An often-overlooked aspect of building personalized memorials is the consideration of a thorough and accurate statement of facts format when it comes to making the order, planning out the project, communicating with other contractors, and getting the approved artwork in place on time. Following the understanding of a formal statement of facts in legal documents can help you build better emotional and financial relationships with your stonemasonry clients. A statement of facts is essentially a written testament that describes events, items and agreements surrounding a case or proposed memorial order.
In the case of memorial design and construction, having a well documented and accurate description of the decisions made and the pre-requisite requirements for engraving a monument, a gravestone or other memorial keepsake will ultimately save time and money and allow you to concentrate on the craftsmanship aspects of doing your job as a stonemason. It might seem surprising, but a lot of the considerations for writing an optimal statement of facts are similar to those involved in providing quality stonemasonry services. Just like a lawyer prepares a statement of facts that describes a case, as a stonemason, you prepare a version of this written document when you request an order to a workshop that outlines all of the details of a project, from the shape and size of the memorial to detailed descriptions of the art elements for the engraving or sand-blasting sections of the structure.
Everything is taken into account from the type of granite or marble required to general dimensions, size specifications, color choices, and even the type of cuts or types of artwork that is needed. This is all documented, so that your work orders at the workshop can be processed correctly and without discrepancies. It also helps you to avoid getting sidetracked on ensuring that everything from start to finish on your memorial work orders happens the way that it should. In other words, there are a lot of similarities between a statement of facts and your job as a stonemason – but perhaps what makes this comparison even more interesting is the fact that the improved flow of information between you, your contractors, your clients, and the rest of the memorial service planning team is likely to improve your entire income stream in unexpected ways.
Take for example, the obvious loopholes that may appear if you don’t consider writing an optimal statement of facts. You might start your order by describing a headstone with a 25° beveled edge, but when you get the order fulfilled, they send you a polished monolith instead. Because you didn’t document the order correctly, you may have just lost up to $500 in potential profit at the workshop without realizing it until it’s too late to do anything about it. But in addition to being more mindful of the little details about your work, a well-constructed statement of facts format can also help you better describe the individualized parts of a memorial order that are likely to resonate emotionally with a client.
When you can make these connections between your work and the services provided by other memorial participants, you can improve your profit margin on projects. For example, a stonemason might receive an order for a hand-carved stone figurine that is placed as an engraved plaque on a flat memorial. Then the client decides to hire someone else to create the insertion grooves and ask a different contractor to place the stone in the memorial. Now you may have just lost another $50 on the project. You’ve spent years creating beautiful pieces for your customers, and you want to achieve the best results possible for your business.
By documenting all of these facets of your work, you mitigate the potential loss on projects by foregoing mistakes that may arise and the loss of profit that might arise from them. Not to mention, good financial practices will help you to keep the doors open indefinitely, something that can’t be overlooked in today’s economic world. If you’re looking to improve your personal stonemasonry practices, while at the same time helping yourself achieve better customer service value, you’ll definitely want to look at the concept of using a statement of facts format for most instances where you’re expected to deliver a document for communication with other contractors.
Just because your primary practice is cremation services is not the only area where this comes into play. Instead, consider taking the time to create a standard operating procedure (SOP) that includes a basic form that will help you develop all of the required details of your orders. This is something that you will need to provide on a consistent basis, and creating a solid model will allow you to make better use of your knowledge on an ongoing basis, rather than having a change in the industries realize that documentation can be improved.
In short, a statement of facts format is a tool that will help you have better documentation for your bookkeeper, get all of the details in place on your work orders, and improve your overall profits so that you can continue to do the work you love for an indefinite period of time.
For more information on the importance of documentation in various fields, you can visit Wikipedia.