[fastfredracing]

I took myself out of the yellow pages 4 years ago, best move I have ever made. I used to give 50 quotes a day for the price shoppers. I have been thinking about the wireless headset for a while, and I think I will do that. At least I will have both hands free,and I can do simple jobs while on the phone. I do have software that is real sweet, as soon as I generate an invoice, It is saved , and calculates sales tax due/profit etc, that is a real time saver. I am real hesitant to hire on help, even though I know I need it. I dont know if a secretary would handle customers with the same finesse that I do. I used to have a large shop with 5 techs, and two part time secretarys, those were the worst times I have ever had in buisness. I was real stressed. We had to jockey used car lot vehicles all day just to make payroll. I downsized my shop so that I could focus on the type of work that I like. I was becoming another one of those volume shops, and Iknow some of the work that was coming out was a little on the shoddy, side, and it was near impossible to control it. I would never have dreamed of giving a 911 rebuild to one of my guys, and I was too busy running the shop to even try to tear into a large job like that. When I had employees, It ended up that I spent most of my time in the office, and I HATED IT, I became an underpaid secretary. I really like the small shop thing, and I now make way more money than I ever have. I do take the phone off of the hook to get jobs done. Some of my customers complain that it is too hard to get a hold of me. I feel guilty when I do this , but that is the only way I get things done sometimes. I appreciate your thoughts , and ideas. Maybe I will outsource my calls to india, that way my customers can sit on hold for 30 mins. to talk to someone that they can barely understand. I know I really enjoy it when I call places like this.