The EstiMate Software Blog

1. Drive around looking for signs in need of repair, and visit the owner with business card in hand and EstiMate on your laptop.
2. Right now, everybody is having sales. Take out a classified ad advertising banners to the local business community, as a “cross marketing” opportunity. When people call inquiring, explain that you are offering 5% off in exchange for having your name on the banner.
3. Get creative with direct mail. Take the type of work that makes you the very best profit, and direct mail small target groups offering your services. A great example would be holiday window splashes (there’s a new holiday every couple of months).

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Jennifer and I recently hung a cork board on the wall to start our very own dream board (a dream board is where you put up images, writing, drawings, etc of all the things you want to do or have, to look at every day – a pretty cool visualization tool).

Well.

After a day or so it was still empty and eventually she printed out all the specs of the car she wants and tacked it up on the board.

Damn.  She beat me to it.

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Note: This article is written from the sign shop perspective, but is applicably to any small business where time and materials are the bottom line.

The wrong hourly rate (or “shop rate”) can be like a hidden cancer for your business.

How do I know?  Because I almost killed my sign business this way in 1995. Obviously, now that EstiMate Software is my gig, I’m not making signs anymore.  I grew up in the business, though, and ran my own shop for 8 years — so I know a thing or two about how to keep it going and what matters.

One thing I know for sure is that the wrong shop rate can kill your business.  Especially in times like these. The very worst thing you can do is work for cheap.

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