Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

bigswing.squarespace.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 42 posts

Re: How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

#21

Post by nobodysfool »

patio11 wrote: post #10

One option which is more constructive than "We're booked, let me exit from this conversation" is "We find ourselves in very high demand at the moment. Can I interest you in an offering which isn't the partners personally delivering this entire engagement?" That could be the partners doing e.g. a design/wireframe and then the client shopping that out (or the partners doing so), a training engagement, a product offerin…

If you are at the point where you are so busy working on your backlog that you can't build up your backlog, it might be worth it to pay a 'technical sales' person to build your backlog for you, and set expectations with the clients.

Re: How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

#22

Post by random42 »

RickDT wrote: post #14
pud wrote: post #6

In my experience freelancing, if you say "yes" to all new clients instead of "no" -- even if you're too busy and feel guilty for taking work you think you can't do -- you find a way. When it happened to me, I went from solo freelancer to hiring 6 full-time engineers, which essentially means I created an agency. It was great. The only challenge then, was convincing clients who'd hired me specially, that "someone else…

This is the mindset we're trying to adopt now. Say yes, because too much work is a much better problem than not enough work.

This might be the wrong lesson to take. You CANNOT deliver quality work if you are over booked. To me, it looks like you need to raise your rates, not accept more work at the current rates, it wont be sustainable.

Re: How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

#23

Post by phirschybar »

We've been overbooked for years and while it can be very stressful at times it is of course better than having no work. The reality is that we sometimes come in late on delivery but in the end our clients like us, stick with us and refer us because they like our work and the end-product is good.

Two points I would add to the discussion are:

1) that in addition, or in lieu of raising rates consider lengthening the project time-line. You can often push a project out further in time which both softens the expectations and gives you more time to deliver quality and deal with more iterations.

2) to take the time to feel out the client. If you are really in demand and becoming overbooked the LAST thing you want is a terrible client who can potential swamp your resources. Work only with people who will respect you and your team and never settle on this even if it means you can make more money. It can be worth the extra 2 or 3 meetings before a work agreement to see if you will have a productive relationship before committing to the project. Being over-busy is a great opportunity to be picky about the projects you decide to take on.

Re: How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

#24

Post by JangoSteve »

nthj wrote: post #19
JangoSteve wrote: post #18

For what it's worth, we've been in the same position lately of being pretty booked up, but we took the approach they're suggesting from the beginning. No matter how busy we are, I never say "no" to an opportunity to talk or sit down to coffee with new people, whether they be a potential client or just someone seeking advice. I'll even go through the discovery phase and estimate/quote out their project, and only after…

> I'll even go through the discovery phase and estimate/quote out their project I've started charging for this process. Partly because otherwise I'd spend all my time consulting for free, partly because it's a huge value add to their business, and partly one-to-many "oh great, thanks for estimating this. I took it to your competitor and now they're willing to underbid you by $5K because all the hard work is done for…

That's a very good point. We haven't had the problem of them taking our quotes to our competitors very often. We've had several people who took our quotes to our competitors, they undercut the quote, but then they ended up choosing us anyway even at the higher price, almost always because we "inspire more confidence than anyone else" in our ability to execute.

That being said, it usually only takes us another couple hours to quote a project once we've gotten to that stage, and we have started billing for it when it seems like it will take longer, or if they want more detail or revisions.

Re: How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

#25

Post by edanm »

patio11 wrote: post #10

One option which is more constructive than "We're booked, let me exit from this conversation" is "We find ourselves in very high demand at the moment. Can I interest you in an offering which isn't the partners personally delivering this entire engagement?" That could be the partners doing e.g. a design/wireframe and then the client shopping that out (or the partners doing so), a training engagement, a product offerin…

Great advice. I'd be interested in hearing more about Thomas's hack re: flexibility. tptacek - any chance you can weigh in here?

Re: How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

#26

Post by tocomment »

nobodysfool wrote: post #21
patio11 wrote: post #10

One option which is more constructive than "We're booked, let me exit from this conversation" is "We find ourselves in very high demand at the moment. Can I interest you in an offering which isn't the partners personally delivering this entire engagement?" That could be the partners doing e.g. a design/wireframe and then the client shopping that out (or the partners doing so), a training engagement, a product offerin…

If you are at the point where you are so busy working on your backlog that you can't build up your backlog, it might be worth it to pay a 'technical sales' person to build your backlog for you, and set expectations with the clients.

Would it be a full time employee? Where would you find such a person? How does a technical person who doesn't know much about sales evaluate potential hires?

Re: How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

#29

Post by RickDT »

nobodysfool wrote: post #21
patio11 wrote: post #10

One option which is more constructive than "We're booked, let me exit from this conversation" is "We find ourselves in very high demand at the moment. Can I interest you in an offering which isn't the partners personally delivering this entire engagement?" That could be the partners doing e.g. a design/wireframe and then the client shopping that out (or the partners doing so), a training engagement, a product offerin…

If you are at the point where you are so busy working on your backlog that you can't build up your backlog, it might be worth it to pay a 'technical sales' person to build your backlog for you, and set expectations with the clients.

If you have any recommendation on finding/using a part-time sales person, I'm all ears! Dedicated sales would be awesome, but it'll be a while before we can hire this as a F/T position.

Re: How “We’re booked” was ruining our business

#30

Post by StavrosK »

random42 wrote: post #22
RickDT wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the mindset we're trying to adopt now. Say yes, because too much work is a much better problem than not enough work.

This might be the wrong lesson to take. You CANNOT deliver quality work if you are over booked. To me, it looks like you need to raise your rates, not accept more work at the current rates, it wont be sustainable.

Well, it depends. I'm fully booked myself, but I hired a good programmer to take on another project. He's not as experienced but is a very fast learner (also he's diligent), so with a few minutes of extra work per day, I managed not to shut the door to am opportunity, and the deliverable is turning out very well indeed.
Post reply on HN