I'm sorry to see Tech take this to heart like this, but I totally understand where he's coming from.
I don't think John or Stacy meant anything by their posts, but I've seen so many people get kicked in the teeth for offering up some really good ideas. You might not be able to duplicate it exactly... you might have to tailor it to fit your needs, but it was a good idea.
We do it a little differently. We try to educate the customer into how they can do this and keep a sign going for years, collecting the money from the sponsors, but we don't lower our prices to near extinction. Most of our sponsors pay about what the sign costs and then the organization collects the money on it for a few more years and
THEY keep all the mullah from later sales.
I'm gonna add a little twist to this one... and probably piss some of you non-believers off some more.
About three or so weeks ago, a municipality approached us about doing signs. They told us their budget. I asked them to e-mail me a sample. It looked terrible. I fixed it up, e-mailed them back and they said, it looks wonderful, but we won't be able to afford those nice things. I said, yes you will. Let me make my offer.
They were 18" x 24" 1-sided. My cost is next to nothing to print a 4' x 8' 1-sided on the flatbed and the Cor-X is like $10. I told her, I wanted a sign.... Okay. I wanted to be in the special brochure.... Okay. I wanted to be in the website bulletin which is a nice feature.... all at no cost..... Okay. Last, I wanted her to have all of the sponsors contact us, so we could go over their information. Okay. They get the signs '
Free'.
We haven't printed them yet. We're doing it tomorrow. 19 of them. I already have four trucks out of the deal to letter and I just landed that municipality away from their current sign shop provider and they already contacted me about signs throughout the area. Earlier today, another guy called and wants job signs and a truck lettered. Best one.... a customer of the other sign shop called Friday or so and asked for a meeting about signs for their business. He's been looking around and said he will look no further.
So, this worked for us and in this situation. I'm not recommending anyone else do this, but it can work, just as Tech said and even better.
All of our other ball fields pay and they get a a discount, but these fields and complexes have paid off very well over the years. Don't knock it til ya try it. Of course, having the right equipment certainly helps. Without our flatbed, I never would've offered free, but it's getting easier.
Before someone says, you pay 250k for a machine to do things cheaper... yeah, that's really smart........ remember, I paid for my machine cash. I don't buy what I can't afford. Now I have an advantage and I use it. It's called a 'Loss Leader' and it works.
