We recently connected with Ron Morabito and have shared our conversation below.

Ron, appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I started V Group shortly after I moved to California in 2007. I did not have a friend, let alone a client. All I knew was that I was beyond excited to be living in California, and was determined to make it work. I had a similar business in New York prior to moving to CA. I knew what had worked for it, what didn’t, and I believed wholeheartedly that I could make V Group bigger than my first company ever was. I started doing what most people in my industry do. Cold calls, emails, ads etc.. I felt that would bring in some business, and it did, but not the scale I had in mind. It led to smaller jobs. A banner for a Little League Team, some lettering on a storefront, those types of projects.

At this point I felt I needed a new approach, a bigger approach. I looked into joining networking groups. There were the usual ones like a Chamber of Commerce. I saw another one with a short, but very impressive member list. It was a much larger investment than a Chamber, but my thought process was, these are the people I want to meet, and this is where they are. I had to take a risk, and I did. I went to one event in particular where I met someone that would take me on a new trajectory. I was sitting next to the person who ordered the signage for SDSU’s Aztecs. I will admit that at the time I was brand new in town and I had no idea what the Aztecs were. I quickly learned though. We signed a deal to do the signage for Athletics’ at SDSU. When I went to other meetings and mentioned that, V Group’s credibility rating went way up. Fast forward a bit. That same person left SDSU and went onto the San Diego Sport’s Commission. He invited me to join, which I happily accepted. There was a fee to be a part of The Sports Commission, but I knew it was more of an investment than a cost.

This opened many doors for me. In sports of course, but also to other local business people. From the restaurant industry to casinos and many more.

I feel you also have to truly want to help your clients, you have to care about your clients. I don’t see clients as a transaction. I see them as partners, friends, people I want to succeed as well. Relationships matter. The entrepreneurs I look up to most are shining examples of this.

These are still relationships I have today.

Granted, it was certainly not a straight-line up, scale wise. There have been many twists, turns and obstacles to overcome, but that’s part of running any business. The key is to stay focused, deal with issues as they arise and move forward.

I feel the moral of the story is take chances, if you truly believe in yourself and the business. If you are not 100% in, then don’t. Also, don’t be afraid to compete up. I feel there are a lot of business owners who feel they are too small to go after certain clients. That is a sure fire way to stay that way in my opinion. Take a shot, think big, and be ready to outwork everyone you need to. Being a business owner is not for everyone. It’s a lot of hours, struggle and sleepless nights, but to me, it’s all worth it.

Ron, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As a younger teen I worked in a signage and print shop in New York. I will be the first to admit that I was not very good at it. Because of this, the owner moved me from station to station, hoping to find one that was a good fit for me. I learned so many aspects of the signage and printing business during this time. From applying vinyl, to working the cutters, folders, stitchers. Even to being an operator on a 40″ printing press, and a host of other parts of the business.

When I was 19, I took my Series 7 exam and became a stock broker in New York. I did that for about three years. Being a broker taught me a lot about sales and working with other people and clients. It also taught me a lot about putting in long hours and work ethic. Seven in the morning to ten at night, making 500 dials a day (they posted everyone’s call logs daily on the wall) we had to have at least 500 dials per day. There was a science to this. 500 dials a day, led to 10 full pitches a day, which led to 10 new accounts per month.

At age 22  decided to start a business utilizing my background in the signage and printing business, along with my new found sales and people skills. I had that company for eight years. I sold it when I moved to California and started V Group.

V Group is a custom signage and printing business. Our products range from things like banners and wraps, to illuminated letters and logos to brochures, promotional products and the like.

I feel one of the things that sets us apart from a lot of other companies is that we truly care. I have had so many people come to us over the years saying they were speaking with another company and could not get a call back, or an estimate etc.. We will always reply in an extremely timely fashion. More importantly, will we always answer when issues arise. Things happen, that’s just life. The key is dealing with those issues head on, finding a solution and acting on it.

Another thing that I feel sets us apart is partnerships. We regularly form partnerships with clients. While some in our industry do the same, the vast majority do not. Clients are investing in us; we are happy to invest in them as well.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

One story that comes to mind is what we did during Covid. The lockdowns had just begun. Uncertainty was sweeping. Our business, like many others had faced a decline. Think of the products a signage and printing company produces. Especially one like ours who is involved in creating signage for so many sports teams and events.

That all came to a screeching stop. As the owner I was faced with decisions to make. Do we cross our fingers and hope for the best? Do we take the wait and see approach? Neither of
those have ever been my style. I’m proactive, I knew I needed to do something, but I was unsure of what that something was, so I started to brain storm. First thought. The vast majority of our day-to-day clients were closed. So, who’s open? Restaurants. That’s who, but only for takeout.

Next thought. Find the pain point and what to do to ease the pain. So, some restaurants are open for takeout. How do people know who’s open and who’s not? They need a sign of course.
We printed up a hundred banners to start. All the same, reading OPEN FOR TAKEOUT. With a small V Group logo at the bottom and our web address. I lived in Downtown San Diego at the time. I grabbed a stack and started walking door to door. I gave every restaurant I passed a banner and a business card. Some people seemed confused. Was I selling something? Some even thought I was trying to apply for a job. I simply said we are a local sign company, here’s a free banner and we’re just doing our part. After walking to all the places I could, I started to drive around and did the same thing.

Next step, email people. I contacted some of our sports clients to start. I knew they had restaurant partners, perhaps they could use the banners as well. I immediately was cc’d in on emails from sports teams to their restaurant sponsors with the free banner offer.
Restaurants jumped on it. Some asking if they could have several as they had multiple locations. I didn’t want to be the guy that said no, first one is free, then you have to pay. We simply accommodated the request, no matter how many they needed.

Next, I emailed marketing and PR contacts of mine. Some of them surely have restaurant clients as well I thought. Again, near instantly I was being cc’d in to their clients. Many more took us up on the free banner offer. One in particular was a large name brand insurance company who represents many restaurants. They liked the idea so much they asked us to print some with their logo on the bottom to give their clients. They wanted to pay for them since they were now branded as theirs so we gave them 50% off the normal price. All in all, we ended up giving away over one thousand banners to restaurants from San Diego to Northern California. These were hard costs for us to absorb, but to me it was the right thing to do, and with our logo on the bottom, of course we are getting some marketing out of it.

Guess what happened next? The restaurants and hotels started calling us. Many of which had gotten the free banners, some who even just saw our logo on so many others. Orders for floor graphics and tents starting rolling in to start. Then orders for more banners, some saying We Are Hiring, or promotions of their latest sale. Custom masks with their logo, social distancing signs and more.

I never expected to get such a response from what I saw as doing our small part. We now have many restaurant and hotel clients we would have likely never worked with had it not been for the banner giveaway. What I hope the take away from this is. Do the right thing, even when it may not be easy to do so. It may just come back to you in a big way.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Well, my very first business in New York I started with a business card and a home phone. That’s it. I cold called, set appointments and got clients that way. I would source the projects to other signage and printing companies in New York until I grew to the point that it made sense to open my own factory. I did not have the funds to go out and buy a million-dollar printing press when I first started, or even one for a fraction of that cost, so I began very small. Slowly scaling up.

When I started V Group, I was in a better position financially having run my other company for eight years prior and selling it.

Contact Info:

• Website: vgroupsigns.com
• Instagram: vgroupsigns
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-morabito-717701162/