If you want to hire a good yard sign placer quickly, then this is the best place to start.
In this ‘down-to-earth’ guide, I’ve laid out an easy process on how to hire a sign placer from beginning to end.
You’ll uncover some interesting tips, such as … the secret behind how to not get “screwed over” by your sign placer on their first job.
And how to make the interview process fast and painless. So that your sign placer can start working asap.
In the later parts, I’ll show you a swift way to filter out your applicants and cherry-pick out the best candidates.
(In a second, we’ll dive head-first into the guide.)
Hi, I’m Mike McCabe👋
Co-founder of SimpleCrew, a software you probably never knew existed.
For the past 9 years, I’ve helped business owners track and manage their sign placers.
My goal here is to save you time and get you back to doing what you love to do most.
Part I: How to Quickly Find a Good Yard Sign Placer
This guide is broken down into 4 easy-to-consume sections:
Thanks to the internet.
You can hire a good sign placer in a single afternoon and have ‘em place your signs by tomorrow morning.
To hire a yard sign placer, where would you go?
You might’ve heard of Indeed, SimplyHired, ZipRecruiter, or even LinkedIn.
However I wouldn’t recommend those sites for beginners who have never hired a sign placer before.
Instead, I suggest using a more popular website that’ll give you a bigger base of applicants to choose from.
In fact, this is a better website that’ll give you access to a horde of hard workers at an instant.
Don’t take my word for it. You probably heard it already.
It’s called:
Craigslist
This website is the BEST site for finding a ton of qualified applicants for sign placement in any location. After all, it’s the most popular website for finding part-time jobs and gigs in the world.
And if you’re under time pressure, you’d be more likely to find a good candidate faster on that site than on any other job recruiting site.
But, if you never hired a sign placer on Craigslist, then it may seem impossible.
“How do I write a job post on Craigslist?”, you might ask.
Or even more importantly, “How do I find a GOOD sign placer for my business?”
This brings me to the next important point.
If you need help with
either of the following:
- Writing a job post on Craigslist – that helps you attract a yard sign placer that meets your needs.
- Launching a job post on Craigslist – such as where to post the job and how to set it up.
Then download our 👉 “Ultimate Job Post Template For Hiring a Sign Placer”
In the link above, you’ll learn how to launch a job post on Craigslist, and you also get a “copy & paste” job post template that works well for attracting the right sign placer, regardless of the niche you’re in.
Other than that, the following sections will cover everything AFTER you have posted a job on Craigslist.
So, once your job post is live, you’re ready for part II.
Part II: Quick ‘n’ Painless Interview Process
If you followed everything above, then your job post is out there fishing for some high-quality yard sign placers.
And in no time, you’ll get a decent number of responses to look over, such as one of my favorite first liners:
“R u you still hiring hiring?”
Just kidding.
But other than that, you will have some note-worthy applicants to choose from.
And assuming you do, what can you do next?
First, choose your preferred medium of communication.
Out of all the ways you can communicate with your candidate, we recommend the use of … video chat.
Through video chatting, you’ll quickly get a general sense of the quality of the candidate.
For sign placement, I recommend placing a big emphasis on finding someone who will be reliable.
After you choose the medium of communication, it’s best practice to get familiar with good ‘interviewing questions’.
Here are a few important interviewing questions to ask any potential sign placer:
Which city do you live in?
Which cities in your area are you available to work?
Do you own a Car, Truck, Van, or large SUV?
Do you have a qualified backup to run signs in case you are unavailable?
Have you done sign placing before?
Why are you interested in this job?
Can you meet our schedule consistently?
After you get answers to these questions, you should start looking for how a good candidate looks like.
It can be challenging though. There a ton of factors to consider.
That’s why we created a mental checklist to help you filter out the good candidates from the bad.
Here is a simple checklist:
3-point ‘fool-proof’ checklist for picking the right candidate
Chances are, if you’re looking for a sign placer, these are important qualities to look for:
- Proximity - How close do they live to your sign placing route?
- Reliability - Do they have the time and flexibility to meet your schedule?
- Readiness - Do they have the tools (car, smartphone), the physical fitness, and the knowledge to complete the job?
What to look for in responses?
Assuming your candidate passes the checklist, you should be looking for — detailed responses.
A candidate who is genuinely motivated will often express themselves in more words than someone who is not interested.
Finding detailed responses with many words and emotions is an indicator that someone is motivated and willing to do a good job.
Most importantly … It’s best not to overthink it. Allow me to illustrate.
Part III: Trial Run
Alrighty. So, you’ve decided on a candidate.
Doing a trial run is great option.
Start by giving your candidate the resources to learn the rules of proper sign placement.
Then put your candidate to the test.
It’s time to put them up for a trial run.
A trial run will give you all the answers you need. Such as “Are they quick or slow”, “Have they followed the rules of good sign placement?”, “Have they placed the signs on schedule?”
In theory, a trial run sounds like a good idea, huh?
… but there is a problem.
See, giving a bunch of yard signs to a sign placer you met, can spell disaster.
For example, what if … they just throw your yard signs straight into the garbage?
Besides there’d be no way of you knowing what happens to your yard signs.
Which is why you should have some way to “track” your signs.
Here are two different ways to do it:
First, Ask your sign placer to Send you the photos of each yard sign they place.
In other words …
Tell your sign placer to take a photo of each yard sign they put up.
Getting a photo of each yard sign will help you get answers to critical questions.
Such as, were your yard signs placed by a intersection or hanged up on a telephone pole. And were they placed in neighborhood A or neighborhood b?
But the con of this is that the sign placer will blow up your phone with text messages, which can be tiresome and over time you won’t even look at the photos your sign placers would submit.
Now there is a better alternative.
OR - Have them download SimpleCrew
Why?
SimpleCrew is a smartphone app that lets you SEE all the bandit signs your sign placer has placed for you – taking trust out of the equation.
Without you ever being there in person.
But I won’t go into full detail about how SimpleCrew works here.
Bottom line: SimpleCrew verifies whether or not your sign placer has put out your bandit signs in the way you want.
And knowing how expensive bandit signs or yard signs could be (hundreds of dollars), SimpleCrew becomes an essential tool for managing your sign placer and verifying their work.
Thus, if you’re going to use a sign placer for the first time, I highly recommend you check out our 14-day free trial plan.
How to begin a trial run?
To start a trial run, just follow these four steps:
Step 1: Distribute the signs
Start by ordering the yard signs from your favorite yard sign vendor and have them shipped to your sign placer, (or even better, let your sign placers order it themselves 
).
Give your candidate a decent number of signs. Enough that it justify their time working with you.
Step 2: Give them the instructions
Instructions can be added inside your SimpleCrew campaign folder.
This can be as simple as picking a county or zip code to start with.
Or you can paste in a google route map link into your campaign’s description.
Step 3: Have yard sign placers snap photos of each sign using the SimpleCrew mobile app.
Using SimpleCrew is like having a secret window to watch your sign placer doing his work in the present moment.
Photos appear as soon as they “snap” a photo.
And you get special features such as the exact location and time they’ve placed each sign, which are necessary if you need signs to be placed within a specific date and time.
Step 4: Pay them for the trial run
Our SimpleCrew reports make it easy to know the total number of signs placed from your sign placer, so you can quickly figure out how much to pay for their awesome work.
Some of our customers like to surprise their sign placers with a reward when their yard sign contributed to a successful deal.
And that’s basically it.
Yep.
Seriously.
From here on out, there is little that you need to do.
Set it and forget it.
You don’t need to worry about your leads, calls, or sales tanking because of a bad apple.
There is no trust needed.
They can manage the campaigns themselves.
Most importantly, they do the work themselves.
Best of luck!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the BEST rate to pay for a sign placer?
There are two ways to pay for a sign placer.
1. Pay Per Hour
2. Pay Per Sign
Allow me to break down both options.
If paying per sign:
First, it’s impossible for me to say what is the perfect price to pay per sign.
Because at the time of this writing, the cost of gas and minimum wage has been increasing fairly rapidly. By the time you read this, you might find that $1 or even $2 per sign is not doable anymore.
That said, there is an easy way to figure out how much to pay for a sign placer.
It’s downright sneaky. And that is by simply checking what other business owners are currently paying for each sign placer right now.
To do so, search on Google for “Sign Placer Job Posts” in your area. This search will quickly let you see how much sign placers are getting paid in your area at this very moment.
If you’re new to hiring a sign placer, I suggest sticking to the lower end of the pay scale, until you figure out what price makes sense for your business.
If paying an hourly rate:
The same technique applies for figuring out the hourly rate. Search on Google for “sign placer job posts” and see what the common hourly rate for sign placers in your area is. Then, decide on a good rate.
If you’re concerned about overpaying, set a limit for the number of hours a sign placer can work, until you figure out how much you can afford to pay.
In any case, it’s important to use a tracking software like SimpleCrew, that will act like an insurance for your signs.
For example, if you hand over 100 signs to your sign placer, then you need to make sure each and every sign will actually get posted up, right?
Well, SimpleCrew is a way for you to verify that each sign IS posted up, thereby giving you a piece of mind.
That’s just the beginning of what you can do with our software.
To learn more visit our website and get a 14-day free trial.
How to pay for extra tasks to a sign placer?
If you’re looking to outsource extra tasks, such as cutting out yard signs (or bandit signs) and writing out a message on it as well, then the question begs: are your sign placers responsible for that?
Or should you pay them extra for those tasks?
I’m in the camp of paying your sign placers fairly, otherwise they’ll simply quit.
Here’s one way you can do that. For any extra task that you wish to outsource, such as cutting out signs or writing out signs…
Start by timing how long it takes YOU to do those tasks. For example, let’s say it takes you 3 minutes to cut out and write out each sign. And the minimum wage is $20 per hour, which means each minute will cost you 0.33 cents.
Therefore, for 3 minutes of labor at 0.33 cent per minute will cost you 0.99 cents for cutting and writing out each sign.
That’s your baseline rate. Of course, you can increase it if you want to be more generous.
Now, the more responsibility you give, such as sending the stakes to your sign placers and having them placing buy orders for signs and materials on your behalf, the more you’ll want to raise their pay.
Should you pay for their gas?
It’s NOT absolutely necessary to pay their gas if you’re already paying them a good rate.
However, paying for their gas will prevent sign placers from feeling taken advantage of when gas prices are rising, rapidly.
If you do pay for their gas, don’t promise to pay them for a full tank. Instead, pay them for the miles driven during their sign placement route.
But for that you would need a separate tracking software that would track their mileage.
If you’re starting out with a new sign placer, I wouldn’t suggest it at first. It adds more complications.
Just keep it simple and pay them a fair rate.
Just a reminder ...
I highly recommend you to download our “Job Post” Template below.
(Especially if you have never hired a sign placer before.)
The downloadable template below will do a few things:
First, it’ll give you a “copy & paste” job post template that’ll attract high-quality sign placers. And it’ll show you how to launch a job post in minutes.
If you haven’t already … download the “Ultimate Job Post Template For Hiring A Sign Placer” 
