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3 Tenets of a Successful Sign-Making Business

Author: Amitava Sarkar
by Amitava Sarkar
Posted: Jun 22, 2015

You’ve always been a fan of working with your hands. From a young age, you exhibited an enviable knack for building new things and repairing old ones. After developing a strong appreciation for woodworking, you were able to build a resilient array of practical items and home furnishings with ease. That being the case, it’s no surprise you were the undisputed star of your high school and collegiate shop classes. If someone could name it, you could build it.

Even as an adult, you devote a fair amount of time to woodworking. However, in recent years, your focus has shifted to metal cutting – which is basically the natural next step for seasoned woodworkers. You excel at creating an abundance of items from an assortment of metals, but you’ve shown particular promise in the field of sign-making. Positive word of mouth has even resulted in you being asked to craft signs for a number of local businesses. In light of the overwhelmingly favorable feedback your work has received, you’ve started toying with the idea of turning sign-making into a fulltime occupation. After building up a consistent client base, doing what you love can earn you a considerable amount of money. When preparing to open a sign-making business, remember to take the following tenets into account.

Acquire Top-of-the-Line Tools

Although skill and precision are crucial to metal cutting, inferior tools invariably result in inferior work. With this in mind, make a point of investing in top-of-the-line tools. In addition to helping you create quality signs, high-end tools work towards ensuring your safety. Metal cutting is rife with opportunities for personal injury, and cheaply-made drill bits, welding electrodes, plasma cutters and saw blades only stand to increase your chances of suffering on-the-job mishaps. Due to the high cost of metal cutting tools – plasma cutters, in particular – may people elect to purchase secondhand equipment. Should you choose to go this route, make sure to thoroughly inspect the tools before committing to purchase. While it may save you money in the short term, buying unsafe tools can have disastrous consequences for both your professional reputation and personal wellbeing.

Build up an Extensive Body of Work

In the sign-making business, as well as many other fields, it pays to acquire experience whenever possible. After deciding to use your sign-making skills as a means to make money, don’t be picky about the types of jobs you undertake. Creating signage for a vast assortment of businesses will help you acquire experience, build up your professional reputation and become more comfortable with various metal cutting tools. In addition, tackling a broad body of work will acquaint you with different sign-making styles, ultimately enabling you to command higher prices for your services.

Value Your Personal Safety

Getting jobs done on time and on budget is integral to the success of any small business, and sign-making operations are no exception. However, finishing your work in a timely manner should never come at the expense of your personal safety. For this reason, it’s important that you provide yourself with a realistic timeframe in which to complete your jobs. As previously stated, metal cutting is a precision-based field synonymous with a number of dangers. Working while physically drained is practically guaranteed to result in severe injury – or worse. Furthermore, no matter how confident you are in your abilities, never fire up your tools without first donning safety glasses and work gloves.

Sign-making is a great way to express personal creativity while putting your metal cutting skills to good use. The fact that it’s also quite profitable is simply the icing on the cake. If you’re interested in earning your livelihood through creating signs, remember to buy top-shelf tools, prioritize safety and not be picky about the jobs you accept.

About the Author: Steven Jacobs is a welder and sign-maker by trade. Whenever he’s in the market for high-quality welding electrodes, he places a call to Selectrode Industries.

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Author: Amitava Sarkar

Amitava Sarkar

Member since: Nov 27, 2014
Published articles: 349

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