A-001 — COVER VENDOR-NEUTRAL · FORT COLLINS, CO
Signage consulting that makes every bid comparable.
Every sign company scopes a job its own way, so the quotes can't be compared. READY writes one vendor-neutral scope and normalizes every bid to it. Identical work, identical terms, side by side. We fabricate nothing and take no commissions, so the scope answers to you.
We are READY.
A-101 — THE PROBLEM
Three bids. Three different jobs.
Ask three sign companies for a price and you get three numbers that mean three different things.
One bills engineering and permitting by the hour, the next marks them up, the third folds them into the price. One quotes an off-brand LED with a two-year warranty, another a name-brand LED, a third leaves the sign non-illuminated. One builds in heavy-gauge aluminum, another in thin, a third subs the fabrication out entirely. No single quote is wrong — but with nothing held constant, price stops being information. You're not choosing the best value. You're choosing whichever shop happened to read the job the way you did.
| Scope line | Vendor A | Vendor B | Vendor C | READY Scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering & permitting | Hourly | +25% markup | Included | Fixed |
| Illumination | Off-brand LED · 1–2 yr | Name-brand LED · 3–5 yr | Non-illuminated | Fixed |
| Construction standard | Thin-gauge aluminum | Heavy-gauge aluminum | Fabrication subbed out | Fixed |
| Install method | T&M | Fixed | T&M + road closure | Fixed |
| Warranty term | 1 yr | 2 yr | 5 yr | Fixed |
The problem was never cost. It's comparability.
THE ROOT CAUSE FOR GCs, ARCHITECTS & DEVELOPERS
Signage is the seat every project skipped.
Every other trade has an independent set of eyes between design and construction. Architects draw it. Engineers stamp it. Owner's reps and construction managers hold the scope. Signage is the exception: the company that designs the sign is usually the same one that sells and builds it — so the drawing and the bid come from the party with the most to gain from how they're written.
- Architecture
- Independent design and drawings
- Structural
- An engineer stamps the work
- The build
- An owner's rep or CM holds the scope
- Signage → READY
- The independent seat that documents the scope, then steps back so the trade can bid it
The scope writer shouldn't also be the sign seller.
A-201 — STANDARD ENGAGEMENT · 3–4 WEEKS
Five deliverables. One package you own.
We're typically brought in around design development, once the building is far enough along to hold signage decisions. Start to finish runs three to four weeks — and we can contract to the architect, the developer, the contractor, or the owner directly, whichever fits the job.
Code & Entitlement Research
Site walk and existing-conditions capture, then the governing sign code, overlay districts, and entitlement constraints for every jurisdiction in play — what's allowed, at what size, and what it takes to get it approved.
Design Package
Concepts through a resolved set: types, quantities, locations, materials, illumination, and mounting — documented to the level a fabricator can build from and a reviewer can approve.
Approved Permit Set
The submittal package taken through city or county review to approval, ready for the sign contractor to pick up, with PE engineering carried as a pass-through where the work requires a stamp.
Job-Costed Budget Benchmark
A real number built from the scope — not a placeholder — so the signage line in your budget reflects what the work actually costs before it goes out to bid.
Bid-Ready Spec Book
One vendor-neutral scope every shop bids against, on identical terms. Yours to issue to any fabricator you choose.
Bid Phase Support
We issue the package to vendors, normalize the returns, and level the bids side by side for your review.
Fabrication, Install & Closeout
We represent your interests through fabrication and installation, then verify the installed work against the approved package before you sign off.
HOW WE COLLABORATE
An extension of your team, wherever the job is.
We work inside the Microsoft 365 and Teams ecosystem, so nothing stalls on file size or a technical roadblock. Submittal and plan reviews run live over Teams, which settles design intent and structural detail before anything reaches production. Heavy files — architectural blueprints, 2D vectors, 3D renderings, complete fabrication packages — move through a secure cloud pipeline instead of third-party download links, and the whole thread stays organized and archived inside your own IT and security standards.
What we don't do
- Fabricate or sell signs
- Take commissions, kickbacks, or referral fees
- Steer you toward a "preferred" shop
- Hold your drawings — the package leaves with you
SAMPLE DELIVERABLE
What a bid-ready sheet looks like.
Detail deepens as the design develops, but every sheet holds to this standard: enough dimension, specification and finish detail that no bidder has to guess and no two read it differently. These come from a real READY package.
- Dimensioned views — front, side and section, with overall width, letter and logo heights, and depth off the wall fixed on the sheet
- Numbered specifications — fourteen lines covering returns, ACM backs, LEDs, acrylic faces, trimcap, weep holes, conduit and the remote power supply
- Color schedule — every finish keyed C1–C5 to a named trimcap, acrylic or vinyl, not left to the bidder
- Area & scale — proposed square footage stated for code review, drawn to a stated scale
The rest of the package
When every bidder prices from this, the only variable left is the price.
A-301 — HOW WE CHARGE
A flat fee for the work. Nothing hidden in the total.
READY works on a fixed project fee — set from the scope before the work begins, the way you'd engage an architect or engineer — so you know the cost of the consulting up front, with no billable-hour meter running. Two things stay strictly apart:
A fixed engagement fee
Scoped to the size of the job — the number of sites, the depth of the scope, the complexity of the approvals. Our margin lives here, on the work, and never on your signs.
Engineering & permits, at cost
Billed at cost with a small, disclosed handling charge, each itemized on its own line. No margin buried inside.
WHAT IT ACTUALLY COSTS YOU
Design isn't a new cost. It's a cost you're already paying.
Every sign company builds design and engineering into its price — you just never see the line. It's folded into the cost of the sign, with margin on top, and every bidder is doing the same thing, so you pay for that work in whichever bid you accept.
Without READY
- Design and engineering are bundled inside the sign price
- Marked up as part of the package
- Each bidder scopes and prices it differently
- The drawings belong to the shop that made them
With READY
- The same work moves onto a line you can see
- Billed as a flat fee, with no markup on the sign
- Every shop bids one identical scope
- The drawings belong to you, whoever you hire
You're not adding a cost. You're relocating one — out of a vendor's total and onto a line you control.
Because we never mark up a sign and never take a commission, there's no incentive hidden in the total. Every dollar answers to your project — not to a sale.
Every project is scoped individually. Tell us the sites and the scope, and you'll get a fixed fee before any work starts.
HOW WE MANAGE RISK
Built to keep responsibility where it belongs.
Signage carries real code and structural responsibility. READY is built so each piece of it sits with the party licensed to carry it.
01 Engineering
Structural engineering is stamped by independent, licensed PEs. We coordinate it and pass it through at cost — the calculations and the stamp belong to the engineer who signs them.
02 Field verification
Our documentation sets the design intent. The licensed installing contractor confirms final field dimensions before anything is fabricated.
03 Milestone sign-off
Design, dimensions, and copy are approved in writing — by you and the contractor — before a shop cuts material, so surprises get caught on paper, not on the wall.
04 Clean hand-off
We document the scope, then step back. Building, permitting, and installing stay with the licensed trade — exactly where a reviewer expects the responsibility to sit.
The result is a project where every responsibility has a clear owner, and the signage line behaves like every other trade on the job.
A-401 — THE PRACTICE
Thirty years in the trade, on your side of the table.
READY's consultants have spent three decades in commercial signage — from install helper and service technician through estimator, project manager, and sales to managing partner. Between them they've worked nearly every seat in the trade, including the two that decide whether a project goes smoothly: the one that writes the bids, and the one that sits on the owner's side reviewing them.
That's why the scope holds up in the field. We know what a drawing has to say to price, permit, build, and install without surprises — because we've done each of those jobs, on packages from a single storefront to multimillion-dollar construction.
We work with both in-house and freelance designers, which lets us match the designer to the project instead of assigning whoever happens to be free. A wayfinding program, a multi-site rebrand, and a single monument sign don't call for the same hand.
Our consultants have also qualified for and held contractor licenses across Colorado municipalities and in Florida — a bar that takes years of documented field experience to clear. READY's work is consulting and documentation, which requires no contractor license; that licensing history simply reflects how deep in the trade the experience runs.
From the field
One of our consultants spent years as the design-and-construction representative for one of Colorado's largest health-care providers — a front-row seat to how architects, engineers, and contractors bring a project together, and how the final drawings and the final numbers come to agreement. Signage was almost never part of that conversation. It got a placeholder: a round number dropped into the project package to be revisited later. And later, when someone finally took a hard look, the real cost of the signage was rarely anywhere close. That gap is where budgets go sideways. Once the numbers don't match, the team is left forcing the design down to fit an unrealistic figure, or chasing change orders to cover the difference. Neither makes for a better building, and neither is friendly to the project or the client.
READY is an independent practice built on that experience. That work was performed in prior roles across the industry.
A-501 — COMMON QUESTIONS
Questions we get asked first.
- What does a signage consultant actually do?
- We take the signage scope off your plate before it goes out to bid: code and entitlement research, a design package, the approved permit set, a job-costed budget benchmark, and a bid-ready spec book. All five are yours to keep.
- Why not just get three bids from sign companies?
- Because three shops will scope the same job three different ways. Until the scope is fixed the numbers aren't comparable, and the lowest bid is usually the one that includes the least.
- How long does a signage package take?
- Three to four weeks for a standard engagement. We're typically brought in around design development, once the building is far enough along to hold signage decisions.
- Who do you contract with?
- The architect, the developer, the general contractor, or the owner directly — whichever fits the job.
- Do you sell, fabricate, or install signs?
- No. We take no commissions, kickbacks, or referral fees, and we don't steer you toward a preferred shop. Our fee covers the consulting work only.
- What areas do you work in?
- Front Range Colorado is home — Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, Greeley and the Denver metro — where we know the jurisdictions and handle surveys in person. We work regionally across Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Kansas and Nebraska, and nationally on multi-site and larger programs. Because we document rather than fabricate, the work travels: what a project needs locally is a site survey and a read on that jurisdiction's sign code, and both are part of the engagement.
A-901 — START A PROJECT
Ready when you are.
Tell us the sites, the work, and the timeline. We'll survey the job, document one vendor-neutral scope, and deliver a bid package — so every quote comes back on the same terms, side by side.
- Emailwilliam@readysignageconsultants.com
- Phone970-567-8882
- BookSchedule a call
- StudioFort Collins, Colorado
- ServingFront Range Colorado · regional · nationwide for multi-site programs
- Webreadysignageconsultants.com
Are you ready?