Check Out Hilary Marchand’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hilary Marchand.

Hi Hilary, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My Mom was looking for birthday signs for my brother’s 40th birthday back in 2018 and ended up contacting a business where the 80 yr old owner was selling parts of her business and wanted to know if my Mom knew anyone who would be interested in buying a part of her business. I contacted the owner and found out she wanted me to sign a contract with her and give her $500 to rent her signs and be a part of her business. I listened to her and asked her as many questions about the business that I could and let her know I would think about it and get back to her, since I too enjoyed signs in my yard for my 30th birthday from another company at the time years ago. I decided that if I was going to go into this business I wanted it to be my business and do it all on my own without someone telling me how to run my business, so I found images for my signs and found my own sign manufacturer and had my signs made with my company information put on them, which was a first because no one in my industry was doing that at the time. My son, Isiah helped me come up with my business name Sign of The Times. I
also discovered that I needed something to put my large signs in. So I discovered that an umbrella stand would work best. After trying several I finally found an umbrella stand that was made for docks worked the best. I build a website and finally went into business June 15, 2019, making memories with my 7 birthday themes, baby announcement, and wedding theme.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been smooth. I found out that wind is not my friend with my business. My original flamingo’s head was snapped off of it’s neck due to the wind in one of my client’s yard. I ended up having 2 flamingos made, this time reenforced to withstand the high winds. I also discovered I needed to stake my stands down to keep them from being blown over in high winds. I started off in 2019 with less than 10 competitors. I now have more than 50. I am the owner and the only employee, so it was difficult when I had some health issues in 2023. I am now better but my business has been affected because of it. I have a lot of loyal repeat customers who have really pulled me thru the tough times. I absolutely love making people’s birthday’s and events special. Our slogan is, we don’t make signs we make memories with our signs.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I was in the business world as an administrative assistant for multiple businesses starting in 1998 to 2007. I then was a nanny to my nephew until 2018, and became a business owner in 2019.

Pricing:

• $64.05 including tax is what I charge for all of my themes per day

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.signofthetimes.biz
• Instagram: signofthetimesakron
• Facebook: Sign of the Times
• Twitter: Sign of the Times