Maple Signs and Engraving

You don’t have to convince Bob MacEachern about the benefits of the Nova Scotia way of life. He is more than happy to share that knowledge with you.

“There is a distinct competitive advantage to working and living here versus some other parts of North America,” he says. “For the most part, we have a fairly balanced way of life. In Nova Scotia, you’re not only making a living, you’re having a life.”

Born in Judique, Cape Breton, and a lifelong resident of the Port Hawkesbury area, MacEachern is the owner of Maple Signs & Engraving. He is a firm believer in the rural advantage that smaller communities offer to businesses.

“Tax-wise, you’re comparable to urban areas, but the supply of goods that you receive on a local level is very competitive. People can live in rural Nova Scotia for less than they would in a larger centre.”

Rent in a rural part of the province tends to be less than in the larger centres too. The advantages are more than monetary, though. When you connect with your community, MacEachern says, that community becomes your extended family.

“When you are able to go grocery shopping, for example, and meet 20 or 30 people and know all of them by name, that gives you a sense of belonging,” he says. “You know you can depend on them.”

That deep connection to his community is part of what made him think he could take a well-established business like a sign and engraving shop and expand it. The company had already been around for 15 years when he bought it in 2007. “You figure by that time you’ve pretty well hit a plateau on your sales, but our sales have increased in the range of 40 per cent since we took over the business.”

Employee numbers have grown too. When MacEachern took over, there was one full-time employee; now there are three. Again, he attributes part of that growth to the rural Nova Scotia advantage.

“We can be very competitive with pricing, so we can go beyond our immediate sales area. We have clients in the Halifax area; we have clients in the Sydney area. The way you can operate a business in Port Hawkesbury is much different than you can in a larger centre. The competition and your overhead are not as great, so you can run more efficiently.”

Then there’s the personal advantage.

“People know who you are in a small community, and they know what your business does. You get your name out there fairly easily, especially when you’ve been around in the business community for a while.”

That describes MacEachern. He is best known for his role with 101.5FM The Hawk radio station – the first radio station in Nova Scotia to flip from AM to FM, under MacEachern and his wife Brenda’s watch. He is also on the board of directors for the Career Development Association of Inverness Richmond and the Cape Breton Fiddlers’ Association, the new president of the Port Hastings Historical Society, the past president of the Chamber of Commerce and the past chair of the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre fundraising committee, among many volunteer positions.

“I really have a sense that you have to give back,” he explains. “We are responsible as individual citizens to better our community, and you can’t do that by leaving work at five o’clock and going home to watch TV. You have to be engaged. I would hope that if I look back to the year 2000, I would find that our community is better now than it was then.”

People in the business community have a leadership role to play, he says. By working to better the community, business leaders have a better chance at seeing the local population not only stabilize but increase. A bigger population means a wider customer base for existing and future businesses.

“We are in the process of putting together an economic assembly,” he adds. “The topic of this assembly is repopulation of our community, and what we can do as the private sector with partners in the public sector to bring more people here.”

A business like Maple Signs & Engraving can’t grow its sales by 40 per cent in two years just on knowing folks in town, of course. It also comes down to offering innovative products and services.

“If you see a sign, wherever you might be, we can duplicate that process in our shop,” says MacEachern, from digital print signs to lighted signs to 3D signs. “On the engraving side, there are a lot of innovative things going on in this industry, such as laser engraving. We can laser engrave bank cards, iPods, dog tags, plaques, trophies…anything you need.”

Engraving has a seasonal aspect to it, he says. “Through the winter months, we’re doing stuff around hockey, there are banquets in the springtime, and there are festivals and special events in the summer. In the fall, you get into another whole realm of things for the school system and their award ceremonies. There are also a lot of different festivals that go on in the four counties around us, so we try to capture all of that market.”

As Maple Signs & Engraving supports the community’s needs, the community in turn has supported this business. MacEachern says, “Whatever you do in the community, you get it back tenfold.”