How Soon Should Signshops Follow Up on Estimates?

What are the most practical ways small signshops are successfully transitioning to wide-format printing and indoor install bays without taking on overwhelming debt?

We always suggest using wholesalers to fabricate new or different signs whenever entering new markets, wide-format printing definitely being one of them. (We are less familiar with indoor install bays.) Using wholesale wide-format printers may narrow the margins of your sales, but they’ll help you avoid any debt, not just “overwhelming debt.” You’ll gain valuable experience, start to build a client list, run a real-world test to confirm a stable market is there and ultimately choose to invest in your own equipment or to continue to sub out.

What systems or structures have you seen work best for improving bid-to-win ratios in signage without simply lowering price?

Brooks Digh, a Ph.D. student in mathematics working for FSG Signs (Austin, TX), recently analyzed FSG’s data from jobs they’ve bid, including the cost, the margin at which they bid the job, how much business they had done with the customer, distance to the customer site, and if FSG won or lost the bid. He then trained an artificial neural network to predict the probability of FSG winning a new job for a given margin. At a 20% margin he found they would have about a 98% chance to win the bid. As the margin increases, the win percentage decreases toward 0% chance of winning at a 35% margin. So, maybe think principally about your margin rather than pricing to improve your bid-to-win ratios. To read Digh’s full article, see signsofthetimes.com/052607.

We asked the ST Brain Squad: How soon do you follow up on estimates and renderings when several people have to agree on the approval of a project? I don’t want to be pushy.