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Discussion Not sure where this is all coming from..............................................

Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
JBurton said:
That's some dirty dealings if you're pulling it locally. Calling far outta town is a different matter.
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I worked for 2 national companies that did it weekly. When I was a sales rep I'd go into a job site trailer and when nobody was in there, I'd rummage through the stuff on their desk looking for quotes from competitors. Same deal with their sub lists so I could solicit all of them. Work smart buddy. The best was when they told me they had a lower quote to try to squeeze me and I had already been snooping.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
JBurton said:
Don't forget rent rent, ie living space. Or better yet set up a foundation to benefit your kids, then you can sell the house to it, non taxed, and rent it from your own foundation, non taxed. Then donate your pay into it as tax deductible donation...
Met a guy who does this, he's been in litigation for 10 years, but every time court dates come up, he subpoena's his own tax records from that year, they shut the books, reschedule a year later, and do the dance again.
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That adds to your overhead, how do you expect to be competitive in this business if you spend money on frivolous things like your family? Come on Burton.
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
Notarealsignguy said:
Overhead:
Engine repairs on the expedition $50/month
Broken back window on the expedition $150
Bungee cords to hold the ladders $10
SR22 insurance $125/mo
Fast food travel expense $5/day
Gas $100/month after factoring in the weekly pump and run
Shed payment $75/month
60 hours a week = $3/hr overhead
Labors free cuz you're doing the work yourself.
You run a tight ship
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I think you just described my first year in business.. except it was a Suburban that SR22 was for.. and I used duct tape to fix the back window after leaving the barn door open and lowering the towable lift boom on it.
 
Pauly

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
Texas_Signmaker said:
I don't understand the pricing hurdles. From the first job I ever did, I could figure out the cost / overhead and profit. If I'm quoting something that I am unfamiliar with, I might secrete shop around to other sign companies and see what they are quoting.. just to find out how much I could reasonably charge and still get the job... making sure I'm not over doing it but also not leaving $$ on the table. If you don't know how to figure a cost and make money, you are really going to have a tough time in business.
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This.

No matter what the job is, it's simple math in understanding on what it costs to manufacture, what overheads you have and how much you need to make on the job.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with looking at what others charge as some products have higher premiums and some have small margins.

Also those smaller shops comparing to the big shops is really a no-no.
Different overheads, different equipment. etc. Your 2 person shop could produce 20 signs in a day, another shop could do 200 with 5 people
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
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The black tape blended in nicely.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
Pauly said:
This.

No matter what the job is, it's simple math in understanding on what it costs to manufacture, what overheads you have and how much you need to make on the job.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with looking at what others charge as some products have higher premiums and some have small margins.

Also those smaller shops comparing to the big shops is really a no-no.
Different overheads, different equipment. etc. Your 2 person shop could produce 20 signs in a day, another shop could do 200 with 5 people
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It's all relative.
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
Good memories in the old Suburban. Just got a new truck with a nice shiny bumper ready to be fucked up. I give it a month or less...

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20220217_052534.jpg
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
JBurton said:
Oh snap, park it, wait a year, see if Putin don't get china to lockup semiconductors within the next year, and see if they come asking to buy for more than you bought.
Actually drive it anyway. My coworkers husband got a frontier from the nissan dealership he's head mechanic at, so a good deal, for 27k or something. He drove it for a year, and they offered him over 30k.
I would have sold it and asked what's the next car they'd like to pay me to drive?
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I had to buy it from a dealership in Arizona because everyone around here told me 6 month wait.
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
JBurton said:
This is accurate.
The same coworker of mine can't get her new pathfinder without going several states away, and with 'illegal' dealer markups. Right now they're selling for 5-10k over asking, and nissan is turning a blind eye because they are being sold...
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There are some out there that are not doing it. When I was searching for the truck I was finding them $10k over sticker. They all advertise sticker on the website, then you call and find out they are marked up. I felt like I found a winner paying sticker price... what a change from 2 years ago..
 
Scotchbrite

Scotchbrite

No comment
JBurton said:
That's some dirty dealings if you're pulling it locally. Calling far outta town is a different matter.
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The local Signs Now franchise owner liked to do this. One time he wasn't smart enough to not use a company phone. It was fun to put him on tho.

I had a big debate about the topic of finding out competitors' pricing with my business ethics instructor years ago. The scenario was; what should you do if a potential customer wants to share a competitor's bid proposal with you. The "ethical" response was to tell them no, don't tell me their pricing. I argued it was perfectly acceptable because it's the only way I could know if I was competitive and quoting apples to apples. I also felt like it wasn't any different than a Walmart manger cruising thru Target to compare prices.
 
WildWestDesigns

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
Scotchbrite said:
The local Signs Now franchise owner liked to do this. One time he wasn't smart enough to not use a company phone. It was fun to put him on tho.

I had a big debate about the topic of finding out competitors' pricing with my business ethics instructor years ago. The scenario was; what should you do if a potential customer wants to share a competitor's bid proposal with you. The "ethical" response was to tell them no, don't tell me their pricing. I argued it was perfectly acceptable because it's the only way I could know if I was competitive and quoting apples to apples. I also felt like it wasn't any different than a Walmart manger cruising thru Target to compare prices.
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The thing that I would have with all of this is if it was on the up and up and perfectly fine to do, why do it in secret? Why waste the other shops time under false pretenses? That's the thing that rubs me the wrong way.

If it was on the up and up, there should be no secrecy in doing this. Doing something when no one is around (in another example) etc.

As to the Target example, those are already figured up prices and one can easily view them as they are out in the open and gather the info without having to have someone calculate some custom order and lie about why you are there. That may or may not actually be the price that one needs to stay in business, however.

As to what the customer does with my quote with regard to others, I have no ToS on that. Once it leaves my shop, I can't control what they do with it and it doesn't bother me. What would bother me is having another shop pretend to be a customer to get me to quote something. That would bother me far more and I find far more troubling compared to what a customer would do. And yes, I am very used to helping other local shops in various aspects, so it's not like I'm taking this stand and if I did get a call from a local shop that wanted help and I would say "Hell no" <click!>.
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Hahaaa...... that has happened some many times to probably everybody. It's easy to spot the other shops doing it to you. You can tell by how they describe things, their terminology, they hurriedness to ask the next qureston and lotsa other giveaways. They hide their numbers, use made up names and all kindsa things..... ya just need to ask enough questions up front to determine, then bid it out either high or low. Whatever floats your boat.

I did this to a guy back in the early 90's. He ran an outlet mall which had literally 100's of stores in it. At one time, we did all the new stores coming in. The originally company sold out and another company took over maintenance and the things that went along with that. Signs was one of those parts. Anyway, I started not getting some of the projects, then not getting most of the projects. Learned the guy was taking my quotes to his sign guy and getting him to beat my quote by a little bit and then told the stores to go with the other guy. I had a large one coming up, so I bid it super super low and he beat my price by about $50. He lost his a$$ on that one and b!tched to me about my ethics. I told him to f*ck off. Then i went to the guy who was taking the kickback and told him I was gonna kick his a$$. Well, I didn't have to...... he got mugged a few weeks later and left for dead because of all the stupid things he was pulling. He came back after about 4 or 5 months of healing and he used me exclusively. I don't know if he thought I had it done or what, but I assured him, I wasn't behind it............. :popcorn:
 
Scotchbrite

Scotchbrite

No comment
We used to have a competitor in town that was coming up on retirement, he wanted minimal work. He would call up and ask what our service truck rate was and then add $50 to it for his own stuff.
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
I don't see anything wrong with calling around local sign people and getting pricing. I wouldn't tell them who I was so I could see "retail" price. (Had my wife or an employee call) If they knew it was a sign company, it could influence the rate we were given. Only did this about once a year so it's not like it was wasting more than 5 minutes of their time. I would have ZERO problem if they did it to me. (Maybe it would get them to raise THEIR price!) How else are you going to know what things are going for? You mean you wouldn't look at a bid?

Seems silly to me, but then again I'm pretty open with finances and don't have the taboo most people have. I will talk to people about money. Many act like talking about it is off limits but once you open up and start the topic, people don't hold back once you get into a conversation. It's literally what we deal with day in and day out yet we're not supposed to talk about it?
 
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