Last year I challenged all of my sign making friends around the world to create just one sample sign for their shop display. The piece they were to create would be something that stretched their abilities. It was to the type of sign they would make if they could do exactly what they wanted, with no budget restraints. The sample sign could be small but had to be detailed and out there. I challenged them to pull out all the stops.

My theory was the sample signs my friends and I created would be both challenging and fun. They would stretch our abilities and give us a sample in our shop that would hopefully sell similar work in the future. For myself I upped the ante. I would do one sample sign each month. And I managed to do eleven and a half signs lasy year.

We are now two and a half months into 2011 and the results of my efforts last year are already evident. A number of my Sign CHALLENGE 2010 projects have garnered six national and international awards. The publicity and exposure surrounding these awards simply couldn’t be bought. One prize was an all expense trip to Las Vegas. More important than that were the extra skills we learned through our experience. And the twelve sample signs we created are working hard to sell new projects of similar scope.

Those twelve samples have undoubtably helped change the direction of our business. They have added tremendous momentum to our business, even in the short time since they were done. Imagine how it will be when the economy roars again!

Last week we signed up the latest of these cool projects that came as a result of these samples. More than ever I believe that if we build it they WILL come!

-grampa dan