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Sub it or Snub it?
How do you feel about this?
When we first started, we were asked for stuff that we either did not have the experience, or the equipment to do the job.
We did try to sub out but on some occasions, the contractor did not give us what we asked for,so overall we do not sub work, simply because we do not have control.
Your thoughts… please
Peter
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9 Replies
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hi mate ihave in the last few months and im very happy with the work we had to sub out
printed vinyl
printed banners
and the price i was given by the trade supplier there was still enough for a big mark upi have always supplied art work
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Outsourcing works for me.. to an extent.
I do find it cumbersome to say the least until you get hooked up with someone who can give you great service and ease of ordering / processing.
Until i settled on a few certain suppliers for this, i had spent way too much time just getting pricing and submitting orders.
so I guess to answer your question Peter, for me.. The few places i sub out to give me great service and a fair price. I can order from them quickly and easily. If I wouldn’t have all three (service, price and ease of ordering) it wouldn’t be worth my time.
Business cards is one example…. I can get an order of cards $20- 30 cheaper at other places, but it takes an hour to order them or process my files, etc. – so I’m losing time and money in the end. The place i’ve been using takes my corel files uploaded to their site and sends me the cards. Less work for me, so it’s worth a couple dollars more.
I get digital prints form 4 different places now, but until i developed a relationship with each, it took too long to get the order in… now it works o.k., but i had to weed out a few places that didn’t give me good service, and that took time.
Make any sense, or am I babbling? -
as long as you got samples of their work and put everything down in ‘pen’ and fax/email visuals then I have no issues with Sub’ing. A lot of our work that cannot be built in our workshop is subbed.
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I sub some work out but as has been said, you do need to build up a good relationship with your suppliers so that you know that what you get back is of good quality and is supplied within a reasonable time. Sometimes I just feel that some work is not worth the hassle.
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I sub out my fabrication and fitting work. Works well for me but I have worked hard at getting a good relationship going.
On the other side of the coin, I am a sub supplier to other sign shops that need solvent printing work.
I work equally hard to keep in well with these guys and keep a good relationship going. I probably give in too much in truth, but my goal is always to give a little bit more.
I don’t advertise for work, so I have a little bit more to play with when it comes to expenditure, so a freebie every now and then never goes astray.
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I have subbed out work before, but as has been already said, finding a good sub contractor you can rely on is the biggest hurdle. My experience is that it’s hardly ever ran smoothly, usually relying on others doing the work on time is the biggest issue. All fabrication work I have someone else do, but my main problem is just getting a quote at times never mind the finished product. This never fills me with confidence, if it takes a week or more to get a quote then how long to do the job?
As with Shane I have also experience with the flip side. I supply vinyls to other sign companies. I aim to get the work done asap and very rarely have any problems with this.
I would rather be the sub contractor than the one subbing out the work! -
We sub out a few things, it is very important to find the “rihgt” supplier though. We have some very good suppliers that we have now used for the past couple of years, we can rely on them, we know what the spec of work and products is like and we have a good relationship with them.
We also have a couple of members from here that we use regularly too. Mr Mort is one and he is great, bless him he does the odd bit of printing for us 😉 Ok Mort where is my twenty quid? :lol1: only joking!!
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We are looking at subing out installations I think what with all the tools, regs and insurances it will be easier to sub them out.
Also we can tackle larger jobs if we sub out the heavy work.
paul r
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I usually sub out engraving work..as long as you cover yourself with lead times/costs etc..should work ok..Im having trouble subbing out installation work to other signmakers locally because most tell me there too busy..or they want an extortionate amount to fit..which kills the price overall ive found..
Jon
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