What's your New Years Business Resolutions?

[Techman]

get more work for my cnc router.
Sell high end stuff.
sell the last spare vinyl cutter.
increase my income by 30%
learn to build better and faster 3D dimensional art work.
attend jamie oxenham's 3D sign camp this June to study building 3D dimensional props, sets, and other visual marketing displays.

http://www.oxenhamdesign.com/

 

[BobM]

Less computer, more paper and paint.

 

[Sign Up Graphics]

Sign Up Graphics

More time with my family.
Get money up front.

Happy New Year to all signs101

 

["Deposit Please"]

...my New Year's Resolution pertaining to business..Hmmm....well, I will try to contribute more than I did last year here in signs101..

 

[Charlie J]

I'm working on creating a Product/Pricing Guide and trying to implement it.

I'm going to set a shop minimum and stick to it.

And I'm going to get a deposit before I start any job.

 

[Farmboy]

No more trying to be everything to everyone. Very draining and hard for me to get out of as I like to try and help people as much as I can, but it takes it's toll. So the word No will be coming out of our mouths a lot more. Much more focus on only a handful of things that we offer. I want us to be the best at what we do, be it screen printed signs and shirts to anything we do on our 30" Versa. No more new equipment. Gonna get awesome on what we have. Prices are going up. We were busy as hell this last year. I've been messing with process printing on shirts and it's rekindled my passion for printing.

 

[Dan Antonelli]

Nothing to really elaborate. I just changed the way I sell to walk in customers. For 20 years if somebody wanted a yard sign the first thing they got shown was coro on a wire stake. Now I start with aluminum and a banjo frame. Business signs I'm starting with dimensional and working down as well. So far about 30% (top of my head guess) of the customers are going with the higher priced (higher profit) signs.

That's good Pat. The more your perceived to be the same as all the other shops, the more the consumer wants to make your service a commodity, from which to compare to all the other shops. Offer them something no one else has (and to do so, you focus on that type of work) - and then name your price.

People wonder why they can't good dollars for their work when they produce the same thing as everyone else. No real mystery there when you're selling a commodity. But it's not just producing something they can't get somewhere else, it's marketing it as such. They go hand in hand.

I've seen your design work, Pat. You can easily turn the corner. Less clients spending more. Win-win.

 

[S'N'S]

Work as little as possible and charge heaps doing it.