Jeremy Weisz 16:18
Yeah. So you will work with Billboard owners also, and they don’t want to deal with it. And they, you just, they’re like, “Hey, can you please, here’s a company, go to Deb”. And then you work out the creative and then you actually manage the ad.
Deb Tracy 16:34
Yeah, they don’t have the sign at all. They don’t, they just tell their people to call us. We discuss, you know, their needs, they send over their ideas, we create an ad and they approve of it, then we just go ahead and upload it to the sign. So the person who owns the billboard is kind of nice, they just, you know, collect the revenues off of it.
Jeremy Weisz 16:54
So I want to talk about mistakes. I like talking about direct marketing. You mentioned some of the things to include with the specials, the hook the different, you’ll swap those out, the calls to action. You mentioned mistakes. Time and temp, like boring people don’t pay attention to it. Just a flag waving. What other mistakes do you see people coming to you with the idea that you have to educate them?
Deb Tracy 17:21
Yeah, well, my employees always tease me, because the terminology is the dancing Easter Bunny. You know, everybody wants as soon as they get the sign, they think they have to put the American flag, a time and temperature, and a drive safe or you know, a bank ATM inside. That’s like, no kidding, nobody’s going to read that nobody’s going to buckle up because they saw the buckle up. And they’re not going to do anything that you’re saying tells them as far as a safety message, or it’s just nobody looks at it. And I did a blog on it and said that’s when you turn your sign off. Save the life of the LED, save the electricity until you have a real solid ad to put on that sign because it’s not doing anybody any good. And actually, when you turn the sign back on, you’ll get more views than you will when you had the flag flying out your sign, put a flagpole next to the sign and put a real message.
And I truly believe that that’s just something a remnant of when digital signs first started. And you know, and that’s all we knew. So we just kind of think, “Oh, we’ve got to do that because all the 15 other signs down the road all I have time to temp, so that’s what we do”. And no, we need to stand out. And that’s all my messages. I want them to be different. I don’t want the typical, you know, buy three tires, get one free. I want something that makes people think or smile or remember that place when they do need your tires. And it’s not always easy to keep continually coming up with new content, and new ideas that are fresh and invigorating to somebody driving by.
Jeremy Weisz 19:09
Yeah, that’s good. I mean, again, same thing with if it’s on a website, if it’s in a paid ad online, any of these things, those exact fundamentals apply, right, the same stuff, make them smile, make them think, make them react, remember? Yeah, I think when early on, you were thinking, how do you expand and move into a niche market? I don’t know if it was because you were getting into this specific piece of signs or what were you thinking about when you said expanding?
Deb Tracy 19:42
With my company or this company? Okay, I’m sorry, I was thinking of the end user. Yeah, back when COVID hit and most of our clients were on a monthly subscription. And we don’t have long term contracts. So fill that in, you know, we just say stay with us three months, because that’s where you can really see if it’s going to work for you or not. We don’t hold anybody over a barrel very long. So what happened then is, and during COVID, when people were saying, there’s no traffic on the street, we were going to shut our sign down, or we’re going to cancel our program with you. I had to quickly think, how are we going to keep this afloat, we can’t lose all of our monthly base.
So we flipped everybody over and offered them to do social media, we’ll do your social media, you got to stay in front of your people through this COVID. You know, we all thought it was just gonna be another month, another month, you know. And so, when we came past that, the end user said, we want to keep the social media and do the sign. So we grew that all of a sudden, it was just like, Oh, wow.
And all along, I kept thinking, you know, we got to stay in our own lane, we’re not gonna go into the social media market, but we did. And it actually works out pretty good. Because while we’re making the ad, this month for your sign, we’re already in there, why not just convert it a little bit and do a little bit of, and it takes less manpower. And then we can also see, when we deliver your file for review, you’ve got social media, and you’ve got, you’ve got your sign done. And for a small business owner, especially now, when people are having a hard time with finding employees, this takes a load off of an owner or a manager, because it’s like, it’s done for me, they don’t have to worry about it.
Jeremy Weisz 21:37
What kind of stuff do you do for people in the social media realm?
Deb Tracy 21:41
They can choose, you know, they want Facebook, Instagram, whatever, you know, TikTok, we’re doing reels. We’re also now doing indoor screens, we’re doing like everybody’s going to the programmable menus. You’ve got kiosks, there’s just a whole lot of that we’re able to do for people now. Now that I’m like I said, you know, you always stay in your own lane. And that’s what I was doing. But now that we’ve kind of jumped, we’re developing this whole other aspect of everything. So hopefully this will help more small businesses. We’ll be their one stop shop for all of that kind of animation and video content. More static too.
Jeremy Weisz 22:30
Yeah, I can see during COVID. You know, it was probably I mean, for everyone it was pretty terrible. But specifically for businesses, like restaurants and physical locations where people aren’t going to them anymore is even worse. And that kind of led you to create these other services. I’m wondering, how did that affect the people? From, I don’t know if you had staff going in the office to virtual. How did it affect the staff? When you compare pre-COVID to post-COVID?
Deb Tracy 23:09
Yeah, luckily, we worked with the SBA, and we’ve got shared office space. So for COVID, those who couldn’t have work from home could work in a shared office space, and they each had their own office, and we didn’t have any of that worry of being too close, and all of that. But we’re very, very apt at working mobile. And just like we’re doing this right now. We get on all the time. And we’re always sharing screens. It’s an environment that we adapted to very easily.
Jeremy Weisz 23:45
Did you find that more people went? Just virtual didn’t come back to the office or what happened? Post-COVID?
Deb Tracy 23:52
Yeah, but we had a lot that we’re already working virtually.. So you know, we use a lot of interns, we use a lot of college people. And so working remotely is something that I’ve always had to do with my team because we can’t always find what we need locally.
Jeremy Weisz 24:15
There was one person Deb that called you one day sobbing. What happened?
Deb Tracy 24:22
Yeah, some sales person had really pushed her to where she bought the sign without her husband’s input. It was a carpet and tile store. And the salesman showed up and just pushed her and pushed her and she bought the sign. And the husband was furious. And so she called us and she said, somebody told me to call you. Maybe you can make my sign look good. My husband’s very angry at me. And all I have is I have sunflowers growing on my sign and sunshine and flags. And she goes, I don’t know how to do this.
So we created a template package for her. I think we did like 20 files. And we did the carpet and the tile. And so people going by could see her and all she would have to do is type in her text overlay. She called crying like a child and she said, yy sign looks like the Big Box Company sign. My husband now is happy that I bought the sign, it looks like it goes with my company.
And you know, a bad looking sign is like having to me a rusty door in front of your business, it tells me that nobody really cares. You’re not putting back into your company for your customers, what you want them to get from you, you’re not looking professional. So if your sign is done correctly, and looks professional and portrays what’s going on inside, people will come into a bright shiny red door versus an old rusty screen door. And to me that’s how I kind of liken whether you’re doing your sign content yourself. Or if you’re having something professionally done for you. It’s that difference, that’s drastic.
Jeremy Weisz 26:34
I think you have a new tagline, which is “SIGNPROgrammers, we save marriages”. Maybe in this case. I’m curious, you know, you’ve been doing this a long time, you know, running a business. What do you wish you would have known running a business wise? If you were to tell yourself 10 years ago, what you know, now what would you tell yourself?
Deb Tracy 27:01
I would have slowed down and said no to people along the way to build the foundation more on concrete than sand. First, it was, you know, I just kept going and it just never went real smooth because well, things changed. I mean, when I started out, I had index cards in a little bio box. So that was my database. Now I have built a big CRM myself, to get everything, you know, under control, but everything, everything was hard. I would have paid more at the beginning to get the right people in place.
Jeremy Weisz 27:51
I have one last question for you, Deb. And on getting the people in place, I want to just find out who are some of the mentors that have helped you? Now this could be actual mentors, it could be distant mentors, like a book, or someone that you just researched that has helped you from a distance.
But before you answer that, I just want to point out to people, they can go to SIGNPROgrammers.com. You can learn more there about Deb’s company and they have a site there that links to their social stuff as well. So some people get the sign stuff, so I’m gonna get the social stuff till they’re digital designers company does the social media piece. You can find everything on SIGNPROgrammers.com.
Deb who are some of the mentors that you’ve looked through for guidance, either personally or through books?
Deb Tracy 28:46
I would have to say the first one was Michael Gerber. The E Myth. Somebody had told me to. I struggled with constantly trying to fix the computer. I had to fix the printer I had to sell. I had to find leads. I was doing everything myself. And somebody said read the E Myth, to stop and read the E Myth. And I read E Myth, I couldn’t put it down all night long, read this book. I was like, Oh my gosh. So I suggest that book to so many people now.
But then from E Myth, Ray Edwards. Oh my gosh, I couldn’t get through a week without listening to Ray Edwards. He’s a copywriter genius. And he’s brought on a lot of other people in the industry and I think he’s just a great person. And another one I like is Neville Medhora. Another copywriting person that I use every single week, and I’ve taken all their classes. I read all their books and all those that come from them. But those are kind of my three that have been my base throughout all of this.
Jeremy Weisz 30:15
Any other copywriters or direct response people that you follow? I will comment. Michael Gerber has been on the podcast. It is a great episode. Check that out. Also, I’ve heard Ray speak, amazing. Shout out to Brian Kurtz. I was at Brian Kurtz’s mastermind and Ray came and spoke at Brian’s mastermind. I’ve had Brian on a couple times and Neville I’ve had on the podcast too. Great great copywriter as well. Any other favorites of yours that other people should check out from a copywriting or direct response?
Deb Tracy 30:47
No, none that comes to mind. I started every day on a podcast with some marketing. Just the one that pumps me up and probably drives people crazy that I work with because I get like I come in with all these ideas.
Jeremy Weisz 31:06
What are your favorite podcasts?
Deb Tracy 31:09
Those three I’m kind of looking through I just kind of go I cycle through because usually whoever that they recommend I will spin off from there and and go a little deeper into whoever they’re recommending or they’re interviewing that day.
Jeremy Weisz 31:30
Awesome. Well thanks though. I want to thank you. Thanks everyone. Everyone check out SIGNPROgrammers.com or episodes of the podcast and we’ll see you next time. Thanks. Bye.
