The thumbnail version:

• Canadian sign industry shows and expos are happening again

The full version:

Sign Expo Canada hosted by the Sign Association of Canada is scheduled for September 23rd and 24th in Mississauga.

SAC promises that this year’s show will feature cutting-edge products and services. The industry-specific sessions on the show floor Learning Hub and other attractions and events all return too.

The organizers feel that there is a pent-up demand in the industry for an opportunity to get together in person once again and catch up on what’s new and exciting. They may be right.

Make your travel plans now.

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• Recognition is a powerful motivator
• There are many ways of recognizing and rewarding employees

The full version:

Bob Nelson’s book, 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, was first published 28 years ago. And except for the obviously dated ideas such as rewarding an employee with a tape deck for their car, it has many timeless ideas still suitable for today’s business environment.

Recognition is a powerful motivator. It demonstrates appreciation; everybody likes to feel appreciated. It boosts morale. It can help maintain a stable workforce.

So here are some ideas for employee recognition worth revisiting:

• Paid day off.
• Magazine subscription
• Birthday card and cake
• Tickets to an event
• Recognition lunch
• Post about the employee on social media
• Round of golf
• Home computer
• Gift certificate
• Also, a long list of other things you could dream up if you tried.

Not only is this an all-round, feel-good thing to do, but it’s a small price to pay for employee retention; it makes business sense.

The thumbnail version:

• Roland offers business ideas for your shop
• They pair equipment with the each idea

The full version:

Roland recently published a bog post in which they offered five business ideas you could incorporate into your shop. The article suggested that these five ideas are good for an online business but of course it could apply to a brick and mortar shop as well, especially one in tourist destination.

What’s interesting and quite creative about this list is that it pairs Roland equipment with each idea in a way that some restaurant menus pair dishes with wines . . .

1. Custom apparel paired with Roland’s desktop DTG printer
2. Personalized gifts paired with Roland’s benchtop UV printer, their DTG printer, or their desktop rotary engraver.
3. Personalized jewelry paired with Roland’s desktop rotary engraver or a their photo impact printer.
4. Customized home décor paired with the Roland desktop DTG printer, desktop vinyl cutter, desktop printer/cutter, or a benchtop UV printer.
5. Stickers and decals paired with a compact, full-colour desktop printer/cutter.

There you have it. A “menu” of ideas conveniently paired with the equipment you’ll need.

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• Popular advice for small businesses is to design a catchy logo
• Logos confer professionalism and legitimacy
• Small business logo priorities and big business logo priorities are different

The full version:

Here is a topic with advice that should not only be of interest to you, but that you may want to convey to a customer looking for design and sign printing services.

We’ve been here before but another visit to this topic is prompted by a recent article (this time by Shopify) on launching a new business. The writer emphasized a well-designed logo. This is good advice but the reason behind it is a bit misguided and can lead to an ineffective design.

The problem lies in telling small businesses that “a great logo is essential” because it will “trigger brand recognition.” What’s happening here is a failure to make a distinction between big business and small business—the logo needs are completely different.

For most small businesses the need for a “great” logo has nothing to do with “brand recognition.” Let’s not kid ourselves that the buying public will ever recognize our logos the way they do for, say, Nike, Coke, McDonalds, and Mercedes. For us, the benefit of a “great” logo is that it confers an air of legitimacy, speaks to our professionalism, gives the appearance of a serious contender, and tells a passer-by what we offer.

So what should our prime considerations be when designing a logo for our small business? As suggested above, a good, clean, professional design and, importantly, also tell what our business does. This is why I favour word logos instead of obscure graphic designs that say nothing (remember, something like the Nike swoosh will be meaningless for your small business).

A logo has an important job to do promoting a small business as a professional, legitimate, producer of something a customer needs. “Brand recognition” in the Nike sense is not a priority. Design for yourself and your customers with this in mind.

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• Signmedia.ca invites you to “Grab your pass”

The full version:

Now is a good time to plan ahead to attend Printing United in Vegas on the 19th to the 21st of October. The show covers all printing segments and all printing technology. Over 600 exhibitors are expected to be there.

Signmedia encourages you to “Seize the opportunity to experience global product launches, explore the latest trends, and forge new partnerships with a global audience.”

The thumbnail version:

• The shipping process is an opportunity to impress
• Customers generally have unrealistic shipping expectations, but that’s your problem, not theirs.

The full version:

I recently received a delivery from a fairly big online business. I was surprised at the shabby appearance of the parcel. It arrived partially opened because the box was made of a very thin cardboard and had not been taped up properly. I’m not going to name the company because my legal budget is a lot smaller than theirs.

To ensure that your shop makes a favourable impression with its deliveries, everyone in the shop must understand how important impressive parcels are to your shop’s image. And they must understand how that image is an important aspect of generating return business.

So preparing your delivery packages according to a clear and well-communicated standard should be the norm. That said, we can’t all go to the extent required to match, say, Apple’s legendary packaging, but we can make an effort to pack effectively, in a box that gives a good impression, and perhaps toss in a surprise such as a bag of cookies, candy, or even a chocolate bar. You’d be surprised how inexpensive it is to make a favourable impression.

And why should you do all this? Because if you don’t, your competitors will get the sign order next time.

The thumbnail version:

• A marketing strategy is the overall approach to attracting customers
• A marketing funnel is the step-by-step map of the customer’s interaction with your shop

The full version:

Your shop needs a cohesive marketing strategy. Without it you’ll be like a sailor without a compass and no idea where you’re heading or where you’ll end up. You may get lucky, but then again, you may not. It’s better to plot a course that you can change and control as circumstances change than it is to drift aimlessly.

A marketing funnel kicks in once someone has responded to your marketing and is now a potential customer. It maps out the steps the potential customer is guided through in turning them into a customer. There are four parts to the funnel. The first contains the the new people who don’t know much about your shop yet. The second part contains the people who are seriously considering doing business with you. The third part contains the people who have made a purchase and become customers. And the fourth and final part of the funnel is the loyalty part which contains the customers you work to retain.

So, in short, the overarching marketing strategy gets them to top of the marketing funnel and then you move them down the funnel through the four stages. Two complimentary but different concepts, each with its own purpose.

The thumbnail version:

• These metrics must be checked regularly
• But first you must know what they are

The full version:

Don’t you hate acronyms, especially when a writer assumes that you know what they are? Me too. But at least they got your attention . . .

So CAC is “Customer Acquisition Cost” and CLV is “Customer Lifetime Value.”  Both are important metrics but also somewhat nebulous and difficult to calculate. If you advertise to grow your business you should at least be aware of what they are and make an effort to calculate them, even if it’s rough and approximate.

Let’s take a simple example . . . You spend $100 on an advertisement. If it gains you 10 new customers, your CAC for those 10 customers is $10 each. Now, that could be a good or a bad number, depending upon what the CLV turns out to be.

So the CLV is the return (profit) you gain (or are likely to gain, if you can project somewhat reliably) from a customer over the lifetime of the relationship with that customer. By now you can see where this is going. If the customer only buys from you once because you’re unable to retain them for some reason and you make, say, $5 from the transaction, then clearly it’s not a winning proposition. Your CAC exceeds your CLV. You’ve spent $10 to make $5.

On the other hand, if you can retain the customer and they do, say, another twenty similar transactions from which you gain $100, then your CLV exceeds your CAC ten-fold. And that’s good. You’ve spent $10 to make $100.

Try to avoid advertising blindly hoping something worthwhile will come of it. Know your CACs and CLVs.

The thumbnail version:

• Sometimes there’s interesting competitive information hidden in articles
• This information can be useful to know and can potentially be used in your own business

The full version:

The June edition of Sign Media Canada includes an article about signage made for a new pet store in Brantford. While I was reading the article it occurred to me that this type of article was interesting for the insight it offered on how the sign shop in question conducts its business.

I sometimes wonder if the publicity a shop gains from a detailed article about its operations and business practices is worth the risk of spilling the beans for the competition to see. After all, this article is in a publication for its competitors rather than potential customers.

The short article had a number of bits of information I could put into five categories: (1) stuff to tell customers; (2)  client relations; (3) marketing; (4) sub-contracting; and (5) material costs.

1. Stuff to tell customers:
   • ” . . . we try to to stress to our customers the importance of having legible signage in a readable font and to keep it fresh and well-maintained.”
   • “Nothing is worse than a sign in disrepair.”
   • “Maintenance of  signage should be in every business’s expenses.”
   • “After all, it’s the first impression you make prior to someone walking through the door.”
2. Client relations:
   • “They are generally impressed with our turnaround in getting them layouts and communication of the project details.”
   • “The customer was ecstatic with how quick we were able to get the items produced with the overall quality of the work . . .”
3. Marketing:
   • “They reached out to us after seeing our social media marketing.”
   • “Most of our clientele are new customers who have seen our work online and requested quotes.”
4. Sub-contracting:
   • “. . . the scope of work was a fascia sign, window perforated vinyl decals, and frosted window vinyl, as well as some printed materials, including business cards, mailers, handouts, and coupons.”
   • “The digital prints were subcontracted, but the vinyl was installed in-house.”
5.  Material costs:
   • “The only issues we are running into is the cost of materials.”
   • “Unfortunately, these new costs have to be absorbed into production, which lowers margins on the project, or have to be pushed onto the client . . .”

So, there you have it, some insight into the operating and business practices of a competitor. For free. No James Bond required.

The thumbnail version:

• Profitability starts with margins
• Margins have to be constantly monitored

The full version:

You don’t have to be an accountant to know that profitability starts with margins. Margin in this case meaning “gross profit margin” which is the amount by which the selling price of the product exceeds the cost (all costs) to produce it. You need this margin because without it you won’t be able to pay overheads such as rent and administration expenses. This might be a slight over-simplification, but it makes the point that you must mark up your product with sufficient margin to run a profitable business.

BDC recently put out another excellent document for small business in which they briefly discussed 5 profit margin killers that they say must be eliminated. Obviously you should do more reading and research on these items if you are to fully understand the essential details about margins, but in the meantime, here they are:

1. Pricing that doesn’t reflect true costs.
2. Holding onto unprofitable products.
3. failing to manage customer relationships.
4. Allowing direct and overhead costs to grow uncontrolled.
5. failing to use technology.

This is an important topic fundamental to running a profitable business. It’s well worth spending the time to come to grips with it.

The thumbnail version:

• It’s encouraging to see what people produce with the same equipment you have

The full version:

In case you didn’t know, NASCAR teams have their own graphics centers. One in particular, The Richard Childress Racing team’s graphic center is in Welcome, North Carolina and  is equipped with Roland DG TrueVIS wide-format printer-cutters.

According to the RCR Graphics Center manager, quoted in Sign Media, “The vivid colour, exceptional detail, and outstanding productivity we get from our TrueVIS inkjets allows us to produce wraps that exceed expectations of our sponsors, year after year.”

Given the degree of scrutiny NASCAR cars get from millions of fans, live and on TV, one can understand why quality wraps are so important. And they are produced for every race.

So, with your Roland printer-cutter, you’re in good company. And you can also do amazing stuff.

The thumbnail version:

• Reading promotional material can be illuminating
• Not all grommets are created equal

The full version:

When a manufacturer publishes an article it’s mostly with a view to selling something. But if you take the trouble to read such an article you may learn something even though you already have what they’re selling. For example, a recent article by a bench press manufacturer.

The article was clearly written to sell a particular model of bench press but it included some interesting information you may not know on two types of grommets. One type is a self-piercing grommet that is designed to cut through banner or sign material when there are no pre-punched holes.

Another type are sheet metal grommets that are used with plain, teeth or neck washers. They require pre-punched holes. The teeth washers are used in fabric to add additional grip whereas neck washers are for use in automatic grommet machines.

See, if you didn’t know this before, you do now.

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• The annual BOCSI awards are back.
• Its an opportunity to showcase your shop.

The full version:

The 2022 BOCSI Awards are now open for entries.

I remind you every year that the BOCSIes is an opportunity for you to showcase your work and your shop. The process of entering is as important as the possibility of winning. Consider the moral-boosting impact on your staff. Who doesn’t like a competition and, better still, who doesn’t like being on a winning team?

There’s also the SCOTY (Sign Company of the Year) award which: ” . . . recognizes a sign company’s commitment to excellence, customer service, environmental stewardship, and uniqueness within the Canadian industry.”

As always, the program is managed jointly by Sign Media Canada and the Sign Association of Canada.

Don’t wait. Enter here.

The thumbnail version:

• Printing United is back in Las Vegas in October.
• It has something for everyone in the printing industry.

The full version:

You don’t need the hype to convince you to attend this show, Just consider the facts:

• Three days from 19th to 21st October 2022 in Las Vegas.
• Over 500 exhibitors covering every aspect of the printing industry.
• One million square feet of exhibition space.
• Registration has only just opened and thousands have already registered.

Nobody serious about business ownership or a career in the industry should miss an opportunity like this.

You can find out more at: www.printingunited.com

The thumbnail version:

• Detailed instruction from Roland on using the Nearest Colour Finder tool

The full version:

Periodically I remind you to check out Roland’s website from time time. They post a lot of useful information on how to get the most out of your Roland equipment. Just a few minutes a month visiting the site could save you a lot of time and headaches or give you new ideas for getting more out of your equipment.

The most recent useful post is about using the Nearest Colour Finder tool in VersaWorks. It includes useful tips and step-by-step illustrations.

The thumbnail version:

• There’s usually a single critical number in every business that’s a quick measure of its health.
• Your job is to find that number and monitor it.

The full version:

Think about your car’s dashboard. Depending on the model and the age of the car, the dashboard will have a varying number of dials, gauges, and digital readouts. They all tell you something about the performance of the vehicle (and sometimes a whole lot of other information) as you’re driving.

But if you were on a road trip in tricky driving conditions and had the time to watch just one of those dials, which one would it be? I’d suggest it would be the speedometer because by knowing that single number—the speed of the vehicle—you’d know a number of other things as well. For instance, what your fuel consumption is, when you are likely to reach your destination, how quickly you could stop if the vehicle ahead stopped, whether you’re within the posted speed limit, and so forth.

Now apply that to a business setting. Business articles and books will encourage you to know your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). But if you’re a busy small business owner with no time to monitor a series of KPIs (or the inclination to do so) what is the equivalent of your car’s speedometer that will give you a quick overview of how your business is doing at any one time? It’s your FF (Focus Figure).

To explain, here’s an example taken from a coffee shop in Calgary a few years ago. The owner’s primary concern was her monthly rent of $6,000 (it was a fancy location in a fancy building). If she didn’t make rent, all the rest was irrelevant. To put the rent issue in perspective, we came up with a focus figure based on the margin per average cup sold. At a margin of $2 per cup her focus figure to ensure that she could cover her rent, was 3,000 cups.

Every business has a focus figure, it just depends upon the business and the circumstances as to what that figure is. You need to find yours and then monitor it.

Footnote: The 3,000 cup focus figure brought the coffee shop’s high-rental dilemma sharply into focus for the owner. It defined a financial issue in units she could readily relate to—cups served. Needless to say, this coffee shop closed not long after.

The thumbnail version:

• Listen to your customers.
• They know what they want better than you do.

The full version:

It’s a simple but powerful concept—listening (really listening) to your customers. There’s an old story that goes back probably 40 or more years about General Electric vastly improving their business by simply asking users where they’d prefer to have the controls on their stoves, rather than telling them where they were going to have them.

No business, regardless of the industry, can can afford to keep its head down and allow the world beyond the walls to pass by unnoticed. So to try to stay in touch, the usual sources of industry intelligence they turn to include trade shows, trade journals, blogs, conferences, and even industry websites. But as useful as these  sources can be, they tend to provide intelligence from the “inside”—from the industry’s perspective.  What about the most important perspective—the customer’s perspective?

Customers see your shop and  industry from the perspective of their needs. They care more about what they want than what you have. And if you don’t have what they want, they don’t buy from you.

This is why customers’ questions, requests, inquiries, complaints, and product suggestions should be seen as a must-have source of intelligence. Business has a history of telling customers what they want instead of asking what they want. Your shop would be better off if you did it the other way round.

The thumbnail version:

• A webinar by Ultraflex on new trends and new products.
• Suitable for both textile and sign shops.

The full version:

Ultraflex is offering this seminar on new technologies and trends of interest to both the textile and sign industries. Webinars such as this one are well worth registering for. Not only do they cost nothing but time, but if the content doesn’t live up to the billing you can just bail out.

Technological developments come quickly nowadays and these webinars are a great way to stay on the cutting edge. So register for this one by clicking here. It’s at 1.00 pm ET on 17th May. And do so because your competitors will probably be attending too.

The thumbnail version:

• Franchise Business Review identifies FASTSIGNS as recession-proof
• Does this extend to all sign industry shops?

The full version:

This might be good news for your independent, non-franchise sign shop too. FASTSIGNS franchise sign shops have been designated recession-proof by Franchise Business Review. FASTSIGNS responded with this: “This award is a recognition of FASTSIGNS providing our franchisees the tools and systems to run a successful small business even during turbulent times, while also delivering a service that almost every business or organization will need even during times of crisis.”

When you think about it, the part about “delivering a service that almost every business or organization will need even during times of crisis” is really the critical point here, not so much the bit about “tools and systems” from the franchiser.

So, you should find it encouraging that a research firm has found that sign shops are recession-proof. Now it’s up to you to build your business model accordingly.