How many of you could leave your shop behind for at least a month and not have any issues?

I don't look down on you for not being an "artisan".. but I do look down on you for wanting to leave for a month and only being a year or so into this business. Small business takes a huge commitment to work, and I couldn't dream of leaving for a month when you're so new in the game. Why are you wanting to leave this business so quick? To me, this isn't going to breed success, especially with the knowledge of how far you are right now...still asking very basic sign questions.

You have an inexperienced team, lead by an inexperienced new owner...and you're already talking about leaving and getting someone in there that can run the day-to-day? Terrible idea unless you hire a miracle worker.

 

Theres absolutely no reason in this business to have multiple locations unless they are states away or you have a walk in retail type model. Learn and hire

 

To the OP, good luck. Post this question on every single industry based forum and I bet you get the same answer. You want to walk away for a month? Buy income producing real estate.
You can always tell what small businesses have an absentee owner, they’re always a disaster and don’t last.

 

You're not going to find too many absentee owner sign shops. It's just not that common in the industry and if they do exist, they aren't posting on a sign forum most likely.

If your goal is to become essentially an absentee owner, you need to hire people to replace you, which means lowering your end of the year profitability. In business, employees are generally considered revenue generators, but you can't expect revenues to increase if you're doing a like for like swap. Based on what you've described, you're looking for an employee that will likely make around $50-80k a year depending on volume and location. I'd consider that person a management level person, but not "senior level" management. You need to add on another $10-25k to get them to take on the responsibility of an owner. My guess is that eats a majority of your profit, if not all of it.

So as a marketing guy and owner, you're going to be left with figuring out what's the next step. The biggest thing to monitor is capacity vs profitability. Often people think the answer is to bring in more work, but if you're bringing in more work that results in efficiency dropping and cost of labor increasing, you may end up doing 20-30% more work but the profitability being way down on said work.

Either way, you need to hire good people and monitor them regularly. Taking a month off is unrealistic. Not being involved in the day to day but being in regular communication with management and senior management level positions, is realistic if you can pull it off and generate enough profit.

 

What are you talking about? Tell me what you gain from more than one location vs scaling what you have? Double overhead is it. You’re not selling beer and cigarettes.

 

I just want to correct this statement. Let's just assume a 3-4 employee sign shop bringing in $500k in sales where the owner/operator brings home about 90k. They're only bringing in 90k because they're the owner AND the operator. If you decided to shift the business around to become an absentee owner model, you could do so by asking certain employees to do different tasks or hiring different employees + someone to replace certain duties of the now absentee owner.

Regardless, of that $90k, some of it is straight business profit and the rest is salary as an employee of the business.

I will say you are right that too many small business owners do not look at these things and are often simply buying a job.

 

Not in a million years will you find someone capable of running a business with 4+ employees reliably for 50-80k/year with an extended owner absence. Our painter makes that with no responsibility. 100k minumum and even that will be tough.

 

Until you can get your original bought location in order, I wouldn't personally suggest getting another location (or even if it's just equipment and workers).

It sounds like there are still trials and tribulations 16 months in due to this:

To me, have to have your house in order first, before trying to branch out even further. Running before learning to walk. Sometimes one has to run in order to fall down and realize that they have to walk first, however.

One should get what they can do now down pat before they think about bringing in even more functionality that's also different functionality. Something else that they are going to have to learn about and make sure how to do efficiently and with quality.

As far as taking a month off, even when I'm on vacation, I'm still doing work. That's the price one pays for being an owner. I certainly wouldn't even begin to think about taking a month after after just acquiring a business 16 months ago that I had no previous knowledge of how to do things in that business. I know I certainly didn't even consider an extended weekend 16 months after I started my own business (many moons ago).

To me, one has to make sure that the current house is in order. It's along the same lines as those people that want to franchise. Their are consumed with franchising before they even have their original (essentially concept) location in order as a demo to package and ship to potential customers of the concept. I know you aren't wanting to franchise (at least not that I'm aware), but the overall concerns of the two situations are the same for me.

Just my opinion on the matter. Take it for what it's worth.

 

It can be done. Theres a few ways... Look at all the sign shop franchises. It all depends on what you're doing, and what your specializing in.

Sadly startup costs for a sign shop is cheap - I could (And did) go out and buy a 8K printer and 4K Laminator and produce the same quality prints / vehicle wraps as you do.

Now lets say you hire a guy to watch after the shop for you. he gets to know all the clients and build relationships with them... He gets to set prices and see just how much profit you're pulling in... Whats to stop him from doing the same? Cheap equipment + Contacts and loyalties from all your customers... He could pull in double what you're going to pay him with less effort than it takes him managing your company... So whats to stop him from doing that?

So yes... There are certain situations where you can step away and be an absantee owner... But most of the time it doesn't work out. 99% of the time, you're training your replacement... Your customers aren't going to be loyal to you and stick with your shop, they'll be loyal to the guy who's been taking care of them for xx years.

It's the nature of the business... Now if you had hundreds of thousands invested in equipment, or were in a niche market where equipment wasn't so available... it'd be a different story. But this type of busy is easy enough to start... Thats why so many fail. Anyone can open up a shop.. it's the shops that know what they're doing, how to do it properly... And care about the business enough to stick around that prevent you from being one of the 9/10 shops that die within a few years.

If it was a family business and you had a family member or someone to "Co-own" It'd be possible... but IMO, as a single business owner... while you may be able to take a 2-3 week vacation (While answering a ton of calls, and keeping in touch with the business) Being an absentee owner is a difficult task.

 

You dont even know what youre doing with what you have.
Youre citing hypothetical math. Youre not walking away from a $1-2m/ year business for a month I promise you. You are also not finding a manager capable of what you want for 80k.
Youre citing very elementary business basics - work on your business not in it - as if its some sort of advanced secret you have unearthed. Youre naive. Small businesses are not worth much, theyre hard to sell and take more knowledge and effort than most are willing to put it. This is why they are often sold for assets. Those with the $$$$ have better ways to use their money than buying your headaches. Those that want out, are ready to go and not waiting for the right person to come along and pay some inflated price. Put what I said in your back pocket and come back in 20 years, after you actually have some experience, and argue with me that Im wrong.
Another thing, people write books to sell them. If people wrote the dirty truth, noone will buy it.

 

I would think in terms of niche equipment (either hardware and/or software) more then just out purchasing with what's out in the wild.

Niche processes (even tools that are developed in house) can be a huge boon.

I personally would be hesitant to solely think about competing on price personally. I'm not much older then you are, but have been doing what I do for a very long time starting out working for family. Competing on price wasn't the thing. We had found that when you compete on price, the customers don't tend to be quite as loyal. That's just our experience.

Now, this could be small shop thinking versus big business thinking.

There is always something to be gleaned, even from the naysayers (your probably thinking I'm one of them as well, I wasn't totally a naysayer, just make sure your house is in order and still not learning the ropes with what you have before adding more to it), the trick is gleaning what you can use and leave the rest.

Always something to be learned.

 

The fact that you're even thinking about it this soon is a red flag to many business owners here.

 

100% true. I learned how to get into the sign industry and basically ran the shop while the owner spent less and less time in the store. I learned what worked and what didn't work and I started my own shop with a leg up on what to do. Never went after any of the customers that I serviced there for years, but when they shopped around and heard me answer the phone at my new business, my reputation preceded me.

You can't keep someone talented enough to run the shop and do (almost) everything an owner does and see what he/she is REALLY worth and go out and get it themselves.