Five ways to boost profits without raising your prices

The fastest, easiest way to increase your sign business’s profits, of course, is to simply raise your prices. But it isn’t always quite so simple. You may feel your market won’t support higher prices or the competition is too stiff to risk it.

Fortunately, there are other ways to send more dollars to your bottom line without raising your prices. Just ask other successful sign shop owners, as SignCraft does. They almost always mention that one or more of the following five ways help them increase profits for their shop.

None of the five are hard or involve buying new equipment or hiring more staff. They take minimal effort but deliver significant results. Picking just one of these to work on for the next thirty days would be a great way to start putting extra profits in your pocket.

Printing area at Brushstroke Signs, Salmon Arm, BC, Canada

Materials storage at Vital Signs, Tallahassee, Florida

One: Get organized and more efficient. Work smarter rather than harder. Take a look at where your time is going and watch for ways to make your workday more productive. Set up your workspaces so that everything is at your fingertips.

 

Upsell a flat sign with panel cut to shape. John Deaton, Deaton Design, Evarts, Kentucky

Offer a design with more impact. Braun Bleamer, Jet Signs, Palmerton, Pennsylvania

Sell an additional sign—like a hardworking A-frame sign. Jocelin Snow, Snow Signs, Salinas, California. See “A-frames signs make a great add-on sale” for more on this. 

Two: Upsell. Don’t assume the customer won’t buy an upgrade. Rather, know that they need an upgrade to get more value from their signage. Find something you can offer as an add-on to every sale. Practice your pitch—make sure it’s friendly and genuine.

 

Bob Kolody and Jamie Enright, D-Signs, Devonport, Tasmania, Australia

Shane McNair, McNair Signs & Graphics, Carthage, Mississippi

Doug Downey, The Image Factory, Stratford, Ontario, Canada

Three: Sell related products. Most of your customers need promotional items, stationery, cast plaques, T-shirts, logo stickers, laser-engraved products. These are beyond the scope of signage, but related to it. Don’t let them go elsewhere for these items. Just because you can’t do it in-house doesn’t mean you can’t sell it and outsource it. Doug Downey tells how he does it in “Outsource to grow your business without adding equipment or staff.”

 

The sales area at Brushstroke Signs, Salmon Arm, BC, Canada

Four: Tune up your image. Sales are easier when you have a professional appearance. It gives your customers more confidence in your skills. Showing samples of your work—plus related products that you offer—also makes it easier to upsell and show what other products you offer.

 

Five: Spare yourself the common pricing errors. Don’t “throw in” the design, the installation, the delivery, the cutout panel shape, the anything. Add those items to the cost of the sign in the quote. Check your estimates against SignCraft’s Sign Pricing Guide [above] and our SignQuote Pro web app [below] to make sure you’re not underpricing your work. They’re both really easy to use, and have been used by thousands of sign makers for years.

Members can access SignQuote Pro by clicking the link at the top of Sign Pricing page on SignCraft.com.

Choose from Digital Printing, Cut Vinyl or Vehicle Wrap categories.

Enter your shop’s hourly rate and the sign’s basic information.

Choose the substrate, media and additional items.

Get the estimated price, then email the estimate to yourself for reference.