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3 Sign Shops Closed

Stacey K

Stacey K

I like making signs
When I first started 6 years ago a gal "Sara" was in business in the next town. She got sick of the fast pace and customers and locked the door and put it for sale. A girl opened up a new shop down the road from her and she did beautiful work - way better designs than me. I really got scared she would put me out of business. Then someone bought the other business and hired a gal to run it. Well, they both can't handle the stress and one day just locked the doors over the last couple months.

So now I have been absorbing 2 other sign shops work.

I'm ready to lock my doors and walk away too LOL (but I won't)

LOTS of people tell me to hire someone but I'm trying to simplify my life, not complicate it. My kids are graduated, I want to do some traveling, I want to schedule things on MY time, and not have to worry if an employee calls in sick will I have to cancel my day off or work until midnight. I have a nice piece of property here that has 3 other rentals so it's a lot of work outside the sign shop too! In 5 years I plan to sell it and be done with the sign shop and either flip houses or just get a different job, maybe buy a laundry mat? IDK The sign shop is nice but it's not like a dream come true, it's a job. If I was 30 I would be all for hiring and trying to grow a sign empire but I'm going to be 50 and I just really don't have the energy anymore - nor do I want or need to work 80 hours a week. I have a gal come in and help out and it makes a difference but I can't see that I would be able to pull in another $100k a year considering all the training involved. I'm scheduled out until December and let me tell you, PEOPLE ARE NOT HAPPY about having to wait.

I can absolutely see why these shops closed up. Customers are very hard to deal with and if you tell them to wait they tell you to hire help so THEY don't have to wait. It's getting pretty frustrating.

Anyone have any thoughts? My retirement isn't coming from my sign shop, it comes from my properties. I could probably make a few extra per year if I hired but is it worth the hassle? I don't think in 5 years I can build a dynasty; it seems like it would be a lot of work. I'm not married and my boys are off doing their own thing so sometimes just cutting my grass at home is hard to do!

Thanks for letting me vent!
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
If you have other avenues/income streams, which it sounds like you do, and don't have the want/need/desire to go all in and grow the business, then set the pace that you're happy with.

Bump your minimums, make your turnaround times whatever they need to be realistically and if people don't like it, they can go somewhere else.

Don't let customers walk all over you and be firm with your pricing/turnaround times. Being willing to walk away from any job is a good position to be in and I swear will land you better clients.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
I share your sentiment and think your plan sounds great. I did start my business at 30 and was gung ho for years but about 5-6 years ago the stress started catching up with me. It's hard to slow down even when you make a concerted effort to do so. I decided to take my foot off the gas around the same time but that has only resulted in us running really lean which helps nothing. The only way I would increase headcount now is if an ace sign person was looking for a job, full time or part time. I'm done with the revolving door and the stress that comes with it. 50 is my target age to cut way back or sell out. We recently had an issue with a crazy ex-employee which solidified my end game. I used to get real excited about a lot work coming in and new customers but now it's like F*ck! It's like running a marathon with no finish line.
 
FASTSIGNS

FASTSIGNS

New Member
Agree with above - you should hire Sara or beautiful work lady. Just this year we (my hubs and I) hired another salesperson to specifically handle customers that placed orders on a day to day. We thought that there might be pushback from our long time customers, but it is going smoothly. This was the first summer we were able to enjoy 10 days vacation without being glued to email and laptop. So even though we are paying her commission on those sales, the extra freedom is worth it. We are empty nesters and we can concentrate on other aspects of the biz and just take more relaxed time off. We have a lot of staff, so the piece of mind that customers will get taken care of is great. I also agree that you should raise prices!
 
gnubler

gnubler

Active Member
Stacey K said:
My retirement isn't coming from my sign shop,
Click to expand...
Stacey and I chatted about this topic a bit recently (private message). Lately I've been wondering why I'm even doing this, and if it's worth all the energy and headaches to probably end up with nothing at the end. I took over another shop that was closing, they couldn't find any buyers so it was basically dumped on me because I thought it was worth a shot. At the very end they were just giving things away...equipment, roll media, reams of paper, furnishings. No buyers for this stuff. My closest competitor has had his sign shop for sale going on three years now, almost as long as I've been in business. We met once to discuss it, but the asking price was so high it was almost comical. He must not be desperate enough because I still see it listed on Craigslist sometimes, no price reduction. I'm guessing he'll eventually just close the doors like Stacey's competitors and his customers will come my way. There's a couple other shops in my area, both owners are semi-retired and often lock their front doors and don't answer the phone.

What is it about sign shops in particular that close their doors because there's no interested buyers to take over? Yes, the customers suck, but that applies to any business. I've definitely dealt with much worse in my life.
 
Johnny Best

Johnny Best

Active Member
Well Stacy, I think you are smart on planning your life to prepare for retirement. Wish you luck in all your endeavors in the future.
 
danno

danno

New Member
Well, I turned 60 last year. They have decided not to let me talk to clients anymore. A couple years ago, a guy got upset at me for not meeting his deadline. I informed him when he placed the order that it wasn't possible. He then demanded I do his decals now. I told him to go to Walmart. I then turned and walked away. The boss said the guys jaw hit the floor. They made the decision that I could talk to the machines and leave the "humans" alone.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
gnubler said:
What is it about sign shops in particular that close their doors because there's no interested buyers to take over? Yes, the customers suck, but that applies to any business. I've definitely dealt with much worse in my life.
Click to expand...
Most small businesses are hard to sell because there is no value there when the owner leaves. People getting closer to selling or retiring aren't dumping money into updating equipment or growing their customer base so you end up with old stuff and a client list of the owners friends. Older people that want to trade in their corporate life to run a small business generally look for things that are easier to manage semi-absentee which is the appeal of simple type businesses (ice cream store, consulting etc) and franchises. Anything that requires skilled employees to fill positions takes a lot more time investment and the younger crowd that is willing to put in the time generally don't have the money to cash flow the business let alone buy it. With a franchise, you just follow their roadmap. There's less involved in finding suppliers, employee training, computer systems, equipment, business strategy, advertising, websites etc.
 
Aardvark Printing

Aardvark Printing

New Member
Notarealsignguy said:
It's amazing how some people manage to keep customers and employees.
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I worked for this one lady before I started my own shop and the only thing the manager and I tried to do was to make her rich. She fought us tooth and nail. She thought she was an idiot. Now that I've owned my shop for years and see things from an owners point of view I realized, "Wow! she really was an idiot".
 
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Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
Lots of people mentioned it already... RAISE PRICES. I don't want a full-time employees to babysit, I've done everything on my own... but once I started getting more work than I could handle, the question wasn't "how can I handle the work?", it was "which work don't I need?" I raise prices to where there is an equilibrium. If you reduced your workload by 50% and raised your prices 50%... you just cut your work in half and kept your income the same. I loose a lot of work off the street but what I'm left with are high quality customers that are not penny pinchers. Real-estate post and panel signs are not my favorite.. Everyone wants to pay $500-$1000 for a 4x8 installed... I have too much work to be bothered by that. Someone last month took me up on a bid $6k for two 4x8's... at that price I found a new love for them and smiled while I dug those holes.
 
caribmike

caribmike

Retired with a Side Hustle
I felt much the same as Stacey K when we had 10,000 sf of production space, several employees and did everything in-house. About five years ago, we began outsourcing our commercial print business. Then, we began outsourcing our t-shirt business. Finally, we began outsourcing our sign and banner business. We recently closed the 10,000 sf shop and moved the office to the first floor of our house. I kept a few pieces of equipment like my Mimaki and laminator and have a 4x8 work table, just for fun jobs I want to do. But, here we are with almost no overhead, no staff and no headaches with pretty much the same revenue as before except twice the profit and "work from anywhere" laptop flexibility. This is really the fantastic side hustle I had always dreamed of.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
Texas_Signmaker said:
Lots of people mentioned it already... RAISE PRICES. I don't want a full-time employees to babysit, I've done everything on my own... but once I started getting more work than I could handle, the question wasn't "how can I handle the work?", it was "which work don't I need?" I raise prices to where there is an equilibrium. If you reduced your workload by 50% and raised your prices 50%... you just cut your work in half and kept your income the same. I loose a lot of work off the street but what I'm left with are high quality customers that are not penny pinchers. Real-estate post and panel signs are not my favorite.. Everyone wants to pay $500-$1000 for a 4x8 installed... I have too much work to be bothered by that. Someone last month took me up on a bid $6k for two 4x8's... at that price I found a new love for them and smiled while I dug those holes.
Click to expand...
So what do you do if you aren't motivated by money? I can't be the only one here that gets their motivation from winning over new customers, the challenge of a new job or tweaking how our business operates. For me, I can raise prices, lower prices, make a mint or not make anything and it's all the same.
 
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