I had the amazing opportunity recently for Donald Miller, the website effectiveness guru, to review our Port City Signs & Graphics website in person.

Donald is the author of “StoryBrand,” a book I highly recommend if you are looking to clarify your business message. I am drinking the Kool-Aid Donald is pouring and on the journey of incorporating his fascinating message into our culture at Port City Signs & Graphics.

One of the first questions Donald asked me just before he looked at our homepage was, “What are you selling?”
I get asked a very similar question fairly often, but not using the same direct words Donald used. Instead the question posed usually is, "What do you do for a living?" Or, in reference to Port City Signs, what are all the things we do, offer, sell, make, etc.? When the questions regarding what we sell arise, rarely is my initial thought the answer
Donald was looking for when he asked, “What are you selling?”

It was a little embarrassing in the moment, because Donald shot down my answer pretty quickly with a laugh, but here’s the answer I gave… “Service.” 

Yep, that’s what I said. It’s OK, you can roll your eyes; Donald did.

Donald’s critique based on web marketing was right. He is all about presenting a clear simple message that can be digested in three seconds or so with a quick glance and viewing your web page in a Z-pattern to decide whether to stay or move on with a click. Yes, Donald, I was listening!

So, everyone thinks they are selling service, right?

Honestly, I really wanted to say, “I’m selling my people.” But that would sound inappropriate, not to mention illegal. I don’t want my friends down at the courthouse coming for me. Of course, I’m not suggesting that our staff at Port City Signs & Graphics are my property! However, they are my people, my team. And what makes us successful is our team.

As a deep thinker, I want to be around experts and seek accuracy in all that I do. Our team members at Port City Signs & Graphics are experts in what they do, they seek accuracy all the time, and, as a bonus, they are kind-hearted and open-minded. For these reasons, I am grateful to call them my people and love to be around each of them.  

We are so proud of our team and the culture we have built because it has been a journey to get here. Anyone who handles hiring, I am certain, can relate. Our people – from Jeanine and Ken who answer the phones and create the estimates, to Leiza and Bryan who are our project managers and talented designers, to Frank, Bill and Jacob, who keep the production department rolling efficiently and are creative problem-solvers, to our shop guru, Ed and, finally, Kevin, our expert installer – our amazing people are the reason I can truly say we are selling service.

With my great respect to Donald Miller, service may not be our sales hook on our home page, but when you call, email, walk in our shop or meet us at your office or a job site, our service and your experience is at the forefront of our minds. 

I very often talk about our process – how efficient we are because of the well-oiled machine we have created to handle orders – but the process would not work without these people. These people are the architects of the process they follow. They constantly are tweaking it week to week in our staff meetings, and the process gets incrementally better because they want it to be better.

There are a lot of companies out there selling signs, large art prints, vehicle wraps, stickers, posters, etc., which, of course, are the things we make. However, when you place an order for one of those things – some are big ticket items – you want to know you are going to be taken care of, your money is being well-spent, the finished product is going to look the way you expect it to look or even better, and the people with whom you are doing business hold themselves accountable to meet those expectations. That is who we are at Port City Signs & Graphics!

Call it a relationship. Call it service. Call it culture. We call it our people. 

When you need a team you can count on for signs or other graphics, call us. You will get to talk with Jeanine or Ken, then hear from Leiza or Bryan with a proof and, finally, you will have the expert hands of Frank, Bill, Ed, Jacob and/or Kevin to manufacture, assemble and possibly install the final product. I hope you get to meet them along the way.
They are amazing, and we are here for you.

Contact Port City Signs & Graphics at (910) 350-8242 or [email protected].

Sabrina Davis is president and owner of Port City Signs & Graphics. She began her career in broadcast journalism as a radio news anchor in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, while in school at UNC-Chapel Hill. After college, she was a TV news reporter in Albuquerque, NM and Raleigh/Durham, and later worked as a field producer for ABC News. She moved on to become Assistant Dean of Executive Education in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC-Chapel Hill. After master’s studies in graphic design, she launched her own commercial writing and design business, producing publications for UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, UNCW’s Watson School of Education, the North Carolina Press Association, QSR Magazine and others.Experiencing the client side of printing, led to an interest in print production. With a vision to provide high-quality large format printing, Sabrina purchased Port City Signs in 2008 and introduced digital printing to the business. She is the third owner of Port City Signs & Graphics, which began in 1948. The company offers a wide variety of cutting-edge, large-format print products, from large interior prints to outdoor signs to vehicle wraps.