This afternoon as I was driving across town, I passed at least six human sign holders. You’ve seen them: Those people at busy intersections holding a massive posterboard arrow, usually advertising new homes for sale or a tax free sale on mattresses. I was living in Denver the first time I really noticed one of these sign holders, and it made an impression. It was about 50 degrees out with a foot of snow on the ground, and this woman was wrapped up in about six layers of clothing with just her eyes peeking out through a scarf and knit hat. The sign she was holding was a picture of this guy with two siberian tigers and a big “Weekend Sale” headline. She was standing there rigid as a post, listlessly tilting the sign up and down. All I could think was, “How miserable must it be doing the job of a 2×4 and some nails?”

That was four or five years ago, and it seems like since then there’s only been growth in this medium. When I moved back to California in 2007, I started noticing significantly more human sign holders. Maybe the warmer weather makes it easier to attract humans willing to stand outdoors for four to eight hours at a time. (Edit: Sure enough, the Wikipedia entry on Human Billboards bears this theory out). Regardless, having personally seen thousands of human sign holders I’ve noticed a clear pattern. With very few notable exceptions, these sign holders look ashamed, bored and lazy.

This isn’t surprising. I wouldn’t be terribly motivated to be the best human sign holder I could be were I making $8 an hour, inhaling car exhaust and being stared at by bemused motorists all day. Who would? According to the Wikipedia entry I linked to above, some companies actually specialize in human sign holder marketing, going so far as to hold bootcamps where they train their humans to be awesome twirlers. I’ve seen a few that actually stand out with real energy, dance moves and enthusiasm. Seriously, good for them. They take pride in what they do and they appear to have some fun doing it. But again, this breed of sign holder seems to be very rare. The vast majority are of the “F*ck my life” variety, out there as a last resort and just trying to make a few quick bucks.

My (Fictional) Human Sign Holder Company

After my drive this afternoon I started thinking about how I would run one of these crews, how I would differentiate and become the go-to Human Sign Holder Company in my area. This is how I would do it:

#1. Recruiting

For this type of job, I think this biggest hiring mistakes that get made are likely via Craigslist and internal employee assignments. Think for a moment about the quality of applicants you’re going to get on Craigslist for your sign holder position. Have you ever tried to buy or sell anything on Craigslist? I’m convinced it’s the largest pool of flakes and creeps in the world and besides, it’s just not targeted enough. We definitely need to be more selective in our recruitment channels.

I also have a hunch that a good percentage of human sign holders are just unlucky employees that get assigned to “sign holder” duty. They were probably hired to make pizzas or work the cash register, but end up occasionally getting the “loser” shift out on the corner holding the huge arrow and trying to hide their face the whole time. This exact scenario was actually depicted hilariously in a recent movie, Sex Drive.

This is ineffective for the obvious reason that the employee probably didn’t sign up for this, and subsequently has zero enthusiasm for it (probably compounded by co-workers laughing at the unfortunate employee’s fate).

So, where can we go to find the right human sign holder talent? My company is going to recruit primarily from one source: The Theater/Performing Arts Departments of every local college within 30 miles. These students are actually eager to perform and be seen, and many of them probably have some raw talent to boot. With the right training and motivation (financial and otherwise), they will provide an excellent targeted labor pool with an endless supply of promising new candidates.

#2. Employee Motivation

Another huge problem for human sign holders is a lack of financial and professional motivation. The vast majority of sign holders clearly consider these jobs to be “throwaway”, since they could make the same money cleaning the grease traps at KFC.

Here’s how my company will fix that (in addition to recruiting the right people in the first place):

• Our employees are not Holders. They are Performers.
• We pay $15 per hour. It will cost the customer more than hiring the competition, but we’ll be positioning ourselves as the absolute best and most effective at driving traffic. You get what you pay for. This will also create competition between candidates, giving us the opportunity to select the best possible Performers for the job.
• Performers have some skin in the game with referral commissions. Their signs feature big-ass callouts: “Tell them Joe sent you!” This is the equivalent of affiliate id’s, and won’t be their real names. Our customers agree to track referrals (to their benefit since they can measure Performer effectiveness) and we pay a $10 bonus for each “conversion”.
• No humiliating costumes. Our employees wear sharp, professional and bright uniforms (dockers and polo shirt), matching baseball hats and aviator sunglasses. This serves the dual purpose of creating a consistent brand for our company and also providing our Performers with some level of anonymity.
• As a general rule, we’ll locate Performers as far away from their own community as possible to help them be more comfortable in their performance element.

#3. Training, Management and Feedback

Anyone can stick a drunk in a t-shirt on a corner with no training. Our employees will get paid training at a 3-day clinic taught by local dance instructors, acting coaches and veteran company Performers. As I mentioned earlier, it looks like some forward-thinking companies in this space already do this to some extent, but I think that adding the acting element is an important complement to the dance element, as it will allow each Performer to contribute their own personality and unique energy to the job (something they should already have to build on since they’re mostly Performing Arts students). The training will focus on effective performance techniques that drive the most traffic. Including insight from veteran Performers introduces real-world perspective and new ideas into the training.

Each new Performer will be paired with a veteran Performer for the first couple of shifts. This will allow them to observe a seasoned Performer in action and to overcome any initial “stage fright” they might have. A crew manager will be responsible for monitoring all Performers with random drive-bys, although effectiveness will be measured mostly by conversions.

Within 24 hours of the end of their shift, Performers will be able to track their conversions for the day from our employee website and read any manager notes. They will also use this site to get their next assignment details and provide feedback to their manager.

Conclusion

Would these ideas work? I don’t know, but it would be interesting to test them out. At the very least, it would be great to not have to see so many suicidal-looking human sign holders on the weekends.