Good morning everyone!
I'm back from an unexpected trip overseas.
Firstly, I would like to take the opportunity to apologise to those who are yet to receive a reply to their message. Rest assured, your messages are very important to me, it is my main contact to you and I appreciate every message I get.
I am dedicating this entire week to messages and design, so you should hear from me shortly.
Unfortunately the last few weeks have seen a bit of a 'perfect storm' situation; a higher than normal rate of messages, coupled with some large, last minute corporate orders, coupled with a situation where I had to travel to NZ for a week combined to put me well behind.
In situations like this is it difficult to get everything done, like everyone else, I'm just one person with only so many hours in my day. I split my time between three main types of work:
1) Messages/Email replies and the design work that goes with them. This would probably be the most time consuming thing in my work week. Design is a tricky thing sometimes and can take a while to get right. The more detailed a brief is, the faster I can get it perfect for you. Typically I dedicate one day per week solely to design. The other days, I cram in as much as I can between making things.
2) Production. Basically, making signage, stickers and tees for you. This is my main focus the other four days of the week. If I am slow to reply, chances are I'm making a bunch of cool stuff behind the scenes. The sooner I get this stuff out the door, the sooner I can get on to your order, interruptions with messages can slow production down to a crawl, so please be patient and everything will move along faster :)
3) Admin stuff. Packing up orders, paperwork, ordering stock, website & social media maintenance, machine maintenance, business development, communication with suppliers, government and tax obligations etc etc. Every other spare second is spend on this area. It's not exciting, but it needs to be done. This end enables the other parts of the business to run smoothly.
Among those three categories I also have to find time to fulfill personal obligations, spend time with my family, look after my son and if I'm lucky, have lunch (which doesn't happen often haha).
I hope this gives an insight into why there have been more delays than usual lately and I hope you all can understand that it is not by choice.
Finding ways to improve is a very important thing to do. I know that I need to improve the way I communicate because there is no way of seeing what goes on behind the face of a facebook page. To help bridge this gap, I have decided to open a blog within my online store. The plan is to post up an approximate to do list each day, so you can see what I am working on.
Once again, thanks for your patience, I couldn't do this without you guys!