Joe Diaz
New Member
So what are everyone’s thoughts? Do you work in a large city, or a small town? ... or somewhere inbetween? What are the pros and cons of the town size you operate your business in?
We work in a smaller town, not super small though, about 12,000. I think one pro of working in a smaller city are the better grade of customer. Sure we get some craptacular customers, but not near as bad as when I used to work in a city with a population of 75,000. In a town our size you can come close to knowing everyone, at least recognize everyone. It’s easy to know all the business owners in our town. Because everyone knows everyone, people tend to check their rude behavior at the door. You don’t want your reputation scarred in a town this size. I feel like in a big city you can get away with more as a consumer. You can be a total jack@$$ if you don’t get your way, and at the end of the day, you can blend into the crowd.
Also in a smaller town, business owners look out for other business owners. We all want to see each other do well because that means our town is doing well. I buy my services from a local business and they in return, buy from us. In our community, we really try to keep things local, and if you don’t, again… word travels fast in a small town.
Less competition: In a smaller town once you have become established and your name goes hand in hand with the product or services you sell, it’s hard for another shop to come in and compete. We have had some try. The ones that do make it tend to offer smaller signs in addition to other service we don’t provide. For instance one shop that is still in business that offered signs also did t-shirts and packaging. Now they hardly ever make signs and concentrate on the other services, which leads me to a con…
One con is that there is only so much work to go around in a smaller town. One way to cope with the shortage of sign work is to offer a larger amount of services. You can’t be a specialized shop like in a larger city. You have to be a jack of all trades, master of none which can stretch you thin sometimes. This isn’t totally bad. At least every day when I come to work I’m doing something different. It keeps me on my toes.
Another way to cope with the shortage of work is to target work out of town. There are tons of smaller towns that surround us that aren’t big enough to have their own shop. Then we compete against another larger town’s sign company. Every thing just becomes more spread out. With the help of the internet we can look for work even father away.
What are some other pros and cons you guys can think of?
We work in a smaller town, not super small though, about 12,000. I think one pro of working in a smaller city are the better grade of customer. Sure we get some craptacular customers, but not near as bad as when I used to work in a city with a population of 75,000. In a town our size you can come close to knowing everyone, at least recognize everyone. It’s easy to know all the business owners in our town. Because everyone knows everyone, people tend to check their rude behavior at the door. You don’t want your reputation scarred in a town this size. I feel like in a big city you can get away with more as a consumer. You can be a total jack@$$ if you don’t get your way, and at the end of the day, you can blend into the crowd.
Also in a smaller town, business owners look out for other business owners. We all want to see each other do well because that means our town is doing well. I buy my services from a local business and they in return, buy from us. In our community, we really try to keep things local, and if you don’t, again… word travels fast in a small town.
Less competition: In a smaller town once you have become established and your name goes hand in hand with the product or services you sell, it’s hard for another shop to come in and compete. We have had some try. The ones that do make it tend to offer smaller signs in addition to other service we don’t provide. For instance one shop that is still in business that offered signs also did t-shirts and packaging. Now they hardly ever make signs and concentrate on the other services, which leads me to a con…
One con is that there is only so much work to go around in a smaller town. One way to cope with the shortage of sign work is to offer a larger amount of services. You can’t be a specialized shop like in a larger city. You have to be a jack of all trades, master of none which can stretch you thin sometimes. This isn’t totally bad. At least every day when I come to work I’m doing something different. It keeps me on my toes.
Another way to cope with the shortage of work is to target work out of town. There are tons of smaller towns that surround us that aren’t big enough to have their own shop. Then we compete against another larger town’s sign company. Every thing just becomes more spread out. With the help of the internet we can look for work even father away.
What are some other pros and cons you guys can think of?
