We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jay Longest. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jay below.

Jay, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

My father was also an entrepreneur. I remember growing up and going to work with him. He purchased houses that were in despair and remodeled them to be ready for resale- long before this was the popular trend. My siblings and I would often go and help pull nails for a penny, screw off the light switch covers- simple little things that he knew children could help with. Being a business owner you tend to work a lot of hours, and often that means your family isn’t by your side. But he was able to often include us and teach us the value of family right along side the value of hard work.

I often see there is a very fine line between working to much and not working enough. It is a very delicate balance to make sure you don’t miss violin recitals, camping trips and family get togethers. But you can’t let the business start running behind at the same time either.

My father is still in the business today and I like to think that I learned most if not all of my business skills watching him throughout the years.

Jay, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My wife and I started a wooden sign shop in our kitchen and small workshop. It grew to fill an entire garage, then barn and now we have a shop where you can purchase our goods. We have lots of wonderful people who work with us to help us to produce the best products we can. We specialize in custom wood signs, commercial signs and so much more. Our signs can be engraved, raised text or UV printed. Each year we try and add a new product line. Last year we started offering UV printed PVC based signs that are more weather resistant. This year we are adding a much larger printer that will be able to print on both wood or UV that can be used for oversized commercial signage.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My business partner is my wife. We’ve been married 19 years. We started this business together when she started painting on wood scraps that I had left over from miscellaneous projects around the house.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

We have been asked to make so many amazing custom pieces. I’ll share a couple recent stories of orders from our wonderful customers. A couple weeks ago a family member came in and brought with her a child’s drawing. She continued on telling us how this small child had recently passed away and that this was all they had to remember her by. So we were able to extract the image from the paper and print it directly onto a board. She had also written her name by her drawing so we took her name cut, painted, and glued it right next to her image. We proceeded to frame it for a finished look. Now, the family will be able to have the drawing, her hand written name all framed and beautiful for a lifetime.

Next, we have a Mom who contacted us about making something extra special for her son’s upcoming birthday party. She told us it will be in the vintage movie theater style surrounded by lights. We played around with the size and shape a little bit until it was just right. And now he’s going to have an original sign made just for him!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://footstepsinthepast.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/footstepsinthepast/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/footstepsinthepast
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyqcug77eMwHYgZduVRuxDQ
• Other: Footstepsinthepast.etsy.com

Image Credits
All photos taken by Footsteps staff.