appropriate1
New Member
My sign career has been 45 years full time and a half dozen prior to that. All brush work early on and transitioned as most all of us did.
After hand digging 7 or 8,000 post holes and a bunch of those in frozen ground, my shoulders are totally shot. Yes, I have an auger but they
are still work and impact. I've done commercial real estate signs, typically 4 x 8 foot on 4 x 4 wood posts and have 200+ in storage that
guarantee clients will call when they change them and use them on the next listing. It has worked well and been from 14 to 30% of my
annual sales for at least 20 years.
I also do sandblasted signs, mostly HDU now, and half of those are for other sign shops. Some get posts and installs, too.
and the full round of other sign work...trucks, banners, wall letters, and a lot of somewhat jobbed out channel letters, and ten billboard rentals
that amount to a fair amount per year. I have always been busy for 45 years and only lost $2500 in unpaid bills from customers.
As I wrote, my shoulders are bad and I've just hired help one day a week to dig, but it is a very temporary solution. Fence companies charge double
what I'm charging for two holes in one site and solutions are plentiful, but none make sense dollar-wise without huge price increases to my
long-time customers. Yes, I am aware this problem was created by not charging double years ago.
Shoulder surgery can solve the physical problem but the recovery time will mean I cannot do anything well for 6 months or more.
Nealy all of what I do day to day will be impossible, so surgery is just not an option unless I retire, which I do not want to do yet.
The utility locating services don't show about half the time and the whole real estate sign business is becoming something I think I should
learn to live without.
It is maybe not enough in sales $ to sell off just part of my business. I have loyal customers and their real estate signs stored, but if I quit that segment, the
other sign shops in the area will get the business I cannot complete for free, anyway.
I can survive without digging and intentionally morph into being more of a broker and middleman than I ever wanted to be. I can still do the blasted
signs in house, plenty of small jobs and enough to also keep one long-time employee in the shop busy. NO, she does not dig holes. Maybe make
up for the lost 14% by brokering jobs I would currently say no to bidding.
I think I have a couple of options:
1. Raise the install price to where I can hire someone else to do them all and if the jobs all go away, they do and my decision is made for me.
2. Send out a letter and shut down all of the install and digging and start some late career re-inventing to fill to void until quit totally, in one to five years.
I know I'll be offered a lot of opinions here and those who want to say what an idiot I am for one reason or another. I've raised a family, paid off a house
and a shop and have a decent life, so what I have done has actually worked pretty well until now with the new health issues at a young 65.
Opinions and suggestion welcome, please.
After hand digging 7 or 8,000 post holes and a bunch of those in frozen ground, my shoulders are totally shot. Yes, I have an auger but they
are still work and impact. I've done commercial real estate signs, typically 4 x 8 foot on 4 x 4 wood posts and have 200+ in storage that
guarantee clients will call when they change them and use them on the next listing. It has worked well and been from 14 to 30% of my
annual sales for at least 20 years.
I also do sandblasted signs, mostly HDU now, and half of those are for other sign shops. Some get posts and installs, too.
and the full round of other sign work...trucks, banners, wall letters, and a lot of somewhat jobbed out channel letters, and ten billboard rentals
that amount to a fair amount per year. I have always been busy for 45 years and only lost $2500 in unpaid bills from customers.
As I wrote, my shoulders are bad and I've just hired help one day a week to dig, but it is a very temporary solution. Fence companies charge double
what I'm charging for two holes in one site and solutions are plentiful, but none make sense dollar-wise without huge price increases to my
long-time customers. Yes, I am aware this problem was created by not charging double years ago.
Shoulder surgery can solve the physical problem but the recovery time will mean I cannot do anything well for 6 months or more.
Nealy all of what I do day to day will be impossible, so surgery is just not an option unless I retire, which I do not want to do yet.
The utility locating services don't show about half the time and the whole real estate sign business is becoming something I think I should
learn to live without.
It is maybe not enough in sales $ to sell off just part of my business. I have loyal customers and their real estate signs stored, but if I quit that segment, the
other sign shops in the area will get the business I cannot complete for free, anyway.
I can survive without digging and intentionally morph into being more of a broker and middleman than I ever wanted to be. I can still do the blasted
signs in house, plenty of small jobs and enough to also keep one long-time employee in the shop busy. NO, she does not dig holes. Maybe make
up for the lost 14% by brokering jobs I would currently say no to bidding.
I think I have a couple of options:
1. Raise the install price to where I can hire someone else to do them all and if the jobs all go away, they do and my decision is made for me.
2. Send out a letter and shut down all of the install and digging and start some late career re-inventing to fill to void until quit totally, in one to five years.
I know I'll be offered a lot of opinions here and those who want to say what an idiot I am for one reason or another. I've raised a family, paid off a house
and a shop and have a decent life, so what I have done has actually worked pretty well until now with the new health issues at a young 65.
Opinions and suggestion welcome, please.
