How many frame jobs completed in a year??

Elaine

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Jul 9, 2001
Posts
1,569
Loc
Skaneateles,NY USA
How many of you track how many frame jobs completed in a year? Maybe a poll would be in order???

If so, how many did you complete for 2004?

We are a three year old shop with a small population of 2,856 homeowners in our town- we completed 500 + or minus up 20% over last year. Our number doesn't sound like a lot, but there were some weeks when it seemed like too many, but definitely want to do more!

Just curious


Elaine
 
I don't really. I think dollar amounts are much more useful. Both total dollars and per order average. Jobs can vary so much. It might be 5 min. to put on a new wire or 20hr to carve and gild a frame. And then what about jobs that are for multiple pieces? But I have a good idea how much $s worth of framing I should be able to produce over a given period of time and am able to judge how I've done compared to that. I don't have the numbers in front of me but I do know that this year our total number of jobs is down but total framing dollars and average order is up.
 
Elaine,

I have Lifesaver and it does give me a monthly total of number of frames, average cost per frame, etc - but, you know, I have never added up the total number of projects I completed.

I like to track the sales figures - which Lifesaver doesn't do except on a daily basis so I put into an excel file and track it all myself.

I will have to get back to this and see what the number is!

Roz
 
I just ran a report off my SpecialtySoft POS. It says I did 868 custom framing jobs in 2004. 725 of them were with moulding.

I didn't run 2003, but I know I was up 31.8% in gross revenue, so the number of jobs was probably similar.

This was my second full year. I opened in Oct, 2002.
 
Frame jobs per year may not seem very meaningful in light of changing a wire to a hand-carved and gilded frame, but I bet that Bob Lutz can tell you how many cars they sold last year, regardless of whether they were $10K Chevy's or $80K Caddy's. And why do you suppose they report shares traded on the various stock exchanges? The number itself may not have a huge meaning, but it does help you see a general trend. Especially when you compare it to one or two other figures. For instance, gross sales. If your jobs have gone up by 20% but gross sales by only five, it's a quick indicator that you're doing more cheap jobs. That may be your strategy, or it may not, but it indicates what's happening.
 
I'll bet that vendors, such as Larson, know how many feet of moulding they are selling. I bet they know it broken down by the hour.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. 2004 had 229 frame orders. I was open from mid-June on due moving the shop.
 
I'm a low volume shop as well. QB says I wrote 653 invoices last year.

Not bad number, most were for single frame jobs. Some were for misc items and matbard. So I would estimate that we did less that 675 frames last year.

Again not a bad number, but definitely would like to do more! Oh yeah, and do them more profitably!
 
I have three stores with a wide range of volume. Our oldest store does over twice the volume of the two others combined. I would recommend to everyone to know the average sale amount for each person, store as well as the average sale for the entire organization. Also it is important to know how many orders you take per hour spent.

Knowing your numbers allows you to grade your performance with a benchmark of past performance, and it also helps you to plan for the future.

For example, we know how much time we have spent per order and plan accordingly for the future payroll we will spend, and we can manage accordingly. If we are spending too much per order, we evaluate how we are doing based on the dollars and compare to past performance.

This is not just an exercise for bigger businesses, I did this even when I had only one store, and I think it was a big part of our success. It can also be fun, so have at it.
 
I just did a little comparing. 2003, 1076 orders. 2004, 981 orders. But the interesting thing to me about that is that the average order was up by about 10% so we actually took in a few more dollars. Workload planning wise I'll still go by dollar amount rather than number of orders. It's just always proved to be more accurate for me.
 
I can't tell you exactally how many jobs we did in 2004, but we did go through almost 3,000 work orders most of which are frame orders.
We cut custom mats and fit standard frames on the spot and don't make offical work orders on those jobs so it's quite a bit more.
Bill
 
Kevin C. I visited your web page and I was pleasantly surprised at how fast everything loaded. The casuals page did have some pictures which did not work. The arrows didn't do much either. I'm using IE, XP and a fast dialup.

It kept my attention and made me want to read more.

ooops, excuse the frankenthread. I forgot where I was.
 
Originally posted by Terry Hart cpf:
I just did a little comparing. 2003, 1076 orders. 2004, 981 orders. But the interesting thing to me about that is that the average order was up by about 10% so we actually took in a few more dollars.
One of the interesting things about retail is: when you're starting out, you grow with doing more work. Later, you grow by doing less work but making more money. Then, to freshen your company, you go back to driving more orders into the store with those higher ticket $$s.
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If you get off that cycle, your business contracts, and becomes what is called "mature". Or in some cases "dieing".
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That's a god point, Baer. For most framers that have been around 5 years, you tend to see some "plateauing".

In the first 5 yrs, you ought to be running double digit increases simply because the door is open.

From evidence gathered from other framers, 10 yrs seems to be some "magic wall" where growth is just difficult. Yet, expenses continue to rise.

If you are not adding lines or concepts, the common other strategy is to find ways to make more off each sale.

Unfortunately, that is usually counter-productive to growth; often, inversely proportional
 
Bob is right about the ten year wall. To overcome it, I moved one of my locations. I will be moving or closing my original location in the next month or two.

Also, I have made very dramatic changes in suppliers and it has made changes in both sales numbers and profit numbers.
 
Bob, In my many areas of this community (framing) I have a long view that has watched that 10 year wall turn into the imfamous 11-12 year termination wall for so many.

It is a strange occurance that seems to happen to about 75% of the industry. And I attributed it to the "one-trick pony" syndrom.

Usually it was a frame shop that was known for doing "X" very well. The guy down the street had been around "forever" and could do "x" as well as m,N,t,b,z,y, and even was pretty good at L,q,p,& T. But the first guy could REALLY do "X". Then X became popular like bell bottoms and paisley mauve. . . .

Recently a framer who is KNOWN for that HIGHEND look and $$, told me that he was trying to cultivate more mid-dollar jobs . . . he's been in business about . . . you guessed it.

As to the point of this original thread:

2001: 876 - $127 average sale
2002: 923 - $159
2003: 924 - $172
2004: 987 - $189 + 2304 @ $53 (out-sorced)

working on our 27th year in business.
 
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