Business Opportunity within our own shops, what am I/We missing?

[dmfahie]

I have always been closed minded about selling more then signage and lettering... I wont even sell stripes on a truck... Commercial work with a minimum dollar amount of $250.... I did lose allot of business, but the business I got over the years became a higher end client, or just any client that realized that my service is not free, nor are my trucks, help etc.

This being said, I am opening up to new ideas... we are in a somewhat rural area... where local business have few choices... I was considering printing, i.e. business cards, and so on... all subbed out.. and again with a minimum dollar about of say $150... let my minimum weed out the hacks. What else are you guys doing to broaden your shops bottom line? Weather it be services, or unique products that shop equipment already makes... Marketing ideas, or products that go along with a small business owner to help their branding and or marketing? Id love to hear them.

Thanks,
Devin

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

We are buying more equipment and bringing more in house. We are riding a wave of large well paying jobs and reinvesting any and all profits in to equipment and our people. We are working hard to get more efficient at what we do and slash costs from consumables to labor.

The equipment we buy we are making sure it does more than just the need at hand. For instance the beginning of this year we got a flatbed cutter router installed, we needed a router but opted for the flatbed cutter router so we could also process our roll stock films and knife cut some materials for faster processing. We also just signed for a HP FB750 since over 50% of our work has become signs and mounted prints, we decided to go with the FB750 so we could also gain a 8' wide roll to roll printer to also bring those prints in house and allow us to do special effect decals and print white decals.

We are expanding by making smart purchases and expanding our offerings to our clients and reducing our costs to increase our margins.