Like Bill I told my story before. But with cut and paste, I'll throw it up one more time....
How I came to be in the sign business…
I started out like many here; I fell into the sign business quite by accident. That was thirty six years ago in Montauk, New York at the ripe old age of nineteen, in the famed Hampton's of Long Island. I was working at a marina one weekend pumping gas on July 4th weekend fueling boats, for some under the table cash money. Five bucks an hour was good money back in the early 70's, I had a wife, two kids, a house to take care of, with nothing more than a high school education. The only thing I had at the time was a passion for art.
Well by 1:00pm all the boats were out to sea, so I headed back up to the ships store to ask the owner if there was anything else that needed to be done. She said not at the time so just hang around in case I need you. Noticing a cardboard sign halfway done that someone started and hadn’t completed, I volunteered to finish the rest of it. The owner asked if I knew how to make signs and I replied "It doesn't look that difficult to me." I considered myself a fairly accomplished artist, what could be so hard about painting a few ABCs? Well after I was done, the owner was so impressed; she asked me if I could paint another sign the following day. I said I would be glad to give it a try; it was just fun to me and not really work.
It seems they had been waiting months for a real professional sign painter to come and paint another sign for them. He lived a couple of hours drive away and was very much in demand and hard and very hard to get a hold of. They already had a cheap piece of plywood painted brown; it only needed to be lettered. They supplied me with some mop type brushes and all the paint in an assortment of colors. It took me eight hours and they liked it, even the misspelled words. I didn't have a spell checker back in those days. That night I thought to myself, imagine, getting paid $40.00 to have fun for a day’s work. This was the start of something great. I actually got paid to have fun!
The next day they asked me to paint one more sign for them, and a guy in the store was watching me from behind, he complimented me on my natural talent. He said he was impressed by how much money sign painters made. It seems he had a friend in the business and he told me he couldn't believe that his buddy would get paid $150.00 for a sign like that? Hmm, $150.00 and I was only charging $40.00, no wonder the owner was so happy with my work.The owner made out real good on that deal. Anyway, another local marina owner in town was complaining to the first marina owner that he needed a sign for his shark tag tournament coming up the following weekend. The marina owner I did the first sign for told him to call Bob the Sign painter and that was the beginning of my new found career.
Well this guy gets my number and calls about doing his sign. He was someone that I knew from my past and did not like. He fired me one summer when I was a teenager working for him. I had to go to a wedding that I had requested time off for two weeks prior and on the day of the wedding, he said I couldn't have the time off. I'm pretty sure I told him to his face that he could go fuck himself. Boy did that feel great telling that S.O.B. off.
So when he asked me how much to paint his sign, I swallowed real hard and said $100.00 figuring it was still cheaper that the $150.00 the stranger in the store told me it was worth. He agreed to it only if I could finish it by the following weekend. Well I took that 4’x8’ sheet of a/c grade plywood which is really cheap shit plywood home to letter. It was already painted with one coat of latex white, and I proceeded to letter it laying down flat on my living room floor. Ten hours later, it was done. Wow, simple arithmetic, $10.00 an hour and I had fun even though my eyes felt like they were bleeding from the eye strain, and the lousy light from the one lamp in the living room. Now I'm starting to like this sign thing. I delivered the sign and got paid. While dropping the sign off, a boat owner saw me carrying the sign and yelled over, hey you, sign guy! Stop and see me when you’re done, I need the name painted on the back of my boat. Well, one thing led to another and it snowballed into the monster that it soon became. The word spread really fast that I was a sign painter and the phone started ringing off the hook.
That's really how I got into it. I was in the right place at the right time. Well, I read everything I could get my hands on. There was no school that taught sign painting and no other sign painter would be willing to teach you their craft for fear that you would become their competition. Because I loved painting signs so much, I put in the incredible hours and practiced, practiced and practiced. Through sheer stubborn determination, I taught myself how to paint signs. It wasn’t that bad because I was pretty much getting paid to learn. As the years went on, I needed more challenges and learned to make sandblasted and hand carved signs. I learned to pinstripe, airbrush and lay gold leaf. Computers came on the scene in 1982 and I had bought the very first one ever invented. I never doubted the decision even thought it cost me over $20,000. I just instinctively knew this was the future of sign making and I jumped at the opportunity and capitalized on it. The industry was about to change overnight, and I wanted to part of it. I blew my completion out of the water by offering two week service instead of the typical six week turnaround time it took to produce a custom sign.
Like everyone else, the long hours and neglect of my family for six months at a time during the busy season was taking its toll on me. I was nearly on the verge of a nervous breakdown and considered quitting the business. The computer helped me catch up and gave me more time to spend with them. I've always had a home based business, except for two years that I had to commute five miles to the shop and I absolutely hated that. My shop was in my 800 square foot basement and I cranked out more work than my competitors in their big shops. I was extremely organized and efficient with my time and ran my business like a well oiled Swiss watch...I would take twelve weeks vacation time a year and made some serious money. I took great pride in charging ridiculous prices and found I could get it. I learned a long time ago to charge enough for your work and then some. Screw being that starving artist you always hear about.
Speeding up, I divorced and decided to leave New York for a fresh new start. Everyone said I was crazy to walk away from my little gold mine, but money didn't matter much anymore as I was very unhappy. So I packed up and moved to Florida, to start my life all over again from ground zero. I left New York basically with the clothes on my back and enough tools to start over. When I first moved down, Disney offered me a job, but I decided to turn them down. I could never fit in with an organization that had rules and procedures, time clocks to punch and white uniforms. And no way in hell could I take orders from anybody else after being my own boss for so many years.
The only thing left to do was open my own shop again. Skywatch Signs was born in May of '92 and the first six months were slow going. I lost many jobs because I refused to lower my price. I stuck to my guns and slowly built up the clientele I wanted to work for. Now I only deal with clientele that appreciate high quality work. I have a reputation for being the most expensive shop in the area. My name and work have become a status symbol. The cheapskates don't waste my time and I can concentrate on the premium work. I do very little advertising and most of my business is by referral only.
I was told that I could not make it here in Florida by other sign professionals and that people won't pay for good work in this area. I came down here and proved the other sign companies wrong. I was determined to get what I did in New York and I didn't see any rational reason to charge less for my talent and abilities. So here I am, charging top dollar and doing more work than I can handle at times. Experience has taught me that when things get that busy, I'm not charging enough. Time to raise the price even higher...
Skywatch Signs is currently located in a 6,000 square foot shed in my back yard and my commute to work; barring traffic is about thirty seconds. I have all the necessary tools to fabricate any type of sign right here. I've paid a heavy price in these last thirty six years and I refuse to let the customer dictate what my skills are worth. It upsets me to see talented sign artists just getting by when I know they could get so much more for their efforts.
