The One Man Shop

[David Iannone]

Well....Bob to be honest I feel bad for high jacking Joe's thread and airing my dirty laundry. It was a weak moment on my part.....

Back to Joe's original post....I do everything myself now a days with very little help. Long hours and for a while I have felt like I just want to sell all my stuff and maybe move to Colorado and work for a nice sign shop out there...or California. That's just pipe dreams though. GA is my home now.

QuickBooks, good point Joe, I am going to talk to my accountant and see what the extra fees would be for them to handle my books. I have QuickBooks online so I can give them access and in todays electronic age they probably could make quick work out of it and do it much better than me too.

Design, I have started to build a working relationship with a webdesign/computer repair shop a few stores down from me. They are young guys like me and hungry. The web design guy has talent. He has good design skills. I had a customer come in my shop yesterday afternoon talking about wraps......I told him the way I do wraps. The design is firmed out to the guys a few stores down, and I am the print, lam, install guy. We talked for about 45 minutes in my shop as I showed him my capabilities and also limitations, samples, pics. I gave him rough numbers based on sq/ft of his trailers and trucks he wants done. He didn't even flinch. He came from another shop in my town that are butchers and don't know what they are doing (my opinion). Their work looks like **** and some of the designs and wraps I have seen from them are way too busy and hard to read. Im not a designer but I know what is readable and what is not. Then we walked a few stores down and I introduced him to "the design team" so to speak. Well later that day I walked down and asked the guys how it went. They said great. They are putting a proposal together for him for not just the wrap designs but he also asked them to price doing him a professional website. I plan to give this potential customer a follow up call tomorrow afternoon just to touch base with him. We will see, you know how these things go, so he may just be price shopping.

Part time help, yeah I guess I need to find someone steady to work maybe 10-15 hrs a week. I don't need anyone highly skilled or nothing. Like you say Joe, just a willingness to work and learn. Most I what I would have this person do is so easy a caveman could do it....haha but seriously its just a lot of boring laminating, trimming, cutting.

To do list is key also. I used to be organized, but for the last few years I run my shop like a pig pen. Well that needs to change. Not only is it unproductive to be always looking for tape measure or pencil or knife. It is not the image I want potential new customers to see.

Dave

[David Iannone]

I have worked all weekend and still here today. Sometimes the one man shop has to say "uncle" and ask for help. I have two friends coming in tomorrow for 8 hrs to help me get caught up. By the end of tomorrow I will bill out about $7000 I have been in cutting vinyl, printing vinyl, cutting substrates, etc all weekend.

Yeah this is all boring easy vinyl sign stuff, weed, tape, apply, some of it is laminate, trim etc. Lucky for me I have some friends with flexible schedules.

My to do list is ready for tomorrow and I will still be here till at least 10:00 tonight and back at 7:00am tomorrow morning. I am putting my focus back where it belongs and thank goodness I have more work than I can handle right now. While those two are doing the cookie cutter work I have setup for them to do I have a big job to cut on the shopbot for my local sign shop contact so I will be floating around the shop doing what I do best.....fabricate and manage sign projects.

Dave

[joe]

David,

Glad to see you are busy. I'm concerned you are burning the candle.

Just wondering if a little organization might help. Good part-time help isn't all that hard to find. We're all rooting for you.

Joe

[David Iannone]

Thanks Joe,

Yeah I have had some late nights in my small home workshop "brainstorming" so to speak......

The one man shop is tough. But I am going to call a kid I have used a few times in the past. He gets done his fulltime job at 2:00 each day so I am going to commit to 10 hrs a week if he is still willing to help.

I had considered a partnership with the large sign company in my town who sends me a lot of wholesale work. Well we may have just figured out the answer. He is in the process of looking into putting up a 2000sq/ft building on his property, heating and air, big roll up door and I will rent it. He has a lot of land where he is at. At this point when we are next door neighbors he will save the time and gas running back and forth across town to my shop. Some days multiple times, and we are gonna sit down and figure out a price we can agree upon for me to start to do all his vinyl signs in addition to the printing and CNC work I do. This way he can be out selling fulltime. I told him I can even help make sure his guys stay on track on thier projects while he is on the road. We keep our separate companies, but it works for both of us. At this point I will have a full time helper. I will probably take over lettering all his vehicles hopefully, we will see. We have worked together since 2012 down here and it has been great. This will solve my isolation problem and give me the shop space I am looking for.

If business keeps up like this the rest of the year, and if he follows through on the building I am going to swing for the fence and try to finance a 4'x8' flatbed printer. I need the space and temp control which in a new building I will have. I am looking at the roland UV. Its just under $60,000 but if I am looking at it right that machine saves me an employee. The material savings and labor savings alone make it work, and I now would be competing with the screen printing guys for the 18x24 coroplast rat race.

I have realized that God has much bigger plans for me than to have me leave my family and business in DE 10 years ago, to come down here to GA, break my leg so bad I almost lost it, and to live in a miserable and unhealthy marriage.

Technology is moving so fast and in my opinion any business not embracing it and keeping up with it and taking a chance on that new high end machine that could change their business is going to eventually see their bottom line slipping away.

As I stand right now my gross sales this year should hit $150,000 or more as a one man shop with little help here and there.

With a flatbed printer and one helper I think I could do $250,000 a year.

Someday with a third person being a designer, well you see where my mind is headed.

Dave

[GeneMpls]

David- I would strongly suggest outsourcing the work you are thinking of doing on the flatbed. The best/easiest money we make is sending the design to Signs365 and it shows up a day or two later ready to deliver. They are good and fast and dependable and easy to work with and print(and cut) on many substrates now. At least use them (or someone like them) until you have a market share that you know will support a flatbed. A 60k printer that is a year old is going to be worth a lot less. Gene

Signs365.com

Also if you are not subscribed to Signs101.com, you should. A lot of info on all kinds of printers and a lot of (mostly) helpful people. Some are not as tolerant of people asking questions as they are on this forum, of course.

[joe]

I'm in full agreement with Gene. Some of the easiest money I make is by farming out work.

Here's some excellent dimensional artists. http://www.sandblasted.com/signs101/

[GeneMpls]

Have you personally used them Joe? Looks like they are in Georgia. Gene

[joe]

Thanks for asking. I haven't used them but may do so in the future. They have the largest group of signs I've seen. Especially so in the V carve section.
One of my concerns is the depth of blasting or route. Looking over most of the signs look a little shallow. I've found a deeper relief imparts a richer look. I'm sure a little extra depth can be had on request.

[GeneMpls]

I searched Signs101 for them and all of the posts are quite old. They offer samples for the cost of the materials- that might be a good way to start out. Gene

[joe]

Gene,

It could be the clients aren't the right kind. Most of them are sticker heads. For a while I participated however they didn't have a designation for dimensional work.

I hope Sandblasted.com is still up and going.