John Carmichael wrote: >My only suggestion is that you may want to rethink promissing a quick >delivery date of 3 to 4 weeks. Remember, things do go wrong. 6 weeks is >more customary for orders like this. Customers get very upset when >delivery does not happen when promissed. I tell my customers that delivery >date depends on how long the waiting list is. They are impressed that >there is a "waiting List". Right now, I tell them it's 3 months. They >like the idea that they are ordering something special and that they have >to wait for it. But I make it a point to never be late with an order and >always get them finished a little ahead of schedule. > >If you ask Tony Moss his opinion on delivery date quotations, he will say >that he tells his customers: "It'll be done when it's done!"
John's advice is entirely sound and echoes my own thoughts. We all detest the supplier who promises a week and takes three. He pays for his sins in the long run however because we go elsewhere next time, but then who wants TWO sundials? - other than Geoff Parsons and Mike Shaw that is! ;-) Of course if one is making sundials 'for a living' as opposed to 'for financially rewarding pleasure', i.e. 'fun', then the shortest realistic timescale has to be the norm but down that path lies drudgery and there's little pleasure in drudgery. Twice now I have turned a hobby/interest into a business following formal retirement and quickly learned that the most absorbing activity becomes mere 'work' when done only for financial reward. Whenever I look at the wonderful hand engraving of yesteryear I often think that the engraver, far from loving his exacting craft, might possibly have hated every minute. Tony Moss -
