I used to say that there should always be time to answer a customers question..... not so much for the small guy anymore.
In today's world this is now incredibly tough.
If you have any web presence at all it can turn into a flood of phone calls, e mail , text messages, FB Messenger.
So it's becoming a common thing now, someone will open shop starts fixing a few radios , maybe building/fixing a few amps, start taking some mail in work.
Suddenly you have a entire back room of stuff that you should have already gotten too, someone asks if his radio is done and you don't even remember it coming in.
Your trying, but now the nasty e mails start pilling up, some guy calls and wants you to spend a hour on the phone because he thinks he should get another 100 watts out of the 2 transistor you built him, or when he turns the voltage up to 18 volts this resistor gets hot.
He argues with you that his buddies 2 pill runs just fine at 19 volts and you must have used inferior parts.
( I used to bad mouth Joe that built dm, his customer attitude sucked and after all these years I now understand why)
Then you can't get anything done, so now answering machine gets full....
It's all down hill after that.
I have to say that guys like Nomad or Toby who tell you straight up, I can't do it now might lose a customer that wants it today. But
That's an much better option than 15 or 20 mad customers daily flooding the web with
"I sent him my 16 pill 8 months ago and he's not answering the phone, no texts......."
Or
"I paid for my parts and he never shipped.
73
Jeff