Dealing with hostile competition

[Mosh]

BTW, I grow soybeans, and only got $75K last year, so LAY OFF!!!!

 

[DynamicVinyl]

First you said...



Then...


it's OK we all contradict ourselves sometimes..as for wanting to be known as a low baller.. well i hope that works out for you... no really, i do.

As for you logo, sorry i didn't get a microscope to zoom into your avatar on the screen... but let's be honest it looks just as bad a curlz font.

And for vista print... i'm so glad things are working out for you with them. The most quality I ever got from them was a receipt a customer gave me to show me how much he paid.. man that thing was just a bit higher stock then their business cards....quality receipts over there...

Also 300k in yearly gross? How does a business survive making that little?


back to your issue. You were employed by a company and did work under them. Therefore no matter what you do in court you will lose. It's simple.. you'll pay more money out to lawyer and court fees. Just simply invest lawyer and court money money into your business and forget about them.

You said you coded the program at home? Let's be honest.. you didn't do that. Just move on and prove you're better... or... cheaper than them..

do you read right? I didnt contradict myself. first i said "its not only", then i said "its merely", all i did in the second instance was leave out the word reference. And maybe you should check vistaprint's options for yourself, i got glossy, embossed, foil printed business card samples, even a couple transparent card designs.
As for your 300K remark, I live in a rural county in Maine. Most people are lucky to make $18.5K a yr, let alone have a 4 employee small business that grosses that much. I could only hope to make $50k a yr to start as mine is a part-time venture.

And Mosh, youre right. when you dont owe jack, you can have lower prices.

 

[HulkSmash]

do you read right? I didnt contradict myself. first i said "its not only", then i said "its merely", all i did in the second instance was leave out the word reference. And maybe you should check vistaprint's options for yourself, i got glossy, embossed, foil printed business card samples, even a couple transparent card designs.
As for your 300K remark, I live in a rural county in Maine. Most people are lucky to make $18.5K a yr, let alone have a 4 employee small business that grosses that much. I could only hope to make $50k a yr to start as mine is a part-time venture.

And Mosh, youre right. when you dont owe jack, you can have lower prices.

oooooooooooooooooooook

 

[ironchef]

350 dollars for 6 sq ft of regular one color vinyl? Holy crap batman

 

[Techman]

If you learned all that as above,, and you took over the management of the bizz and knew more than a 20+ year experienced guy,, then you would be way above all this blue collar nonsense. And you would be too busy to let it get into your brain.

In fact,, I feel you didn't learn any thing but make yourself a paycheck. It's just a fancy job. You do not have a business. If you think lowballing is the way to make it work you are sadly mistaken.

A person with all those great skills as above would know what to do and how to charge for his work. I believe you are a spreader of horse scat. Any company that profits in the 300k is grossing over a million a year. You would have been paid a nice high salary because of it.

I call bullscat to every thing you said. Especially your marketing experience. Subliminal,, Subliminal only works when its used in a context. Every trained marketer knows that.

Any body with any real marketing and business training would know that every business is required to charge as much as possible. That is a basic rule of business economics. Blaming your competition for getting a high price is a flag that you are not as competent as you think you are. Any good business man would instantly raise the prices if he found out he was half as much as the others.

All I can say is,, Go back to bed and dream up some more bullscat and spread it somewhere else. OR maybe you need to take another pill,,, or two..
Done!

 

[mudmedia]

 

[ProWraps]

im not understanding..

if all this is true then what is the problem?

if all this is true and your not swimming in THEIR customers and your own, then something is majorly wrong.

so again, im not understanding. what is the point of this thread?

is there an echo in here?

 

[mudmedia]

is there an echo in here?

EDIT: Ill keep my mouth shut

 

[cdiesel]

And Mosh, youre right. when you dont owe jack, you can have lower prices.

Or, or, or you could charge the same amount and make more money.

I believe in the "charge as much as possible" philosophy, not the "charge just enough to pay the bills" version..

Say we buy bigger, faster printers. So should we lower our prices since we can now produce more in less time for less money? I don't think so.

 

[mudmedia]

is there an echo in here?

Or, or, or you could charge the same amount and make more money.

I believe in the "charge as much as possible" philosophy, not the "charge just enough to pay the bills" version..

Say we buy bigger, faster printers. So should we lower our prices since we can now produce more in less time for less money? I don't think so.

I am not a big shop but I could not agree more I think when shops charge less for "less overhead" it really hurts the bigger shops that have spent the time, financial responsibly and focus on quality.

 

[Jillbeans]

I was glad that you finally started typing in paragraphs until I actually read one.

I think your business model, if you want to call lowballing a business model, is as flawed as your logo.

$350 for two truck doors is about what should be being charged. That is, if they are well laid out and done with proper materials, be it paint or high-performance vinyl.
Yours are probably worth what you are charging for them, however.
Good luck with that.

I can never understand this new idea of charging less and less for signs when equipment is so expensive and the cost of materials goes up every year.

 

[ThinkRight]

I was glad that you finally started typing in paragraphs until I actually read one.

I think your business model, if you want to call lowballing a business model, is as flawed as your logo.

$350 for two truck doors is about what should be being charged. That is, if they are well laid out and done with proper materials, be it paint or high-performance vinyl.
Yours are probably worth what you are charging for them, however.
Good luck with that.

I can never understand this new idea of charging less and less for signs when equipment is so expensive and the cost of materials goes up every year.

It is the "New Amrika"
Profits are evil !
Hard work and capital risk is punished !
Now get with the program and quit your whining !
/ spit !
Did you read or see Atlas Shrugged ?
We are living it.

 

[Joe Diaz]

So is that the norm now? To ask customers to see what other sign shops quote? I mean how do you ever see this information? Do they volunteer it? Like going to Walmart with a coupon from dollar general so they will price match? (even in that scenario I'm pretty sure Walmart just matches that price not charge less).

I can only think of a few instances in the past year or so where we somehow found out what other shops quoted, but we didn't seek out that info, and in two instance once we knew, and found out that their prices were close enough to ours, we choose to charge more. If I remember right both of those jobs seemed like they were going to be real nightmares. Perhaps the client volunteering the quotes of other shops was a sign of things to come? Anyway, on the one job the other shop won the bid and we moved on to other jobs, and on the other they chose to go with us even though our prices were higher, and man are we glad we did quote it higher, because sure enough the client was difficult to work with.

But in those few instances where we knew what others were charging it didn't really give us a full picture of their pricing structure, but even if we did somehow know, would that dictate what we charge? No. We have built our pricing structure based on our overhead, our salaries, material costs, and most importantly but sometimes overlooked, how much we need to make to ensure our business can grow in the future.

For me it doesn't make sense to build your prices based off of what others are charging, because they all could have a different set of conditions. What if their overhead, salaries, etc cost less than yours, what if they didn't factor in the amount needed to ensure business growth? Then you are going to charge less? It's a recipe for disaster. If you do good work and because of that you are busy and your prices are based on your costs and conditions, then you will experience success. Then who cares what the other struggling shops are saying.

 

[TheSnowman]

How did I know that Mosh and this dude would be best friends by the end of this. You don't see doctors all dropping their prices to get customers do you? No, they all know that they have an investment and a "worth" to what they provide.

I guess if you are going for the bottom feeders, have at it, but I can tell you, since sticking to a good pricing structure for me, and not giving away my work lower than the other guys, I've had better customers, and more loyal customers. If someone comes in that I don't want to deal with, I instantly refer them to the dude in town like you.

 

[CES020]

I think Fred must have installed Adtechia 2.0 on the system yesterday

Sure feels like it.....

 

[Pat Whatley]

I think Fred must have installed Adtechia 2.0 on the system yesterday

Sure feels like it.....

I don't know...I'm thinking its that "Best of Maine" guy again.

 

[SIGNTIME]

example- I lettered a pickup with 1 color for $130 a simple 18"x24" black square, that the customer provided the vector image of. My competitor gave him a price on the same job for $350. And i will continue to do so because i can perform the jobs of 3 people at my competitors, and do so in my own shop. So my labor is lower, and i can do anything they can with the same quality or better, in half the time.

:iamwithstupid ....NOT

 

[Joe Diaz]

Hey Dynam1¢, I've got a question for you: What happens when you want to grow as a business and your overhead increases, hire employees etc? You will probably need to raise your prices to pay for that right? Did they teach you in your marketing class what happens when your prices jump from let's say $130 for truck doors to $350 in a short period of time? Or do you plan on keeping your revenue as low while your costs go up? Today you may be making just enough to keep your prices so low, but you aren't giving yourself enough slack to ever grow.

 

[ThinkRight]

So is that the norm now? To ask customers to see what other sign shops quote? I mean how do you ever see this information? Do they volunteer it? Like going to Walmart with a coupon from dollar general so they will price match? (even in that scenario I'm pretty sure Walmart just matches that price not charge less).

I can only think of a few instances in the past year or so where we somehow found out what other shops quoted, but we didn't seek out that info, and in two instance once we knew, and found out that their prices were close enough to ours, we choose to charge more. If I remember right both of those jobs seemed like they were going to be real nightmares. Perhaps the client volunteering the quotes of other shops was a sign of things to come? Anyway, on the one job the other shop won the bid and we moved on to other jobs, and on the other they chose to go with us even though our prices were higher, and man are we glad we did quote it higher, because sure enough the client was difficult to work with.

But in those few instances where we knew what others were charging it didn't really give us a full picture of their pricing structure, but even if we did somehow know, would that dictate what we charge? No. We have built our pricing structure based on our overhead, our salaries, material costs, and most importantly but sometimes overlooked, how much we need to make to ensure our business can grow in the future.

For me it doesn't make sense to build your prices based off of what others are charging, because they all could have a different set of conditions. What if their overhead, salaries, etc cost less than yours, what if they didn't factor in the amount needed to ensure business growth? Then you are going to charge less? It's a recipe for disaster. If you do good work and because of that you are busy and your prices are based on your costs and conditions, then you will experience success. Then who cares what the other struggling shops are saying.

 

[TheSnowman]

An entire board, trying to change the world, one lowballer at a time.