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The website is finally back to normal, ever since it crashed there has been a 15-20 second delay in loading. Somewhere, someone pushed some buttons and hit enter on the keyboard and it finally seems to be working properly once again. Got me thinking about the value of a dollar today as our old signs were finally brought back to life and hung up out front. The website project only took a few weeks, but the sign...that was a two year project! I neglected them for years as they served as a powerful reminder of the lure of persuasive reasoning and marketing agencies.
When we first opened in 2000, I hired a local ad agency to do a bunch of projects like website design, ad design, marketing strategerizing (one purposeful misspelling), and various graphic design projects. They sent out a wonderful small book full of inspirational phrases on some sexy paper and convinced me that they were essential to any success we hoped for. Looking back on it, I walked away from it with a cool logo and disdain for ad agencies with 30+g less in the bank. The signs were their crowning achievement and they were pieces of crap! You couldn't see them against the backdrop, their idea for lighting was a couple of fluorescent bulbs and they weighed more than my drift boat...but they looked really cool on their mock-ups (which showed halogen lighting).
So, once we moved from our old store on 19th to 4-Corners, the signs were stored on the ground behind the building as there was no way to get them up on the sign posts or hang them on the building. Al from Beartooth Signs took them in a couple of years ago and did some tweaks and modifications slowly over a couple of years. They were hung today and their effect on my life was much less monumental today than the same event was 13 years ago.
What have I learned? Ad agency jobs are to make you feel good about you, not make your customers feel good about you. And...spending $12000 on this signage was the #1stupidest thing I did when opening the shop!