Unless I Hear Otherwise

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as ever. Your century today, and the job in it is not late because anybody worked slowly.

Two firms both wait on one reply,
Same choice to make, same customer.
One waits, and asks again in June,
One names a date and names a default.
Same job, same size, same fee agreed.
Whose year was eaten? And by what?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two firms in the same trade, and the work, all together now, was equally good. Each had a job that could not proceed until the customer decided one thing, and in both cases the customer went quiet.

The first waited. He sent a polite reminder after a fortnight and another after a month, and did not want to press, since the customer was pleasant and busy and would surely come back to it.

Three months passed. In that time the job sat half done in his workshop, the materials sat bought and paid for, the money sat uninvoiced, and the space sat occupied. He filled the gap with smaller work at worse rates, because you cannot sell a fortnight you might need at any moment.

And when the customer did come back, cheerfully, in June, she had no idea any of it had happened. She had not been avoiding him. She had simply had a difficult spring, and the choice he was waiting on had never been urgent to her, because nothing in the arrangement had made it so.

He then had to explain that the price had moved and his diary was full, which sounded, after three months of silence, like an excuse.

The second firm had learned to build the decisions into the work rather than leaving them to arrive when they might.

At the start she wrote down the three points at which the job would need something from the customer, with a date beside each, and said plainly what would happen if the date passed. Two of them had a default: if I have not heard by the twelfth I will use the standard fitting, which is what most people choose and which can be changed later at a small cost. The third could not have a default, so it had a consequence instead: if that decision is not made by the fourth, the work goes back into the diary at the next free week, which at present is in September.

None of it was said as a threat. It was said at the beginning, in writing, in the same tone as the price, when nobody was under pressure and both parties were feeling reasonable.

Her customer went quiet too, as customers do. On the twelfth she used the standard fitting and told her so, and the customer replied within the hour, which is what people do when a thing has actually happened rather than been asked about.

The job finished on time. And note the part that mattered to the customer rather than to her: the woman did not have a decision hanging over her for three months, which is a small misery of its own that nobody ever thanks you for removing.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

A decision with no date is not a decision, and a delay with no consequence is not a delay. Your customer is not being difficult when she goes silent. She is doing what everybody does with an open question that has no edge to it: putting it below the things that do. And every week she takes is paid for out of your workshop, your diary and your cash, without her ever knowing there was a bill.

So the work is to give the decisions edges, and to do it at the start rather than at the moment of frustration. Name the points where you will need something from her, put a date on each, and attach either a default or a consequence. A default is much the better of the two where it exists, since it lets the job proceed and costs nobody anything: this is what happens unless you tell me otherwise. A consequence is for the decisions that genuinely cannot be defaulted, and it must be a real scheduling fact rather than a punishment.

And say all of it in the calm hour at the beginning, in writing, alongside the price. Said then, it is a description of how the work runs. Said in June, after three months of waiting, it is a complaint, and it will be received as one however carefully it is worded.

Two cautions. Do not let the reminder be your only mechanism, since a polite nudge asks the customer to feel guilty, and guilt makes people less likely to reply rather than more. And keep your own side of it faultless, because a firm that has itself been slow to answer has no standing to hold anybody to a date, which is the rush lesson in reverse.

Three questions, and use a job that stalled:

1. Where does your work wait on the customer? List the points. Most trades have three or four, and they are the same ones every time, which means they can be planned for rather than suffered.
2. Which of those could have a default? Write the sentence: unless I hear otherwise by this date, I will do the usual thing, which can be changed later for this much. That single sentence recovers more time than any amount of chasing.
3. What did the last stall actually cost you? The idle space, the money uninvoiced, the work you took at a worse rate to fill the gap. Put a figure on it, since the figure is what will make you write the dates down.

The Answer to the Riddle

Whose year was eaten?

The man who waited politely, and it was eaten by a woman who had no idea she was eating it. She was not inconsiderate; she was busy, and the question he had asked had no date on it, so it went where undated questions go. His rival asked the same customers for the same decisions and got them, not because she was firmer by nature but because she had said, in the first week and in writing, what would happen if she did not hear. Nothing in that is pressure. It is merely the difference between a question and an appointment.

The verse:

A question with no day attached
Sinks quietly below the rest.
Name what you'll do if none is sent,
And you will hear within the hour.

Until next time. Go and list the points where your work waits on a customer, and write a default and a date against each one before your next job starts.

P.S. The same device answers the enquiry that goes quiet before a job is ever agreed. Rather than chasing a third time, write once to say you are releasing the date and will keep the quote open until the end of the month. It closes the matter honestly, and it produces more replies than any number of gentle reminders, for the same reason as everything else in this letter.

Also in the archive: The Coal Man's Little Book, The Deposit and The Bell on the Far Bank.