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Consultant for Hire
By Mark Roberts
During the course of a typical business day here at The InterSign Group, we will answer several telephone calls and respond to numerous emails. Our business is probably typical of any other sign business. We all have a measured number of productive hours, sprinkled in with way too many “non-productive” hours. At the end of the day, what counts is how well you provided for your family, your future, and the resale value of your business.
Telephone and email inquiries come in daily. “How much will it cost to wrap my van?” “How much will it cost for a four-by-eight-foot dimensional sign?” Your list could include various and sundry products produced or resold by your own sign business. Yes, a small portion of your time is truly unbillable when fielding requests for quotations—count on it.
So, where does the “consultation fee” kick in?
I’d have to say any involvement exceeding five minutes should be handled in two ways. The best way to handle the questioning is to ask the caller if he or she would like to enlist your services as a professional signage consultant. The products my company produces can be discussed, priced, and quoted in less than an hour (including permit questions). Since this is an invaluable service to the prospect—and a service that should lead to the closing of the sale—it must be a billable event. My fee for this service is a mere $150. Of course, if the client purchases a $4,500 sign, I’ll outright waive the $150 consultation fee.
What if a prospect sends you several photos via email and wants a “free” estimate regarding a replacement or refurbishment to an existing sign? My policy is photographs are all well and good—unless my money is on the line.
Let’s hypothesize a building management company contacts you for an estimate to reface a dimensional sign. Their building superintendent has taken several photos of their existing sign and has provided measurements of the existing faces. After a quick look at the photographs, you can quickly determine your “ballpark” price for performing your services—let’s say you guesstimate approximately $4,500. If and when the deal closes, you’d obviously travel to the job site to take your own measurements, right?
But what if you arrive at the job site and the measurements taken by the building engineer were off by four or five inches? Could that be a costly mistake? You bet it can, and to keep this worry out of your life, you must assume the role of an actual sign consultant and begin charging for your services.
I’m often called by out-of-state sign companies to perform surveys, take measurements, and check for obstructions. My extremely reasonable fee for this is $150, if I can accomplish the task in less than ninety minutes. Your fees may be higher, and mine should be too; however I’ll risk the difference. This is my minimum; there’s no way around it. I don’t trust photos or measurements taken by others when my money is on the line.
Often I hear the “cheap horn” blown by some sign companies—those who say they’ve furnished all I need to create an accurate estimate for my services, and in their eyes they think they’re right. My thirty years of sign industry experience has taught me to never assume anything, and I cover myself by taking my own measurements and performing my own site inspections. If $150 is too much to pay for this service, keep looking until you find someone who’ll charge you less. Good luck finding a free survey.
As sign company owners, we really don’t look forward to the “cheap-o Charlies” who may come into our shop or call us on the telephone. Their lack of funds shouldn’t contribute to our lack of funds. It costs money to run a business; in fact it costs a lot of money to run a successful sign business, so we must guard our resources, our time, and our expenditures. Serious prospects know this.
Mark Roberts is a thirty-year sign industry veteran, the owner of The InterSign Group in Houston Texas, and the publisher of several sign industry instructional products. For more information, visit www.signprice.com and www.theinternsigngroup.com.
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