As long-term employees of the FASTSIGNS Crawley centre, (and great friends outside of work) when the previous owner of the centre decided to activate his exit plan from the business in 2018, we decided that collectively, we wanted to become franchisees.
We’d all worked in the centre for over 20 years, Alan worked as lead designer, Jose managed production and I (Mel) managed sales so we already knew our stuff, and we had experienced the career longevity that the signage industry offered, but being the owner of a centre always felt like it didn’t quite fit our life plan. The security that ‘employment’ provided was attractive but when the chance to buy the centre came up, we just knew that we couldn’t miss the opportunity.
And it’s been liberating! We love being owners, we love being in control of our business and working in it, as well on it. The head office support team helped us move our mindsets from employees to owners and helped make sure that we have robust marketing activity, business planning and strategies in place to help us keep achieving.
Even through 2020 and 2021 and all of the external challenges that have been presented, we’ve grown our business by over 30% – we’ve taken on new team members and we’re extremely excited for the future!
