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Investment:£100k+


Franchise Focus The sky’s the limit


Fastsigns franchisee, Mark Phelps, explains how his investment will increase sales and profi tability


INVESTMENT LEVEL: FROM £125,000 Mark Phelps


that I could run my own business, put my practical skills to work and oversee every aspect of production from start to fi nish. Another attraction was that the business did not need a high personal investment in terms of time; I still had my evenings and weekends to myself to spend time with my family.”


In January 2016, after successfully owning and operating the Fastsigns Kingston upon Thames centre for 10 years, Mark renewed his franchise agreement for a further decade and decided to begin accelerating the growth of his business. “The business had been ticking along


F


ollowing a long and hugely successful corporate career, an opportunity presented itself to make a life-changing decision. Seizing the chance for voluntary


redundancy from his project manager role with BG Group, Mark found himself looking for a fresh, new challenge. After considering many options, he decided to purchase an already-established Fastsigns centre, located in Kingston upon Thames, in November 2005. Mark said: “I considered several franchise options before deciding on Fastsigns. What drew me to the company was the franchise model. I liked the fact


nicely,” said Mark. “After signing up for a further 10 years with Fastsigns, the opportunity to lease the building next door became available. We were running out of room in our current building, which was preventing us from reaching our maximum potential. So we expanded into the building next door, transforming our space from 1,000 square foot to 2,000 square foot.” Mark then invested in high-performance equipment to enhance his range of products and services. “Since we have invested in new equipment our profi ts have soared,” he said. “As we now have the opportunity to manufacture more products in-house as opposed to outsourcing. We produce approximately 30 per cent more goods in-house, which has made a huge, positive impact on our turnover. Not only


this, the new equipment has given us the opportunity to increase our range of products, as we can now print on many more materials.”


Brexit


After the announcement of the UK leaving the European Union in June, Mark, like many other business owners, was concerned that this may have a negative impact upon his business. Mark reports that exactly the opposite has happened, with his centre becoming even busier since the announcement. “Brexit has not really aff ected us much at


all. With the value of the pound dropping, we did fi nd that imported products became slightly more expensive, but that’s to be expected. I was initially wary that business might slow down but it has done the opposite. August is generally one of our quieter times but we have found that sales have doubled year on year. I personally do not think that Brexit will aff ect the signage industry.”


What’s next?


Mark is planning to spend the next few years training his staff to get the most out of the new equipment and growing his workforce to become a smooth operating team. He said: “Over the next couple of years, I aim to get my team running like a fi nely tuned machine. I will develop my staff ’s skills in order for them to get the most out of the new equipment and consolidate internal processes. After this, I plan to hire additional outside salespeople to support my sales team, and may look to recruit a full-time installer to free up my production team.” For more information, and if you


are interested in Fastsigns’ franchise opportunities, contact managing director John Davies.


Fastsigns


Signage and graphics www.fastsigns.co.uk john.davies@fastsigns.com 01785 253 140


104 | BusinessFranchise.com | October 2016


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