At this time I wish to express my thanks for the Rapid Remover that we recently won in the Letterville monthly draw.
It arrived in the mail last week. Great Product! I wish I could tell you all the things we use Rapid Remover for besides what it was invented to do.
Thanks To Roger Bailey and the Shortreed Family for the great job they do to allow Letterheads to have an ongoing meet, 24/7/365!
In the last 6 months, situations have changed drastically for me and my business. I moved "Draper The Signmaker to a commercial park location, use a cell phone instead of a land line,thus, no internet, and the kids at home always have the computer tied up downloading movies. So, I don't get on line much. I don't have alot of time anyway as assist coaching baseball teams and organizing a Letterhead meet, is top priority for spare time right now.
I have some neat step by step articles coming up in Sign Builder Illustrated Magazine, so look for a 3 part series of "Fun With Foam." Over the winter we wrote 6 articles, they are slowly making their way into print.
In other news: Songpainter sales rose by 1 last month! That makes 24 legitimate sold copies since X-mas. hahahahahaha Oh well.
My new shop is in a commercial contractor park, where the buildings have an office area and 12 foot overhead bay doors. Its not at all like a retail shopping strip mall.
The other businesses in the park are "home building service related, so building contractors make their way to the park to order trusses for homes and commercial buildings, interior home wood work, (fancy molding above doorways and fireplaces) and then there is a company that installs insulation and wire closet shelving, and central vacs in new home construction. Then there is me, the sign shop.
Exposure to the buiding trades people coming into the park for the above items make a nice "watering hole" to pick up work.
I also joined the Chamber of Commerce and go to all Business Before Hours and Business After Hours gatherings. My goal is to intoduce myself to 5 new businesses at each meeting.
Then 6 months ago we joined a BNI referral group that meets for lunch every week. The purpose of the group is to find work for each member through each of the various business contacts. We have averaged about $1000 per month gross picking up new work that we would have never been aware of. The profesionals who are at the table each week are bankers, who have helped me keep aware of changing interest rates, lawyers who are helping me see the advantages of incorporating my business, credit card processing people who are showing me how to set up electronic money laundering solutions, among the other variety of businesses who are not only helping me do business better, but are helping me find sign work.
The above and plus the extra money generated from free lance writing for SBI magazine has saved our business from bankrupting during the recession after the 9/11/01 WTC tragedy.
By working out of the shop, which is very neat and clean, I haved raised my prices, and my business is actually growing. I feel I get more serious customers and a higher class of customers that are looking for experienced professional sign work, and not just low dollar quickie stickie letters by the pound.
I also have barted some work with a business "coach" who needed displays. He is teaching me how to turn my business into a "turn key" operation so that it will attract a buyer when the day comes to sell it. He has also taught me how to effectly show sign customers what they get for what they want to spend. Instead of using a computer price estimate program, we have visual charts now of, for example, magnetic signs. The chart shows prices and layout samples for signs that cost from $49.00 to $199.00.
Now when a customer comes in for any type of sign, we simply lay down the appropriate chart and they see the price vs. layout and there is no price dickering.
The next phase will be to put in a real phone line with a credit card scanner and automatic check transfer unit. The customer WILL charge the sign work up front, then if they decide to pay with check instead of the card when they pick up the sign work, then the electronic check processor will imediately transfer funds from their account to mine...or bounce the check.
After 20 years of working out of my home I can see that I saved tons of money at the cost of my business not growing and not becomeing a product in itself that could ever be sold.
Once we learned we are making TWO products, 1. the signs we make, and 2. the business that can be sold eventually, then we started to grow.
We are in the process of making a notebook of step by step procedures on every sign we make, so that future employees will have a training manual and also that a prospective buyer will "see" how the business produces signs and be attracted to buy the business. This is a 10 to 15 year process.
I turn 50 years old June 14th, I really want the last 10 to 15 years of my business to fuction like a real business should. Working out of the home does hurt business growth, at least for a sign shop, but has advantages of being close to the family. I was home when the kids were growing up, and I would do it again. Now, the last of the kids at home are older. Now I can concentrate on the business of sign making for a win/win situation for me and my clients.
Changes are rapidly taking place in the sign industry. I forsee printing shops in the next 5 years to expand rapidly into the sign business. Kinko's, Sir Speedy, and all the rest already now have in place large format ink jet printers. Their next printers will spit out magnetic signs, 4x8 rigid job site signs, vinyl banners and some vehicle lettering.
While these shops will not be good at installtions for a time, like van wraps, I'm sure they will figure that out over time. At any rate, the extra competetion will take its toll on sign shops in upscale communitites.
As a result, we are expanding our operation to build monument signs, and over the next 5 years we probably become specialists in just monument signs. We can not build those in a residential neighborhood, thus another reason for moving the business out of the house.
We wont even try to keep up with digital printing equipment revolutions. We will just buy the prints eventually when needed.
I'm not a forseer of future events, by any means, but I do know where my future focus lies in the sign industry, and the race is on to make those changes before the "wolf" is at the door demanding my soul.
It should be an exciting last phase of my career and I'm looking forward to the challenges.
posted
Dave, I'm glad you posted this. A lot of points made are pertinent to other posts going right now. Mainly how to fight for your niche in the market and what the future may hold for us. Good stuff.
[ June 03, 2002, 08:18 AM: Message edited by: David Wright ]
-------------------- Wright Signs Wyandotte, Michigan Posts: 2785 | From: Wyandotte, MI USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
This is absolutely inspiring to me. Thank you so much for taking the time to post all the details. Making a real business out of a hobby shop is exactly the challenge I battle with every day. Good luck with your new venture.
Before my son came along, when I was a storefront, I too was gearing up to selling my biz one day. The chances of selling it in a good public location obviously has advantanges.
Then Cody came along, and I decided my current situation required me at home ASAP, rather than building my biz.
You are right, it's time to grow again when the kids are older. Good for you for planning ahead!
P.S. I worked alot harder at things when in the storefront, mainly because I spent more time there because I HAD to. It takes a very diligent person to be very successful in a home environment. My hats off to those that are doing it!
My business is about to go through some transitions as well. I just attended a meeting last week, with a motivational speaker sponsored by the Saskatchewan Womens Entrepreneurs organization, and was absolutely inspired. I picked up brochures full of seminars, and back-issues of Canadian home-based business magazines. I realized that in the last four years since I started my business, I've spent almost all my time here at this website learning about making signs, design skills, pricing, etc. and have spent almost no time developing business skills. I've decided to expand my business in a direction to compete in todays market, and am extensively researching different options.
Thanks for posting so honestly. All the best to you.
Suelynn
-------------------- "It is never too late to be what you might have been." -George Eliot
Suelynn Sedor Sedor Signs Carnduff, SK Canada Posts: 2863 | From: Carnduff, SK Canada | Registered: Nov 1998
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Great post Dave, I even wrote down a few notes about it that could help me expand a little better.
-------------------- aka:Cisco the "Traveling Millennium Sign Artist" http://www.franciscovargas.com Fresno, CA 93703 559 252-0935 "to live life, is to love life, a sign of no life, is a sign of no love"...Cisco 12'98 Posts: 3576 | From: Fresno, Ca, the great USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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