Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) – by Greg Lamm Staff Writer
Jim Risher, president and owner of The Sign Factory USA in Kirkland, with the letter “P” that will be part of the new Paramount Theatre marquee in downtown Seattle. Photo Credit: Dan Schlatter, Puget Sound Business Journal
For years, The Sign Factory USA relied heavily on retailers such as Starbucks and Macy’s to hire it to design and build lighted store signs and other branding products. But when the recession hit and customers stopped spending, that business quickly dried up.
Like many companies facing lost revenue because of the economic slide, owner Jim Risher was faced with some options.
“I had a choice,” Risher said. “My choice was, OK, let’s cut staff and take the orders as they come. That’s a viable choice. But I didn’t make that choice.”
Instead, Risher decided to aggressively go after new customers for his Kirkland company.
In late 2009, he hired a business development person to help land work in the public sector. The company won a contract with King County Metro to design and build covered bus stop structures. This year, The Sign Factory will deliver 54 bus stop stations, under a contract that will bring in about $500,000 in revenue.
The Sign Factory also landed a contract to do gateway signage for Eastern Washington University in Cheney. The company also recently was hired to produce signs for four fire stations and a community center in Kirkland for a total of $91,000.
On the private-sector side, Risher focused on some areas that were growing, especially health care, where there was demand from dentists and chiropractors for signs.
He also went after banks. Given all the turmoil in that industry, Risher knew there was business to be had with banks seeking to rebrand. His new banking customers included Columbia Bank and Washington Federal. Seattle-based Washington Federal hired The Sign Factory to design and make energy-efficient signs as part of a new branding strategy for the bank’s more than 130 branches in Washington and seven other states.
The result is that Risher’s 17-year-old company (owned with his wife, Sabrina) is growing and hiring.
The company is planning to add manufacturing and office space to its 11,000-square-foot facility in Kirkland. Revenue in 2009 was about $2.5 million. This year, Risher projects revenue will double to about $5 million.
The company has about 40 employees. And that doesn’t include the 10 people hired this spring for an in-house design team called the Brand Forward Group.
This year, between the sign business and the design entity, Risher said he expects to hire about 10 more people, which is a direct result of hustling to open up new opportunities for his business.
The Brand Forward Group, which includes a team of architects, designers and project managers, worked this year with ING Direct and the Seattle Mariners to produce the neon-lit “Hit it Here” sign at Safeco Field. The work also included doing the space planning and interior design of the 5,600-square-foot ING Direct Hit it Here Cafe on the stadium’s right-field terrace level.
The Sign Factory has had other high-profile jobs recently, including one with Seattle’s historic Paramount Theatre.
That was a job that entailed thousands of hours of work, including sending workers to the site to take copious measurements and make drawings and rubbings to help Risher’s company replicate the 80-plus-year-old sign that had deteriorated beyond restoration.
Shellee Miggins bends a glass tube into a letter "R" for the new marquee on Seattle’s Paramount Theater. She has made neon signs for 22 years. Justin Jensen, at right, also works on the Paramount sign.
While other companies have outsourced manufacturing or moved it offshore, Risher said his manufacturing facility in Kirkland is an asset in landing new business.
The Sign Factory is a testing facility for manufacturers such as 3M and General Electric, which helps keep Risher up to speed on the latest technology, including the energy efficiencies of LED lighting.
The company’s manufacturing facility also includes one of the industry’s few remaining neon sign shops, complete with crafts people who blow the glass for the gas-lit, tubular signs that are still popular as cove lighting and signage in many shops and restaurants looking for 360-degree ambient lighting.
Risher’s Kirkland manufacturing facility was a real asset in landing the work with Washington Federal, which is known for being a conservative bank not prone to expensive rebranding initiatives.
In addition to attending bank board meetings and doing a prototype rebranding of a branch in Redmond for bank officials to see, Risher also was able to show Washington Federal full-sized mock-ups at The Sign Factory’s local shop.
The Washington Federal work, along with the public sector work and jobs at Safeco Field and in health care, all helped Risher grow his revenue and avoid laying off workers even though some of his core clients stopped spending money.
“We needed to go where the work is,” said Risher. “We just didn’t sit here and wait for them to come board up the shop.”
Lessons learned
Tips from Jim Risher for growing your business:
1. Be a student of your industry. Don’t be egotistical and think you know everything. Continue to learn about the latest innovations.
2. It’s the people of your company that make the difference, not the products.
3. Seek the open water. Pursue new customers, especially when current ones are drying up.
— GREG LAMM
greglamm@bizjournals.com | 206.876.5435
Chang Thai Cuisine, North Bend, WA
Tablas Woodstone Taverna, Mill Creek, WA
