We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brad Trevethan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Brad thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.
My wife actually got our first client on the Threads social media app. I had no idea what Threads was until one of my sister in laws mentioned it to us. We checked it out and my wife took on the task of running the account. She began to make posts and gain some local followers and all of the sudden one of them placed an order, it was a great feeling to make that sale. That particular client orders from us frequently and has became on our biggest supporters.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I went to and 18 month graphic design trade school on a whim in my early 20s when I was searching for a career path. I finished the program and then a couple of years later a friend of my brother’s was selling his sign shop so with the help of my family I purchased the shop and dove head first into printing while knowing nothing about it. I owned that shop for 19 years from 2005-2024 and sold it in order to move to Arizona and start Coyote Color.
Coyote Color is an e commerce bases custom sticker manufacturer and we also print banners, posters and yard signs.
We create unique stickers for our clients that help increase brand awareness, drive repeat business and or meet compliance needs (warning stickers, ingredients, etc..)
What sets us apart from others is that we are a small family business who focuses on customer service, you can call us, DM us, text us or email us and I will personally get back to you and assist you. We are also laser focused on quality and constantly trying to produce the perfect sticker.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I bought my first business, a sign shop in 2005 and the business had a large client base of realtors. We would make all of their listing signs, open house signs, banners, etc.. In 2008 when the great recession hit the real estate business when to a halt almost overnight. One day I had a guy walk in to my shop and tell me that he was a print broker and asked if I would be willing do a job for him at wholesale cost, I printed the job for him and our wholesale division was born. We became 80% wholesale over the next few years and carved out a niche as the small shop who would take on any project for a print broker which allowed us to build our wholesale client base rapidly over the next 16 years.
We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.
I sold a sign shop in 2024. I had owned the business for 19 years and never thought I would sell it until my wife and I decided that we wanted to move to a different state. The business is a sign shop that is about 80% wholesale and has a wide range of production capabilities for small to large projects. Fortunately I kept really good accounting which helps when trying to sell a business, if you can easily show a potential buyer that the business makes money it goes a long way. Another key factor is customer relationships, I actually sold the business to a customer who I had worked closely with for 6 years so he knew me and he knew what the business was all about which made the transaction fairly easy. Creating relationships with customers is huge and invaluable in business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.coyotecolor.com
- Instagram: @coyotecolorco
- Facebook: Coyote Color
- Twitter: coyotecolorco
- Yelp: Coyote Color
