Public Forums of Discussion
share franchise news, to prosper and amuse
New Franchisee
Hi everybody,
From March 3, 2006 I am a brand new Fastsigns franchisee... hm... at least on paper for now... :-)
Now I am looking for a site and let me tell you it is a lot harder than I expected. A lot harder! But I have some time at my disposition and I am not going to rest until I find my "perfect site"!!!
I am open to any advises and also ready to answer any questions you guys might have about my due diligence process, and how I got to chose Fastsigns...
Also anyone that went through this "finding a great site" process... I would love to hear from you!
Thanks!
- forums:
5 Forum Remarks
More like this
- No Successes
- Hurricane Grill & Wings under new ownership for the third time in 12 months
- CertaPro Painters: VERY High Franchisee Failure rate
- Hurricane Grill & Wings Franchisees file lawsuit against franchisor for deceptive practices and earnings claims
- Is Curves actually chasing departed franchisees for ongoing royalty?
New Franchisee
Congratulations!
I've been looking around for the right franchise and haven't found it yet. If you don't mind me asking, why did you decide on a business to business franchise? Why did you decide on a sign shop and then finally what made you decide on Fastsigns?
I know that's asking a lot but it would be helpful. I've been pulled into a lot of different directions in my franchise choice. I'd like to know your thought process in choosing the broad area, the industry and then the actual franchise.
Just used a FastSign franchise for our business
and was extremely pleased. We have a Rhino Linings and are now expanding into commercial and industrial applications so we've had to set up a seperate mobile unit. We had a 24' enclosed trailer custom built and with the investment of this and the equipment, we wanted to use the trailer's exterior to be a moving billboard. I pulled together what I was looking for, set it up with publishing software and sent it out for quotes. Fast Signs came in at 20% less than anyone else and their prompt and professional service were excellent. We picked it up from them last week and OMG................it's AWESOME. We are extremely pleased and although they are quite a drive from us, we'll be using them in the future. Just having it in our parking lot this past week has brought business in our door that more than paid for the graphics. We humans are such visual creatures that these kinds of advertisments are the BEST investments. Good Luck.Here Is My Franchise Story
Thanks Juan,
Well, here is my story... Don't worry, I'll keep it short!
I started looking at coffee franchises, because I always loved coffee places, but then I realized that it is going to involve a lot of hours, too much overhead, and the competition is just amazing. So, I decided to see a franchise consultant that tried to sell me some businesses and also tried to tell me what I want.
To tell you the truth I would not recommend a franchise consultant, but is good to see one just on top of your research. In my case, I did not buy anything from him, but because of him I started to look more into the "business-to-business" franchises and especially at the Sign/Digital Imaging ones. I started with the one recommended by the consultant "Speedpro Signs", but I realized that they were more interested in selling franchises than really build up a strong franchise chain.
At least this is my opinion. I have also talked with Sign-A-Rama and I looked into all other sign franchise chains like "Signs by Tomorrow", "Signs Now" ...
From all, Fastsigns, again in my opinion, was the best. I have talked with numerous franchisees and visited couple of shops (where I live are only two), and I was impressed with the amount of good feedback that I got from them. It looks like it is a great franchisor-franchisee relationship and an even greater support from the franchisor. The investment is pretty big, but it looks like they are keeping up with everything especially with the technology. I am coming from a technical background (network admin/tech support) so I was able to appreciate the way they keep up. Just take a look at their website www.fastsigns.com and compare it with all the others... you will see what I mean.
Well that is it for now; let me know if it is anything I did not answer...
All the best!
Why I Switched From Coffee To Signs
Hi Juan,
Sorry for taking so long, but I am in searching for a location and this proved to be a much more challenging task than I expected... The vacancy rate is very low in the areas I want to work and I don't seem to get a decent commercial realtor... Anyway...
You asked "why jump from coffee to signs?" ... hehhehe... To tell you the truth I was not looking for something that would use my technical background. If I wanted something like that I would've went with "Computer Troubleshooters", "Geeks on Call" and so on... At Fastsigns my role will not be a technical one. My primary job here will be SALES! Besides that... managing, networking, marketing... Well, maybe I will build my own computer network to save some money but nothing more than that! hehehehe...
Hm... I still did not answer your question. From "coffee" to "signs"... Well coffee was not the only thing I went through in my search for a suitable franchise... I also looked at pizza, bread and bakery, staffing services (Express Personnel), blinds (Budget Blinds), eBay drop-off stores... Coffee was something that I thought I would love to do... Investigating more I realized that is a lot more headache that I thought it was, and the payback is not great considering the work you put in... But again, why signs? Hm... I do not know for sure but it was something in it that attracted me and I just couldn't let go... and no it wasn't the salesman!
I investigated a lot, I have talked with a lot of people (not only from Fastsigns) and... well you see the results! Just in case you did not find out by now, there is another great franchise discussion forum that helped me a lot in my decision... www.franchise-chat.com/forum... If you go there you are going to find a lot of posts by me under same name: zebiandi... Check it out see how and where I started, what kind of answers I got... I find that forum extremely good!
Well that's it for now, let me know how you doing...
Take care!
Fast Signs Does Sound Progressive
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for sharing that. I do like the fastsigns.com site. It's well designed, consumer friendly and shows off a little technical know-how. Sir Speedy, PIP and Alphagraphics have more consumer technology built in with online ordering, myDocs, an order print driver, etc. However, their sites don't explain very well what these function do. FastSigns is user friendly with a tech flair.
I understand what you say about franchise consultants. My experience was that although they are nice people, I felt like they were pushing certain franchise networks on me because those were the high commission networks for them.
I'm curious. What made you jump from coffee house to Digital Signs? To the outsider, that seems like quite a jump. Signs can use your technical background but of course, there are a number of high tech franchises out there that would do the same.
Post new comment