Boss Life

by Paul Downs

  There’s no payroll this week and all the other big bills for the month have been paid. I spent only $4,148. Shop operations continued to rack up costs, nearly $7,000 a day, but the bills will be due later. And even though incoming cash was weak, just $19,748, I ended up ahead. I’ll have $79,021 in my account on Monday, enough for more than two weeks.

  The weekend passes quickly. It’s the last one before Henry returns, next Wednesday. He’ll be with us for all of August and the first two days of September. He’ll be in a day camp for the first three weeks, then nothing. My mind keeps returning to the Middle East. It’s almost two months since I promised to send printed catalogues. I’ve done nothing. Every time I think about it, my will to invest in those relationships vanishes. My confidence that I can manage a long-term, expensive project has disappeared. And if I devote a lot of hours to designing and printing a catalogue, I’ll be ignoring other, more promising work. I don’t want to waste money on brochures that won’t produce income until some point far in the future. And with what I’ve learned from Bob Waks, I have even more reason to give up. I can’t see how we could interact with Middle Eastern clients in the manner that Bob suggests. It’s going to be very difficult to avoid sending complete proposals, and it will be almost impossible to do Glance sessions. The time difference is too much.

  I decide to drop the whole thing. I talk myself into this by arguing that I don’t think anyone in Kuwait or Dubai will be terribly upset. They weren’t pining for my presence, and they won’t miss me. In the back of my mind, though, I have nagging doubts. It’s hard for me to walk away from the potential for business, no matter how unpromising.

  On Monday, I report that our position is slightly better than it has been. More cash. Stronger inquiries. Some sales. Backlog at three weeks. Nobody has quit. Then, for the rest of the day, the phone rings and e-mails appear. Suddenly, customers. By four p.m., I’ve spoken to four potential buyers and assigned them to Dan and Nick. And we hear from three clients who are ready to place orders. The first owns an electronics store in Queens, and I’ve subjected him to the new sales methods for a couple of weeks. He places an order worth $11,650, for a keystone table. The second client, Nick’s, is an interior designer from Mississippi, trying to get a large university to commit to a table. He sent her a detailed proposal back in March. Since then, she’s made multiple requests: samples, drawings, more samples, better drawings. All spring, we meekly complied. Last week, she asked for a complete set of engineering drawings, assuring us that the client had started construction and would place the order soon. But they needed to know where to drill holes in the floor. No more Unpaid Consulting! Nick politely told her that we couldn’t provide those drawings without an order. We were nervous about doing this. It’s so provocative. But here’s the purchase order, for a twenty-eight-foot-long table. Another $27,620 on our books. Then we take three more promising calls from mid-level buyers in a hurry to get a table delivered. We deploy the new sales methods. No one resists. They have no idea that we’ve completely changed the way we respond to potential buyers.

  After lunch, a drop-in visit from the headmaster of a local private school, looking for a table for his office. He’d like a six-foot round, but we don’t have one on hand. Except, it occurs to me, for the Eurofurn prototype. I pull it out and assemble it. He’s fascinated by the way it goes together. He’s got only eighteen hundred dollars to spend, but keeping the table in storage produces zero dollars for me. I tell him how much it cost me, and that it’s his for the money he’s got. He’s delighted. All the supposed flaws that sent Eurofurn into a tizzy? He didn’t see them. I’m vindicated. There is nothing wrong with that table.

  I meet with Bob at seven-thirty the next morning, the last day of July. His office is neat and organized: lots of sales books, pictures of his family, awards for being top salesman, inspirational posters on the walls. I’m in a good mood. Yesterday’s orders brought our monthly total to $144,893. Two of those came with deposits and we also got a couple of final payments, increasing my cash supply by $28,062. I’ve now got $107,083 in the bank, enough to make payroll today and run for a couple more weeks. Inquiries have been steady since the beginning of the month, and we’ve transformed our methods for dealing with them, thanks to Glance and the training. “Thanks, Bob,” I conclude. “You’ve really helped us.”

  He says, “Yeah, that’s all fine. I’m glad that things are turning around. Not that I expected anything else. But there’s a lot more work to do. We’re just getting started.” And then he asks me a series of questions. How many potential clients are we working with right now? If we sold every one of those jobs, how much money would that bring in? Who are those clients? Can I quantify how many are bosses, or assistants, or low-level people? Have I scored each one for quality, so that we know which ones to concentrate on? Have I started regular sales meetings with Dan and Nick? Am I listening in on all their phone conversations? And what about after the call is done? Are they happy? Are they excited by the new methods, or just following orders?

  I answer most of these with a simple no, but the last ones make me think. Nick seems happier because the new methods seem to come easier to him. He tried Glance first and he’s good on the phone. Dan seems flustered by the loss of a scripted procedure for dealing with customers. We used to treat every caller the same way, but now the situation is fluid. We have to make decisions throughout the process about what to show, what not to show, what to give them, and what to hold back. I tell this to Bob and mention that I stopped paying them commissions at the end of June.

  “Hold it right there,” he says. “Why did you do that?” I explain my cash situation and that the evaluation reports emphasized that I don’t hold my salespeople accountable for their failures. Holding back commissions seemed like a way to put some pressure on them. “Did it work?” Not really, at least not right away. They sold very little in the weeks after the cut. But now it seems to be working, along with everything else. “How much money did you save?” At least a couple thousand dollars. “And what did it cost you in sales?” I don’t have a number. We missed our quota by a hundred and forty thousand in June and we’re still sixty thousand short for July. I confess that I’m not sure that the slump is their fault, that it might have been a problem with AdWords.

  “Then why did you do it if it’s not their fault and they didn’t instantly start selling like crazy?” I tell him that I cut my own pay months ago and I was sick of being the only one to suffer. He’s not impressed with this reasoning. “You’re not making sense. It sounds to me like they’re being punished even though they’ve just followed your methods. That’s not going to help us over the next few months. You think that everything has been fixed and that success is assured. Wrong. Those guys are still a long way from being effective. They’re going to be challenged by what comes next. You need them to buy in and reward them when they do. The money you save is nothing compared to what you’d have if they start selling. If they are using the new methods, and it’s working, give them back the commissions.”

  I’m embarrassed by my stupidity, but Bob isn’t done. The fact that I know very little about our prospects is unacceptable. It will lead to chaos if we get busier, and I won’t be able to manage the sales process without more information. He tells me that I need to implement some kind of customer relationship management system, and the sooner the better. Our hour is up. I have a lot to think about.

  My first task at the office is payroll. Should I put Bob’s advice into effect immediately and reinstate the commissions? We’ve taken in $100,862 since the last payroll. At 2 percent, the commission on that is $2,017, almost enough to pay for a month of Bob’s services. It’s my decision—I can pay it, or not. I decide to wait two weeks. Things could be better by then, in which case it’s obvious what to do, but if they’re worse, I’ll need that money.

  —

  IN THE SHOP, the prototype Brand Advantage table is complete. It’s not complicated�
��we just had to cut the top out of a sheet of prelaminated flakeboard and put an edge on it. This is not fine woodworking. The client’s budget doesn’t allow for it. I stand in front of the two tables—a left and a right, each shaped like a J that together form a large U shape:

  I placed the legs so that the top is balanced on the axis of rotation. This keeps it from crashing from horizontal to vertical when the latch is released. I try the mechanism and it works very well. But I’m a little uneasy. Each top is much heavier than the recommended maximum for this leg. It doesn’t seem like a problem when the top is flat, but when it’s in the vertical, folded position, the whole weight of the top is hanging on eight small bolts. It seems a little weak.

  Well, this is why we make a prototype. The best solution would be to make each U out of three pieces, but that would blow the budget. I tell Bob Foote to ship the set to Brand Advantage and let them decide whether it’s acceptable or not. I also say that he should ship the table assembled, and build supports under the folded tables to support the weight of the tops during transit.

  It being the last day of July, I have our final build-and-ship numbers for the month. Jobs worth $115,337 have been built, a very low number that reflects the lack of incoming orders for the past three months. We shipped a little more than that: $141,659. My accountant says that I’m making a profit when I ship more than I spend each month. I achieved this goal in July, mostly by being very, very careful with cash flow. I’ve spent only $141,557. Theoretically, I’ve made a profit of $102. Woohoo! But my cash position continues to deteriorate. In July, I took in $126,489 and spent $141,557. I’m down $15,068 for the month. If I hadn’t rolled over the credit card, I would be in worse shape. As it is, I’ll have $82,942 in my accounts when August starts tomorrow.

  AUGUST

  DATE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2012

  BANK BALANCE: $82,941.70

  CASH RELATIVE TO START OF YEAR (“NET CASH”): -$54,212.61

  NEW-CONTRACT VALUE, YEAR-TO-DATE: $1,010,615

  Goodbye, July, good riddance. Hello, August, please be better. I start the month by distributing the pay stubs to everyone, except me. That task completed, I go out to Henry’s school. The summer session is complete, and he’s going to be home until September 1. As usual, when I pick him up, he’s happy to see me. He really loves the car ride home, bopping to the loud music. I leave him with Nancy and return to work. She still won’t leave the house with him. But starting tomorrow, he’s got three weeks at a day camp for special needs kids.

  It’s been a good week for inquiries, fifteen so far. We also get a nice order, for $13,834, from a defense company in the D.C. suburbs. They’ve been sitting on our proposal since November and today they sent a purchase order, out of the blue.

  Thursday I’m up early with Henry. He’s awake at dawn, insisting on hearing his favorite Beatles album with the volume all the way up. Nancy and Hugh sleep through the din. I make his breakfast while he carefully listens to each song, loudly inhaling and exhaling in rhythm with the tune. And at track 14, which he doesn’t like, he hurls the boom box across his room, then thumps down the stairs. I have his breakfast ready. Eating calms him down. A few minutes later, a van shows up at our door to take him to camp. Whew! Seven hours of peace. He’ll be dropped off at home at four p.m.

  I zoom over to sales training. Today’s session leaves me cold. Bob Sinton is talking about prospecting, the techniques for finding people who might need your product. We don’t do this; we wait for potential buyers to come to us. We don’t have the resources for any kind of sustained outreach. We’re stuck with Google. After I get back to the office, I start thinking about a CRM (customer relationship management) system. Bob’s questions last week highlighted a big problem: we have good ways to administer jobs after they’re sold, but nothing to track inquiries before we write a quote. I need to come up with one, or we might lose track of a potential buyer. And I want to be able to see what Dan and Nick are doing without having to ask them. I don’t want to spend a lot of dough, and I don’t want it to be complicated. No new software packages. It needs to be part of our FileMaker database. To save money and to minimize the learning curve, I’ll do the programming myself.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. In a tiny company like mine, it’s up to the owner to invent the way the company operates and to design the systems that keep track of what is happening. Fortunately, I find this to be an interesting challenge. If I had wanted to build only furniture, I could have kept myself very busy, but the company would not have grown. Without a rational way to handle information, we would have descended into permanent chaos.

  Thinking about information is different from ordinary work. The challenge is to find good ways, using data, to describe what’s happening in the real world. It’s aligning the description of the company with the activities of the company. My job as boss is to monitor both of these and to continually modify the description to fit the reality. My employees can’t do it—they each work on their piece of the process. I’m the only one who sees everything. I decide what to keep track of, and how to do it.

  I have two information systems. First, there’s my subjective impressions of the state of the shop, the mood of the workers, the eagerness of the customers, drawn from my observations and conversations. The second is objective, actual data that lives in separate fiefdoms: the accounting system, in QuickBooks; the contract and productions system, in FileMaker; e-mails and customer folders sit on our server; AdWords data lives in the cloud. So do our shared Google Docs spreadsheets, which act as supplementary databases. There are also a bunch of Excel sheets, dating back to 1997, when I first computerized (twelve years after starting the company). None of these subsystems talk to one another. Information passes between them via the people who use it. I’m the only person in the company who knows how it all fits together.

  This system is neither optimized nor rational. I have tacked it together over the years, and it has grown as my ability to handle the software has evolved and the computing environment has changed. Back in the mid-1980s, the most sophisticated instrument I had was a calculator. For more than ten years, I kept track of all my jobs with some 3-by-5 cards and a corkboard. Now we’re using more than a dozen different software packages. It’s been my responsibility to evaluate these, figure out how we will use them, and introduce them to my people. We’re too small and poor to have someone below me do this.

  I never abandon a program if it’s useful. I’m constantly layering new capabilities on top of old ones. Most of the older programs do one or two things very well. There’s no urgent need to replace them, so I don’t. I just start using newer stuff that does different things. I don’t know whether this is a good idea or bad, or whether someone has invented a single program that does everything a small custom woodshop would want (I suspect not). It’s just how things have developed. And if it satisfies me, and seems to be working, then we’ll continue. There’s nobody over me to say otherwise.

  I’ve mastered some programs and know just enough to do simple work in others. FileMaker, where I want to put my new sales tracking system, is a mystery. Our database was written by The Partner’s daughter, Sasha, who worked for me from 2003 to 2009. It’s a brilliant achievement and vital to our operations. I’ve been using it for years, but I don’t really know how it works. I’m nervous about tinkering with it. What if I inadvertently cripple it while trying to add a feature? Disaster. So I start small. It takes some hours of Googling to even figure out where to begin, how to switch from just using the program to modifying it. Fortunately, FileMaker is designed to be easy to revise. After the first day, I’ve made some simple changes, like the color of fonts and the location of text boxes. Even after I’ve done these, the program is still functioning, on my own computer anyway. I check on Dan’s and Emma’s machines and see that my changes have propagated throughout the network. Cool. I’m in control. Now I can start work on a CRM system.


  Later, I’m driving Henry, making a double circumnavigation of Philadelphia, when Peter calls from San Francisco. He’s upset. “Something weird happened at work today. My boss called everyone together and told us that the investors don’t think that the company is going to succeed.” That’s strange. They publish e-books, and unlike many dot-coms, there’s an actual revenue model. I ask Peter: “What, aren’t they selling anything?” He replies that their only successful book is the one that inspired the founder to create his start-up, ironically titled Making Money with Your First Start-up. Revenue growth has leveled off and the investors have lost interest. They’re going to lay off everyone and just let the site run on autopilot, taking in whatever money it can. Half the workers got canned this morning. The rest will take an immediate 30 percent pay cut and lose their health insurance. They’d like Peter to stay on for a couple of months to make sure the site is operational. He’s already got $2,200 saved from his first six weeks working, so he can hang on for a while.

  Then the question: “They chose me to stay out of all the others. Should I stay on and finish the job?” Or, I’m thinking, maybe you should come home. He has a month-to-month lease, so he can walk away when he wants. I tell him, “First of all, you don’t owe your boss anything. He hasn’t been loyal to you, don’t waste your loyalty on him. I think they want you to stay because you’re the cheapest guy who can do the work. If I was them, that’s what I’d do. But forget those assholes. Do you want to come home?” Ummm, no. He’s enjoying doing real work and he likes the city. He doesn’t say it, but I think that he doesn’t want to give up on his new adult life and be a kid again. My advice: “So how did you find this job in the first place? Whatever you did, do it again. Right now. Don’t hesitate. You need to look out for yourself first. Keep your head up. If it doesn’t work out, come home. You’ve learned a lot about the work world already. You’ve got your first shady boss story. But remember, I’ve got your back. If you need anything, just ask me.”