"Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer."
--- Dale Carnegie
A top HR executive confided in me recently that while interviewing candidates for jobs in his Human Resources department, he was immediately turned off by prospects who told him, "I love people. I love working with people. I am a people person." Right or wrong, the basis for the executive's distaste is that most people don't truly love working with people. They may be good at it and they may tolerate other people, but the fact is that people can be difficult to work with.
Of course, once a business owner realizes that people are his or her greatest asset, it makes it easier to bend and accommodate for others. A printer or cutter or software won't ever get moody (although we could argue this point!), and you usually don't see the type of learning curve with a dryer that you would with an employee. Still, people are your creators, inventors, and thinkers with emotional artistic values that you nurture as well as "tolerate" for the growth of your company.
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
--- Carl Jung
Every person hired has something to contribute not only to your business, but to your own personal development. We learn from those who have been with us for 40 years to those we just fired after a week of work. People help us to grow by stretching our intellect and sometimes our patience. Regardless of how twisted the term "cultural diversity" has become, we need to have on our team people who bring something new and different to the job.
"You can buy a person's hands but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is."
--- Stephen Covey
Knowing the importance of people in your business is the first step to creating a work atmosphere where productivity is high and morale even higher. Industrial psychologists determined long ago that if employees like their job, they tend to be successful at it. As obvious as this is, many business owners still prefer to let the employee sink or swim rather than fit the person to the job.
"My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it."
--- Abraham Lincoln
Many of the successful sign businesses today fit their job candidates to the job by qualifying the candidate before they are offered a job. This process allows the candidate to explore their skills and talents and lets the employer know where best to place the employee.
In addition, the employer now has a foundation to build upon. If the employee wishes to change job positions in the future, the training can be somewhat customized for the employee to accommodate for the perfect fit.
"Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people."
--- John D Rockefeller
People skills are required for almost any occupation. We don't have to "love to work with people" in order to create a successful company, but we do have to know how to communicate with people. Knowing that our greatest asset is people, we can place more value on them and treat them like the most priceless feature of our business that we have.
In doing so, we can keep and train a team that will in turn be able to spread the contagious philosophy that people are important in your company.
Sign Design 101: Create Eye-Catching Banners
By Keri Collett
Basic color combinations, font styles, margins and graphics usage in successful banners.
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Raster Images versus Vector Images
By Jay Busselle
All electronic art images are divided into one of two core types, raster images (also know as 'bitmaps') and vector images. In a nutshell raster images are composed of connected dots and vectors are images composed of connected lines.
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At a dry cleaners somewhere in Nebraska:
"We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand."
On the window of a appliance repair shop in El Mira, New York:
"We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1"
Advertisement on side of road in Waynesville, NC:
"For Sale: Firewood to go"
Have you seen any funny signs lately? Why not share them with the world? Send your comments, suggestions, and hysterical observations to: info@signindustry.com.