David Orfinik, Chief Sales Officer, leads the company’s global sales strategy for both Industrial Safety and Retail Safety divisions. David Orfinik has proven himself over the last 30 years to be a dynamic sales leader and has previously held executive positions in major private and public manufacturing companies.
During this chat, we discussed the launch of BumperSign Solar, a brand new solar-powered sign, and the growing landscape of curbside pickup. Topics include:
Hi David, thanks for joining today! Tell us about McCue's newest signage innovation.
At McCue, we're all about safety. We are specialized in protecting people's lives, business assets, and overall experiences.
This includes improving on-demand trends like curbside pickup programs, which have been accelerated due to the pandemic, to create efficient, safe, and speedy shopping experiences.
With BumperSign Solar, our environmentally friendly sign, we came up with not only a curbside signage solution, but also a tool for parking lot safety and extending the brand experience. It’s a robust, wayfinding solution, so customers can spot it across a parking lot and immediately understand it’s a curbside pickup sign.
We're helping people professionalize and enhance the parking lot. When you enhance the shopping experience, you're creating a beacon of light to guide people. They can see it at night, when it's fully dark or even at dusk, and it's the defined spot for people to go. Creating an established, branded venue for people to know where exactly to go and when to be there — so it's safety, but also creating excitement around the experience itself and leaving a positive customer experience.
How did McCue Corporation come up with the idea of this solar sign?
It started with asking a leading retailer: what's your most pressing safety need?
As go-market strategies evolve, a customer of ours was searching for a sturdy and sustainable option. From wanting it to be streamlined and sleek to other important safety features, we listened and asked detailed questions to understand their wants and needs.
We then designed and developed the product, which we then continuously enhanced and grew into many different available solutions for curbside signage, including new opportunities like our overhead solar sign.
This solar signage solution was created to guide traffic coming in and out, with customized spaces for a customer to enter and efficiently pickup their order. Because it’s all about creating a convenient and safe environment for people traveling in and out of the parking area.
For example, one company might have many different parking spots and a drive thru, and another might have one large pull-up area. And another might allow a designated place for you to park, walk in, and open a locker with your order. Some do a mixture of all of these curbside pickup options. However you approach it, we're ready to help you make it cohesive, positive customer experience.
Could you speak more about the collaboration process? What’s different working with McCue?
Definitely! What makes it special to work with us is our ability to customize signage, or any other solution, to someone's business need. From customizing messaging for people looking for curbside signage to any other use, we can make it personalized.
There may be customers out there who don't know exactly what they want yet — they're experimenting and testing new strategies. They can come to us and we’ll help them. A lot of retailers have a different way they go-to market (prioritizing size, flow, etc) and having us be able to work with them and develop a unique solution for them makes all the difference.
That's what differentiates us from other manufacturers. We don't want to take a cookie cutter, one-size-fits all approach to safety solution. All our customers have different customer bases that they're trying to attract and end goals.
We're trying to figure out their most pressing need and how we can solve that. We might take elements of BumperSign Mobile, BumperSign Solar, or any other elements we're using for curbside pickup, to customize a solution just for them. This also applies to any other retail safety solution.
That goes into another aspect of our ideology. We adapt and change as business needs evolve. Signage does change over time, and we provide signage that is robust and long-lasting, that can be updated as stores innovate. We can offer flexibility to change signage as your go-to market strategy changes, or your branding colors evolving, or even as your overall messaging evolves.
What also makes it adaptable is you can put on accessibility signage, including ADA, veteran, or any other designated spots. We’re truly in the business of making the process easy and enjoyable for customers. All our features drive home that point, and that's what it really comes down to it.
You mentioned evolving industry trends and developments. Can you speak more on that?
Things are changing so fast, but what our product does is give us the ability to change. Each individual retailer may have a different spec with what they want and what they need. Our signage can adapt to it.
In keeping up with sustainability as well, we are working to help reduce carbon footprints. As we get more and more down the path of solar options, like solar-powered car batteries, closely monitoring kWh, and other environmental initiatives, it's important to provide sustainable solutions.
This sign also doesn't require environmental costs during installation as well, whereas traditional electrical systems require digging trenches and additional installation costs to ensure it's properly installed. This sign instead saves time and money, but also enhances the overall experience as well. We've even thought about the replaceability of our signage, including making the materials themselves recyclable.
Where might someone be able to find out more information or ask questions about this new product?
Yes, if you want to learn more, check out our product page: https://www.mccue.com/products/bumpersign-solar