sense and I don't blame you!
Thanks for sharing this ❤👍 wish you were nearer to Stratford upon avon! Id love to work for you guys. Id learn so much!
It is really amazing we pretty much do the same method
Henry V Palomeque which part, the post it notes board?
@@Alastair_Freebird your whole business
I suppose the odds are that could happen! Where are you based?
@@Alastair_Freebird I'm in NY long island I do work in the Hamptons area
Do you use MDF and if so what brand? I have a US based subscriber asking about which brands available over there can get a good sanded edge and painted finish.
Great video! Nothing wrong with the editing either 😂 its amazing to get an insight to how others run things especially when I'm a very similar line of work. Its especially interesting for me... you took the your first steps of expansion via staff and held off on upgrading equipment toward I'm still on my own rarely even a labourer but have a very reasonable space rented and filling it with high end machines etc as much as I can! I'm really jealous as to how much ye have in Google drive it's so detailed !! Wish I knew how to sort something similar to that!! should sell those templates I'd defo buy 😂😂🙈 if I had to get one staff member it would certainly be a Graham! Where do you find one of them? 😉( that's actually a serious question.... what would he call himself or his training be so if I was to go looking for someone to do similar for me??). Brady seems a great guy to have around too. Someone who actually has an interest in what they're doing! I do think a bit more space n just a decent panel saw and a low to mid range spindle molder would make Brady 3-5 times more productive though. Next bottle neck is sanding then... I've been looking into some different sanding machines but with bristles rather than belts can do mouldings n MDF edges etc even denib between spraying!... mdf n drum sander is bad combination in my opinion and I also don't have 3 phase. Once again really appreciate you taking the time to make video!!
Jack Finnerty hi Jack I think you did the right thing investing first in machinery. Think that for me investing first in staff seriously slowed the growth of the business. A machine brings an immediate productivitity increase. A staff member brings an immediate productivity decrease!!! But an increase in the long term when they’re trained. When we finally move I will definitely get machinery. The main investment will be either a CNC or panelsaw. Not sure I can stretch to both. I know a panel saw seems essential but if we get CNC there’s a lot of cutting of carcase parts than can be done including predrilling shelf holes etc. It will save Graeme time preparing drawings for Brady or for ChopShop (our CNC contractor); he can send straight to CNC, so he gets more productive and Brady also gets more productive focusing on making.
I’ve also looked into specialist MDF edge sanding machines but the price was about £30k!! gibbsfinishing.com/gibbs/mdfedgesanding.shtml
Employing Graeme for his CAD work etc has been kind of a risk - I met him through friends and thought he could be a good fit, but I know that others in my line of work think it’s madness to be paying someone 4 days a week for drawings etc at this small stage of my business, and it has been costly; there has been a period of a couple of years or more where it’s been debatable whether it’s worth it financially but my eyes were on the long game and I always had at the back of my mind that when we finally get CNC in house he will be a huge asset to running that side of things. He is already a big asset as now he understands our methods really well he is increasingly productive and apart from drawings he does ordering of materials and components. Also I have been able to claim back some of his past wage as a tax offset for ‘research and development’ work from HMRC because I was able to argue that a lot of what I was paying him for was development of innovative new methods and techniques which is classed as R&D - specifically the way we have set up SketchUp with our own customer components that work with cutlist.
Before deciding to take Graeme on I dabbled with outsourcing the detail drawing work, to a company I found online with draughtsmen in the phillipines. A lot of people would recommend outsourcing in this way; also with virtual PAs instead of an employed administrator, however I found too many communication problems and frustrations and decided we needed someone physically present. I have questioned myself on these decisions many times and doubted whether it would ever pay off but it’s all preparing us for long term payback (I hope!!).
@@Alastair_FreebirdHi Alistair, it's a bit low tech compared to the machines you've linked to, but a guy called Mike Farrington uses a special sanding disc that replaces the table saw blade to sand his component edges. I think it retails at a few hundred dollars. Hopefully this link will take you to his video about it 👍 www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=2ahUKEwihiOu96YbkAhXlQhUIHZLdD_MQwqsBMAB6BAgFEAU&usg=AOvVaw0VTJzWxrN8ZFOD4xbU2nov
Great Video! Lots of great info.
Brian Needham Thanks!
Great insight to how your business works very interesting do you ever get any complaints about the noise does , is the Council aware you run your business from home look forward to your next video
Norman Roberts no complaints about noise. We only work reasonable hours and no weekends. One of the reasons we want/need to move is that since going from sole trader to limited company I really ought not to be running it all from a residential area however my only actual brush with the council so far was a visit from a building control inspector when we built the shelter on the side of the workshop and he was actually quite supportive!
Good morning all,
In the process of build a fresh start
We are using gsuite to create an intranet . The intranet is helping no end especially during prototyping (every body singing off the same hymn sheet)!
Brilliant idea with the traffic light system.
Question regarding ServiceMate
how does the payment of pricing each job work for you
Did you look at any other CRM
What is the biggest advantage of service mate
Disadvantage / lacking features?
Do you really need service mate when you systems and process look pretty solid with the use of gsuite?
Any other thoughts about service mate that I may have missed?!
Brilliant your videos are. Very informative especially for an ex PAT.
Keep up the great work
jack spectre we also use a lot of google apps and have managed to avoid paying for the g-suite business plan by using linked ‘personal’ google accounts, and email aliases.
jack spectre ServiceM8 is good for keeping job communications in one accessible place per job, and for automating email replies and little helpful things like letting a customer know I’m on my way when I set off to see them. However there is lots that irritates me about it and that is not entirely suitable to or specific business. It is clearly made for responsive maintenance type business with lots of guys on the road, doing less complex and drawn out jobs than us. Quick reply right now, I’ll get back to you on the other points. Prompt me with another comment here if it seems like I forgot!
Awesome thank you. I noticed this software too. www.servicemate.solutions Naturally the similar names threw me a little. By the looks of it servicemate has not been updated for a couple of 3 years. Just looking for a cheap as chips mega simple billing software. There has got to be something on either Apple or Google sheets?
Our recent ServiceM8 bills are here: instagram.com/p/B3F8x9XAyFj/?igshid=go84gtal65oq
We have looked at various CRM and other apps to help manage things and learnt that it’s tempting to think you’ve found ‘the one’ only to discover in useage it’s not QUITE what you really need. Which is why companies with a bit more cash often end up getting bespoke software designed. It’s a good question whether we really need ServiceM8. There are things about it that annoy me, unnecessary limitations etc. But I like: how I can click on a job on my iPhone; check emails, tasks, notes specific to that job in one place, and with a couple of taps navigate to the address and automatically notify the customer that I’m on my way (people find that helpful and professional); also email templates that can automatically populate with the customer name etc are helpful time savers; and job templates so you can start a certain type of job with documents relevant to that work ready loaded in the job file.
Very good content. Cu Friend!--*¡**
GrandAdan glad you like it, thanks for commenting!
Check out "fastcap" kiazen lots of good tips for production environment. All on youtube.
grumpywoodiam thanks for putting me onto this! Very interested