Transplanting a sign shop from Florida to Laconia

LACONIA — Steve and Jeanne Zwicker were running a pizza chain in central Florida in 2004 when they realized that they were in the wrong business.

“I sent my assistant down to get signs for advertising,” Steve Zwicker said. The assistant was told that the signs would be ready in two weeks, yet, two weeks later, the signs hadn’t “come in.” Zwicker thought he had been dealing with a sign shop, “Oh, no, they’re getting made somewhere else.”

After a few conversations with a friend who had a t-shirt printing business, Big Daddy’s Pizza became Big Daddy’s Signs, which he co-owned with his his friend who had the screenprinting background. They soon made a name for themselves as a shop that could fill orders within days instead of weeks, and within four months they were so busy that Zwicker’s bought out his partner, who was unhappy that he didn’t have time for his T-shirt business anymore.

Steve and Jeanne built the business for ten years in central Florida, near Orlando, and in 2014 decided to relocate to the Lakes Region, where they could be closer to family members and enjoy a different pace of life.

The sign business – Big Daddy’s specializes in full-color yard signs printed on corrugated plastic – is almost entirely online-based, so they figured it wouldn’t make a difference where their facility was located. Their client base covers the southern states, the midwest and the northeast – everywhere except the west coast.

It did make a difference, though, with how their shop had to be equipped.

“After we had been here a season or two, and saw how bad the labor was, it was very difficult to find workers with good skill,” Zwicker said. In Florida, he had run his shop with nine employees. In Laconia, he has only two – but he has added two sophisticated, large-format printers, which allows the business to generate a large volume with little labor.

“One person can print more than a thousand signs per day, cut them and ship them,” Zwicker said. The printers can run fill color, giving him both quality and quantity. He then leverages that volume to provide competitive pricing.

“I’m making pennies, but I’m printing so many,” he said.

Actually, he’s not printing so many at this time of year. November and December are a lull in his business, when he’s running at about half capacity. The year as a whole has been a high-water mark for Big Daddy’s he said, with his facility’s 2,500-signs-per-day capacity stretched to meet the demand for political yard signs.

“This year was an unbelievable year for us. The more pissed off people are, the more signs we sell. And America is not too happy right now,” he said.

Zwicker doesn’t like to air his own politics – he does good business with clients on either side of an issue – but he has a strong preference when it comes to the tone of a sign’s message. He thinks signs should be positive in their message, and he has even refused to print a handful of sign designs over the years that were too mean-spirited or even foul.

“We were really happy with the northeast this year,” he said. “We didn’t run a lot of negatives.”

Three out of every four of the signs they print are for political candidates or ballot measures. While Big Daddy’s was going full-tilt to meet demand heading into the Nov. 6 election, their political business will continue year-round. “Someone is running for something in the United States every month of the year,” Zwicker said. “Nobody thinks that, until you get into this business.” Their usual client is someone funding their candidacy out of their own pocket and will order 100 yard signs.

When he and Jeanne relocated from Florida to Laconia, they intentionally decreased the volume of their business in order to allow them to take advantage of the Lakes Region lifestyle. And they’re glad they made the switch from the hustle and bustle, trading daily traffic jams for turkeys, bears and deer on the drive to work.

Zwicker has had to make some operational adjustments since moving to a relatively remote place. When he was in Florida, he only needed to keep enough stock on hand for a few days’ worth of orders. Now, he can’t count on getting his supplies as quickly, so he buys his plastic by the truckload and stores pallets of it in his shop.

But, he said, that’s a small price to pay for the improvement to his daily life.

“Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, I don’t know if there’s a better place to live. People come up here for vacations, we live here,” he said. “I wouldn’t go back, I would say this was a fantastic move for us. I would recommend that any business move here.”