posted
the guy says he has to ask his wife-she's the boss.
Happened twice last week. A young couple opening a meat shop. An old couple taking over an old motel with a badly flaking neon sign that only half worked. 200 to repaint it. 425 for the new alum. 4x8 for the meat shop.
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LOL . . . (there was a little thread kind'a like this a coupl'a weeks ago . . .)
Jerry, it's kind'a a rude when people seem to remember they are married after you figure a job quote, huh?. . .
It's as if they were saving this 'spouse card' to play in case they did'nt like your price, they would have what they seem to think is an 'understandable opt-out'... This guy really has egg on his face then, because if 'she's-the-boss', why did'nt he eliminate the middle man?? Huh??
(Sorry y'all but) I would'a asked him too . . .
When in all reality, if a couple is actually doing a business together, and considerate of one another, then they are going have an agreement that one of them makes these decisions, or either agree that they will both do so together . . .
So then a real, viable sign customer would make that clear right up front... 'My wife and I are interested in getting a price . . . etc.'
-------------------- Signs Sweet Home Alabama
oneshot on chat
"Look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, work like a dog" Posts: 5758 | From: "Sweet Home" Alabama | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
It is really hard to sense what's the right thing to do. After time, unconscious competence hopefully takes over, and you hit it most of the time.
Last week I had a fundamentalist preacher in here who had me redo signs his congregation had made over time and added on to and "improved", and they were so incredibly bad that they "blew" up my camera.
(I'm joking, I went downstairs to take a picture of them, late at night, and hoped the flash would be enough light, and it was not. I don't like to turn on the light unless I have covered the cages of my shop canaries)
That preacher liked my layout for the new ones. But felt like the wife was needed for final approval. I charmed him into bringing her by.
Once she was here, I realized he was utterly without opinion in her presence. I looked at her, and said: OK, Boss, let's settle this.
No Problem after that,with either of them. The job is done, and paid for.
Other times, of course, an entirely different approach may be needed.
On the sad side, I lost a really big one in the last two weeks due to just not perceiving what was the right approach.
-------------------- Myra A. Grozinger Signs Limited Winston-Salem, NC
signslimited@triad.rr.com Posts: 1244 | From: Winston-Salem, NC USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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SONGPAINTER Original Sign Music by Sign People NOW AVAILABLE on CD and the proceeds go to Letterville's favorite charity! Click Here for Sound Clips! Posts: 1974 | From: Orleans, MA, Cape Cod, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
the customer says.... "Let me go home and talk this over with the wife" (or hubby) Either you lose the job, or by the time they return, you wish they'd have gone elsewhere. Love....Jill
-------------------- That is like a Mr. Potato Head with all the pieces in the wrong place. -Russ McMullin Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
I had one come by last week to order his truck lettering and had to call his wife to ask her permission. And I observed from listening to him talk, he works all the time and when he's not working, he's fishing. hmmmmm
Some advice? Take the wife fishing, camping, skydiving, whatever... with you.
When their very first sentence(word for word) is: "I need a price on a sign".
And the "I'll get back with ya" line too.
[ March 10, 2005, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: Wayne Webb ]
-------------------- Wayne Webb Webb Signworks Chipley, FL 850.638.9329 wayne@webbsignworks.com Posts: 7404 | From: Chipley,Florida,United States | Registered: Oct 1999
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A lot of the time when they suddenly have to talk to the wife, husband, nanny, mother, uncle... I think it's just that they either don't like it or the price is too high for them and they just don't have the nads to say so...so they give that bogus "I have to talk to..." line to save face.
I have had customers give me the "we'll have to think it over line" and I figure I'll never hear from them again, only a couple or few months later they do call back, all ready to go. Seems they put the project on the back burner while gathering the fundage. (yes, fundage is just for you Bruce!) Keep your chin up, they may very well surprise you.
-------------------- Chris Welker Wildfire Signs Indiana, Pa Posts: 4254 | From: Indiana, PA | Registered: Mar 2001
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When... they call asking you to email your plotter files to another sign company.
We did Phase I for a management company and they found someone cheaper (by fifty dollars) for the sandblasted signs for Phase II and "They are a quality company,too." If they were a quality company, they would know how to do their own files.
The management company said we owed the files to them since it was their logo. I told them the best I would do is send the other sign company the postage stamp size piece of paper they sent me originally with their logo on it. I spent many an hour correcting that bad artwork for Phase I. The "quality company" just did a scan to cut and the job was an atrocity. It has since been replaced twice. The signs I did on Phase I still look good a decade later.
-------------------- David Harding A Sign of Excellence Carrollton, TX Posts: 5089 | From: Carrollton, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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when they do that to me....i say right back... "when i left her this morning she was real happy" .........you want me to talk to her?" works real good....either they got a sence of humor...and i get the job for bein a wise a s s, or they never come back!!!!!
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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Yea, TJ, that happened to me , too!!!! I drove out to this guy's house, took pics of his truck, went home & made a layout, then emailed the pics to him. He kept asking me to change the colors, font, etc., then he quit answering my emails. A month later, there he goes, down the road with my layout on his truck!
THEN, a year or so later, he calls me back, asking for something on the trailer for his truck. He asked me if I could email the pictures to him, & I said, "Yea, I can do that- You know that, because I emailed you pictures of your truck & you had someone else do my layout!" He got very quiet, then laughed nervously, then ended up having me cut the graphics, & his daughter came & got them. She was not "Miss Friendly" either.
-------------------- The Word in Signs Bobbie Rochow Jamestown, PA 16134
724-927-6471
thewordinsigns@alltel.net Posts: 3485 | From: Jamestown, PA 16134 | Registered: Oct 2002
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Bobbie, I hope you learned not to do layouts without a deposit from that. If they won't give you a depost they aren't serious. You can't lose a job you didn't have.
-------------------- Jim Upchurch Artworks Olympia WA Posts: 797 | From: Olympia, WA | Registered: Nov 1998
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..they add at the end of the telphone conversation, "Oh, and when you fax the quote for those signs, add a quote for stickers only. Maybe we'll do them ourselves, you know, stick them to a board or something"
Happened to me last week after a 15 minute consultation, honestly.
posted
when you bid on a large job using 3M premium cause the customer wants good stuff.....then you hear through the grapevine you didn't get it....and the next day the vinyl supply truck drops off your order and has four 50 yard rolls of Oracal 651 going to the shop you bid against...of course they told the customer that was good stuff too
-------------------- Mark Perkins Performance Signs & Graphics Eunice, Louisiana "The heart of Cajun Country" Posts: 506 | From: Eunice Louisiana 70535 | Registered: Nov 1998
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Bobbie, only when paid for the design (deposit). Otherwise I would not e-mail a layout, but have done it for friends (keeping my fingers crossed).
I took my logo into Photopaint and embossed it in grays on a transparent background. I overlay this image on my layouts, so that it doesn't bother the picture, but can't be cut away.
Letterville has a lot to do with the way I'm doing things these days as compared to the way I used to do business.
posted
You know you've lost the credit when. . . 5-6 years ago, I did a banner (temp. shop sign) for a small, local oriental snack food co., as a sub job. Just on a whim, I added a simple cartoon of two sunflowers with sunglasses as a cute pictorial element. One year later - I noticed an inferior scan/cut of this cartoon drawing, done in vinyl, on a large lightbox panel above one of their new store entrances - - fast forward 2 years, when I noticed the same poor copy on all their package labels in many local stores - - and just a few months ago (and a few millions in growth), in their TV ads! Ya think I should say somethin'?
-------------------- Warren F. Ad Signs Honolulu Posts: 38 | From: Honolulu, HI, USA | Registered: Feb 2000
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They tear your card up in front of you and say we won't be needing you. This was after I said that their sign looked liked it was done by a ten year old.
-------------------- Signs by Alicia Jennings (Mudflap Girl) Tacoma, WA Since 1987 Have Lipstick, will travel. Posts: 3820 | From: Tacoma, WA. U.S.A. | Registered: Dec 1999
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Bobbie, as soon as you stop doing layouts before you are paid to do them... you will stop having to worry about showing them the layouts.
From the last few days of posts I think I recall several "spec" layouts you mentioned (& we all did this, I'm not pointing any fingers)... so take all those layouts, make a portfolio... & if you need to help sell your abilities, sell them of jobs you've already done (or layouts, even if they never were jobs... they don't need to know that) just tell them you are working on several layouts for your many clients & wouldn't be working on specific layouts for their project untill after they make a deposit to get put on your busy schedule.
posted
after the guy shows you the layout he wants you to use, and you go, DAMN! Was he drunk when he did that?! I actually did this about three weeks ago. I couldnt help myself. Guy wanted his logo painted on this big ass rock outside of his property, and he brought me a magnetic sign with a logo on it. I just cant say enough about how awful it was.
-------------------- Maker of fine signs and other creative stuff. Located at 109 N. Cumberland ave. Harlan, Ky. 40831 606-837-0242 Posts: 4172 | From: Ages-Brookside, Ky. Up the Holler... | Registered: Jul 1999
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I SOMETIMES do let artwork go out . . .depending on who it is and all...(I know so many people personally here . . .)
But I still sign any & all artwork I draw and add a 'C' in a circle and the date, and explain that I have the rights to the art...and if they are here, I get a signature from the customer on a statement that should this art be used by anyone else, they will pay me the amount noted for that art.
I realize it's not done with a lawyer, a notary, a U.S. copyright office stamp of approval and a presidential bill-passing . . .but the customer don't KNOW that . . .lol
It does'nt happen very often, but sometimes I let art walk out, or even fax it, with such a 'disclaimer' and I've never had any problem.
I HAVE had customers decide to get their sign elsewhere after I allowed them to take a lay-out like this, but I don't recall any one ever stealing a design from me . . .
LOL....um...that really might NOT be such a good thing . . . . .
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- fast forward 2 years, when I noticed the same poor copy on all their package labels in many local stores - ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
- and just a few months ago (and a few millions in growth), in their TV ads! 
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