Signs 101 Membership Qualifications

[MikePro]

Unless we see some major discounted airline tickets

+1!!! where's the s101 members discount?!? or at least allow us to cut in line @ security checks in the airport! extra cookies on the plane?

 

[andy]

What's the difference if they are members or not? Besides the premium section in which they would have to pay for like the rest of us, everything is out there for them already. You contradict yourself two statements later... what is there to be afraid of? I'm sure that if they have established themselves as a large corporation, that they didn't just jump willy-nilly into an in-house design/manufacturing division and hope it worked out for the best.

I'm quite sure your local butcher/ baker/ bicycle shop/ shoe shop/ hardware (insert any other local shop) felt the same way....

"That big supermarket won't affect me, what have I got to be scared of"?

My question to you is;

When Wal Mart with is huge resources and highly skilled and expensively equipped sign division starts to march into the market place what are you planning to do?

Large corporations love money and know their way around a profit and loss account blindfold.... if they've got an expensive, fully equipped sign manufacturing facility sitting there do you REALLY thing they won't use it? Bashing out cheap internal use product is great, it saves money. But why can't we roll this thing out into other areas where the sign department is self financing of even a big profit centre?

No one so far has stopped to consider overspill... what corporations might do with all this sign making expertise that they've acquired.

As far as my contradiction goes I feel you've missunderstood my point; lowballers and back bedroom operators have destroyed the lower end of the market, large corporations are outsourcing to low cost economies.... you lot appear to want to help them knock over the only bit left... the jobs in the middle, the ones which require more quality than Joe low baller and less volume than an overseas production run. I see no contradiction in this line of questioning.

 

[tooth63]

I don't post much, just when I feel I can help or add something to the conversation. I have been on both sides of the industry. I started my own shop in 96 and later went to work for a Coors & Miller distributor for about 6 years in there sign shop as the manager. That is where I learned the large format side of the business. I left about 3 years ago after my bout with cancer and started on my own at home. Anyway I don't see a problem with letting them join. Most of the stuff we did needed a very quick turn around and things that couldn't be done in house was subbed out to me. Now one of my biggest clients is an Import beer & liquor distributor that dosent have an in house graphic department. While we do a lot of the same things they will still need our services from time to time.
Sorry for the long reply, ((oops still doing it!

 

[charissabuskirk]

the jobs in the middle

I'm quite positive that if they wanted to, with the knowledge here or not, that they will. I don't think a membership to S101 is going to make the difference. I understand your point, but I do not agree with you. The competition is going to be there, if not now, eventually no matter how hard you try to stop it... it's part of the evolution of business.

 

[GraphixUnlimited]

After much thought I am against them for the sole reason below...

We were quoting on a rather large job for us of 3 full wraps for a high profile energy drink... we figured we had it in the bag as our pricing was solid, we were using the best material and we dialed in the timelines to their specs.

Then a call comes in.. a company that was doing some shipping.. SHIPPING... for them said they have a printer that they use to wrap all their own vehicles. The shipping.. SHIPPING... company then quoted the job for them as well and came in at a little over half our price. We could not and would not do the job for beer money and as such lost the job.

Funny part about the whole thing is that the wraps they did SUCKED and were falling off in weeks. The drink company is not happy at all and has since called us again. We re staying true to our pricing but the point is the same.

I am a big NO for corporate in house sign shops. Just my 2 cents.

Cheers eh!

 

[Speedsterbeast]

I've not been here very long, but when I started part time a few years back I has some very important questions answered. Now I as I learn I am able to contribute back to the pool of information here, although it is still very limited compared to most. I think that, like me, people representing large companies will have to start giving back, otherwise they will stop being helped pretty quickly.
Remember, you (uhm, we) all are a very fickle group and seem to be good at weeding out the bad.
So my vote is let them in and see where it goes.

Maybe one day I'll even get to ID a font!

 

[andy]

I'm quite positive that if they wanted to, with the knowledge here or not, that they will. I don't think a membership to S101 is going to make the difference. I understand your point, but I do not agree with you. The competition is going to be there, if not now, eventually no matter how hard you try to stop it... it's part of the evolution of business.

Competition will always be there and it's always going to be a battle to survive. In a real battle you don't lend the enemy your ammunition, you don't train them how to shoot at you with a greater degree of accuracy.

Perhaps I'm anally retentive but I have a habit of giving each new skill a notional value. To my way of thinking everything one has learned in this industry has cost money at some stage; the two weeks it took to figure out how to repair the broken printer, the $400 spent on perfecting a new machining or finishing technique.

If you are competing against me and your printer breaks would I send you £1000 in cash? If your machining techniques needed improvement or your new finishing process wasn't working should I send you another £400 or would it be better for me to drive over and show you how to do it?

The point here is the value of knowledge, the financial cost of acquiring skills. Large corporations have lots of money, why should we provide R&D reporting at zero cost? Why do we need to give much wealthier competition an evolutionary boost?

 

[TyrantDesigner]

a lot of the large companies that have internal sign departments, are hiring "professional" sign people to work in those departments, i would rather see those people here instead of the ones that just bought a chinese plotter on ebay and need someone to hold their hand as they look for the power button and then ask what is a yard sign made of...

+1 to that.

Doesn't matter to me one way or the other ... there are not a lot of opportunites to poach work from this board ... possibly bad for merch members ... but not really ... as an internal department they probably won't affect a thing on the board negatively and possibly offer some form of help in the future.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

No one so far has stopped to consider overspill... what corporations might do with all this sign making expertise that they've acquired.

Seriously? If they have an internal department ... they already have the expertise.

 

[Rodi]

Are they sign professionals? Let them in.

Anyone who is against them really needs to think, how large is too large to be allowed in to signs101? How big is too big? If your biggest client is a beer distributor and you don't get more clients, is it their fault you relied on them for the source of your income?

 

[Sign_Boy]

Let them in....a major airline might help SignManiac get the coroplane off the ground.

If they are sign professionals let them in.
They may have something to offer.

The way I see it, as much as we all tend to bicker back and forth at times this place is like a family a dysfunctional family but a family none the less.
So if they don't have anything to offer or start to cause any problems they'll either be run off or banned it's that simple.

Not to mention they may be able to help T3 with airline tickets next year

 

[petepaz]

Are they sign professionals? Let them in.

Anyone who is against them really needs to think, how large is too large to be allowed in to signs101? How big is too big? If your biggest client is a beer distributor and you don't get more clients, is it their fault you relied on them for the source of your income?

i have seen a couple of people who have their business and get that pot of gold customer at the end of the rainbow and they just focus on that customer either by going to work for them and them only or just by slowly weeding out their other customers and staying in their present shop but when that comes to an end so does your pot of gold. if a big airline company or beer distributor open a sign /graphics division to handle their marketing they are not going to also open a public sign shop on the runway of the airport or put sign franchises in the liquor stores so they are not really a competitor
wether they help us or not would have to be seen but i don't think it will hurt

 

[Rodi]

After much thought I am against them for the sole reason below...

We were quoting on a rather large job for us of 3 full wraps for a high profile energy drink... we figured we had it in the bag as our pricing was solid, we were using the best material and we dialed in the timelines to their specs.

Then a call comes in.. a company that was doing some shipping.. SHIPPING... for them said they have a printer that they use to wrap all their own vehicles. The shipping.. SHIPPING... company then quoted the job for them as well and came in at a little over half our price. We could not and would not do the job for beer money and as such lost the job.

Funny part about the whole thing is that the wraps they did SUCKED and were falling off in weeks. The drink company is not happy at all and has since called us again. We re staying true to our pricing but the point is the same.

I am a big NO for corporate in house sign shops. Just my 2 cents.

Cheers eh!

This kind of bothers me. What if it was a cheap ass low balling in his garage competitor? Should he not be allowed in to signs 101? Is there no room for them to learn about how to make higher net profits by higher pricing structures?

The whole corporation/anti-corporation thing is kind of laughable. You may on one hand lament corporations, yet you drive one (yes even a fiat.) Your printer could be made by a very large corporation. You get your utilities from huge conglomerates. You have to face it, you cannot sustain your lifestyle on your own, and corporations play a part (so do individuals) of that. If you take any over the counter or prescription medicine, you catch my drift?

A huge plus about corporations is that they can actually make things better for individuals and small business. It could be R&D that shows a vendor where a mistake in the production process happens, and everyone benefits. Look at computer code (C) was from a huge corporation, bell labs. If you code you owe them thanks, all these years later.

 

[Mainframe]

They shouldn't come in, they buy sign making equipment to make their own signs so they don't have to pay mark up the sign shop charges, PERIOD!, then they want to join our forum so we can help them out of a jam & prevent them from getting into a jam, i say this is not fair to the small guy who takes a HUGH risk setting up a small business & making it work. Letting them in would be no different than letting in the beer distributers. This is my opinion, if they are let in, they should have be be identified in there log in name -ie Blank airlines, so everyone would know who they are.

Then anyone who doesn't like them being here can just avoid posts from them.

 

[Rodi]

So Mainframe, are these big businesses really stealing your clients? To me they make a decision as to whether or not certain undertakings are good for their bottom line. I knew this woman who ordered signs for a huge insurance company. I was excited to meet her (same church) and guess what? All she did was order signs, no other interest in them.

Where do you draw the line? I mean when will Merrit be to big to be in signs 101? Or D&T? Or any merchant member? Poor Gino, we'll have to kick him out . he's gotten too large to be considered a responsible member of signs 101 as he has probably taken some small sign shops profit away.

 

[Rodi]

To my mind, it is not the well thought out large corporation that is going to kill you, it is the smaller competitors that ding you to death.

 

[Mainframe]

Rodi, both of your posts make no sense to me, Gino & Merit are sign retailers, I would imagine they both would love to be the main supplier of an airline, (& you bet your a$$ they both could handle it!) so what does there size have anything to do with a company that should be buying from them??? After all isn't that the capitalistic way? Get bigger and make more money? I have never heard of a sign maker turning down work because he was afraid of being kicked off of Signs 101. Bottom line is a company doesn't want to pay a professional sign shop to make signs they need, they would rather buy a sign machine and do it themselves, and by the way could the nice guys at 101 train us and help us along the way in case we get stuck? Nice.....

 

[CentralSigns]

Charge them a higher "Corporate Rate". That way they are funding this site at a level equal to us smaller sign shops(one based on how huge they are or gross). That will help this site remain and grow.

 

[Flame]

Bottom line is a company doesn't want to pay a professional sign shop to make signs they need, they would rather buy a sign machine and do it themselves, and by the way could the nice guys at 101 train us and help us along the way in case we get stuck? Nice.....

To a degree.... I can say I've seen in house sign shops that are a joke. But, I'l bet you an airline company can afford to setup a nicer sign shop than most of us could dream of ever owning, and stock it with well paid professional designers, just to meet their last minute odds and ends needs. Not usually a fan of "in house" sign shops, but I can see them having their place I suppose and wouldn't snub my nose at a friend who worked in one.

 

[jasonx]

I say let them in. Being so large that they can afford in have an in house sign department offer a corporate membership for the site.

It creates a win win situation. They support the community financially and they can benefit from the knowledge already present here.

It shows they are trying to be apart of the community and not just undercut and trying to make savings doing it themselves.