Sticking to your guns

[Sidney]

One of the best pieces of advice I can give to a business owner or designer is "Stick to your guns". There's a lot of competition out there, but you have to keep your design charges firm. I have been in the industry for over 24 years and honestly respect the approach of others but , watch your value. When it comes to vehicle wraps most know how much work it takes...everything from meeting customer, to design prelim, approval, print, preparation, application and then customer review.
I have always charged $350.00 Non refundable design deposit and that gives the customer 2 renditions with 2 modifications and after that it is $75.00 per hour(I do suggest they come in during that time if not they have to trust my staff and I are being honest). Vehicle Wraps are very expensive for Sign Business owners to produce and the last thing you want to do is make $500 after all that work.
I look forward to your input and approach.

 

[visual800]

I would say its location. Where I live there is not much work, not many clients to choose from. This town has changed demographics and it sucks. Therefore if and when a job comes round we do not charge for art nor have we ever. I do not know 1 single company in this town that charges for art.

Doing layouts used to be what sold our products but now, hell no one cares about that anymore. There is no cool sign jobs left in this town.

 

[Hero Signs]

Everyone is doing all the same work ? What makes you different from the competition?

For us we have 2 legitimate companies in town, 3 others that are struggling because they don't have the full mix of talent and business acumen and then 4 doing vinyl out of the garage. I have 2 bucket trucks so we stay damn busy and do larger installs. Provide more services than the other guy and be their trusted adviser.

We have been sticking to site surveys being paid and artwork and we have no lack of work and I have 4 FT and 1 PT and myself , and I design to fabricate to install and pay the bills.

Stand tall

 

[Sidney]

Yes, it can be challenging for some businesses to establish a real footprint for various reasons. I believe no matter where your location is, you have to establish levels. In other words some customers get the "drag and drop art" etc, but the truly "custom art" customer knows the expectations. They know the non-refundable design deposit, additional charges, higher quality product cost etc. I have had customers in the past(a long time ago) try to say " make me a design and I'll let you know". My response is I can spend several hours on your job and several hours on other customers....I can't work for free. If they tell me the guy down the road designs for free, I say "thank you,but I can't do that" and let them know they can expect quality, years of experience, a strong reputation and follow through.
Art & Design work is valuable, don't give it away....