Organizing Your Floor Space, and More Tips for Sign Pros in July

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?” — Alfred Hitchcock

CUSTOMERS Not Your Sign

1 “As a sign professional, I feel it’s my duty to inform the client of their best sign solution,” says John Miller from Signs by Autografix in Branford, CT, “but in the end you’ve got to just tell ’em what they need and give ’em what they want.” (For more, click here.)

MARKETING Storefront Brand Extension

2 During the pandemic AlphaGraphics Oceanside (Oceanside, CA) printed a canopy with their name, logo and website as a “front porch” for conducting business with clients while maintaining social distance. “Since we are located next to a drive-up coffee shop, it was quite noticed and attracted some business,” says owner Cindy Ballard-Guminski. “We still put it up for shade on hot days.”

ORGANIZATION Double Floor Space by Clearing Aisles

3 Place small items under tables or large equipment without impeding use of the equipment, advises Larry Mitchell, SignChef (El Dorado Hills, CA). Add wall shelving, racks or cabinets to store items out of the way. Keep working materials and small tools close but placed against walls to keep those items safely out of valuable movement zones. Take advantage of the new space by cleaning floor areas. Implement “Space (the new frontier) Maintenance Rules” to keep the shop neater, cleaner, roomier and safer. “We recently did this in our shop and it looked and felt twice as big!” Larry reports.

INSTALLATION Drywall Hack

4 “When we hang signs we use a punch in drywall instead of a drill,” says Earl Walker, Image360 Tucker (Tucker, GA). It saves time and reduces clean up, he adds.

SCHEDULING Call it Forward

5 Port City Signs and Graphics (Wilmington, NC) has improved scheduling efficiency, especially for vehicle wraps in their garage. They moved from having their sales team book those appointments to having their lead wrap specialist manage the schedule and make all client calls once jobs are printed. This has tightened up the wrap schedule. As soon as one is close to complete, the next client is called and sometimes comes in a day or two early. This also allows closing more sales.

BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND? Boost Your Brain

6 When bored do you reach for your phone, get curious about how the paint on the walls around you was made or wonder if there is a deeper message to be had from the current antsy-ness you’re feeling? In their book, Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom, authors James Danckert and John Eastwood argue for the latter — that it’s best to view boredom as a possible warning sign that something needs to change. “When we’re bored, our minds are telling us that whatever we are doing isn’t working; we’re failing to satisfy our basic psychological need to be engaged and effective.” In such cases, too many of us respond poorly by seeking to outrun boredom or find a way to be distracted. But Danckert and Eastwood argue we should try to let boredom have the opposite effect, motivating the change we need. That could be something small like recognizing that a certain type of sign doesn’t excite you anymore. “Boredom encourages us to choose actions that give expression to who we are. Our actions have to matter,” Danckert says.

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