Sign Pro Investigates Specializing vs. Full Services

ULYSSES IS MY NAME. The final part of my odyssey to start and run a sign company took me first to Troy, MI — where I met with a very large sign franchise location — then to the annual international sign expo, where I spent three days researching the type of shop I should open and the services I should offer.

Having made it to the show by mid-morning of the first day, I decided to take a quick look around before visiting the companies on my list. Starting in aisle 100, my plan was to do a quick loop and make note of anything interesting not already in mind. I saw a big group hanging around and talking loud at the Lotus booth. I was trying to see what they do when a guy with a tray filled with cups of draft beer swung it my way. “Beer?” he said.

It was only 10:45 a.m. but when I hesitated a moment, the guy said, “It’s noon somewhere. You’re not in the office. Enjoy.” So I took one and had a sip. My favorite beer, as it turned out! So I decided to look into what Lotus does, but I don’t really remember. I do remember having a second beer and then thinking, I’ve got to get to my list before lunch starts.

With a slight but definite buzz, I visited a wholesale sign manufacturer. They weren’t that busy, except for talking to each other. Finally, a fellow with an eyepatch drifted over to me. I told him I was looking to open a shop soon and was wondering which direction to go: specializing or full-service. “Specialize, for sure,” was his preamble to what seemed a very long elevator pitch. “Use wholesalers for the rest,” was his gist. Maybe it was the beer buzz, and I guess he could smell it on me, but he took a bowl of individual LifeSavers Wint-O-Green mints from a table and offered me one. I waved them away and kept waiting for him to finish his spiel. I inched myself to the edge of their booth, but couldn’t break free. Finally, I interrupted him with “Thanks, great info—” but after two steps into the aisle, a Wint-O-Green mint sailed past my ear.

Next stop was a printer manufacturer. I chatted up one of their reps about the decision I was facing. “Full-service all the way,” she began, as she showed me the wide range of products just their machines could produce. Among the golf balls, lunch boxes and more, their booth featured a faux-BBQ stand, where they took your picture, mixed in a little AI and created a T-shirt with your own face atop their anthropomorphic-pig logo. I felt obligated to take the shirt, and with my face on a cartoon swine, I couldn’t just leave it somewhere. With it in hand, I moved on.

Then it was like I had lunch in Hades. Every line was long and slow. And then — for a hamburger, fries and bottle of water — $31! I had to “enjoy” my lunch within maybe five minutes, at a table for standing.

Determined to resume my journey of research, I pressed on. Here and there I managed a few words with other attendees, people working for sign companies. Some swore by specialization: “Find out what you do well and stick to it.” Others felt differently: “Once you get that customer in your door, find a way to do everything you can for them.”

Throughout the remainder of the expo, my research expanded, but never reached a definitive point. Finally, I’m back home in Ithaca, NY, with my wife and son, trying to decide what to do.

Steve L.
Clayville, NY

This is a decision dictated by vision and values. You need to start there. Determine what YOU want for your business: how it should look, feel and present to your customers. This will get the ball rolling in the right direction. Create your model based on that vision and values. Find mentors you admire and have a similar model (everyone’s will differ), and ask them to share their knowledge, experiences and possibly their network. This will help you avoid some mistakes. However, you will make plenty and that’s simply part of the game. Everyone will have an opinion based on their own experience. It should never be ‘go with the flow’ or ‘see what sticks.’ If you chase two squirrels, you will catch none. I purchased an existing shop and over seven years nearly tripled revenue. We’ve moved on from customers that no longer fit our model, and gained some tremendous customers that have helped to elevate my shop to where it is.

Brian G.
Salina, KS

Specialize! The saying “Jack of all trades, master of none” comes to mind when I hear of shops trying to do it all: vinyl, wraps, lighted signs, apparel, specialties, business cards, etc. Find your niche and do it well. For those items that aren’t within your scope of expertise, have a couple of connections you can refer customers to.

Ken F.
Carver, MN

Your market should be a big determining factor. Our shop has multiple products so we don’t have all our eggs in one basket, but we can’t be the best at everything either, so we defined our wheelhouse and make changes to it carefully.

Arif J.
New York

Start small and specialize in what you do best, and grow based on the demand of your product offerings. OR buy an existing business if you want to skip the time to grow!

Ben P.
Seaford, DE

In today’s world that is a tough call. There are so many sources to get product that it is easy to sub out work you can’t do yourself. But I want to do everything I can for all my customers — keeps them from getting involved with another sign company who might try to steal them. But then again, if you are doing everything right for your customer, this should not be any issue. The one hurdle to doing everything is the investment in equipment. We are a full-service manufacturing signshop, and when I look at what we have invested in equipment, it is a lot. But this was not an overnight realization. This is 40-plus years of slow steady growth and putting the money back into the business. I just can’t stand to not have control.

Jeff T.
Lynnwood, WA

Pick a specialty, very difficult to grow by generalizing. We bought a run-of-the-mill shopping-center sign company 18 years ago and have doubled our size three times since. Mostly by specializing, in our case, 80% electrical signage and 15% fleet graphics — and referring anything else to non-competing shops.

Steven L.
Spirit Lake, IA

It really depends on your market as to specialize or be full service. A large city market would be easier to specialize in. A smaller, local region works better for the full-service variety. Grab and keep the customer and fill most of the key things every business can use.

Teresa Y.
Paso Robles, CA

What I have seen, through 38 years and 400 entrepreneurs launching signshops, is a very logical (and vital) progression from “sell it all, to almost anyone” to “my greatest product lines are tailored to my greatest vertical markets.” It’s not a question of “either/or” starting out. To survive, you need cash flow. And assuming you have priced accurately and can remain agile and hyper-responsive to your customer inquiries, you say, “Yes we can, yes we will” to prospects. Learn, grow and over time, those business muscles strengthen, you become more brave (and financially secure); you direct certain customers (e.g., consumers seeking a birthday banner) to online resources. You winnow your “in-house” offerings, using wholesalers to reduce labor costs; you expand other product lines by purchasing a new piece of equipment (after careful financial analysis). What is the impetus for that matriculation to specialization? Sometimes a niche just draws your passion. For others, it’s when they said “Yes” when no one else did. Suddenly, they are the big fish in a small pond.

Lauren C.
Harrisburg, PA

If you’re only going to do one thing, you have to do it really well, so start full-service and find your niche later. Start with a basic roll-to-roll printer, a laminator, and a plotter. Use the wholesale network to fill in the blanks with as many products as your brain can hold knowledge of. Once you’ve been doing it a few years, you can reassess to see if your market will support you as a more “niche” shop and you can make additional investments in the corresponding equipment, marketing, staff, resources, training, etc.