Describe your problem.
Describe in a few sentences what work takes up too much time in your company. I read it myself and reply with a first assessment and a few questions. After that you decide whether a call makes sense.
What is it about?
Thank you. Your question has arrived.
I read it myself and reply to the address you gave.
Your email program opens with your question in it.
Just send the email from there and it will reach me.
Nothing opening? Copy your question and email it to pieter@gastonconsulting.be.
I want to explain to a consultant what work takes up too much time in our company. Ask me, one at a time, five short questions at most: what the work is, who does it, how often it recurs, in which program it happens and where it goes wrong. Then summarise my answers in eight sentences at most, in plain language. Do not make anything up. Leave out client names, passwords and confidential figures.
Help me estimate how much time a recurring task costs us. Ask me how often the task recurs, how many people work on it and how long one run takes. Then calculate how many hours that is per week and per year, and show the calculation. Round off and mention that it is an estimate.
I want to send a consultant an example of a file or email we work with. I will not paste the file itself here. I will only describe which columns or fields it contains. Tell me which data I have to remove or replace before I forward it: names of clients and employees, addresses, account numbers, passwords and confidential figures. Then make an empty version with the same structure and three rows of made-up data.
What happens next.
I read your question
Myself, without an automatic reply. If something is unclear, I ask you a few questions by email.
You get a first assessment
What I understand of it, whether automating makes sense here and where I would start. Sometimes it is not worth the effort. Then I say so.
Call and proposal
If it looks worthwhile, we arrange a half-hour meeting, online or at your office. After that you get a proposal setting out what we will tackle and the budget.
What a reply looks like.
A made-up example, to show what you can expect.
“After every job the technician sends his work order and a few photos through WhatsApp. At the office someone retypes that into the invoice. It is about thirty work orders a week, and now and then one slips through.”
- What I understand
- The work order comes in through WhatsApp and is turned into an invoice by hand at the office. Thirty times a week, and sometimes one is forgotten.
- Two questions
- In which program do you make the invoices? Does every technician fill in the work order the same way?
- First assessment
- This looks worthwhile to me. Most of the retyping can be automated, if the work order gets a fixed format. Someone at the office checks every invoice before it goes out.
- Where I would start
- With a fixed work order on the technicians' phones. That solves the forgotten work orders, even before anything is automated.
- Next step
- A half-hour meeting, online or at your office. I suggest two time slots.
Practical details.
- What it costs
- Nothing. The first assessment and the first call are free of obligation.
- Your file
- I only use it to understand your question. If nothing comes of it, I delete it.
- Confidential
- Would you like a non-disclosure agreement first? Say so in your message and I will sign one before you send anything.
- Where
- Everything can be done online. In and around Ghent I can also come to you, by bike.
- Prefer to email?
- pieter@gastonconsulting.be