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Signs Unlimited out of Durham, NC
phlac replied to Elite Sign & Lighting's topic in General Message Board
They are owned by Media Resources in Canada. They have there own accounts and will also take work from National Sign companies like Philly, MC / Icon, AGI and other and than try to job them out. If you can come to an agreement on price they are good pay. -
$ 1,120. a week to stay home. PLUS a $ 600. Food Voucher a month to stay home on the couch. TOTAL ........$ 1,270. a week. And Here in NYC, Our Mayor, Mayor DumBlasio purchased 34,000 Air Conditioners to GIVE away FREE to people who are ...? And the City will pay their Electric Bill WHY WORK ?
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COVID-19 / Coronavirus - has it affected you
Sharon Toji replied to carlmcmas's topic in General Message Board
We still have some money from our PPP grant, thank goodness, so today we wrote another salary check, 35 hours to our three full time employees, 15 hours to a couple of part time "as needed" employees. We actually got a couple of emails from some regular customers, like Pepperdine College. We also snagged a new customer, even though it's just tiny vinyl jobs. It is our landlord. I told them that if they would buy their signs from us, we'd just take out the cost of the materials for the time being, and put everything else back into paying them our lease payment. Hopefully a couple of months of that, we'll have made a dent in what we now owe them, and we'll have a good new client for the future. For anyone who sells ADA signs and gets them wholesale, we're working on something new that might interest you, especially if you do color printing and vinyl but don't have any way to do raised characters and braille. We've come out with a new line called "ADA/SterilEaze™." It takes advantage of a change in the ADA Standards from 2010 that almost no one knows about. You can have a completely separate raised character/braille message and corresponding visual message that is much larger, bolder, serif font if you want and placed much higher on the wall. It's just that the information has to be the same identification of the door or floor level. So, in other words, you could have a big hospital room number, say A135, mounted up above where most people could touch it and then down at the legal location have a very small virtually invisible raised sign, also A135, with braille below it. The visual sign's major requirements is that it must have high contrast and be non-glare and not use decorative fonts. The tactile sign doesn't need any color at all and it's even preferable to use tiny 5/8 inch high letters because that makes it easier and faster to read by touch. You could paint it on the back to match the wall color, for instance. Or, you could order a larger tactile plaque and put the company logo on the second surface or a message that says "Did you wash your hands?" or for a religious institution, a scriptural verse. A school might have the school mascot. Obviously, the blind person who only reads by touch is unaware of all this, and it does not interfere with reading the information needed. The good thing is that the tactile sign will be extremely easy and fast to sterilize and it absolutely will not disintegrate or degrade in any way. For anyone who wants to sell ADA signs but can't do thermoforming it gives them an opportunity to provide the visual sign, and to provide any subsurface color or even decoration they might want to add to customize the background of the tactile sign. I should add why it's so important that the sign be thermoformed. Although photopolymer is advertised as a one piece sign, it's not. It's a water soluble gel layer on either plastic or metal. Too much moisture and the braille dots and edges of the characters disintegrate. Metal won't disintegrate, but it needs to be painted, so that's another porous virus catcher, and too much cleaning will eventually start to wear the paint away. You can apply letters and rasters to acrylic, but those signs may also start losing the adhesive adhered letters or braille dots may fall out if they need to be cleaned a lot. Thermoforming is a true one-piece or monolithic piece of molded acrylic with no coating of any kind on the surface required. Because it is molded, you can create perfectly rounded braille dots and also completely rounded character profiles, so its not only very easy to read, but easy to clean. So, we invite all our electrical sign friends who have clients who would benefit, to inquire about our new ADA compliant SterilEaze™ system. Steril-Eaze_Signs.pdf -
Not to be insensitive to the areas hit harder by Covid 19, we have been virtually unphased by any of it as of yet. I know we are blessed and fortunate, and am deeply saddened by the affects of my brothers and sisters in the sign business that I'm hearing about here and thru LinkedIn. Hang in there gang, it has to get better, you just gotta believe that.
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Conan the Signman changed their profile photo
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I'm hearing a lot of conversations about Sign Company Employers having issues getting employees "back" to work. Some find it easier to stay "unemployed" and collect a check. Some want to stay partial employed to get the "Covid $600" check. Some states like mine, the Grand State of California dripping back the Shut Down slooooowly, while a lot of states are almost fully open. Anyone running into this issue?
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I would love to see a sign magazine Call the " Sign Syndicate Magazine" and I bet most of us would agree. A true sign trade magazine not catering to the corporate advertisers. Just the facts mam! I wonder how much funding it would take to get it off the ground? What you say Eric? We could all do our part by sending in articles and subscribing to it.
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COVID-19 / Coronavirus - has it affected you
Salsa Signman replied to carlmcmas's topic in General Message Board
We are in Georgia which opened first. Most of our projects are Metro Atlanta and the surrounding 50 mile radius. It has slowed down for us and some of our projects were put on hold. All of our projects that were on hold have now resumed. One positive result of the debacle was we were able to get a few permits issued without going to design review board meetings. Maybe they will decide they don’t really need those meetings after all. One can hope sanity prevails. The permit was handled by a few emails. Lots of businesses here in Georgia never really shut down. Some of the more visible ones in downtown areas locked their doors and did business by appointments only as not to be too obvious. Most of the restaurants stayed open for drive thru and take out and some cities even allowed people to order take out alcoholic beverages. I guess the cities and counties wanted to keep that liquor tax revenue flowing into their coffers. I always wondered who the essential businesses was for essential for? Essential for who? Now things are beginning to return to a semblance of a normal pace, the restaurants are now open for sit down meals and some are even using real plates, cloth napkins and silverware instead of the plastic or paper throw away type. Most cities are requiring the subjective spacing between tables and booths so that is limiting seating capacity therefore automatically cuts the amount of business in half. Some of the restaurant owners that I spoke with are saying they may have to close up if the spacing restriction is not lifted soon. All of the people serving food that I spoke with said they would really be glad to get rid of the mask as soon as possible. Most said it was very uncomfortable to wear a mask for a whole shift. Especially the ladies makeup was getting messed up and glasses were getting fogged up. Some said they felt less energy and even dizzy sometimes so they had to step outside and get some fresh air. I noticed that the national chains and some but not all grocery stores had these policies in place and some were more restrictive than others. So far in Georgia I have not been asked to wear a mask at any of the stores I visited. One positive thing I have noticed much less traffic on the roads and my drive times have been much better so many people must be working from home. I really enjoy driving the bucket truck now with out all the traffic. Speaking of being quarantined how many of you guys and gals are still being quarantined at home. Seems like each state is different. Some are saying this quarantine of healthy people is unconstitutional. What do you think. I saw this he other day and it makes sense to me: ‘Quarantine is when you restrict the movement of sick people. ‘Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people. My personal opinion is that we as Americans learn what is going on and do something about it if we what to keep our freedoms. What has happened is unprecedented in our country. If you want to here my uncensored thoughts on this join me in the Bar Stool Madness forum -
Also truck impact. Took the insurance companies 2 years to sort out who would pay. The I beam was direct buried in concrete and bent I beam and pulled concrete up 6" Fiberglass pin was shattered. Repaired pin with 2 side cabinets going up next week, foundation pored today. -
Tony F joined the community
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lemartstudio@aol.com joined the community
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COVID-19 / Coronavirus - has it affected you
Conan the Signman replied to carlmcmas's topic in General Message Board
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I don't think it is just Signs and Digital Graphics. The engraving magazine has also been closed down, I think, and they have replaced everything with one publication or maybe newsletter that will cover everything from signs, digital graphics, awards and engraving and stuff like embroidery machines, etc. It's a disappointment to me. S&DG originally had me write their articles on ADA Signs and appointed me as their "Expert" but when I couldn't any longer afford to have a booth at the NBM Show, they dropped me, although i was still listed as their resident "Expert." I had a real fondness for that magazine, since I wrote my very first ADA article for them back in 1992 when they were called "Sign Business" and that really began my career as an ADA sign "expert." I used to write for Signs of the Times, but they pretty much dropped me when I broke with ISA. However, Awards and Engraving Magazine still had me write articles once in a while, and paid me a small stipend for each article, which was welcome. Now, I don't expect to see many ADA items in the new "one size fits all" magazine, which might be on-line only as far as I know. I am getting it on line, and it's mostly just small blurbs about advertisers that pass as articles.
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I am fortunate in that the three full time employees left in my business after the debacles of the Great Recession followed by the LAUSD IPad scandal which forced us to refuse to do work for our major client (i.e. Los Angeles Unified School District), are really good people and when we got 8 weeks salary from a PPP loan have readily given up unemployment that was actually more than 30 hrs EFT salary for them. And, they were willing to take 30 hours rather than 40 so we could use 25 percent for rent and utilities, and also so we could write small checks for our three part time "when needed" employees who did installation. We are doing everything we can think of to bring in business, but find it unfair that we shut down as directed, and now find many of our competitors stayed open under the fiction that "signs are communication and communication is essential." The fact is, I think we are lucky to have the governor we do in California, who is careful and listens to science. California was on its way to being a disaster, and because we shut down earlier than some other states, we escaped the worst. Even though we are a huge state, and consequently have more cases than some other states, our numbers are so much lower than New York and New Jersey, as well as a couple of other much smaller states. My own residence county, Orange County, has in some ways defied the orders and had some demonstrations, and is now experiencing a higher number of cases and deaths. We just had our worst day ever. Of course we want to reopen, and hope we will still have some clients. Because our income essentially stopped -- even was slowing greatly in January because building managers were hearing about the virus, and I think put projects on hold we now have built up debt we didn't have before. We were just hanging on, and now the cliff just got a lot higher. But we have been in business 64 years so I'm not giving up without a fight. The more of companies that stay in business, the more money that will percolate through the system, and the more of us will also stay in business.
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AndrewB joined the community
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Happy Memorial Day weekend Erik! I don't know about you but I'm BIG TIME ready for some R&R! Thankfully, SDS Automation has not been impacted much by COVID. We have been fully operational the entire time and have continued to install and service machines with effectively no interruption throughout Q1 and Q2 2020. But I digress, back to the topic at hand. We just made the decision to pull our advertising from SDG. Just not confident that the ROI is there considering the direction they seem to be headed. We allocated those dollars toward increasing our presence with SOTT instead. Hopefully it proves to be a wise choice. Readers will be seeing some big improvements in our ad presence beginning in June. Looking forward to some positive feedback from the industry. Have a cold one (or ten) for me!
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Signs Unlimited out of Durham, NC
Texas Sign Services replied to Elite Sign & Lighting's topic in General Message Board
We have invoiced them on two jobs and were paid within 45 days -
I would never have imagined in my life time I would have seen the entire Country shut down. It is so heart breaking to hear some of the stories we are hearing. I can't imagine being in CA or MI where the Governors are just not listening and are just keeping everything closed when they have seen that opening up slowly in other States has worked with no problems. Few people had enough money in the bank or savings to last a month paying bills with no income - much less 3 months or more. The one thing that is going to be hard is to get people to come back to work! Most are making more sitting home drawing unemployment than they did working. Got an e-mail from the Governor last week saying that if I offered my employees their jobs back and they refused to come back (I never let any of mine go - been paying them to sweep the floor and clean up the yard) I needed to let the State know and they would cut off the unemployment. Sad to say, but that's the only way we are going to get some folks to go back to work. Stay safe everybody and hopefully this thing will be over soon!
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David Scott joined the community
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Your Clients Business Closures
UFB Fabrication replied to Erik Sine's topic in General Message Board
So at the start of this I contacted my Ins agent and asked what I had coverage wise. I have coverage for loss of business. The only caveat was that in order for this to be covered I had to be non essential and ordered by the government. I am guessing a lot of people may be getting a settlement. Along with PPP and EIDL if you applied I am thinking a lot of folks may come out ahead. On the other hand a lot of retail stores and others were barely hanging on and this was the last straw. -
P.S. Services is looking to add to our existing team by adding another Install Manager or Service Manager to our team headquartered in Anaheim, CA. The Install Manager will work with customers to estimate, sell and manage a portion of our install projects, as well as prepare a number of our install crews. The Service Manager will work with customers to estimate, sell and manage a portion of our service calls, as well as prepare a number of our service technicians. If you have experience, good customer service and communication skills, then we'd like to talk with you. P.S. Services (Signs, Lighting & Electrical) Anaheim, CA 92806 www.psserv.com mschmidt@psserv.com
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Awesome write-up, with that said, Signtech is top-notch in my book. You can tell by working with them they are trades people through and through. They are the best customer to work for as a vendor in my opinion. They produce quality signs, the PM staff is great to work with, and they are fair in all situations....even when things don't go according to plan as they do often in the sign business. -
mortforts@gmail.com joined the community
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Just wanted to see if anyone has any experience with this company? Opinions?
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The phone is ringing and customers are asking about sign removals Some are never going to open back up because of this shutdown. Some are giving up and know that they will not make it successful And some just had enough, early retirements. The question will be for many , Is how much money, time and effort do I want to put back into starting over ? Then there is the Employee problem.
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Curious about something. I'm in one of the worst states there is in our grand Union and there is no sign of Business Like Usual. With everything shut down, in just the last few weeks I've had about 3 phone calls from clients who have lost their business's because of $0 income, to quote them on Sign Removal. PPP, and Self-Employed unemployment isn't enough to pay bills and a lease. I've hated everyone of those calls, mainly because I've seen their venture from start to finish and excitement that was there on startup. We all know, starting something new there is risk involved. But whoever saw this coming. Anyway, it's gut wrenching at times. Was wondering if some of you have taken the same calls
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PAsignco changed their profile photo
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COVID-19 / Coronavirus - has it affected you
alltex replied to carlmcmas's topic in General Message Board
One day at a time here in Dallas, TX. I shut down for 1 day, the first day our State was supposed to shut down. I went to check the mail at the shop that afternoon. Everyone of my neighbors were open, and working. So I said screw it, we're working. With the exception of 1 job, all of our fab jobs were put on hold. So I decided I was getting into the Social Safety Barrier biz. Luckily with our contacts and customers, that has kept the shop somewhat busy. We're not building cheap double stick tape ones. We're fabricating like we do our signs. We still have our service/install biz that's been keeping the install crews somewhat busy. As far as seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. IMO that tunnel got a lot longer. A couple of our on hold jobs came back to life this week. But they're no longer what we originally contracted. Pole signs vanished, 1 instead of 3 signs for buildings, you get the drift... We got in on the PPP. So we've been supplementing hours with that. We'll use it when we need it to fill in any upcoming gaps. Positives? My shop is clean and organized, just like the recession times in '09-'10. Our trucks are clean, and serviced. Negatives? I won't spend my savings again keeping folks employed, covering insurance, and daily biz expenses. I've found peace with that decision if I'm faced with it. I love owning my own biz in the good and even bad times. However I'm done spending money in hopes that everything will go back to the way it was. I'm not giving up anytime soon. Things are kind of looking up, if you look real hard for the positives. -
Cancelled till next year
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SignTech Electrical Advertising - American Dream I
omarwagdi replied to Erik Sine's topic in Electric Sign Industry Articles
This was such a huge inspirational story. Thanks for the sharing it with us Erik. -
SignTech Electrical Advertising - American Dream I
omarwagdi replied to Erik Sine's topic in Electric Sign Industry Articles
This was such a huge inspirational story. Thanks for the sharing it with us Erik. -
Obviously I haven't been up on current events when it comes to our Brochure Magazines, and it might have gone unnoticed but apparently S&DG's is no more. The magazine like a the rest were getting thinner and thinner. They had a few good tech guys writing articles but for the most part S&DG's was the worst of the three with their advertisers writing nothing but infomercial articles and trying to dictate the industry to pass through their business and whatever they were trying to pedal.
