Business owners face many daily challenges: sales, marketing, employee issues, finances, supplies…the list goes on. One of the most intimidating but fun tasks that a business owner has to tackle is advertising and signage.  Whether you know exactly what you want to say or just have an idea of what you’d like to communicate, our merchants of the month can bring your vision to reality!

Signs By Tomorrow is a nationwide franchise with approximately 170 locations throughout the United States, but we think that the best locations are right here in our own back yard! Rick Vohrer and Ray Palmer own three Baltimore-area Signs By Tomorrow stores and one store in Dover, Delaware.  Tom Olszewski is the proud owner of Signs By Tomorrow of Catonsville.

Tom’s experience with Signs By Tomorrow comes from his position at SBT headquarters in Columbia, Maryland, where he managed the headquarters store and served briefly as the franchise business consultant. The entrepreneur bug bit him, and he purchased the Catonsville location in 2007. Tom enjoys the challenges of owning his own business and the freedom he has to take an idea as far as he wants when creating and producing what his customers need.  Being an SBT owner gives Tom the freedom and independence to pursue his own ideas along with the advantages of being part of the franchise family – working with other owners to share new ideas, concepts, and technologies. “We learn a lot from each other,” says Tom.

Rick’s experience in sales and Ray’s expertise with systems and administration has proven to be a winning combination for their SBT partnership. They started out by purchasing three struggling stores – Dundalk, Holliday Street in Baltimore City, and Catonsville (which they sold to Tom two and a half years ago). Over the past seven and a half years, Rick and Ray took the struggling franchises and turned them around to make them some of the best performing stores in the SBT system, growing tenfold during that time! They added a new location in Aberdeen shortly after starting out, and they purchased the Dover store earlier this year, saving it from certain failure and turning it toward success.

Rick and Ray see their business as a solutions-driven, visual communications entity. “We use cutting-edge technology to fabricate, produce, and manufacture solutions to meet our customer’s needs,” says Rick. They can produce virtually any size and type of sign (except for bending neon signs) and can facilitate the construction of complimentary  design elements as well as coordinate the placement of signs in hard-to-reach places (like rooftops of buildings).  The Dundalk store has a full paint booth – a feature unique to SBT stores. They have also developed a line of business specializing in way-finding signs (including Braille) and offer those items at wholesale prices to other sign businesses across the country.

While signs of all kinds are their bread and butter, SBT is not just a next-day-sign store! They can print custom wall coverings and ceramic tiles, and they can even print on fabric that can be made into custom drapes for interior designs. SBT’s innovative approach to using technology that has traditionally been used for signs and graphics allows their customers to brand their businesses and communicate with the marketplace in new and creative ways. As technology continues to evolve, SBT is doing more with video messaging, visual content from copy and still pictures, and even full video productions.

As mentioned above, SBT gives its owners the latitude to develop new ideas. Within the next six to nine months, Rick and Ray will be releasing a brand new patented technology that will allow vehicles with “wrapped” graphics to light up the graphics at night, with the effect similar to that of a plasma screen.  They developed this technology with another partner and are looking forward to making it available to customers soon!

Signs By Tomorrow is offering a 20% discount to Cash Flow Plus merchants and friends during the month of July.  Simply bring this article with you to any of the five locations and you will receive 20% off of your order.  The offer is good through July 31, 2009.

SBT Catonsville: 410-788-0366 SBT Aberdeen: 410- 273-9742 SBT Baltimore: 410- 625-7446 SBT Dundalk: 410-282-4432 SBT Dover: 302-744-9396 www.signsbytomorrow.com

With the cost of processing credit card transactions on the rise (and expected to continue to increase), Cash Flow Plus wants you to know that there are alternatives available that will save you quite a bit of money!

While credit cards are widely used by consumers, debit cards are very popular as well. The benefits of accepting debit cards are two-fold: First, as a merchant, you are charged a flat fee of .49, plus network fees, which brings the fee to an average of .79 per transaction. Let’s compare that, using numbers, to a credit card transaction and the fees associated with it:

Suppose your customer makes a purchase totaling $100.00.  Processing this as a credit card transaction with a discount rate of roughly 1.79% (if it is a face-to-face transaction and NOT a rewards card), the cost of the sale is $1.79.  Add the transaction fee of .25 and the total cost that you, the merchant, pay out to Visa/MC for this sale is $2.04. You only have to do the math to see that by processing this same transaction as a debit, you will be saving $1.25! The higher the ticket, the more the savings!  On a $1,000.00 transaction, the calculations are $1,000.00 X 1.79% = $17.90 + .25 transaction fee = $18.15 vs .79 = a savings of $17.36!

While the savings are substantial, possibly the greatest benefit to taking debit cards is that the funds are in your account the next day! With credit cards, it can take anywhere from 24 to 72 hours, depending on how the transaction occurs (swiped vs. keyed-in).

Another way to save on credit card fees is to accept checks electronically.  While electronic check transactions are conducted much in the same manner as credit card transactions, the cost is considerably less, making the savings to you considerably more!  Keep in mind that as credit card processing rates increase, so do the downgrades (when transactions are keyed in or government, corporate, or rewards cards are used). This can drive the discount fee up to over 3.00%!  If you accept electronic checks, you can eliminate that fee and save money.  Let’s turn again to the example:

Your customer makes a $100.00 purchase. If they present you with a credit card, the cost to you as a merchant could be anywhere from $1.79 to $3.00 or more for that transaction (don’t forget the .25 transaction fee). If this same transaction was in the form of a check, the fee would be 1.69%, plus a .25 transaction fee. And just like a debit card, regardless of the amount of the check, the cost factor does not change – it remains at 1.69%.  This transaction by check would cost you, the merchant, $1.94!

What it all comes down to is this: in these difficult economic times, saving money is critical. By accepting a debit or electronic check transaction for $1,000.00, you will save almost $20.00 over processing that transaction through a credit card. Call us for details!