This is topic As Your Business Gets Older... in forum Old Archives at The Letterville BullBoard.


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Posted by Ken Henry (Member # 598) on :
 
Hi Heads. Recently, some of my regular customers passed away...died. In the past couple of years, others have retired, or sold their businesses to new owners. This has brought home the fact that we now have to get NEW customers to replace those that we've lost. In some cases, we've been able to retain the account by working with the new folks, but others, for reasons of their own, have preferred to work with another sign shop that they've had experience with in their past. Like many of you, we had worked diligently toward cultivating business relationships with a number of "favorite" and preferred customers. We'd enjoyed our relationships with those customers...the type of people that we liked working for. Truth is, we got a bit too comfortable, and assumed that they'd always be there. Fact is that businesses also have lives as well, and at a certain age, folks wish to retire, and others will ultimately die.

Because we'd gotten so comfortable...we also grew a tad lazy about cultivating new customers, and relied on our base of "regulars". Well, this has sorta caught up with us, and we're now faced with the necessity of replacing those accounts that we've lost through attrition. I'm posting this message as a "heads up" especially to those of you approaching your 50's. Don't neglect the cultivation of new customers...or you will find yourselves in the same predicament we're facing. It's tough to lose a bunch of accounts this way, but it's something you all should anticipate & plan for. If you have customers who are approaching retirement age, or are getting up there in age, DO NOT assume that you'll always retain their business. Heirs or new owners often have different ways of doing business, and may not wish to do business with you as had the previous owner(s).

Just something to consider, and hopefully it may help you to avoid the pothole that we seem to have stumbled into.

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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.

 

Posted by Michael Boone (Member # 308) on :
 
Wise words again Ken..
I feel the same crunch.Ya gotta deal with younger folks it seems.
Sometimes it is one of the new generation that just recently graduated from being a "teenager" and stepped up to a position of authority.Dangerous folk to deal with...
I wish I knew as much now as I thought I did when I was 20 years old!
One of my biggest regrets in dealing with younger people today...No loyalty.I miss that...I took it to the bank for a lot of years...

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Michael Boone
Sign Painter
5828 Buerman Rd.Sodus,NY 14551
Ontime @localnet.com


 

Posted by Mark Fair Signs (Member # 289) on :
 
I know what you mean ken.

such is life as far as living and dying in this craft we call "SIGNS".

management changes and it is a continual struggle for us to "sell Design and Quality"

thanks buddy for pointing out an interesting point.

mark

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Mark Fair Signs
Montgomery, Alabama
http://www.markfair.com/flash.html
 

Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :
 
I have been traveling around this here country since the sixties, never lived in one place for more then five years no matter how good my business was. I always seemed to get work from just about everyone no matter how old or how young. I had an 800 skytel pager for years and would get calls from all over by some thinking I was still in town, so to speak. I cultivate just about everyone I ever done work for and although I can't remember all the vehicles I've done, I can still remember the people and call them occasionally. It seems I have a style that catches all kinds of people depending on my moods.

Just thought I'd reminisce abit while I am still on this planet and not in it. If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.......

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HotLines Joey Madden,47 years in the Classic Art of Pinstriping
Grants Pass, Oregon
Learn something......
http://members.tripod.com/Inflite
 

Posted by Brad Farha (Member # 931) on :
 
I remember back in the mid '80s I had two consecutive jobs lined up where the customers died before I started the work. Freaky.

Recently I've seen a nasty trend of company buyouts where good long-standing regular customers sell to some out-of-state corporation that doesn't have any sign work done locally. That hurts. I've lost three regular accounts that way in the last ten months.

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Brad Farha, owner
Farha Signs
Beckley, WV
304-252-3778
farhasigns@citynet.net
 

Posted by Troy Haas (Member # 472) on :
 
"Never put all your egg's in one basket"

Back in the early 80's just out of college I worked for an engineering firm owned by one of my best friends Dad and brother(Great People) We had approx 22 Engineers,65 Draftsman(I was one and the company gopher) and about 20 support people.
One Friday afternoon they called in most of the people working there and had to lay-off more than half of us. about a month later most of the rest were gone, some laid off, some scared and found other work.

It seems about 2 months prior to the 1st layoff they had lost their major source of income due to that company cutting back on new construction. They tried to carry us until they found more clients, but it just did not happen fast enough. THis one company accounted for 70% of their business.

Proper planning ahead of time could have preventted most of this I am sure.

Who knows though, if thay had I may have still been a draftsman....

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Troy Haas
"Metal_Leg" on mIRC

SAM Signs
"At old Hose House No. 8"
931 W. Columbia street
Evansville,Indiana 47710
812-437-5367
Home of the:
"Brush Fire at the Hose House" Letterhead Meet
April 27-29th,2001

"Chaos, panic, disorder - my work here is done."
 



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