Scheduling...or How to Juggle ALL the Balls

    It's that time of year again...the weather is warming up, things are
starting to turn green, and EVERYBODY decides it's time to get there
exteriors prettied up. This is our third year in business, and the economy
around here is going gangbusters. I would never complain about being too
busy (why provoke the gods?!), but I don't always feel so "in control" when
it comes to my exterior season. I suppose that may be because we're not
usually scheduling that far in advance in the interior season...maybe a month
or two, at the most. The phone just doesn't ring as much in the winter. But
it is the end of March, and we have already filled our exterior schedule into
fall. That's almost six months of work laid out in front of us. True, we
are only three strong, so it doesn't take as much work to keep us hopping.
But still, that's a pretty full dance card.
    What I've wanted to know from the beginning is how other contractors
manage their work load. Before starting my own business, I worked for a
person who had no real method to their madness, as far as I could tell. She
would consistently overbook her summer/fall schedule, and as a result, she
always ended up having jobs that she couldn't get to that year. This never
made much sense to me, but moreover, it seemed very unfair to customers. I
was talking to another paint contractor the other day, and he said he was
going to be starting his season with the jobs he didn't get to last summer.
Hmmm. So maybe this is common practice, at least for some. I don't know if
this backlog is the result of weather, lost help, sickness, or what. With my
old boss, it was the result of hating to turn away work. At the end of the
season, she was faced with calling these people and telling them that she
wasn't going to be able to fit them in. Ugh. I determined back then that I
never wanted to have to put my tail between my legs and go give that bad news
to someone who took me at my word. Now, I understand that there will always
be extenuating circumstances that may prevent a job from starting or
finishing on time, but I need more control over my business than that.
   

    To try to avoid getting caught in a squeeze, I give myself some
flexibility in the schedule. For example, if I've got a job finishing on
Wednesday or Thursday, I'll leave the end of that week open. That will allow
for a rain day or maybe some extra hours that were needed to complete a task.

    I also learned not to book every week of the summer. That creates pressure
I don't need. If I leave some "flex time" in the schedule, I can be
relatively certain that I will get all of my contracts satisfied. And if the
weather is good that summer and we're on schedule, I always have calls coming
in for small jobs that can fit neatly into any open "flex time." The results
so far have been good; we've completed all our scheduled exterior jobs before
the cold weather. I know how I would hate to sign a contract to have my
house painted, and then be told at the end of the summer that I didn't "make
the cutoff." I think it's all about organization...and customer
satisfaction. I don't every want to disappoint a customer because I didn't
have my act together.
  

     I would be very interested in hearing some feedback from you folks about
how you operate your schedule. Mine has been a "learn-as-you-go" format, and
I hope to be able to fine tune it down the road. In my book, proficient
scheduling is one of the hardest parts of this business. But a good
scheduling system can make you look like a real professional.

Donna Martin

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