Ep. 51 Interview with Keith Perhacs, Expert in Mighty Line® Floor Safety Signs!

Greetings everyone. This is Dave with Mighty Line Minute. And today I have a very special guest. Our own Keith Perhacs, Sales Operations Manager here at Mighty Line®. We're going to have him on, and he's going to give us a little background on some of the latest movers and shakers in the business that we're in. Here he is! Keith, I'm glad to have you on today. Welcome aboard. It's good to have you on for the first time! 

Yeah! 

So, what can you tell us about what you do here at Mighty Line® and then we're going to get into a subject that's near and dear to me, which is Safety and Floor Signs. But, tell us a little bit about your role here. 

So, as you know, we're a small family business, I have a smaller group here, so we kinda wear a lot of different hats, but as Sales Operations Manager, day-to-day, I do a lot of the quoting for our dealers or end-users that call-in and have any questions, any kind of customer support questions. Help out with that. And then, also do a lot of work with our warehouses, our managers, making sure inventories, you know, good at our warehouses and shipping locations. And then also, do a lot of site visits with customers - when those are needed - if they're needed. Trade shows, stuff like that. 

But, like I said, it's a small group. It's a collaborative group, so it's a lot of fun. We're all working together each day and, like I said earlier, kind of wear a lot of different hats. It kind of changes each day, but that's what makes it fun. 

You sure do. I noticed that you're kind-of-a jack of all trades (yeah). You take calls all the time. You're dealing with customers. You deal with the specific applications of customers, and I enjoy hearing some of those conversations. What is one of the most typical growth areas that you're finding, with what Mighty Line® is providing today? 

Definitely our floor signs. Since I started here, this'll be, this January will be my fourth year 

Congratulations!

Thank you. Each year it just seems like the floor signs have just been blowin' up. 

Yeah. 

Shortly before I started, we improved the quality of 'em, and I think that's where that growth started. So, it's kind of cool. When I started, we really revamped the product and it's really taken off. So, I'd say that's been one of the biggest growing. 

Yeah. You mentioned quality. I noticed that the signs, which may typically be 25mil on thickness, there's competitors out there that are half that, and even less than half that. And, based upon some of the testing that we've done for dynamic coefficient of friction testing under ASTM E303, we test out very well with our signs. So, I'd expect that our durability, and the tensile strength, the coefficient of friction is improved much more than perhaps in many years prior, and also with our competitors. 

Yeah, that's definitely been the case. Durability being probably the number one factor. I mean, we get compliments all the time at our trade shows, or just people calling, e-mailing and saying they can't believe how long they stay down, how easy they are to put down compared to what they may have been using before. Whether it be competitors, or maybe some of our older signs. It's just very simple. 

The adhesive is unique, too, like you said, it's easy to put down, easy to pull-up and durable. 

Yeah. Lays flat, I can't stress how easy it is. It's basically a giant sticker and you know, you put it down and you're ready to get back to work. There's no downtime. You're not stenciling stuff out. It's pretty simple.

Yeah. And it's not something you would trip on either? 

No, no. Yeah, it's not this big clunky, you know, cumbersome thing going on the ground. It stays flat, lays flat. And, yeah, that's definitely been a big compliment we hear. 

Yeah, what are some of the big movers right now? What's in demand, or do you have an illustration of one of our signs that you can show? 

Brought a few here. I mean, it's definitely our number one .. is our STOP signs. Probably the number one mover. We have a couple of different versions of this. Bunch of different sizes. But, our STOP signs are definitely the biggest mover. 

And then a lot of just, you know, these kind of KEEP CLEAR, DO NOT BLOCK, FIRE EXTINGUISHERS, KEEP CLEAR, DO NOT BLOCK ELECTRICAL panels are high movers. TRASH can signs, believe it or not, are big movers. 

Yeah. Can I see that ELECTRICAL panel or the DO NOT BLOCK or the KEEP CLEAR (yep)? Boy, that's something, I'll just show that to everyone here. This is something that is used probably in many different areas. I know that under the standards, for example, for electrical panels, alarm panels for fire alarms. The equipment like that, 36-inches is a requirement under the National Electric Code. So, maintaining that 36-inches, sometimes there's a 30-inch wide. Sometimes it's 36. And some companies set their own standards. I recall a company I worked with where we set a 48-inch wide standard. But that's got to be a prime mover. There's so many examples of where that can be used. 

Yeah. And I just brought in the small versions of these, but we can create these up to 48-inches in width. So, like you were talking about. You know, 36-inch gaps or 48-inch clearances, we can handle that with our signs. 

What's the red and black one there? 

The red and black one is the FIRE EXTINGUISHER DO NOT BLOCK. So, this is nice to, you know, you lay it down right in front of where your fire extinguisher locations are. Pretty simple. I mean, DO NOT, DON'T BLOCK. 

Well, this is actually nearly a legal requirement because OSHA, NFPA Fire Codes. They all require unobstructed, clear access to fire extinguishers and equipment. So, this should be found almost in every facility. 

Yeah. And similar to that, you know, EYE WASH stations, FIRST AID kit stations. 

You have a sign for that too? 

I don't have them with me today. 

Okay. I'm curious what this one is. Oh, you even got a FIRE EXIT! 

So, yeah, EYE WASHES, we've got a similar one that's for EYE WASHES. FIRE EXITS. Path to the exit, means of egress. All those are great. 

Yeah, and I don't know what the number's up to off the top of my head, but I believe we have around 200 stocked signs that we keep, you know, on our shelves. In all kinds of various sizes. Like I mentioned, up to 48-inches in width. If you can't find something on our site, we can also do custom as well. We've been doing a lot of custom signage with with end-users and our dealers. 

And so, from a custom signage standpoint, if there's a particular requirement for an operation, they could specify that, of course there'd be a certain minimum order you'd probably need. So, you could also do different languages and … 

Yeah, we have a lot of different, bilingual ones, or Spanish or French we've done. You name it we've probably done, probably done it over the last, you know, as long as we've been doing it. 

Yeah. I noticed that our distributors are excited about our signs as well. 

Oh yeah. They can't get enough of them. I mean, they pretty much daily whenever we're on a call with one of our distributors on what we can provide them in the floor signage. And they love .. I think their favorite part is we stock so many of them and we get them off the floor that day, or, you know, within a couple business days.

One of my favorites is the tornado shelter. I know we may not get a lot of requests for that, but, having dealt with tornadoes at facilities and having to designate locations for that, that's another one that's a unique one if you'd be interested. 

We definitely do some unique ones. That's one of them. I know Amazon’s have used those in those large facilities where, you know, you got a lot of people under one roof and they need to know where to go in that kind of situation. 

I know a lot of, companies, retailers in particular, have had to deal with OSHA on, some pretty extensive violations that deal with blocking exits, blocking access to fire equipment panels. Some of those have resulted in extraordinary demand for signage that simply deals with compliance these days. 

I think it's a small price to pay, to make sure that you are in compliance. So, sometimes they may not tell you why they're ordering. What about consultation? When you get questions, are you able to answer their questions about usage and signs, and so forth? 

Yeah. Between our team here. Myself, Joe, Shannon. We hear a lot of different questions, and we've learned a lot over the years and, what goes where, and why it goes, why it goes there. 

If someone's got a regulatory question or a codes or standards question, I'm here to help as well. So, we can always reach back into many of our folks here and get the right answer for you. 

Well, I know that we have other products and it might be a subject for another podcast, such as floor windows, clear windows and things that you might put down on a floor that would be over barcodes, scan codes, particular signage. We might do that in a separate podcast (yeah). But what's the expectation for this upcoming year? Do you think our sign demand is going to continue to increase? 

It just keeps growing year-by-year. And we're excited about it. We're always looking to improve it, even though, you know, we've got a great product right now, but that's what I love about this company. 

Continuous improvement! 

We love hearing questions and comments and concerns. That's what we feed on and that's how we keep moving forward.

Great! Well, Keith, I'd like you to have the final word here to our viewers on Mighty Line Minute. Any further comments? 

Dave, thank you for having me on Mighty Line Minute today. It was a lot of fun. Looking forward to this upcoming 2025 and the continued growth with our floor signs, and our other new products. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our team. Visit our website. And thanks again!

So, Keith, we'll close it out with this. And I want to thank you for taking time here and Mighty Line Minute today to be with us. Feel free to reach out to Keith. I'll leave the information on screen and he'll be able to answer most all of your questions. And if we don't have the answer, we'll get it for you immediately. Thanks, Keith for coming aboard. 

Yeah, thanks for having me. 

Take care, have a great day! 

All right, thank you! Take care everyone.