If you've stepped up and done all you say, Sherpard CC, that's awesome and great to hear. Not many people are doing what you do and to lose one is never good. I don't think asking for a deposit to cover the handle materials would be frowned on, as long as you could document that if the customer went south and then complained later. People understand that if somebody orders work done in unobtainium and then you buy that, work it and then they no-show that's just as bad as the situations you've rectified. It might not hurt for you to take a community college bookkeeping course, or perhaps get the "For Dummies" book on it so you can get your stuff streamlined, gigs figured out and scheduled, etc. Another thing to look into would be a form of answering people's queries to you, because one thing I notice is that this community is extremely patient and tolerant of delays for the most part, but the ONE thing that will burn you quick is to just vanish, or "drop off the radar". There are computer programs you can get that will auto-email folks, and forward email marked "Urgent" or "Emergency" to your phone. The same programs can be tailored to give out little progress reports, just by you clicking a box, for example, if you get 4 orders done, you click that box on those and the program auto emails your customers with that update and a message which is usually when to expect a tracking number or whatever. What Fleabay uses is a great example of this, I get auto emailed on almost everything I buy from anyone on there. If you also get in 5 orders worth of materials for 5 different orders, same thing, just check the box and those customers get that update. Look into that stuff, I'd advise you to find out what those programs are, and use them, it would be a big help and if you only had to spend 15 minutes a day on bookkeeping, wouldn't that be nice?
