Indeed in 2021, Lee Simpson, managing director of Hatfield-based, high-end photographic printer Sim Imaging, identified a way to not only navigate his existing company through the storm but to boost its turnover and to generate a completely new income on top. 

The challenge

“Before Covid hit we’d been looking at ways we could maximise our assets and get more work flowing through,” says Simpson. 

“We definitely had more capacity on our cutters and printers, as well as our expertise, so I wanted to find a different outlet and market to safeguard us for the future. Signage, for me, made sense.” 

Simpson initially set about looking for a local signage business to acquire as he and his team felt the signage market was a natural add-on for Sim with obvious synergies.

He says: “We chatted to a couple of local companies but felt they weren’t right – they were too owner-reliant. I felt that if the owner left, the customers would go too and that wasn’t the model I wanted. I wanted to buy the customer base and a brand that would continue to flow.”

His search cast up a range of options including the US-owned signage franchise, Fastsigns, which now has 23 centres around the UK. Simpson was introduced to the franchise’s co-branding initiative, which gives existing business owners the opportunity to couple their own company, from a complementary market, with a Fastsigns centre in order to maximise their own business space and capacity, whilst also generating new revenue; exactly what Simpson was looking for. 

The method

Deciding to embark on this new venture with Fastsigns at the end of 2020, Simpson handed the majority of the day-to-day running of Sim, then in its 16th year, over to his two long-term colleagues so he could focus on launching the new business. The two companies, although sharing kit and space, would operate as entirely separate entities. 

Already working from a 1,500sqm facility in Hatfield, Simpson portioned off part of the workspace to dedicate to his Fastsigns enterprise and set about choosing new kit to add to the existing Mimaki JFX 200-2513 UV LED printer and Summa F1612 flatbed cutter, run by Sim. After researching the market and assessing his options, he opted to invest in an Epson SureColor SC-S80600 roll-to-roll device and a Graphtec FC9000-140 cutting plotter. 

“To be honest, we probably would have invested in that kit anyway because it was really beneficial for the other business to deliver work for the photographic market,” Simpson says. 

After signing on the dotted line with Fastsigns, for an initial set up fee of £21,000, Simpson began building Fastsigns St Albans in January 2021.

​He says: “It was totally the wrong time to start a business, but there’s never an easy time and I guess it is easier to start up something new while business is slower, which it obviously was at that time. So I used that quiet time to really learn the products, the market and everything about the new business. I felt it wasn’t a massive risk because I already had the building and the kit in place for the existing business.”

A major benefit of choosing to go down the co-branding route with a franchise such as Fastsigns, explains Simpson, is that your territory is already mapped out and all the branding, website and marketing format is done for you. 

“Another reason I didn’t just start my own signage company and went with a franchise was because it had an excellent business management, ordering and accounting system in place already. Corebridge business management software works alongside Xero for accounting and it literally works out all the costs and margins for you.

“And because there are 22 other Fastsigns centres in the UK, there’s an amazing support network and you can compare numbers and mark-ups and all sorts of stuff with them. That’s basically what you’re getting for the franchise fee. It’s a business out of a can really,” Simpson says. 

With lockdown measures in place across the globe at the time, Simpson was unable to attend Fastsigns’ standard two-week training in Dallas. Instead he completed it online and says that because of his existing knowledge from running Sim Imaging, much of the learning wasn’t new to him. “It was really useful, though, and there was some technical knowledge around vinyls and adhesives, for example, that was really helpful to me,” he adds. 

Simpson feels his background has stood him in good stead for launching a signage business and that while he felt confident in some areas at the beginning, learning about the different substrates has been one of the biggest learning curves for him. 

“Choosing the right material for a specific product, why you would use some things over others, that’s been steep learning,” he says. “I’m a bit of a geek like that though, so it’s been great for me. Another thing that’s been new is the fixtures and fittings. I’ve never installed jobs before, so I’ve been out on quite a lot of installs to understand how things work,” he adds. 

He explains that although co-branding might seem like an easy option to some with so much provided by Fastsigns, your new business doesn’t build itself. 

“It’s great when I go and see larger customers, the Fastsigns brand definitely helps and reassures them that they’re working with a reputable brand and a company that has decent resources but it certainly won’t just win you the work,” he remarks. 

He explains that while signage is a broad market, with the company offering 12 different product categories and servicing a huge range of industries, it can be tricky to get repeat business, so communication is key. 

“We do a lot of networking with the local chambers to meet local businesses and to try and get in front of people. If you do signage for a new shop, you are finished once they open – they don’t need you any more. 

“So you are really looking for companies that have large fleets of vehicles that need new graphics, or places with multiple sites that need new signage when they open new sites,” he explains. 

“We’re now working a lot with smaller independents and other larger customers with local sites that have a lot of health and safety signage, for example. 

“That’s what you need to do: find the repeat customers,” he adds.

The results 

Simpson says that while turnover was understandably very slow for the first few months of operation, he put a lot of work into marketing the Fastsigns St Albans centre, which drew results and has shown continued growth since. 

“We have had our strongest year yet, we are 30% up on last year and our aim is to be at £300,000 at the end of this year, which will be year three. We are talking to more people, creating more estimates and turning over more, so it’s all positive,” he states. 

As a Fastsigns co-brand franchisee, targets are all set by the business centre owner, giving flexibility and independence, while the brand owner is paid nine percent of monthly turnover – a 7% franchise fee and a 2% contribution to the central marketing fund for all franchisees. 

“It’s what you make it,” states Simpson. “What you pay for using the brand, you’d spend on your marketing anyway, but the great thing is that Fastsigns is really focused on marketing and the group members are all watching and making sure the budget is being spent on the right things. 

“That’s great for me because it takes so much time while you’re running a business to think about all these things, you can’t always do a decent job on everything. So the franchise fee is really worth it – all you need to do is get your place in order and then go out and get the work.”

Furthermore, leaning into the group of fellow franchisees for advice and support is one of the keys to getting the business off the ground and making sure it evolves, according to Simpson

“The experience of the franchisees is brilliant. I can just phone up any centre and ask them a question on how they do something or about certain kit or materials or inks,” he explains. 

“Some of them are very knowledgeable, they have a lot of work, kit and throughput and I can get advice on the best prices for materials, the best suppliers and there is always someone who has a contact for something,” he adds. 

With Fastsigns St Albans sharing a home with Sim Imaging, Simpson says it can feel “a bit shoe-horned in”, especially with such large materials and products now being on site. If he were to do it again, he says, he’d want to reorganise the floorspace better before starting, rather than looking at it in hindsight. 

“It’s just about moving things around to make a bit more space though,” he says. “The idea is that we work with what we have, we don’t want to push any overheads up by moving, so we will sweat what we have got.”

The shared resources between Fastsigns St Albans and Sim Imaging is beginning to pay off for both, Simpson says, with Fastsigns now making money and Sim starting to become more profitable, a key reason for entering the co-brand partnership.

The two businesses work well together, he explains, because while the photo market experiences surges at different times of year, such as Christmas, the signage market is quiet in those times. 

“They have opposite peaks and troughs, which is a major benefit because it enables us to deliver the best level of care and quality across the board,” he states, adding that the business is now getting a very steady flow of enquiries. 

“The market is good, it’s competitive,” he adds. “You have to get out there. You can’t wait for your phone to ring, you have to make it ring.” 

Fastsigns St Albans 

Location Hatfield, Hertfordshire

Inspection host Lee Simpson, owner

Size Staff: three; Turnover: £300,000 targeted by end of year three

Established January 2021

Products and services Signage, graphics and installation

Kit Epson SureColor SC-S80600, Mimaki JFX 200-2513 EX, Summa F1612 flatbed cutter and a Graphtec FC9000-140 cutting plotter

TOP TIPS

Simpson says that choosing to co-brand shouldn’t be seen as an easy option and highlights the need for good time management. “You absolutely have to make sure you have the time to dedicate yourself to it or have the right staff to allocate to it. It’s not just an easy ride.” 

“For anyone wanting to partner with Fastsigns, they need to consider the amount of space they will need for this type of work,” says Simpson. “They need to be prepared for the fact that when the deliveries come in, the products are going to be big so they need space for it all.” 

With such a strong network of Fastsigns centre owners in the UK, Simpson says it is a resource well worth using. “We get asked some weird and wonderful things and I can get so much great advice from the group – the network is amazing,” he states.