Is Your Glass Company Ready for the Holidays?
Every person has an Uncle Paul who will be visiting during the holidays. Paul has a big mouth and doesn’t know enough to keep it shut. He’ll comment on everything from the bugs coming through the screen or that he can’t see out from the living room windows.
Heaven help you when Paul comes for Christmas, and you have nothing done. He will leave your family presents in the trunk of his 1986 Chevy.
The holidays are just around the corner-only a few pages on the calendar away. And you are going to get calls for every home improvement project that homeowners want to get done before then. New showers will lead the pack, glass tops for dining tables, screen repairs in the South and IG replacements in the North.
Plan what your showroom will look like. Focus on hangable mirrors, showers and mock-ups of high-quality windows and doors. What, if anything, will be on sale? Did you check your preferred vendors to make sure they have stock? What will be the cut-off date for ordering replacement IG, tempered or lami?
Do you have an estimator ready to work evenings going to homes for quotes? Do your work teams have any time off scheduled from now through the end of the year? Can it be changed?
Are you a fabricator? What is your lead time on tabletops and mirrors? How about custom lami or tempered? Can your glass supplier deliver ¾- and ½-inch consistently during November? Lock in those truckloads now.
Leave some scheduled time for the callbacks. There will be some customers, and you know which ones, who will not be satisfied with the first go around.
That’s all you have to do to get ready for the holidays. Oops. There is one more thing that you need to start right away: Take care of your employees. Reserve the restaurant for your holiday dinner. Make sure it is a fun place. Can the employees bring a guest? You should allow this.
What about your year-end financial conversations with your team? Will there be a holiday bonus? A lot of these decisions are based on how well you have done for the last twelve months. You know the drill. It is a good year to be generous in your bonus and raises. There are a lot of companies looking to steal your employees, just as you are trying to do with their employees.
Lastly, be early in speaking with your vendors to lock in prices for next year. Each fabricator and distributor have multiple price points based on the volume you give them and the ease of doing business with you.
Afterword from Paul: Well, my N.Y. Mets sure did let me down in their wild-card games. Congratulations to the folks in San Diego, Calif. You earned the right to move on. After all, we all know what the N.Y. in the Mets name means: Next Year.