Gino
Premium Subscriber
About a month or so ago, we quoted a sign and after some back & forth details were figured out.... were awarded the job. The guy had a quote of about 1/3 of ours and I had told him to go that route, as there was nothing I could do with the numbers he said came from the other guy. Like I said, I eventually talked him into our product and got a 50% deposit. The sign he was replacing belonged to another company that had been in the building before him. They left and never took their sign with. However, it was old, beat up and not worth fixing in my opinion. The other quote was gonna just spray paint over the old stuff and re-use it again. It was also 3/4" PVC. So, when the guy was in our shop, I told him I would recommend 6mm aluminium composite for his sign and gave him all the reasons why. He eventually said, well, if you think it's that much better, let's go with it. I showed him samples, too. We figured the colors and then it became an actual job.
About 3 weeks later, we called him and told him we'd be over to instal it and to have the balance ready when we finished. No problem.
We removed the old sign and put the new one up in it's place. Two of his employees came out and oohed and ahhhed over it, his wife fell in love with it and he liked it. Then he went over to it and said, why is this so thin ?? I thought it was gonna be on the pvc stuff around 3/4" ?? No, don't you remember, we discussed this and you finally agreed and said the aluminum composite did sound like a better option ?? No, I don't. Well, you did, but if you want the pvc, we'll do it.
Now, the sign is 3' x 5.5' 2 sided. The existing posts needed no work and we just exchanged old for new. Installation time was about 20 minutes, if that.
So, rather than call a guy a liar, I just got a piece of 3/4", re-cut the vinyl and lost about maybe $125.00 in materials cost and this particular sign, I laid the vinyl down, so no outta pocket cost there. We quoted around $2,650.00 + tx for the original sign, so we lost maybe a total of $ 175.00, had to add about $130.00 for the new substrate and $25.00 for vinyl, but we still have a happy customer and a sign which will need replacing much sooner than the other one.
People here, many times ask why we charge more or how can we get away with charging the amounts we do....... it's times like this that getting your price pays off and that little sh!t factor on every single job helps thwart off upset customers.
Gino
About 3 weeks later, we called him and told him we'd be over to instal it and to have the balance ready when we finished. No problem.
We removed the old sign and put the new one up in it's place. Two of his employees came out and oohed and ahhhed over it, his wife fell in love with it and he liked it. Then he went over to it and said, why is this so thin ?? I thought it was gonna be on the pvc stuff around 3/4" ?? No, don't you remember, we discussed this and you finally agreed and said the aluminum composite did sound like a better option ?? No, I don't. Well, you did, but if you want the pvc, we'll do it.
Now, the sign is 3' x 5.5' 2 sided. The existing posts needed no work and we just exchanged old for new. Installation time was about 20 minutes, if that.
So, rather than call a guy a liar, I just got a piece of 3/4", re-cut the vinyl and lost about maybe $125.00 in materials cost and this particular sign, I laid the vinyl down, so no outta pocket cost there. We quoted around $2,650.00 + tx for the original sign, so we lost maybe a total of $ 175.00, had to add about $130.00 for the new substrate and $25.00 for vinyl, but we still have a happy customer and a sign which will need replacing much sooner than the other one.
People here, many times ask why we charge more or how can we get away with charging the amounts we do....... it's times like this that getting your price pays off and that little sh!t factor on every single job helps thwart off upset customers.
Gino
. A few years ago we got hit with multiple, major, act of God, whammies all within 8 months of each other. We had major vehicle breakdowns, completely lost two solvent printers & had the insurance company screw us, had serious employees issues... it was horrible. If we had not stayed the course on our sales / financial policies we would have bit it big time. I firmly believe it would have killed most small shops but we were able to weather the storm and pull through. Squeaking by on thin margins, allowing too much debt, approving payment terms, not staying on top of cash-flow will catch up with you eventually.
