12 Contrarian Rules of Business for Sign Companies

IN BUSINESS AND IN life, a few people make it a habit to buck convention and have a knack of seeing something no one else does. These are the brave and often odd souls whose questioning of the conventions in society or their professional field have repeatedly caused history to change course or leap forward. But it’s not easy being a true contrarian: There is the risk of ridicule, having to live with constant uncertainty. However, some business owners and managers find benefits in being unconventional.

In the following pages, we present a dozen contrarian ideas. Some you may have heard before, some are edging their way into the mainstream, some are possibly contradictory. All we feel are worth pondering.

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Ignore Additional Opportunities

01 One of the dangers of business success is that it leads to more opportunities. Pursue them at your peril. Doing one thing well invariably means you can’t do another at a high level as you spread yourself too thin. The result is a damaging mediocrity. In his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown cites studies that show the loss of focus is a key reason companies fail. The antidote? Spurning even good opportunities. “Not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately and strategically eliminating the nonessentials,” he writes.

Dennis Schaub of FastTrack Signs (Bellefontaine, OH) puts this principle into action by turning down projects. “Saves so much time and money. We don’t make enough profit on small jobs, so we quit doing them a few years ago.” Similarly, Chad Lawson and Sign Pro of Skagit Valley (Mt. Vernon, WA) discuss minimum charges with walk-in customers looking for time-consuming small projects. “This eliminates a whole bunch of wasted time on project details as many of these customers are not even willing to pay the bare minimum we need to keep the doors open, allowing us to concentrate on more profitable projects,” he says.

The Customer Is NOT Always Right

02 It’s actually irrelevant if a customer is right or wrong. Just because a customer wants, needs or expects something does not mean delivering it is the best thing for your business. You need to make decisions that best apply your company’s capital, intellectual energy and product capabilities. Rather than customer satisfaction, the ultimate goal should be running a sustainable business.

“We say no,” says Melvin La Pan, Fastsigns of Augusta (Augusta, GA). “If what someone is asking for is going to cause us trouble or is just not worth our time, we give our employees the freedom to say no. It has greatly increased morale and allows us to focus on what we are good at. Of course, we tell people no in a polite manner, but some things are just not worth it!”

Don’t Believe in Long Work

03 Few things are as American as the belief in the merit of hard work. The problem is too many small business people confuse work and progress. A day when lots of things get done, you arrive home exhausted after holding six meetings with staff and vendors, clearing 300 emails from your inbox and finally straightening those old files in the backroom. Marketer Seth Godin calls this bias for efficiency over effectiveness “the trap of long work.” As a remedy, Burke Enterprise (Oakdale, CT) offers unlimited time off for all employees. “As long as your assignments are done, GO HOME! They love it and more work is getting done faster,” says owner Robert Burke.

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Be an Underachiever

04 Try to do less, and you might find you get more done. Running around in what appears to be a hyper-productive whirl looks impressive, but it’s usually self-defeating. You tire yourself out, resulting in work that needs to be done over or in little getting done the following day. Or you neglect so many other duties that you’re forced to use an off day to catch up. In fact, the more time you give yourself to do individual tasks, the more things on your to-do list you actually get accomplished, says Elizabeth Grace Saunders, a time coach and author of The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment.

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Big Decision? Toss a Coin

05 Bad decisions are generally the result of a lack of information, which is what makes many business choices so agonizing. Will a technological change make an investment in equipment redundant? Will the loss of a huge local employer make that downtown location a bad choice? As Princeton psychology professor Tania Lombrozo notes, if no single option clearly stands out — they’re roughly equal and you can’t reduce the uncertainty by doing further research — then your decision doesn’t matter much. You could just flip a coin. When a decision turns out to have been bad, remind yourself that you truly couldn’t have known.

Nice Guys Finish Last … and First

06 People who prioritize others’ interests tend to be some of the most successful in the world, according to studies done by Wharton professor Adam Grant. “Rather than blindly giving time and energy to anyone, a successful giver will adjust their reciprocity style to avoid becoming a doormat,” he writes. This is realized as a “complete culture shift” for Grasshopper Wholesale Signs (Farmington Hills, MI). “Incorporating a family-type atmosphere where everyone is always ready to help. Completing company goals as a team rather than individual efforts,” owner Zach Gehring explains. For Jeremy Vanderkraats, Signs by Van (Salinas, CA), “Buying lunch for the employees once a week is a small price to pay for elevated morale.”

Think Small

07 In his 1994 book Built to Last, Jim Collins introduced the world to Big Hairy Audacious Goals, his term for the ambitious long-term goals that — he argued — galvanized successful companies. But the problem is that the excitement, energy and envelope-pushing boldness stirred up by such endeavors often dissipate quickly in the face of the day-to-day running of business. Like the formula for contentment (happiness = reality – expectations), it’s often better to forget the end goal, aim low and just focus on the process if you really want to get things done.

Don’t Promise Excellent Customer Service

08 Something big corporations know (but never publicly say) is that delivering excellent customer service ultimately results in unhappy customers. “If you want satisfied customers, it’s certainly wise to act in ways that will satisfy them. But it’s also wise to pay attention to (and, if possible, influence) their criteria for feeling satisfied,” writes Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian. Training customers, employees and partners not to expect a “yes” in response to every single request might be crucial for preserving sanity.

“Sometimes the simplest of things, and contrarian, is to say ‘no’ to a client, vendor or even a staff member,” notes Derek Atchley of Atchley Graphics (Columbus, OH). “It seems to go against the ‘norm’ or gut feeling, especially as the business owner, but in the end it’s usually the best decision.”

Sometimes Bad Things Just Need to Happen

09 As The 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss has written, it’s worth learning to “let small bad things happen,” so that big good things eventually come to pass. You’ll never solve all your problems, so which ones are worth putting up with in order to solve the others? The new technology you want to buy might be really good, but it’s also very expensive. Or it’s really easy to use, but it doesn’t do everything you want it to do. Harold Pedley, Sign Engineering (San Juan, PR), summarizes this succinctly: “You cannot make a profit on every job you do. You have to know when and how to lose if you expect to win in the long run.”

Stop Holding Meetings

10 The key question for distinguishing a worthwhile meeting from a worthless one seems to be this: Is it a “status-report” meeting, designed for employees to tell each other things? If so, it’s probably better handled by email. That leaves a minority of “good” meetings, whose value lies in the meeting of minds itself. “In the fast-paced world of today, attending networking events and local community meetings is often deemed ‘not necessary,’ but we thrive in these environments!” says Bob Chapa, Signarama Troy | Metro Detroit (Troy, MI). “It plays a key factor in our long-term success!”

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Look for Mentors and Staff Who Do It the “Wrong Way”

11 Tim Ferriss has an interesting approach to considering contrarians: Be on the lookout for the anomalies, like the wispy woman who can deadlift 400 pounds. They’re performing with techniques rather than genes. “These iconoclasts show the differences in techniques and attributes,” he says. “If someone has become really good at doing something in a very nonstandard way, you can infer that the standard path isn’t necessarily the best methodology for learning a skill.” National Branding (Troy, MI) has found a game-changer in recruitment: “I’ve started looking in unconventional areas like healthcare and banking, and it turns out, people from those industries actually enjoy the complexity of the sign business,” says National Branding’s Torey Rouillon.

Don’t Be So Professional

12 In her book Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness, Melissa Dahl makes a persuasive case for celebrating those times when “someone’s presentation of themselves … is shown to be incompatible with reality in a way that can’t be smoothed over.” Quoting the words of the philosopher Adam Kotsko, she says it creates “a weird kind of social bond” — a solidarity arising from seeing that behind the fakery, we’re all just trying our best to seem competent. The awkward you, then, is the real you, the one without the defensive performance. And people will like you for it.

Likewise, Stuart Stein of ESCO Mfg (Watertown, SD) acknowledges to staff and prospective employees that he is not a perfect leader. “Just trying to do the best I can to stack good decisions together that will move our company forward,” he adds.