Leaderboard

My first order for multiple decals. I know I posted this in the other thread but....what the hell.

I mostly just read the forum and post here and there, but I never really post any of my work so I thought I would share some things.

http://www.winknews.com/Local-Florida/2014-05-28/POW-MIA-flag-flown-upside-down-at-local-post-office

There are a lot of people here asking for insight on how to price particular jobs, so here is a fool-proof way to gauge what you should be charging for a job. This is going to be long-winded, but there is a lot of information to consider. You could ask 20 different members what they would charge for the same sign, and you will most likely get 20 different answers. The reason: OVERHEAD. Everyone has different needs, and they charge accordingly. You need to calculate what it really costs you to make the sign other than materials & time. I was very guilty of this in the beginning. I knew what it cost to make the sign, so I would find out what comparable shops in the area would charge. I would drop my price to get the job, but I also did it because I felt guilty for charging so much, knowing what the materials cost. What I didn't know, is that I was leaving a lot of things out of consideration. EVERY SHOP IS DIFFERENT. You need to figure out what you need to make, to cover expenses and make a profit on each job. Its nice to do things for free or at cost, but you are in business to make money, right? So here we are. You have a customer that wants a nice, big 4' x 4' window graphic. Single color vinyl, and the old graphics need to be removed. Cake job right? These are my bread and butter jobs. Customer says that he wants a proof and an estimate prior to signing off on the job. The proof, a no brainer. But how much am I going to charge? You need to know your shop rate first. How much is my time worth? What bills do I need to cover? Am I paying myself? Am I paying employees? These are all important things to know before you ever give a number to a customer. First off, find out all of your monthly expenses pertaining to your business, MINUS MATERIAL, this is charged seperate. (spreadsheet attached at the bottom) **Home Businesses** - the best way to figure out how much of your home expenses to include in your business expenses, divide the square footage of area in your home devoted to your business, and divide that by the square footage of your home. that will give you a percentage, i.e: 250 sq ft / 1000 sq ft = .25 or 25%. This is not exact when it comes to things like electric and water, but it will get you in the right ballpark. Monthly Overhead: These items should include Rent, utilities, equipment loans, services (accountant, courier, cleaning etc.) Subcontractors, licenses, association dues, equipment servicing, software purchases/subscriptions, vehicle expenses/gas, taxes, insurance, & payroll. Now this is just a short list of major expenses incurred, that most might forget about that aren’t doing this every day to make a living. As an example, mine comes out to $2,415.00 Monthly Gross Wages: If you’re paying yourself too, (which you should) decide an amount you'd like to make per week, add 30% to cover taxes, and multiply that by 4.34 (the average number of weeks per month: 52 divided by 12) and you have your average monthly salary plus taxes. So, I pay myself (relatively cheaply) $500 per week + 30% = $650 x 4.34 = $2821.00 Add that all up, and that is your monthly "nut" that needs to be covered before you ever make a profitable cent. I know I haven’t covered material, but that comes into play later. So I need to cover $2,415 + $2,821 = $5,236 every month before I am profitable. Calculating Your Shop Rate: So now we have a good idea of what I actually have in the way of expenses, and I really need to make more signs to cover all that! Speaking of making signs, how many hours a week would you say you actually devote to actual sign production? These are your actual Billable Hours. this is a vital piece of information in calculating what your shop rate is. With a little bit of time, you can figure out how much time you are actually spending making signs. This isn’t difficult, it just takes a little discipline to jot down the actual time you start and stop while working on signs for a typical week. its not uncommon for a smaller shop (like myself) to have one person doing everything and only spend 15-20 hours a week actually producing signage. Most of us are not as productive as we would like to think we are, especially if you have a home business, all sorts of distractions get in the way. That’s part of life. But be diligent with your time tracking to find out how much time you actually spend producing products. On any given week, I spend 18-22 hours making signage. So we'll use 20 hours as the benchmark. Now, I don’t know about you, but I like my time off with family and friends. That needs to be accounted for. I take about 3 weeks off combined thorough the year for holidays, birthdays, and vacations. That Gives me 49 production weeks per year. 20 x 49 = 980 Annual Billable Hours. We're almost there! Its all a "simple" math equation now! Monthly overhead: $5,236.00 x 12 months = Annual Overhead $62,832.00 Divide your Annual Overhead: $62,832.00 / by your Annual Billable hours: 980 = Hourly Rate Before Profit $64.11 Add your profit percentage: 25% (you decide what you should add on) to your hourly rate: $64.11 = $80.14 - Hourly Shop Rate Now you know what each hour you are making signs should cost. Don’t sell yourself short, this is a service you are providing, and most of your price is going to be time, not materials. Back to the Customer Sign: Time: So, 4' x 4' single color vinyl sign with removal of existing and new installation. Simple logo and text design, time - 30 min No revisions, customer gives ok Set up cutter & time to complete cut - 20 min Weed & Mask - 20 min Travel to & from worksite - 15 minutes to, 15 minutes from Time to remove existing graphics & clean window - 60 min Set up and install new graphic - 30 min So The total time on this sign is 3 hours and 10 minutes x Shop Rate of $80.14 = $253.78 in labor Materials: ORACAL 951 - $1.27 Per Sq Ft x 16 Sq Ft = $20.32 in vinyl RTape ApliTape 4075 - $0.12 per Sq Ft x 16 = $1.92 in transfer tape Total material cost - $22.24 Just about done! Now you don’t want to just move material through your shop, and break even. You have to account for waste, so you mark up the material. I normally markup higher on small jobs and less on larger jobs. This one I'll do 3x material cost $22.24 x 3 = $66.72 Material cost to customer Add your time and materials $66.72 + $253.78 = $320.50 You now have an accurate price that takes into account all of your expenses, the time it took to make it, and the time it took to install it. When I first started I would look at this and say to myself "How can I justify over $300 when I know that it only cost me $20 in materials?" That was the un-educated, younger version of myself. There's more than just material in the price of the sign. Find your shop rate and don't be afraid to price accordingly. Your time is valuable. If a customer can't appreciate that, move on to the next customer. DON'T SELL YOURSELF SHORT! Dont forget to get the spreadsheet below Shop Rate Calculator.zip

It's because of BannerJohn that I ordered mine! If he says he loves it it's gotta be a good machine! By the way BannerJohn - stop being so shy - tell us what you really think

A quick install today. 6x6 post covered with 040 aluminium with post caps and alumalite sign

http://forum.uscutter.com/index.php?/topic/45057-how-to-comprehensive-pricing-guide/ just wrote up an article about this very situation. There's an excel sheet in the first post. once you figure out your shop rate, you can make your own, very simple, excel sheet to just punch in all the variables, and be very consistent with your pricing.

pad printing or screen printing. Not really cost effective for small qty. from what I've read.

Like Dakota said it's all in the setup and it takes time to get it right. The smaller the letters the longer the setup which is why I pass on most jobs that intricate. I have done arial down to about 1/16" in siser and let me tell you it's a miserable experience and I'll pass every job like that from now on.

to go down to that small with any cutter you will need a very fine tuned cutter and the right vinyl. I would start by using a 60 degree cleancut blade and make sure I have the absolute least amount of blade exposed (too much blade exposed using the incorrect 1/2 credit card will almost always pull small detail up) using fresh oracal vinyl will help also ( we have used oracal and fdc on fine detail for weeding competitions

Here's a few don't know if they will help you. hands.eps

He speaks the truth!

Make sure your weed box is unchecked..

you can get signblazer

actually scalp allows you to install on 2 computers

With all the cops that have went crazy lately and killed people, shooting at a van loaded with kids, shooting kids with toy guns etc it is quite evident of the lack of judgement and common sense. Law enforcement is an essential need but I belive that a more thourough background and physlogical evaulation should be done before arming some with even a citiation book much less then a gun. A look at an episode of cops will reveal the thrill some get by slamming some poor bloke on the ground.

Love my Titan2. Love it. Love it! Did I say how much I love it??

I usually put a crease down the middle on tough to align garments. Just fold it it half and press for a couple seconds and it will give you a line. You can look at it before you even put it in the press to be sure you got it right, then place it on the lower platen so it is square to the world and line up your design. I also put a crease in my design if it's hard to judge (just a pinch at the top and bottom of the carrier, not the vinyl) then line up the crease in the plastic carrier to the crease in the shirt and your golden.

PM me if you want the download link to 3.060. I tried posting it but the forum hacks up the link.

Wedding GAME OVER-1.eps

Im doing 50 for $275. Not to bad Id say.

Try to talk some sense into your friend.

I should have just done it myself, but when he went to the back room I figured problem fixed. I figured my luck I would get arrested if someone saw me messing with it, and of course after you have time to think about something and what you should have done after the moment it's always easy to second guess yourself...

I forgot to update you guys. I went and spoke with a JAG attorney about the situation and he basically laughed his butt off and told me she was an idiot. He helped me write and email back to her basically telling her such. I haven't heard a thing back from her in about 2 weeks.