Sign supply pioneer Bill Jones is marking 50 years in the industry, as he departs the iconic business he founded in 1969 and looks for new opportunities.
Once the owner of Bi-Wize, based in Thomastown, Victoria, Jones and former partner Neil Harvey sold the business to employee Steve Pollock four years ago, due to Harvey’s declining health.
“They’re doing exceptionally well. I’ve been working for them since I sold it – it was working well, they decided to proceed without me, so as of now I’m on the open market,” he said.
Jones reflected on the beginnings of Bi-Wize to Print21 as he revealed he is entertaining offers of interest from a few companies.
“In 1969 the industry was the paint industry. Nobody was looking after signs per se, meaning you needed about five or six different brands of product,” he said. “We wanted to put all those brands under one shelf so sign painters could get everything in one go.”
Bi-Wize’s model for the signage supply business spurred plenty of growth – and plenty of imitators, Jones said.
“We’ve never been a user, only a supplier. We grew fantastically well from that, because we were the only people doing it. Like everything that works very well, other people saw it and we had six rivals overnight – there’s no loyalty, so people would just go where it was easiest,” he said.
One of the biggest changes he’s seen over the last five decades is the advent of digital print, which has, he believes, lowered the bar for training requirements.
“In the old days people were highly trained with their tools, whereas nowadays just about everyone can purchase a digital printer and create something of reasonable quality, or at least acceptable to the public.
“It’s one of those things where progress brings success or failure depending on how you look at it – a lot of old signwriters would say the old way is better, but they can’t compete because the old way is too slow and requires a lot of manual labour,” he said.
Jones says he’s not out of the game yet, and plans to keep working in the signage industry for now.
“I’ve enjoyed my life in the sign and paint industries. We’ve introduced a huge range of products and services over the years, all of which are appreciated by a large population in the industry,” he said.