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.

The thumbnail version:

• As we have said before, regular visits to Roland’s website is a good idea.
• Go there now for a detailed update on VersaWorks 6.13.1

The full version:

Staying up to date on technological advances is a must for any shop serious about maintaining an edge on the competition. If you have Roland equipment then a regular visit to their website is time well spent.

The latest reason to visit Roland’s site is to read about five features included in the upgrade of VersaWorks to version 6.13.1. Read about:

1. Printer search
2. Perforated sheet cutting for VG3
3. ZIP compressed file compatibility
4. Variation printing
5. Nearest colour finder

A progressive shop can’t exist in a technical vacuum.

The thumbnail version:

• The franchises are a gauge on how the industry is doing
• All commercial printers should attend

The full version:

This webinar is on April 20th at 1.00 pm ET. Why should you not miss it? Just read the description . . .

“Allegra. AlphaGraphics. FASTSIGNS. Minuteman. Sir Speedy. Signs By Tomorrow. Signarama. SpeedPro. Every year, Printing News and Wide Format & Signage conduct their annual Print and Sign Franchise Review. How and what the franchises are doing can be a useful barometer for understanding how the industry at large is doing. Are they growing and expanding their centers? Is revenue increasing? How are they growing? What products and services are they expanding into? What challenges are they facing and how are they confronting them?

On April 20 at 1 pm EST, WhatTheyThink Managing Editor Richard Romano and Senior Editor Cary Sherburne will share the results of the annual franchise survey, talk about how the franchises rebounded from the Year of COVID, and discuss the franchises’ plans to expand in 2022 and beyond.

Who should attend?

• Commercial printers looking to see how these businesses are addressing challenges in the market
• Sign and display graphics producers looking to know what new products and services are being added and implemented
• Distributors/brokers looking for partnership opportunities

What you’ll learn:

• The current state of the print and sign franchises—number of centers, revenue, top performing centers, etc.
• The new products, services, and other opportunities the franchise are adding or considering.
• The top challenges the franchises are facing, and how they are addressing them.

The overall outlook for 2022 and beyond.”

Go here to register.

The thumbnail version:

• Colour management is key to consistency across equipment and materials

The full version:

To take a cue from a recent Sign Media article, if you had a client that had to have various different POP signage produced for a campaign on different equipment and different substrates, could you ensure colour consistency?

Obviously for such a campaign colour consistency from substrate to substrate is essential. And for colour consistency, colour management is key. And that you achieve by ICC (International Colour Consortium) profiling every machine and every substrate you use. And the time to ICC profile materials is as soon as they come through the door and go into inventory.

This is how you’d ensure colour consistency in the type of campaign print job described above.

The thumbnail version:

• Substrates and what the best sign companies advise

The full version:

It’s interesting to take special note of signs of all types and notice how often customers seem to have been given bad advice or no advice at all by the printer. The elements of a bad sign that are most easily spotted are colour schemes, text size, font type, size, shape, and placement. But what about substrates?

Whereas the usual bad sign indicators listed above are immediately apparent, a poor substrate choice may not become apparent for some time, depending upon exposure to the elements and other ageing conditions.

So, how much of your shop’s customer-advice practice focuses on the substrate? How much time do you spend discussing the substrate aspects with a sign customer? Do your customers understand the pros and cons of acrylic versus aluminum composite material versus aluminum versus PVC versus corrugated plastic?

Deteriorating signs suggest that not all sign customers are getting the best advice.

Thumbnail version:

• A free webinar and Q&A on colour measurement

The full version:

On next Thursday, 31st March 2022, Barbieri Electronic is offering a free webinar on accurate colour measurement on digitally printed materials. The speaker will be Viktor Lazzeri.

As Barbieri point out:  “Accurate colour measurement is the foundation to achieve the highest colour quality in digital printing. Materials like textiles, paper and paper-like, ceramics, glass or vinyl all have different characteristics which affect colour measurement results.”

This sounds like a webinar every sign shop owner should attend. Register here by clicking here. 

The thumbnail version:

• There’s more to COVID than the obvious symptoms
• The impact on mental health is becoming more obvious

The full version:

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote about the impact of COVID on mental health as the pandemic dragged on. Well, it’s now a year later and in spite of the optimistic view of governments, it is still dragging on (there is now a concern about a possible “spring spike” in Canada).

So, it’s worth repeating  the message of a year ago . . .

“The impact of stress can creep up on one, particularly over a period of continual stress as has been endured by many business owners and managers over the past year. In my chapter, Healthcare Professional, in Characters Who Can Make or Break Your Small Business, I wrote, “Even among small business owners who handle stress quite well, there are those—particularly men—who are foolishly macho about their health and seek help from a healthcare professional long after they should have, if they seek it all. Don’t be one of those people.””

It’s as valid today as when I wrote it four years ago. Don’t be one of those people.

The thumbnail version:

• An emphasis on staff training has always been a good business strategy
• Deliberate, planned, and scheduled sessions ensure that it happens

The full version:

I recently read an article written for the textile industry about staff issues, including training. One line in particular caught my attention as applicable to any kind of shop, sign shops included. The writer quoted a shop owner: “On Fridays, we don’t do any production; we do continuous training.”

Now, admittedly, most small shops can’t afford to shut down production for a day every week, but the concept of routinely setting aside some time for training makes sense. And it could be more than that too. It could be a time for also sharing the latest information coming out of equipment manufacturers about the equipment in your shop. It could be about new materials, and anything else that could make the shop more productive and a more interesting place to work.

I see plenty of upside and no downside in this idea. Think about what it could do for your shop at a cost of only, say, an hour a week.

The thumbnail version:

• COVID has put some businesses under cash flow stress
• How much of your customer base has been affected?
• Bad debts can do serious harm to your business

The full version:

Cash flow was one of the first business casualties early in the pandemic. Governments offset the problem somewhat for small businesses but obviously couldn’t keep up that level of spending as the pandemic dragged on. And the longer the pandemic dragged on the greater the strain on cash flow. And therein lies the problem for every shop—under-strain customers helping themselves to longer credit terms and some not paying at all.

Receivables has always been a difficult aspect of business to manage. COVID has made it more so. Depending upon how you have been managing your receivables during the pandemic, now may be the time to transition to a cash-only or at least a mostly-cash policy. What you have in your favour is that so many cash transactions are conducted online nowadays—it’s becoming a common practice, its a mindset change.

Whenever the topic of receivables comes up, I think of the conversation I had many years ago in pre-e-commerce days with a shop owner who built his business on a cash-only basis; no credit, no receivables. Of course this disqualified him with some customers who absolutely needed credit (in itself a red flag) but his argument was that building a bigger business with a big receivables list is kidding yourself. He argued that he didn’t need the unnecessary stress and risk. No credit. No receivables. No bad debt. Less stress.

It may not be an easy transition, but surely it’s worth considering?

The thumbnail version:

• It’s a topic worth a revisit
• Generosity generates business

The full version:

About a year ago an article about how some shops were coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and and how they were planning for the post-COVID world, mentioned something in passing that prompted me to ask a question then, and it’s worth asking again: “Do you use generosity as a marketing strategy. And if not, why not?”

The owner of the sign company featured in the article mentioned that every year they give away thousands in donated and discounted signs. This struck me as incredibly generous but then I realized that it is also a clever marketing strategy. Generosity generates positive impressions, and positive impressions generate business.

So, to repeat, do you use generosity as a marketing strategy and, if not, why not?

The thumbnail version:

• Stuff you need to know if you have or are thinking of buying the Roland BT-12
• Cleaning DTG printers is essential
• White ink and fiber build-up are particular issues

The full version:

Roland’s BT-12 direct-to-garment printer.

The Roland BT-12 DTG printer is CMYK only and therefore easier to maintain. But it must be maintained. For instance, white inks require daily cleaning because the titanium dioxide can settle and plug up the print heads. Fiber builds up as well and needs to be cleaned away.

The machine has a sensor that will alert you when a routine cleaning is needed and can apparently trigger at any point between about 50 prints to 200 prints. And trying to trick the machine into thinking that you’ve cleaned it without actually having done so, does not work. It will not budge until cleaned.

With the BT-12 it is important to follow the machine’s prompts and not take any shortcuts. Follow the cleaning menu. If you need the details about the recommended cleaning materials, check out the Roland DGA site.

And finally, if the machine has been idle for three months or longer you need to use cleaning cartridges, one for each ink slot.

The thumbnail version:

• ISA International Sign Expo 2022 is going ahead
• It promises “sparks of brilliance” to transform your business

The full version:

One of the industry shows resuming in 2022 is the ISA International Sign Expo. It will be at the Georgia Aquarium and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. The location is being promoted for its additional attractions such as the Centennial Olympic Park where the 1996 Summer Games were held and the College Football hall of Fame.

As for the business side of things, there will be 95,000 square feet of of interactive exhibits and education sessions.  The education sessions are being promoted as “being designed to provide solutions and spark of brilliance for the next big idea that will transform your business.”

COVID concerns aside for the moment, but keeping in mind that the pandemic isn’t over and you need to exercise caution, you may want to consider attending. Shows of this nature are an important resource if you’re serious about staying up to date technically and gaining an edge on the competition.

You can register here.

The thumbnail version:

• What you cannot accomplish alone you may accomplish in a joint venture.

The full version:

A recent article about two sign companies who pooled their resources to undertake a contract gave rise to an interesting possibility for smaller sign shops. Smaller shops, by virtue of limited expertise or resources, are at a disadvantage when opportunities arise to undertake bigger and more lucrative jobs.

If your shop has ever had to turn down an opportunity for lack of some of the expertise or resources the job required, could it have been different if you’d considered a joint venture with another shop?

The concept makes sense but would of course need to be thought through and executed carefully. The terms and expectations of the joint venture would have to be clearly documented and then managed in a spirit of cooperation. This would mean that the joint venture partner would have to be chosen with care.

Provided a joint venture is put together properly, with all the angles considered and covered, it could be a way to participate in opportunities that you might otherwise have considered to be out of reach.

The thumbnail version:

• Outsourcing can answer your designer issues

The full version:

Easelly is a graphic design outsourcing service that is enjoying rapid growth based on the realization that many sign shops have difficulties finding and retaining top-notch designers for any number of reasons. It’s not unusual for good designers to receive better offers to move resulting, thereby resulting in rapid staff turnover and inconsistency. Some shops are too small to keep a full time designer busy. Some shops have an ebb and flow of work thus not always needing a designer on the premises.

These and other designer issues can be solved by outsourcing the work to a service such as Easelly. Want to know more? Watch this video.

The thumbnail version:

• Industry shows are being scheduled for the next few months
• Will the pandemic derail plans again?

The full version:

What are the chances this will be bustling again soon?

The 2022 BC Sign and Graphics Show is scheduled for April 1st and 2nd in the Delta Hotels Burnaby Conference Centre. Attendees are being asked to wear a face mask and to be double vaccinated. There is no mention of whether these precautions are mandatory nor is there any recognition so far of the fact that medical professionals are saying that without a booster shot people are not fully vaccinated. Furthermore, there is no stipulation as to a face mask standard given that it has recently been suggested that single fabric masks are inadequate (no better than face decorations) and that 3-ply masks should be a minimum requirement.  This might all be clarified later.

If you’d like to travel further afield, the ISA International Expo has been scheduled for May 4th to 6th in the Georgia World Congress Centre in Atlanta. There is no mention of any COVID precautions on the ISA website.

If you read the promotional material for these shows you won’t find any mention of the pandemic (except the cursory stipulations for the BC show). Given the way things have unfolded in the past two years you may want to exercise some caution when considering attendance at these or any other shows. For one thing, travel and medical insurance would be a very wise move.

The thumbprint version:

• World-wide supply chain disruption continues
• End not in sight yet

The full version:

Supply chains still disrupted.

The industry is till feeling the impact of the world-wide supply chain disruption. Equipment manufacturers are still having a hard time locating parts with the result that equipment and parts remain backordered. If there is any good news it’s that the Roland turnaround times seem to be better than a year ago.

Media shipments currently have an ETA of February. Feel free to call any of the Stanley’s branches for updates on availability. The crew are doing what they can to keep everyone producing.

The thumbnail version:

• Roland supports startups and small shops
• Roland’s website is a good resource for advice

The full version:

It’s interesting to hear from Roland that many of their customers are business startups. And, as they quite correctly point out, being capable of starting a business that creates and produces great graphics is one thing, but being able to promote that business and generate sales is an entirely different thing.

To Roland’s credit, they don’t just offer advice on technical matters, they also from time to time  publish useful non-technical information to help with the business aspect of a small shop. The most recent such article on the Roland site is titled, “Advertisement and Promotional Design Advice for Business Startups” The title is a little misleading because even if you’ve been in business for some time, the advice could benefit you too.

It includes advice on all aspects of the preparation of promotional material such as: creating an eye-catching headline; copywriting; and designing.

We don’t have room here to explore the topic in depth. For the details you need to read the article on Roland’s site; it’s good stuff.