Business Blogs (303)

the catholic church which is by far the richest farce ,has for once been truly shown to be more about money than it is about people ,
the pope has agreed that one of his cardinals can face trial for fraud and theft ,,
the 200 million dollar chelsea property bought by the vatican ,which is just a drop in the ocean to the church ,and now worth 277 million dollars ,,is money that was meant for the poor and needy ,,,
nope this church does not work that way at all ,,
it has its own bank that is not open to tax investigations ,it has its own security , and above all it has untold riches worth trillions stashed away in rome ,,,
whilst people starve all over the world ,and these same people bow down to this money machine in the name of religion ,,,
who in their right mind believe in this religious farce ,,,,,,,,,,,,

Will we see a lightning fast collapse in asset prices? Gold, stocks, housing etc.etc.

I gave several months notice and phased out of a sales position working for a company who specializes in kitchen and bath remodeling. It was a problematic position and the company understaffed. That forced the salesmen to do jobs (like project manage) that cut into time needed to sell. There were other reasons, but I wanted out and agreed to finish the contracts underway and not accept any new work.

Something else (more to my liking) came along and I started working for a high-end custom manufacturer. It was agreed that I would often be called away (from time-to-time) to finish obligations of the other job.

They are using a design program that's considerably more difficult that other industry software but I'm being paid to learn it and make drawings for my boss along with some of the other sales staff. I'm assigned to follow up on sales leads as they come in.

One of the designers (fancy name for a sales person as we all are called designers) has some personal issues and decided to leave the company. I noticed some of her work is/was problematic that requires meetings with the owner and factory manager to resolve manufacturing errors in her designs. She's had issues with clients who also complained about not getting things in her designs. I don't know her track record but after she left they passed 17 leads to me she wasn't following up on. We subscribe to a client monitoring system from Google we use that keeps track of leads, notes and client correspondence. It gives reminders so if you forget for follow up on a lead it will appear on a list and how many days it's been since you contacted the client. It took 3 days to go through the list (while doing other things) and 4 of the leads are still alive.
She didn't answer email to a client who bought a condo in Florida and will visit from their New York residence. I read some email complaints from the customer who didn't get a reply, met with her this week and received a deposit to start shop drawings.

The designer who was leaving had a meeting with the owners to pass her projects to them and they would decide who to divide her projects to. We are a team and often help the other coworkers when something needs to be done. I'm made drawings and gone on field measuring trips to help the other sales staff. It's fine with me as I'm learning their procedure. While I have 30 years experience in this business and handle a wide range of situations, my forte as sales manager was fixing the mistakes from other designers/salemen.

A call came through yesterday from a client who paid a deposit and wasn't getting service to finalize the shop drawings so we could start manufacturing. Some miscommunication happened and he got bounced around. One of the staff who is assigned to write up orders is somewhat familiar the job was too busy to take it and suggested giving it to me. With several people in the room, the senior designer also stated it should have come to me. The designer who was leaving wanted one of the other designers to take it. When my name was mentioned she said "He's too Old School" and that she wanted someone else to take the project.

I laughed and said "I'll take that as a compliment, at least I don't have a history of pissing off clients."
She's gone, it's not her decision who should handle the project. I have the time and experience to deal with it. I went over this event with my boss who admitted he was overloaded (didn't followup) and so was the senior designer (who came in Saturday to take on the project) and agreed they didn't make the correct decision.

Sadly, the senior designer looked at the shop drawings and found some critical design mistakes that have to be resolved with the client because they need to be aware of the necessary changes.

So much for New School designers...

Now's The Time To Cash-In - Sell Out To Pandemic Engorged Corporate Vultures!

It's become the usual phrase "Sorry, that's out of stock and on backorder"
Cabinet hardware, plumbing fixtures, lumber, it really makes little difference as the entire world seems to be on backorder.

One of my friends recently moved to Asheville, North Carolina. He's a retired general contractor building his own house. Literally, everything going into the house is in short supply, out of stock and on backorder. What was expected to be a few months of construction is turning into a year. It's a good thing he and his wife have a motor home parked on his land while construction goes on.

The last two kitchen jobs I signed had discontinued tiles and the clients had to return to re-select.

I waited 3 months for a new model helicopter to become available. I got the email last week it's in stock and ready to place an order today I see it's already sold out with the next shipment due around the end of July.

Checking with a competitors models and 80% of their inventory appear to be on backorder.

It's not hard to predict that rebuilding after COVID will be a long, long time.

Folks just gota learn to walk to get around ...go the great Gaffa

For a few reasons, I left a job at the end of February 2020 I had been working there for nine years. Short retirement, I was to start another the following Monday in March. Pandemic hit and we all took extended vacations. Coming back, lots of potential leads had drifted away and sales were below monthly quotas. Not ready to be retired, I gave it another shot and another shot but I wasn't happy there doing bathroom renovations.

The owner tried to convince me to stay... several times actually, but I wanted to be elsewhere. I promised to finish my projects and not leave him hanging (as 2 of his last designers/salesmen did) and to stay until he found and trained a replacement.

The new guy wasn't fitting well and his top salesman was scheduled for back surgery. COVID-19 came through the office on three occasions knocking out 6 of the 8 people working there. Thankfully, I was spared but my exodus was delayed a few times.
Every week, I checked a placement site for positions available in any related field. Some came up and I interviewed with a few companies, but nothing materialized.

I teamed up with a coworker and surprisingly, our success at closing jobs improved. My plan to leave hadn't changed and at some point I needed to refuse any new projects.
Currently, I'm finishing 1, starting 3 and have a large renovation in July.
All the detail drawings are done, materials have been ordered and I'll have to appear on a few jobsite meetings over the course of 2 months. Hopefully, nothing more.

The owner is going away for a few days this Easter weekend so today I turned in commission reports and got a check. He knows where I stand to project manage the last group of jobs and said it was great having me work there... even if it wasn't profitable for either of us. The part that impressed him was my calm demeanor and high standard of professionalism. I handled everything they could throw at me.


I didn't 'burn a bridge' and know if I ever wanted to try there again, the opportunity is always available. Not 100% finished, I have to go back tomorrow collecting some furniture a computer station and have a short meeting with the field manager to pass needed information for the difficult projects.

A year out of my life and I learned many different things about that facet of manufacturing and supply. The goodbyes included thanks from both sides... as expected I'm carrying one less key tonight...

In 2025, when I am completely and fully trained in handling trucks and trailers, it might be time to figure out what I want to use my new education for. Do I work for a company, or do I start my own courier/haulage business? It's free to start your own business, and if I make more than $7931 in profits, over a year, I need to be VAT registered. Some places offer VAT registration for as low as $111. My housemate told me I would need $23792 in order to be VAT registered, but from what I can read, it's nowhere near that amount.

So.. Now that the plan has been laid, I will need a vehicle. Now, because I have a business, I can get a car for a lower amount, $2744 to be exact. So, if I find a car below that value, which is pretty hard, I am not going to pay import fees on it. If a car is worth more than $2744, I have to pay a 50% fee for the remaining value. I know, the car taxation system in Denmark is weird.

Anyway.. I will need a place to live. I could move to the other end of the country, where the houses are cheaper than where I currently live. The cheapest house here is $333,172. If I move to a place like east of Svendborg, which is a city on the island of Funen, I can get a bigger house for $19831. I just need to start planning the details of my future business. What should I haul? Packages? Explosives? Hazardous materials? No, definitely not explosives or hazardous materials. They require special containers, which are expensive. Plus, I don't think a civilian like me can get that kind of containers. Unless I also take an ADR certificate, which the school offers as well. Hm. I still have four years to decide what I want to haul. In the meantime, I can lay out a terms and conditions, pricing and what else I need. I might also sketch the first website draft in photoshop, since I am quite good at that.. Or so I tell myself.. The photoshop bit, that is.

So many things to plan, and a long time to do it as well! It's gonna be so exciting!

Part of my business is remodeling old cabinets to look like new cabinets. It's the part I wish I didn't have to do. The process requires removing old doors and hinges, re-laminating the face and edges with new material (that's where the name relam comes from) and installing new doors.
For years, I've seen reviews in the newspaper home section that you can do a kitchen relam for a fraction of the price for new cabinets. Very deceiving as the estimates I've been working with are nearly 80% of the cost of new cabinets. I suppose it's a fraction, but not the fraction people are expecting.

This type of work is very labor intensive for the installer, lots of detail for the salesman who is usually the person taking measurements of the existing doors and ordering all new ones.
Door size, hand of swing, location of hinge holes. All these details are critical.

Usually the main reason for doing a relam is to keep the existing countertop and backsplash. If I can get around it I'll sell new upper cabinets and only relam the base cabinets. That make for less work on the installer and less custom parts to order.

Last week I saw a client to measure for a relam. He wanted to know a 'ball park' price for the work. I counted doors, panels & miscellaneous parts and guesstimated a range of $18,000 to $20,000. He queried me and I said, approximate, don't hold me to it until I actually work out the materials and labor.
He came in yesterday and I was at $19,000 with a basic 'shaker style' door and he selected a raised panel door bringing the price to $21,000. He will make a decision over the weekend. Actually, there is a third option... have a finisher come and paint the entire kitchen. While that's out of my scope, I'd be okay if he goes though way.

Some of my clients ask why I dislike doing relams and my response is like asking your dentist to crown and cap a mouth full of rotten teeth. Are you sure you want a relam?