How many of you could leave your shop behind for at least a month and not have any issues?

[wildside]

I know a guy that successfully ran his business as an absentee. Not in the sign industry though but still a very service based business.

He had 4 full time employees plus part timers that ran the place. He would spend a month in Canada every year and trusted his employees to take care of business and they did. His manager bought the business from him after 25 years working for him. This manager now does the same job he always has, but with the title owner now and his own money on the line now.

The old owner got lucky to find a guy willing to put in the work and be a great asset that ended up buying his business. The old owner has taught me plenty and asked me questions that make me think about the future more than the present. He built a great business and great employees helped him get there.

Good news is the new owner is building the business bigger and still has the other 3 full timers that have been there 10 plus years and adding more people too. He takes care of his people in everyway he can.

The old owner has always told me to work on the business not in it. Hard to do but I know what he means and I sometimes get caught up in being an employee more than an owner. It is hard to balance in any business I imagine.

 

[TimToad]

I have no plans to go anywhere for a month.

I asked the question because having the ability to leave for a month is the difference between owning a business and being self-employed.

I was hoping to learn some lessons from those on this board who have been able to turn their sign shop into a business but unfortunately the consensus is that it's simply not possible.

I think your choice of words and possibly definition of what a "business" is needs some clarification on your part. There are few sign BUSINESS owners who don't think of or don't define their operation as a "business". Just because we call our entity a "shop" or "studio" or whatever doesn't make them any less a "business", legally, technically or practically speaking for rhat matter.

I've read the entire thread and didn't see ANYBODY say it was impossible to eventually accomplish what it is you originally asked about. The issue has been whether it is feasible in the early stages of a business's life cycle to have such an integral part of it, the OWNER blow out for a month.

With some advanced planning, working some extra hours leading up to a planned absence, I and many others could easily just lock the doors and take a month off and absorb the lost revenue or roll the dice and trust our employees to handle things well after we did all we could to help put them in a position to do so.

But that's not what you're asking about. Or is it?

This is a very diverse industry with many different types of principals working in it. There are literally transient, barn storming, one person types who travel from town to town knocking on doors seeking easy to do jobs and then moving on after doing them. There are enormous, highly specialized producers of electrical sign components dealing in multi million dollar accounts with national chains. You fit in where your skills, capital and effort puts you.

 

[Johnny Best]

You can leave now...

 

[billsines]

Ok so I'll chime in as a business owner of 14 years.

I have never had the opportunity to own 100% of this business. From 2005 to 2012, I owned 50%. At that point we brought in a third owner, so we each now own 33%. All family. Yes it's stressful, but the trust level is high enough that there have been no major problems. For me personally, I would never own a business with non-family, but that's me.

So it depends on what your goals are. If you get a few more owners, you will be able to step away, maybe even a month at a time. In 2012, my wife and I stepped away for 2 months. The business grew and the other two owners were able to manage the ship while we were gone. So it can be done, if you are willing to split the dividends three ways (or whatever your ownership model becomes). So maybe you only get 1/3 of the dividends, but if you can scale it large enough, your 1/3 share will be satisfactory. Bare in mind though, they will want the same time off as you...maybe one or two of your key personnel would fit the bill of ownership.

 

[Gino]

Okay, here's my take on this absentee thing. It's a silly idea, but not one worth throwing out with the wash. I think anyone in business is trying to better themselves and not work for the man. However, in your case, it doesn't sound like you want to be an absentee owner, but just go off and play and not worry. In my opinion, you only have monkeys working for you so far. None of them can take anything to the next level. Your 10 year experienced person is nothing more than a novice herself. You only know a little of what she knows and THAT's all hearsay. You're also not your competition, so why base your model on someone else ?? You don't know their overhead, level of expertise or probably nothing else, based on the knowledge you bring forth to this community. I don't care if you came up through the ranks, in a back door or fell through the roof..... you still need to stay in touch with reality. If all ya wanna do is buy up equipment and some people, you can do that anywhere. Why try to ruin an industry ??

If your purpose is to have businesses that you can wander away from, why not buy a tanning salon or a go-cart track ?? You can get minimum wage people to run that for ya and even if they skim off the top, ya can always replace them a lot easier than looking for talented people with experience.

Also noticed you only tagged people who somewhat agree with you, but don't all have that much logic connected. ​

 

[Johnny Best]

Or you get a couple of girls to walk the streets, they get busted, you get busted, you spend a month in lockup with free room and board.

 

[Stacey K]

I'm still relatively new to owning a sign storefront - you should know the business inside and out first which will take several years. Can you lease the business out? Do you own the building? Can you lease a sign shop with the option of buying the business some day? People with vested interests take more pride in what they do.

Short story...my dad started an appliance business and hired a guy with the intent that he would eventually buy my dad out. 12 years later, he bought the "business" from him but rented the building from my dad and the warehouse and an attached rental home. Over a few years, he bought all the pieces and it was all his. Unfortunately for him, it went downhill and he eventually sold everything. My dad made some very good money off this deal.

Personally, from someone who owns a business and rental properties, real estate, laundry mats, storage units...these are perfect hands off businesses, good revenue and tax write offs, less headaches. Sign shops are a lot of work. Find someone who wants to lease/buy the 'business' and rent the space from you. Poof...you are hands off within a month AND collecting rent to pay for your building. People in my area do this all the time with restaurants and bars...can it be done with a sign shop? Franchises do it, so can you.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Just an observation to everyone replying... This thread reaffirms that our industry is a touchy one that gets offended. I myself included will be lumped into this as it has been a personal critique of myself.

Looking at the original message, He never once said he wanted to be an absentee owner. From what I read he was asking how it was possible to not be 100% hands-on so he can develop other parts of the business for extended periods of time. I think we all read his subject and immediately got offended that he wanted to take a long vacation and let his business run without him, I think the offense came at our self-examination of how hard we work in our own businesses and the thought of someone else getting freedom struck a cord, correct me if I'm wrong?

This industry is very hands-on and needs a ship's captain, but in no way, shape or form does that captain have to own the ship!

We do work for and sub work to a Very Large company 20+ Mil Annual Revenue and the owners are hardly present yet the company is growing and thriving, they are 40+ years old but that is still relevant. We also used to work with a company that the owners would take very long vacations (2 owners, not concurrently) and their company is still growing and thriving... it all comes down to Process and People. Those companies have a very successful process that only allows for very successful people.

 

[billsines]

Okay, here's my take on this absentee thing. It's a silly idea, but not one worth throwing out with the wash. I think anyone in business is trying to better themselves and not work for the man. However, in your case, it doesn't sound like you want to be an absentee owner, but just go off and play and not worry. In my opinion, you only have monkeys working for you so far. None of them can take anything to the next level. Your 10 year experienced person is nothing more than a novice herself. You only know a little of what she knows and THAT's all hearsay. You're also not your competition, so why base your model on someone else ?? You don't know their overhead, level of expertise or probably nothing else, based on the knowledge you bring forth to this community. I don't care if you came up through the ranks, in a back door or fell through the roof..... you still need to stay in touch with reality. If all ya wanna do is buy up equipment and some people, you can do that anywhere. Why try to ruin an industry ??

If your purpose is to have businesses that you can wander away from, why not buy a tanning salon or a go-cart track ?? You can get minimum wage people to run that for ya and even if they skim off the top, ya can always replace them a lot easier than looking for talented people with experience.

Also noticed you only tagged people who somewhat agree with you, but don't all have that much logic connected. ​

"Ruin" an industry? Sounds rather excessive...

 

[Gino]

"Ruin" an industry? Sounds rather excessive...

Haha..... now don't you become 'Fake News', too bills. When you leave out almost all the words or twist things around, you can create racist remarks as you must already know. I said WHY TRY. I did not say he alone could do it, kinda more or less.... contribute to it.

edit : maybe brush up on your reading skills or perhaps stay tuned better as your comprehension seems to be lacking a tad..................​

 

[HulkSmash]

"Ruin" an industry? Sounds rather excessive...

Not really - just because you know business doesn't mean you know this business. It's not excessive at all.

 

[billsines]

Not really - just because you know business doesn't mean you know this business. It's not excessive at all.

You seriously believe the entire sign industry will be ruined by this guy running his business this way? I guess you, Gino, and every other person here had better start looking for a new career since the entire sign industry is going to be ruined. No one will ever need or want signs anymore. The industry will be ruined.

 

[billsines]

Haha..... now don't you become 'Fake News', too bills. When you leave out almost all the words or twist things around, you can create racist remarks as you must already know. I said WHY TRY. I did not say he alone could do it, kinda more or less.... contribute to it.

edit : maybe brush up on your reading skills or perhaps stay tuned better as your comprehension seems to be lacking a tad..................​

Ah yes, my apologies, you did say "why try to ruin an industry..." which is all the more ridiculous because you are insinuating he is out to intentionally ruin an industry. He may ruin his own business, but he will have no negative effect on the sign industry as a whole.

 

[Gino]

Thank you for re-reading and understanding. Sometimes, it takes a thoughtful second look to see the many ways one misconstrued things.

 

[Johnny Best]

"One bad apple ruins the bunch" is that to excessive?.

 

[Zendavor Signs]

To the OP - to summarize what many have said here, and adding my own thoughts of being able to free yourself of the day-to-day of the business at some point:
- hire talented people, and pay them well
- treat your people very well (not the same as paying them well)
- invest in your people - training, seminars, etc - involve them in the industry outside of the shop
- I would recommend striving for $2M in sales - anything less than that and it will be hard to step away from the business without hurting it financially
- strive to do excellent work all the time, and beat that into your people's heads
- grow your business carefully and slowly - anything over 20% per year and you will risk chaos and too many inexperienced staff - and bringing in people with experience is great, but it is not the same as experience in YOUR business
- be careful about expanding into different "categories" of sign work too quickly - you mentioned possibly buying out a commercial sign shop - do what you are currently doing very well and expand that into a very profitable segment before bringing in commercial, electrical or whatever other type of sign work

Good luck!!

 

[ikarasu]

I think ginos post makes the most sense and explains it the best.

Is it possible? Sure... With a ton of hard work and time you can eventually get there.

But if your plan is to own a business and not be a part of it... There's so many other less demanding industries out there to do that in.

If you want to take a month vacation once in awhile... It's doable. Less so if you're a two man shop..our owner takes a 2-4 week vacation every other month. Our screen printers been screen printing for 30+ years... Our estimator / manager has been In the business for 30 years since he was a teenager, he learned everything from his mom who was the previous manager that's been in the business for 50 years. We have two people out of about 20 who have been in the business for under ten years in our whole shop... Me being one of them. Everyone runs their own department with no supervision needed... If he wanted, the owner could take off for years and things would run smoothly. But he's still in here busting his ass off everyday.

Then in the other hand... Our biggest competitor has 3 shops... One here, one in the mid of the country... And one out east. So 2/3 of his shops have no owner present.

Anything CAN be done. But you're going to put so much more effort into it for less of a return than if you opened a corner store and hired a few minimum wage monkeys to stock the shelves.

The sign business isn't a very good get rich quick type of business. You need to put in a lot of hard work, build up your reputation and keep applying that hard work.

I bet you 90% of the old timers who've been in the business for 10-20 years are working just as hard, if not harder now than when they started 20 years ago.

 

[Gino]

Funny you say that. Back when I was going full steam ahead, the only people in the sign industry were........ sign people. Hand painters, pictorial painters, screen printers, welders, electricians and installers. They knew their trade and did it well. Sure, there were hacks, but like today, they just got basically what no one else wanted. Every shop was busy and had a backlog of 3 and 4 months and people relied on the artists to do their job. It was a really great gig. Today, with all the hocus-pocus and the myriad of substrates, not to mention all the ways to make a sign...... you have many people in the sign industry, not really knowing what they're doing. Quite different from yesteryear, but it is what it is. There's still talent, but not hand-eye coordination, but business only savvy. Your work doesn't speak for you or your reputation near as much anymore, as your price does. Customers are no longer, near as loyal as they once were and while you have forums like this one to help the DIY people...... there are still some people who still base their business on the old fashioned standards, while using modern technology.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Gino, that's really the concern with just about any trade nowadays (especially trades that have similar attributes). Have to change with the times or the times change you. Cream (so far) still raises to the top.

 

[Gino]

Yes, you're right. Think about it....... 60 years ago, doctors wanted to cure anything that ailed ya. Had to know alotta things about alotta problems. Today, they barely look at ya and send you to a specialist. They treat for things you don't have and put you on meds THEY say you may have and they keep pumping pills and sh!t into you keeping the big pharmaceuticals alive and thriving. Same as a car mechanic, they don't wanna fix a small dent, just take the whole fender and everything connected to it and replace with all new, to fix it. Don't fill a cavity, just yank it and put a crown in there and a root canal. Can't mend those trousers, just throw 'em out and charge a new pair.

Yep, progress is everything. Ya either roll with the punches or get run over.

Glad I'm on my way out.​