Evidently the majority of the spending/buying public nowadays could care less about:

•A trusted name for over umpteen years
•Satisfaction Guaranteed or your money back
•Service by knowledgeable salespeople

How long will it be until we see huge Megasign stores ala Home(Sign)Depot where you can get almost any kind of sign while you wait in their in-store cafe, while your business cards are being printed in full color next to the 36 copy machines that churn out page after page for 6 cents a copy, and the digital print machines pump out huge photo blow ups and full color posters? Kinkos is on it's way there already.

My guess is there will be at least one huge Megasign store in each of the major cities within the next 5 years.

There will be seperate departments for each kind of sign. Ohh... you want a plywood real estate sign? That's over in Aisle 3.

Plastic letters? Help yourself to the bins of them over by the silicone tubes in Aisle 36.

You were looking for custome made decals? The resident graphic designer (who works for $6.35 an hour) can whip out some spectacular designs and print them on that sticky back stuff for you. That's next to the self-serv espresso machine in Section B.

Sandblasted wooden signs? Sure thing... we can do those while ya wait. Just select from these stock sizes and shapes and write your wording on this form - oh and make sure you don't put any letters outside of those little square boxes because the computer gets confused and won't know what to put on your sign... Once you fill out this form, bring it out back to the Megasign SandSpot WindTunnel and feed it into the scanner. Then you can watch your very own sign being sandblasted from the comfort and safety of the customer lounge - just like watching your car go through the car wash. Ohh... and don't forget to check off the colors you want so the robotic painter will have it ready at the end of the PicassoPainteria. We have a 10% off special on red and black today.

Did you want some stripes and graphics on your vehicle? Just pull around back to any one of our 48 drive in bays. The independent contractors there can really jazz up your car. (You might want to check into owning your own Megasign MotoRazzMaTazz vehicle customization franchise - we can put you in business with a full week of training for only $75,000 plus a small percentage of your monthly gross)

The sad truth behind this fantasy is it's not that far from reality.

The people who appreciate and are willing to pay for a custom made product, with attention to detail, and from a person or company that offers the best in customer service, are dwindling in numbers. That is made evident by the success of the franchises. Not just sign franchises - all kinds of franchises. People are willing to settle for less as long as they have it NOW and at the lowest price in the galaxy.

Does it disturb you as much as it does me, that a Megaburger joint can sell a 99 cent WhoppingBurger and pay their overhead and advertising costs and their staff of 27 high school kinds and insurance for their managers and maintenance on their building and groundskeeping and still make a profit, while the mom and pop diner with a real meal has all but disappeared from existence?

It's no longer enough that the food from the neighborhood restaurant is better.

It's no longer enough that the signs made by someone who knows what they're doing, are better.

The successful business model seems to be volume, price, and speed.

Mediocrity (or less) rules. Just last night I was at a tiny neighborhood Thai food restaurant. It seats about 16 to 20 people.
Printed on the paper wrapper covering the chopsticks was the word "enjoy". It was professionally typeset in all caps, Commercial Script. I'm not kidding. AND IT BUGS ME that something so trivial is accepted as OK. IT'S NOT OK.

Has it really come to this?
Will there be enough people and companies around who are willing to pay more for what is better... for what is proper... for what is the best?

There tends to be a self consuming or self feeding aspect to this mediocrity. You try and offer the better stuff and the customers don't want to pay that much. Or they are willing to pay if you can have that custom made job done by 4:30 TODAY. So you begin offering the same stuff everyone else is offering because "that's what sells".

Why do you think every town has the exact same 50 or so franchise stores in every strip mall all across the country?

Sign businesses are following suit and offering what sells. Look around and you'll see the majority of the signs could have been bought from a Megasign department store.

The people who used to become sign painters largely did so because they loved being *creative* and having an outlet for their artistic creativity. There used to be a noticeable individuality to the work that was done from one shop to the next. You could look at a sign or a truck lettering job and you would know what shop it came from because of it's creative style.

The buying public largely no longer cares.
Are you happy "selling what sells"?

Sears closing stores was just another eye opener to the current business model for success. Sell cheaper than anyone else and make it up on the volume. Have what people want to buy when they want to buy it. Be located where the people are.

The people spending money now (US) are people who were raised on TV, watched and heard countless commercials, seen millions of ads and heard untold sales pitches all with these things in common. Get it now, getting it the cheapest is the most important thing, everything is replaceable.

Will the next generation of spenders or the ones after that generation be much different? Will you and your business be able to survive in this business climate?

Welcome to 2001 :-)
Open the pod bay doors HAL!

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EmpY® is also known as Mayo Pardo. Seen wandering through Australia, currently in Elgin IL. 847 931-4171

For $20 worth of Free Postage, click here
FREE POSTAGE

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Don Hulsey
Strokes by DON signs
Utica, KY
270-275-9552
sbdsigns@aol.com

I've always been crazy... but it's kept me from going insane.
 

Actually I think the first to come to the fore with this concept will be someone like "fast signs" or "signs now" but you know what if sears and monkey ward had been makin money they'd still be there,one fact that can't be overlooked.It is sad to see them go but,had they kept up with the times they would still be the top bananna.The next move as I see it is to be the guy that owns the "big mega market sign store".

If I aint I'll be bitchin too.

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Monte Jumper
SIGNLanguage/Norman.Okla.
 

It only shows me what I've always known, that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be a sign maker, and so what if Sears closes 89 stores. Their interest rate on a Sears credit cards is at 23%, their prices are high and there are other places to buy the same garbage they sell and for less money.

And Empy, there always has been persons who only want the best and will pay for it, whatever it is! Not everyone shops at Costco or Home Depot, and not everyone drives a chevy or ford.
And BTW Empy I personally don't give a rats ass how things change as long as I am around to see it so I can say, I told you so.......

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HotLines Joey Madden
Pinstriper and designer of the Inflite'
See it go to work http://www.killerkoncepts.com
learning capabilities http://www.members.tripod.com/Inflite
 

i have had two customers recently buy thier own vinyl cutting software & plotters. obviouly most companies have their own puters & with the cost of equiptment going lower all the time they can just do their own sign work.

i think before to long you will be able to go to somewhere like bestbuy, buy a plotter some cheap software, & all the supplies you'll need to be a "SIGN MAKER" except design abilities but we all know those are not needed to produce signage.

all we can hope for is this runs the "CRAPPERS" out of business & there is enough people out there with taste to keep those of us that know how to design afloat.

......just my thoughts on the issue.

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Jeff's Lettering
Jeff & Dara Spradling
Belvidere, Il.

"No you are not my only customer...do you really think I live on $150 a year"

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Jerry Mathel
Jerry Mathel Signs
Grants Pass, Oregon
signs@grantspass.com
 

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Si Allen #562
La Mirada, CA. USA
(714) 521-4810
ICQ # 330407
"SignPainters do It with Longer Strokes!"

Brushasaurus on Chat

Gladly supporting this BB !

You can't rest on your laurals forever. You have to be innovative and change with your customers needs.

These stores looked long in the tooth with their white vinyl floors, lowered dropped styrofoam ceiling, and those flouescent light fixtures. I mean, what do you expect? - the 70's look for the next 20 years?

Sell the sizzle - not the steak! Are you most likely to eat at a restuarant with a nice sign, or the painted trash can lid nailed to the telephone pole.

Look at the CEO's at these places. According to their annual reports, they are old stogie smoking coggers who remember when coke was a nickle. These aren't the forward thinking execs. companies need to stay afloat in todays business world.

Yes, mega-stores are plentiful, but all of us have saved time and money buying hardware there. Use to be: trip to the paint store, lumber yard, hardware store, etc. Now it's one stop shopping, and..open 7 days a week 6 till 10pm - Try that mom and pop! Are you willing to inconveinience yourself to keep megastores from surviving? Time is money, and they know it.

Do you enjoy sports? These companies spend MILLIONS on NASCAR, the NFL etc. that keep teams supplied so we can sit back and watch them for free.(guess craftman should have thought twice about their sporttruck racing series, but the geriatrics must have thought it would be a good idea)

"How low can you go" will always leave someone standing when the music stops - it was just their turn. They should have joined forces like every other segment of american/world business where they might have stood a chance, but noooo, not enough forsight. Now it's too late.

By the way, if your driving a chysler don't forget the word daimer is attached. Driving a Jaguar? owned by ford folks. GM drops oldmobile line and owns several european automakers. Its a Global market BABY!

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Mike Duncan
Lettercraft Signs
Alexandria VA

" I set aside a few minutes everyday for myself, Then I am able to take off for a week at the end of the year"
 

Not to say that this won't happen but it will fail. We offer something that they can't provide and that is service. Ever had a customer call you back about a small problem. You probably went right over and fixed it. Would a large department store?

Just think of some guy taking vinyl lettering home in his Toyota with his 4x8 corplast and laying it out correctly with a shadow. After ten trips to the store he gives up.

In so far as companies buying their own vinyl cutters... Once again the logistics doesn't make any sense. You have a cutter a guy to design the product, a guy to cut weed and mask and then lay out. Sure they get good at it but then they aren't doing the job they were hired for in the first place. For example, we had a company come to us for a quote. It was a Sears store. They thought our quote of $150 for a 3 x 5 corplast sign was high so they paid a technician $15.00 an hour for two days to lay out the sign. He bought his letters from Staples. Man that was easy he said to me and not to bad a job. The lettering was crooked and mismatched. You or I wouldn't even sell a sign like that to someone but it is the attitude of some people. Seems to me that the cost of that sign was much more than we asked for and he wasn't at his job for two days. Once again we will win.

If we were talking about artistic signs, who but us can produce them??? If I am buying mass produced products then no problem but signage is just a little to particular to be produced in such a way.

Whenever I feel this way I look at a Signcrafters magazine. Just the front page makes my fears go away.

Just my thoughts.

Kevin Landry
K&L Signs

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The SignShop
Mendocino, California
"Where the Redwoods meet the Surf"

Oh, for the faith of a spider! He begins his web without any thread.

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LazyEdna
in RL known as Sara Straw
from southern Utah
5 National Parks within 3 hours drive
Red Rock Heaven

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PKing is
Pat King of
King Sign Design in
McCalla,Alabama
The Professor of
SIGNOLOGY

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Deb
Creative Signs
"All the gold in the world cannot buy a dying man one more breath. So what does that make today worth?" Og Mandino
 

I was an assistant manager at a Kinney shoe store in Pensacola, Florida, after college in the mid '80's. What I bet most of you don't know is that Kinneys was owned by the same folks who owned Footlocker and J.B. somethingorother and a few other businesses. The company was Montgomery Ward. And guess who owned them.....Woolworth.

While I was an A.M. at Kinneys, I noticed that other stores were getting the most up to date fashions almost a year in advance of Kinneys. With the exception of Footlocker and Lady Footlocker, we now see what has happened because upper management failed to adapt to an ever-changing business enviroment. Woolworth is gone, Mongomery Ward is gone (after a slow & painful death), Roses is gone, more than half the Kinney stores are gone.

Now lets apply that to us. New sign businesses with a different way of doing things are cropping up. They are sucking up much of the "bread-n-butter" jobs that the independent shops used to enjoy. Many independent shops are struggling and/or failing. Is it the mega-stores or franchise shops fault? NOPE. It ours.

We are responsible for how we decide to do business. What are we in business for? Make signs? No, not if we want to eat on a regular basis. We are in this business to make money. We decided to do it by doing something we enjoy.

We are in the "Sign Business." And while we have concentrated heavily on the "Sign" side of things, we have neglected the "Business" side of things.

We need to stop worrying about the other guy. Instead, lets let them worry about us. Lets pay a little more attention to the business side while still creating the best looking, most effective signage. For myself, I know that by combining that with service, I will always be here as the others come and go.

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Warning: A well designed sign may cause fatigue due to increased business.
http://members.tripod.com/taylor_graphics
walldog@geeksnet.com

The "sign market" has split, and it's up to us to pick, and choose which path to take, and which type of signs that you wish to spend the rest of your career doing. Money can, and is being made, servicing those who desire something fast & cheap. The proliferation of franchise operations have proved that. Their clientele is also the type that have absolutely no allegiance or loyalty, and will readily switch to whoever is willing to provide them with a quicker, cheaper "product" than whoever they presently buy from.

I guess that we'll all just have to make that decision about which market that we wish to cater to, and focus our marketing efforts toward that direction.

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Ken Henry
Henry & Henry Signs
London, Ontario Canada
(519) 439-1881
e-mail kjmlhenry@home.

Some days you get to be the dog....other days, you get to be the fire hydrant.

 

I'll just add that Sears seems to be restructuring, cutting the fat. Not going under. They are probably doing what it needs to survive. Also they are a retailer, they sell products that others make. So if I can get the same product at another store for less, then why should I pay more from sears.

There is no perceived value for me to be loyal to a store like sears. In no way can I compare a retailer like kinko's to my shop.

We are manufacturers, we all manufacture signs differently, design is also a process in this manufacturing. this allows one manufacturer to be better than another. So there can be a percieved value from one shop to another.

If you can't see a value in your business of why a customer should by from you, then maybe it's time to write a business plan or revamp one. I'm actually in the process of writing one now after being in business for 7 years, thats because I want to make sure another 7 years will be a steady growth and not a decline.

Like glenn said we are in business to make money, and if your not making money then you won't be in business long. Doesn't matter if your a Super mega sign quick stop, or Joe's house of gilded grasshoppers and smaltzed sardines.

You have to adapt and change with market trends or follow the path of the railroad tycoons. They never thought public travel would ever go away from the railroads, and never invested or planned for automobiles and airplanes.

How many still take the train to work here?

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Bob Rochon
Creative Signworks
Millbury, MA
bob@creativesignworks.com

"Some people's kids"

I spent about ten years working at various ad agencies that did nothing but work on Sears Catalogs in Chicago. These agencies had keyline pasteup, lettering, illustration artists and photographers. It put them out of business when they folded I presume. I was at that time no longer working in that field. There also used to be fashion illustrators and architectural drawing folks. This has all gone to computer now. No reason to not expect that the future changes will put many dedicated sign people out of business just as it has just about done away with hand lettering both sign and for advertising.

Things change. I notice now everyone talking about a sign lasting a few years to five and even people here saying who would want one to last more because then they wouldnt get to redo it as often. When i started in the field signs were expected to last much longer than that and just have reds and other fugitive colors possible repainted in future years. Double and triple coating were standard. When everything becomes disposable and made with built in obsolencense they also become cheaper and have less quality.

Things change for better or for worse or maybe for both whether we like it or not.

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Jack Davis
1410 Main St
Joplin, MO 64801

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D.A. & P.M. Fisher Signwriting
Brisbane Australia
da_pmf@yahoo.com

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Larry

Elliott Design
McLemoresville, Tn.

If you can't find the time to do it right,
where gonna find the time to do it over?

 

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"surf" or "MoJo54" on mirc
Cheryl J Nordby
Signs by Cheryl
(206) 300-0153
Seattle WA.....!
signsbycheryl@hotmail.com
I had a life once. Now I have a computer. http://signsbycheryl.homestead.com/home.html
http://mojosignco.homestead.com/home.html

Empy can cry over the factors that make Sears less competitive, but think about what the world was like when Sears introduced its first catalog in the 19th century. Suddenly there was a reliable source of manufactured products, cheaper and (often) better than what was available from the local craftsperson. To many people that made Sears "evil" in the same way people today disparage Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

It's like anything else in life. You gain and keep customers by persuading them that what you offer is a better value. To do so means paying attention to the needs and desires of your customers. The people who bellyache about how "lowballers" are stealing their business - whether their business is hamburgers, automobiles, signs, whatever - are not willing to do the hard work of paying attention to what their customers want and need, and of manipulating those wants and needs to their advantage.

One of the things I like best about the sign business is that I'm dealing with customers who are competing with other businesses for a given market share, and so understand the idea of perceived value. Those that are not asleep at the switch are able to understand that what's important to them is that their customer perceives that a fish dinner for $12 at a place with a hand-carved sign is somehow better than the same fish dinner at a place down the street with a cheap vinyl sign, even if that fish dinner is only $9. Just as my customer wants the customer who can be persuaded to spend $12, instead of $9, for a fish dinner, I want a customer that can be persuaded that a $5000 carved sign will sell more $12 fish dinners than a $200 vinyl sign. The difference between the $12 fish dinner and the $9 fish dinner is PERCEIVED VALUE, just like the difference between the $5000 sign and the $200 sign.

Understanding how these things work, I firmly believe, is the real key to success. The folks who don't get it (or don't want to accept that that's how reality works) are either spinning their wheels, or spend their time coming up with idiotic (and ultimately destructive) schemes to adjust human nature to their own prejudices and fantasies. Some of them, like good old Karl Marx, get taken seriously, to the detriment of us all.

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"A wise man concerns himself with the truth, not with what people believe." - Aristotle

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson)

Cam
Finest Kind Signs
256 S. Broad St.
Pawcatuck, Ct. 06379
"Award winning Signs since 1988"

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Mike Duncan
Lettercraft Signs
Alexandria VA

" I set aside a few minutes everyday for myself, Then I am able to take off for a week at the end of the year"
 

------------------

Warning: A well designed sign may cause fatigue due to increased business.
http://members.tripod.com/taylor_graphics
walldog@geeksnet.com

You said:

quote:

---

Mediocrity (or less) rules. Just last night I was at a tiny neighborhood Thai food restaurant. It seats about 16 to 20 people.
Printed on the paper wrapper covering the chopsticks was the word "enjoy". It was professionally typeset in all caps, Commercial Script. I'm not kidding. AND IT BUGS ME that something so trivial is accepted as OK. IT'S NOT OK.

---

This to me is the crux of the biscuit - no way are we the only ones who realize it matters. My repeat customers realize it matters. Your repeat customers realize it matters. Mega-stores create niche markets, they just take away the bread and butter work that bores us anyway.

Everything will be A-OK!

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Mark Smith
Ampersand Signs & Design
EstiMate Sign Estimating Software
www.ampweb.com/estimate
1-888-304-3300
Hailing from beautiful Asheville, N.C.

[This message has been edited by Mark Smith (edited January 10, 2001).]