Why aren't there sign design contests for normal signs?

[TimToad]

and its BS. NOTHING BUT LIES. when it comes tontelling others what you charge theres nontruth

Please, don't beat around the bush on how you feel about it.

I was trying to be diplomatic about my critique in case some of the folks who have participated are members here. I really do hope most can get the kind of money they submit in those surveys, and it has nothing to do with my not having confidence or not believing in our product and services, but the real sign world is usually a notch or two down in pricing than the best case scenarios presented in those surveys.

 

[Rick]

Being in this business for a while, and having worked at various types of shops... most of my sign shop design work was done at an extremely fast pace. But the higher I moved up the food chain, the slower the pace got. Most banner jobs were done in 10-15 minutes when I was a production monkey... but as time went on, I have spent a few hours on a banner, and got paid for it. It's not typical Signcraft type work.

I think MOST shops do not have the ability to get that 50k job. If you've been in the business long enough, you should know where to get the big jobs... though most of it will not be digital print and vinyl and the 1-3 person shop may not be able to handle the work load involved with it.

 

[Marlene]

While I enjoy that feature every month and have for over 30 years, the average pricing on most of the submittals makes me wonder if it isn't just a lot of very wishful thinking to try and command the dollars I see published. If folks are consistently getting it, more power to them, but after working in four different markets over a span of 35 years, myself and those I've worked with have consistently shaken our heads over the "hit the lottery" pricing we see every month.

Again, for the folks that will argue the point, if folks are getting it, more power to them.

I can see people being motivated to try and push the industry itself forward on pricing and I'm very supportive of that, but like the example in the latest issue, is a double sided 4'x8' ACM sign on posts with a basic set of 14' posts and two holes dug really worth $1,500+ all over the country including in the little hamlets or towns where it seems many of the respondents usually hail from?

We typically can only get around $10.00 per square foot for a 4'x8' on ACM or DiBond and we're in expensive California with only a little peer to peer competition. That being said, the minute we try to inch the prices up closer to what the work is probably is really worth like $12.50 per square foot, we consistently lose the jobs to others.

So for two of those we're talking $650-700 plus the posts, travel time and install labor. Even with an hour's to an from drive time and a generous two hours to install at $100 per hour, there's $300 =/-

Now we're up to $1,000 give or take. A couple of 14' posts and some stingers to make a frame from don't cost $500 or more to procure and assemble unless you are adding some real character to them or advanced woodworking treatment.

$1,500 for a 4' x 8' sign with 14' posts sounds about right. you only get $320 for a 4' x 8'? you are doing something wrong as that is cheap

 

[TimToad]

$1,500 for a 4' x 8' sign with 14' posts sounds about right. you only get $320 for a 4' x 8'? you are doing something wrong as that is cheap

That's $320 just for a single sided, ACM/DiBond direct print panel. The second side is charged at 75% of the first side and added on and the posts, hardware, install, travel time, extra design time, etc. are all extra.

If you have a suggestion for how one bucks a long running local pricing structure, a couple of equally visible competitors who will gladly cut their own throats to wrestle a job or account away from the competition ( especially the new guy in town ), a large contingent of "home garage" based competition, a prevailing customer base who like in most places can't or won't see differences in quality, design superiority, service, etc. and only focus on price, etc. I'M ALL EARS.

When one throws out quotes and estimates long enough and keeps testing the waters and sees that the majority of customers go elsewhere if you try to command a higher price, what are you supposed to do, hold a pricing summit with the competition? Signmakers are one of the few skilled trades that has any level of camaraderie and interaction, but its mostly on the creative end, not the financial end. Folks will gather to talk about pinstriping garbage cans, but financial matters are left to the individual to sort out. I've worked in four different states and markets and have never worked anywhere where that wasn't the case.

I'm not trying to come off like a whiner as these are issues many of us contend with on a daily basis and I've dealt with everywhere I've worked. These issues are discussed regularly on this board and others.

We have a very nice, well established and profitable business. In just 1.5 years since taking over, we are steering the clientele more to our philosophy of higher quality, better durability in both design and fabrication, better service, etc.

 

[Marlene]

That's $320 just for a single sided, ACM/DiBond direct print panel. The second side is charged at 75% of the first side and added on and the posts, hardware, install, travel time, extra design time, etc. are all extra.

If you have a suggestion for how one bucks a long running local pricing structure, a couple of equally visible competitors who will gladly cut their own throats to wrestle a job or account away from the competition ( especially the new guy in town ), a large contingent of "home garage" based competition, a prevailing customer base who like in most places can't or won't see differences in quality, design superiority, service, etc. and only focus on price, etc. I'M ALL EARS.

When one throws out quotes and estimates long enough and keeps testing the waters and sees that the majority of customers go elsewhere if you try to command a higher price, what are you supposed to do, hold a pricing summit with the competition? Signmakers are one of the few skilled trades that has any level of camaraderie and interaction, but its mostly on the creative end, not the financial end. Folks will gather to talk about pinstriping garbage cans, but financial matters are left to the individual to sort out. I've worked in four different states and markets and have never worked anywhere where that wasn't the case.

I'm not trying to come off like a whiner as these are issues many of us contend with on a daily basis and I've dealt with everywhere I've worked. These issues are discussed regularly on this board and others.

We have a very nice, well established and profitable business. In just 1.5 years since taking over, we are steering the clientele more to our philosophy of higher quality, better durability in both design and fabrication, better service, etc.

you bring up some really good points. people will gather to talk about pinstriping a garbage can but there doesn't seem to be a group that will gather to discuss the financial end of it. we too have had to deal with the home garage based sign shops and all the rest. seems like no matter where you live, it is the same. our market is small. our state only has 660,000 people so if you remove the numbers for men, women and children who are not a potential customer the number of potential customers drops to a really low number. at one time there were 26 sign shops in our area plus the out-of-state companies that come in. that doesn't leave much of a share of those few customers. what we have done over the years is let the hacks kill their own business as they usually do. their products are sub standard and they can't maintain the cut throat pricing. the thing we do and do best is customer service. you come here and you know your best interests will be considered and it isn't a policy it just is how we roll so it is real, not used car sales level fakey. the other thing we do is use the best products and do our best to put out something that will last, do the job and it may cost a little more but the value of paying more is explained to the customer. we don't use pressure treated, we use kilm dried cedar for our posts and they are spray painted, not brush painted. that is just one example. our posts look fresh and new years after they have been installed. they aren't twisted and warped like a lot of pressure treated. the paint doesn't peel as it is thin layers, not thick. we are lucky to have been in business so long that we have signs out there that are really old. there is a lighted sign cabinet sign on a main road that I designed and we made back in the late 1980's. it was long ago when I had to use projector to make a pounce patterns so I cold make the spray masks. we had our own spray booth back then. the sign still looks great and still is working just fine.

 

[SignManiac]

Excuses, excuses... I have competition in this hillbilly town, and do not sell the cheap work that they sell. I refuse to compete on price. My price is my price and I don't care if they walk out the door. They're just doing me a favor by not wasting my time. Took years, but every business in this town knows Skywatch is expensive compared to everyone else. I sell high end signs out from underneath them when the competition asks for 1/3 the price I sell for. They can't figure out how I continuously do this and I'm not going to teach them.

This example was put up two weeks ago..

5x10 Single face 3mm ACM on a 2"x2" aluminum frame for easy attachment to the post from the old POS sign ours replaced. And simple boxed in header panel so they could put their own lights in at their expense. Sign is one mile from shop. Install took 30 minutes and the boys were back in the shop in about an hour.

So when I quote a price, I'm not making it up from wishful thinking. I've pretty much given up beating the same dead horse here that I've been seeing for the past ten years that I've participated here. You can lead a horse to water, but thats about it.

 

[Marlene]

Excuses, excuses... I have competition in this hillbilly town, and do not sell the cheap work that they sell. I refuse to compete on price. My price is my price and I don't care if they walk out the door. They're just doing me a favor by not wasting my time. Took years, but every business in this town knows Skywatch is expensive compared to everyone else. I sell high end signs out from underneath them when the competition asks for 1/3 the price I sell for. They can't figure out how I continuously do this and I'm not going to teach them.

This example was put up two weeks ago..

5x10 Single face 3mm ACM on a 2"x2" aluminum frame for easy attachment to the post from the old POS sign ours replaced. And simple boxed in header panel so they could put their own lights in at their expense. Sign is one mile from shop. Install took 30 minutes and the boys were back in the shop in about an hour.

So when I quote a price, I'm not making it up from wishful thinking. I've pretty much given up beating the same dead horse here that I've been seeing for the past ten years that I've participated here. You can lead a horse to water, but thats about it.

just what I was talkign about. not being the cheapest in town and not price matching is the way to go. put out a good product that has value and let the others do whatever it is they do as it isn't soemthing that can be compared. those who do walk away and go somewhere else are only thinking of price and are the ones that you are better off not working with as they also tend to be the biggest pains

 

[Rick]

Excuses, excuses... I have competition in this hillbilly town, and do not sell the cheap work that they sell. I refuse to compete on price. My price is my price and I don't care if they walk out the door. They're just doing me a favor by not wasting my time. Took years, but every business in this town knows Skywatch is expensive compared to everyone else. I sell high end signs out from underneath them when the competition asks for 1/3 the price I sell for. They can't figure out how I continuously do this and I'm not going to teach them.

This example was put up two weeks ago..

5x10 Single face 3mm ACM on a 2"x2" aluminum frame for easy attachment to the post from the old POS sign ours replaced. And simple boxed in header panel so they could put their own lights in at their expense. Sign is one mile from shop. Install took 30 minutes and the boys were back in the shop in about an hour.

So when I quote a price, I'm not making it up from wishful thinking. I've pretty much given up beating the same dead horse here that I've been seeing for the past ten years that I've participated here. You can lead a horse to water, but thats about it.

I agree with Bob and he's been saying it for years...

You CAN NOT price what your competitors charge, you MUST price to be profitable. Anyone can make a post and panel sign, it's a commodity item, then there are clients who think that everything we is is a commodity. You need to find clients that believe the work is unique, that can't be found anywhere else, and that give the work added value... but in the end IOAFS, and we have to make a money

Someone will always be cheaper... ALWAYS... and the low ball competition will always be there.

A lot of us have been doing this for a very long time and occasionally we get in this discussion of pricing.

Being a consultant for a few sign shops I find that people with 25 years of experience actually only have 5 and repeated it 5 times. That knowledge we have can be bad for us. When it comes to pricing, you either get a faster system, work faster, and/or price for profitability

 

[Pat Whatley]

Being a consultant for a few sign shops I find that people with 25 years of experience actually only have 5 and repeated it 5 times.

That is actually a brilliant observation.