The Hub

The concept of overtime exists in all other industries. I decided some time ago that I needed to implement overtime into my business model because I was working very hard to accommodate rush jobs at much inconvenience to me and much benefit to the client, and I had come to realize how unfair that was to me as well as to my family. Here is how I did this.

I do most of my transactional interactions with customers by email. Sometimes I’ll move a conversation from phone or text to email. For overtime, I decided to do the following when a customer asks for a job to be done immediately/soon. If its a phone request, I tell them this:

“Yes, I am happy to accommodate your request. I can do your work tomorrow (or whatever day you can do it). Send me an email and I’ll send you my info sheet that explains how overtime jobs work here.”

If they send that email (the unreasonable customers usually get frustrated with that extra step and never send the email), I respond with my shop info sheet that explains my fee structure. The text of the email says, “I do take on additional work beyond the capacity of my standard work week. These jobs are booked as overtime jobs because they require me to work additional hours above and beyond my standard work week and are billed at my overtime rate of $150/hour. The job you are asking about will cost (whatever amount you charge based on that hourly rate of $150). If you would like to move forward with the work, please let me know if you can drop it off tomorrow at 10am.”

Doing this over email means you will never have useless discussions and debates with customers about your overtime policy. I have yet to have a customer respond negatively to the emails I send. I am sure there are some who curse me while they read the email, or who disagree with the policy. I even know some looths who consider this policy to be unfair. To those of you who don’t, you will find that the only responses you get to these emails will be those who are interested in booking the overtime work. You will be surprised how many say yes.