Something creative was what I needed and I craved, so I wouldn’t say the entrepreneurial bug was innate within me, but the desire to create something from scratch is something that I’ve always had.
Michael Seibert, The Sign Bros.
Josh: Entrepreneurs are created not born, true or false?
Justin S: True. Maybe. I grew up with business and job experience from the time I was a kid.
Starting in college, I started reading business books and knew I wanted to have my own thing, but I had no clue what it was.
Justin Seibert, The Sign Bros.
Josh: Okay, so you were born an entrepreneur.
Michael S: I think for me… something creative was what I needed and I craved, so I wouldn’t say the entrepreneurial bug was innate within me, but the desire to create something from scratch is something that I’ve always had. It’s never been about the money and pursuing that, it’s just been about growing something and creating something cool.
Josh: So Justin planted the seed of entrepreneurship in the family. Tell us, how did you get started with the sign company?
Justin S: Michael and I volunteered and worked with a friend who had a sign company in Gainesville for a couple of weeks to get a feel for the sign business and see if it was a good fit for us. From there, we joined an organization called Sign Biz, they taught us the basics of starting the company – told us what printer to use, what software to use, gave us a couple weeks of training, then turned us loose.
Chad: So when you start this thing, you’ve done two weeks of free labor, you don’t have any mentor or experience in the sign industry, you just said, “okay, we feel comfortable moving forward,” what did you do from there?
Michael S: Starting out we didn’t have any money. We had a 50-page business plan, a pro forma, a financial statement… Everything laid out in terms of what we thought a bank would want. But a bank doesn’t really want all that, a bank wants collateral. So we put Justin’s truck up for collateral (even then that wasn’t enough) and were fortunate enough to have a family member who was willing to put up the rest of the collateral to secure us our first business loan.
Chad: So you signed a lease, you got a loan to the tune of $150K, you personally guaranteed all this… Were you stressed, worried, staying up at night or ready to go conquer the world? What were you guys feeling at the time?
Justin S: We took on every single job in the beginning that came in the door. Very few of those jobs did we actually have any background to know what to do. But part of that Sign Biz network gave us access to other sign companies across the country that we could call on as resources.
I’m the eternal optimist, so for me it was always gonna work, it was just a matter of time.
Justin Seibert
Josh: Alright, so this is important. We always hear people saying, “Oh, you’re an entrepreneur, this is a solo business.” And you two were in business by yourselves, BUT you attached yourself to a community, so you did have some people to reach out to for help.
Justin S: We couldn’t have made it as a company without that. It gave us enough of a foundation and confidence to take on any kind of project, and we knew we had somebody to call if we got ourselves into any kind of difficult situation.
But there are so many educational resources out there now vs. then, so learning things these days is so much faster than it was when we got started. So for someone getting started now, just make sure you have somebody in the industry that you can rely on.
No matter how big the network you find, the important thing is just to have somebody you’re working to become.
Justin Seibert
Josh: So tell us your numbers. Month one, before any business has come through your doors, where’s your money going first?
Justin S: Rent payment, one employee… Michael and I didn’t have salaries for two years.
Josh: So you guys took no income out of the company for two years.
Michael S: In terms of revenue, I think we did about a quarter million dollars our first year. That’s pretty good in terms of revenue, but in terms of our overhead costs, the business was profitable on paper but not in our bank account.
Chad: That’s one thing I see a lot for new business owners and entrepreneurs. Profit is one thing, cash flow is a completely different thing. You can send a 50K invoice, but if it’s 60-90 days until you get paid, that cash flow is a different story.
Justin S: It was probably only 3 or 4 years ago that I felt like the business was where I wanted it to be.
Michael S: Every year we were investing in equipment and things to make us better, but because of that we didn’t ever do much more than break even.
It’s safe to say that for the first seven years of business, at the end of the year we’d look at each other and say, “Do we really want to do this? Is this really what we want to do?”
Michael Seibert
Justin S: I remember feeling a little depressed when we finally got to a million dollars and it wasn’t the magic number we thought it would be. You look at each other and ask where the leftovers are. There’s not a lot. But that’s where for us we had a turning point.
Josh: I think that’s what people don’t understand when they’re thinking about starting a business. Once you get into it, you stop seeing just the fun part of the adventure. Parts of it just freaking suck.
Chad: Do you guys divide and conquer or do things mostly together? How do you approach the day to day division of labor?
Michael S: We’ve got a great team. If we were NFL players, we’d be in the 80s across the board, but we have high 90s players in each of the lead roles at the company. So Justin focuses on culture and I focus on maintaining the vision of what we want to become, but then let our leaders do their thing.
Chad: You’ve been able to recruit awesome people and a staff in all the areas that make your organization great. How have you been successful doing that? And when does it financially make sense?
Justin S: Up until recently, we would start to feel the need about a month or two before it would get urgent. And over time we’ve recognized the seasonal patterns. Then recently we’ve made some proactive hires because we wanted to grow our business in a new direction.
For most businesses, sales are a thing but for us it was more about managing incoming sales. We never had to go out and knock on doors and ask for work up until now trying to proactively grow in this direction.
Justin Seibert
Michael S: A lot of it relates back to the concept: what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about, and what people will pay you for. So we’ve had feedback from some of our clients that our creative work is amazing, and we love it. It’s a vision now we paint for our team and they can get excited about it.
Josh: I know I’ve recognized some of the amazing stuff you’re doing with SBCreative, especially on your social media.
Chad: Josh makes an excellent point there. You guys are internally marketing and doing video even better than companies who do video, so what drove you to do that?
Justin + Michael S: The people on our team.
Chad: So you bought all this tech to make high quality video… Is this because you got to the point where you were sitting comfy and decided to go do something crazy, or was it a choice and a sacrifice to make this happen?
Justin S: Absolutely, we’re still making sacrifices, no doubt. But we’re already starting to see some early success and it’s really exciting.
I’d say the difference is the ratio of companies doing the same thing you’re doing, so we’re definitely getting into waters with less competition. Right now we’re just trying to make our mark and find where we fit in there.
Josh: We’ve all heard the “start with why” type questions and comments. I know you guys had a shift in your business philosophy a few years back, and I want to know what led to that?
Justin S: Traction is a book that we read together about four years ago. It teaches something they call the Entrepreneur Operating System.
It brought a lot of clarity and structure to what was otherwise chaos. We had never established core values for who we are as a company. Our culture was dictated by whoever was currently employed.
Justin Seibert
And so Traction forced us to really make a shift and decide for ourselves who we are as a company and what we want to be about and start hiring based on those core values.
Josh: You talked about launching a new division of your company based on the caliper of talent you currently have. Did y’all start out as amazing leaders who attracted high level talent or did something significant happen along the way that flipped the switch for you?
Michael S: I think that we had a lot of learning to do as managers, but just being good people ourselves was a lot of how we were able to attract good people.
Justin S: I think two key things which excites the people who are joining our team would be us having a clear vision of what we’re trying to become, and our culture.
Chad: Speaking of fun, I know you all recently made the leap to buy your own building. So what all went into the decision to do that?
Michael S: That was one of the early visions for the company, to have our own space. Other small businesses who buy a building often consider it their “retirement fund,” paying yourself as the building owner instead of paying rent to someone else.
Josh: Last question. This podcast is for people who are tackling the entrepreneur adventure, they’re going through those highs and lows on the roller coaster trying to get it done. Can you guys share your number one tip or piece of advice?
Justin S: It would literally be “Start.” I’ve had probably ten businesses through the course of my life and most of them have failed, this one has done okay. Don’t just write a business plan, actually go out and do something.
I would say to make sure you’re passionate about what you choose to pursue, because it’s gonna get tough and you’ve got to enjoy it enough to get through those dips. You’ve got to like the work.
Michael Seibert
Michael S: When it’s the end of the day for everyone else but not for you, you’ll be better off liking it.
Justin S: You’re not going to necessarily get it right with the first thing you try. But you’ll learn something that you can apply to the next one and the next one until you get it right. More than likely you’re going to be trying this a few times before you get it right.
Resources:
“Traction” by Gino Wickman: https://amzn.to/2ZMlt63
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