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Advantages of franchise sign shops

Each of the sign franchise brand names is recognized in your city or town, especially if in the US or Canada: FastSigns, Signs Now, Sign-a-Ramo, and Signs by Tomorrow are the names I know best.

I have visited several a successful FastSigns franchise shop outside Philadelphia and two FastSigns franchise shops in Missouri.

Some other franchises are more for vinyl cutting and traditional signage (routed, or with lights). FastSigns covers such traditional signage but also really understand wide-format inkjet printers. Plus the individual FastSigns sign shop owners are also sophisticated enough to come to FLAAR for additional help.

Fast Signs franchise shop, Philadelphia

With all the new models available at ISA and FESPA 2010, FLAAR is offering personalized consulting at each trade show. You can walk-the-floor with the Senior Editor of FLAAR and get his comments on any and all printers, inks, RIP software, color management, substrates, applications, etc. So if you wish to learn about the difference between combo, hybrid, and dedicated UV printers, how latex ink compares, about textile printers, etc. contact FLAAR to obtain consulting. You can also get consulting before ISA or FESPA anywhere in the world: Dr Hellmuth was in Dubai and India last week as consultant, and will be in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and China as consultant in the next two months. He was consulting in Korea and London in late 2009.

The difference between one sign franchise and another

If you wish to start your own sign printing company you have multiple options:

• go independent and do it yourself or with a partner
• become a member of a franchise organization.

If you decide to stay indpendent, there are the considerable resources of FLAAR available. You have all the FLAAR Reports publications, and you can fly Nicholas Hellmuth to your city (anywhere in the world) and have him assist you in person.

But we can also assist you if you become a sign franchise owner/operator. There are many advantages of being a sign franchise owner: you get the knowledge of the main office of the franchise plus your brand name has instant recognition.

So you can visit the various sign franchise offices, and decide on one of the four sign franchises:

• FastSigns
• Sign-a-rama
• Signs Now
• Signs by Tomorrow

FastSigns managers at trade shows all over the world tend to stop and say hello to the FLAAR reviewer(s), so I tend to know them better. Plus I visited the world headquarters of FastSigns in Texas. Then I was invited to give four lectures at their annual 2009 FastSigns convention.

The sign franchise phenonomenon is primarily in the US and Canada, but options also exist in other countries

How to get started

Since I have never been to the headquarters of Sign-a-rama, Signs Now or Signs by Tomorrow, I can't comment on these company's organizations. But I have been to the world headquartes of FastSigns and wow, very impressive. I was expecting perhaps a dozen employees but they had over a hundred. They had demo room space, printer testing space, and classroom space in addition to normal offices.

I would estimate that FastSigns has the best ratio of mangers-per-franchise stores.

For people who already have a sign franchise, the key questions are:

• How to get more out of your HP 5000, HP 5500 or your solvent printer that you already have?
• How to figure out what UV printer to buy next?

Nicholas Hellmuth in his recent lecture at FastSigns in Orlando, 2009.

Now that I have met more FastSigns owners at their 2009 convention, I have a much better idea of their concerns, especially during a recession. The FLAAR Reports already provide abundant practical evaluations of all questions related to figuring how what UV printer to buy. FLAAR already knows the capable team at Global Imaging and most of the other printer distributors who exhibited their products at the FastSigns annual convention in Orlando, 2009.

General view at FastSigns annual convention, Orlando, 2009.