Is Your Sign Working For You?

You wake up in the morning and drive to work and the first thing you notice is that your sign is not illuminating. Great - Just what you needed. All you hear on the TV and radio is how dire the economic situation is becoming. The headline in the Wall Street journal today was “fears over the financial and automotive sectors as well as the broader economy showed no signs of abating.” Your customers are cutting out spending and your revenue has begun to decrease. In order to survive this downturn you are committed to cutting expenses. Surely putting off fixing that sign for a few months is the right thing to do.

When business gets tough, it is important to conserve cash. All expenses should be reviewed and justified. However, the decisions on what expenses need to be cut can be tricky. While putting off the service on the sign may appear on the surface to be a good choice, it could result in additional reductions in revenue.

A quality working sign brands your business and attracts new customers. We all can remember times when we were visiting a new city, driving down a street looking for a restaurant and made the decision based on the sign. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, on-premise signs draw in as much as 50% of a new business’s customers. According to the SBA, without a well designed properly functioning sign, a commercial site cannot function at its full economic potential.

The converse of this is also true. On the same trip to a new city, we can also remember not stopping at a restaurant because of the condition of the sign. Consciously or unconsciously, we all make decisions about businesses based on the visual appearance of the premises. Your sign is a vital component of this perception.

On my way into work this morning, I noted no less than 15 signs that were either not illuminating or in some state of ill repair. This amounted to over one sign per mile. What is the message these businesses are projecting to the public?

In tough economic times, the competition for decreasing consumer dollars increases. Money spent on the appearance of the premises, branding and advertising can be easy targets for reductions because it is difficult to quantify the return on investment. However, I would contend that expenses that support or enhance revenue streams should not be reduced and quite frankly should probably be increased. Consumers frequent business that project confidence. If a business’s signage is outdated, difficult to read or in ill repair, it is sending the wrong message to the consumer. As stated in Vital Signs – Vibrant Communities, “Nothing says open for business like a good sign”.

To view Vital Signs - Vibrant Communities, please click on this link.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtyBFzGry7I&eurl=http://www.signs.org/

Clarity of Message

In the famous words of Forrest Gump, "I am not a smart man", but it would seem to me that the Treasury has a huge perception/credibility problem resulting from their recent about face on the use of the TARP funds. My focus is not on the actual use of the funds but in the way the Treasury surprised the markets and congress with the announcement and the lesson that businesses can learn.
As background for anyone that decided to tune out all the negative news, the treasury scraped their original plan on how it is going to distribute the $700 BILLION recovery plan. The treasury spent two solid weeks in late September negotiating with congress to devise the plan to purchase distressed assets from financial institutions in the hopes that it would encourage these institutions to begin lending again. This plan was made public and the treasury had already begun to distribute funds under this plan. Then, without prior notice, the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson changed course and announced that the funds would be directly injected into banks and other financial institutions and on unclogging markets that fund consumer debt.As I stated, my point is not on which of these strategies is correct. This is a difficult problem that quite frankly makes my head spin. The issue is the clarity of communication and the impact of ambiguity and/or surprise. In response to Mr. Paulson's announcement, members of congress made comments like, "Mr. Paulson has his hand on the tiller and has to do what he thinks is right, but it would've been good to communicate with the markets and congress his thinking" and "such a rapid reversal raised questions about the department's future plans for the rescue funds."
I believe we sometimes forget our stakeholders when we make decisions. None of us live in a vacuum. The only thing I remember from High School Physics is that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” I find this to be true in so many aspects of business.
Surprises are very rarely a good thing. Our stakeholders do business with us to fulfill a preconceived benefit. It is our responsibility to bring clarity to this expectation in order to meet or exceed it. If we are trying to bring the highest quality product to a customer that is looking for value or on time delivery, we have increased the chances for conflict because our focus in not congruent with their needs.
Conversely, we also go into interactions with a motive. It is also our responsibility to provide clarity to the stakeholder of our expectations. For Sign Craft, this could be the furnishing of all the appropriate information in a timely manner in order for us to meet their deadline or their adherence to our credit terms.
When both sides have a clear understanding of the expectations, potential conflict is significantly reduced. However, it is not completely mitigated. With the introduction of time and outside influences any transaction has the potential to break down into conflict. Examples would be the impact of one party not meeting their delivery date because a subcontractor missing their deadline, a truck breaking down or weather. The issue is not the outside influence, but the how, when and where the effected party communicates with their stakeholder.
For example, if our product is purchased by a purchasing manager that works in a Corporation, our customer is the Corporation. However, we also have a responsibility to that purchasing agent that made the decision to use our company. When issues arise, it is how you react that determines the quality of a company. Issues will arise. Therefore, a fluid system must be in place to handle these issues. The following are the necessary steps to this system:

Do a detailed analysis of the situation to make sure the issue and the impact on the transaction are completely understood. The key word is detailed. Issues have a tendency to snowball because of solutions that are not well thought out or implemented hastily.

Determine if the problem can be resolved without impact to the stakeholder. If the answer is yes, get it done.

If the stakeholder is impacted, notify them as soon as possible. The goal is to bring clarity to the situation and to bring the transaction back into balance as quickly as possible.

This notification should be made to the person that is personally invested in the transaction. Include this person in the decision making process. This stakeholder’s reputation in their company may be at stake. By allowing them to become part of the solution, they may be able to mitigate damage to themselves, their company and ours.

Once a solution is determined, bring clarity to the solution for both parties.

Rectify the situation as quickly as possible.

Be prepared for other issues that could arise because of the change.

Communicate with the stakeholder when the transaction is completed.

Assure that the stakeholder is satisfied with the outcome.
This is a very over simplified system. It is not difficult, but it is rarely followed. Clarity of communication can only happen when both parties understand the motives of the other party. This is true in all aspects of life. When issues arise, we must slow down and make sure our solutions continue to be congruent with the needs of the other party. In the case of the Treasury, announcing their change to the public without sending up test balloons or discussing the changes with congress resulted in frustration in the congress and an immediate 400 point decrease in the markets.