We had a lot to do this week - ranging from sales calls to building a desk and engraving boards! Not to mention that we had to take a trip to our Air Force unit to knock out some work there. All of a sudden our 7 day week turned into 3 1/2 days in the blink of an eye! So how did we handle it?! Obviously all of the work still had to get done...for both our Air Force jobs AND our business.
There's always a way if you're open to change...
Our solution was to start splitting up jobs within the business and officially assign set roles for Davis and I. Over the past couple years we've always done EVERYTHING together - because we figured two people working at a task would make it go 2x faster! Well, sometimes that worked! For example, we can mill lumber way faster with 2 of us rather than just one. We can purchase and load up wood faster with 2 people, too!
But sales calls don't get made in a higher volume with 2 people on the same call. E-mails don't go out faster with 2 people writing them. Presentations for Realtor meetings don't get made quicker with 2 people staring at the same slides. You know what I mean?
Now that our business is rolling and orders are starting to come in - we really need to take advantage of the fact that there are 2 of us. This doesn't mean we can NEVER help the other person with their tasks, though! That would be kind of counter-productive. On the contrary, we need to be able to take on large aspects of each others' roles if need be (in case someone gets sick, or one of us needs to leave and go fly a hurricane mission, etc.) We got a lot of these concepts from the book E-Myth by Michael Gerber. Probably our favorite business book right now (maybe ever!)
So what does this look like for us?
Well, Davis will be taking on the majority of the building. I'll still help when he needs it and have knowledge of how to do a lot of his tasks, but for the most part, designing and building is his thing now!
I (Jennie) am now head of sales. I find leads, reach out to them, and handle all marketing - both physical and on social media. Davis will still help from time to time and find leads where he can, but for the most part, it's my thing now!
At first it sounded a little weird and intimidating...because we've always had each other as a sounding board for any task at hand. But wow.....we accomplished SO. MUCH. MORE than I ever thought we could accomplish in 3 1/2 days. This system WORKED!! Just look at everything we were able to do:
Davis:
- Designed desk prototype
- Picked up lumber
- Milled lumber
- Built 80% of the desk (and sold it to a friend!)
- Updated some building checklists
- Made updates to the Realtor sales page on the website
Jennie:
- Reached out to Realtors on phone/email (made 2 sales)
- Got 4 boards engraved and shipped
- Talked to 4 more Realtors on Instagram
- Instagram posts/Marketing
- Finished presentation for Realtors at Team Meetings
- Updated Checklists
Holy Smokes. All of that got done in 3 1/2 days! We can only imagine what we'll be able to accomplish once we get used to the new roles and have a full week ahead of us! Had we both worked together on every single task, I highly doubt we would have made it completely through even ONE of our own lists. All in all, it was a pretty productive "half-week"!
Always be open to positive change. Even if it seems uncomfortable at first!
#woodworking #woodworkingbusiness #entrepreneur #farmhouse #farmhousemodern #design #Ash #furniture #furniture business #charcuterie #charcuterieboard #cuttingboard #realtor #closinggift #sales #marketing
This post may contain affiliate links for products we used to create this project! If you’d like to check them out, we do get a small percentage of the sale and they are of no extra cost to you! It all goes towards supporting the content creation of Jennie and Davis. BUT – we do not take tool sponsorships and there were no tool endorsements. Just our honest opinions!
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