Are you looking for the next step in your career? Is now the time to work for yourself rather than contributing to someone else’s bottom line? Are you looking for a positive work-life balance whilst running your own business?
Our current resales include:
- Signs Express (Exeter)
- Signs Express (Huddersfield)
- Signs Express (Liverpool & Wirral)
- Signs Express (Harlow)
Being your own boss isn’t a career choice, it’s a lifestyle choice… So, turn your career into a lifestyle today with Signs Express:
- Become part of the UK’s largest signs and graphics network
- Creative, high profit industry with 20% EBITDA potential
- Be your own boss and operate in your own territory
- Opportunity to achieve £750,000 turnover and beyond
- Monday – Friday working hours
- Full training and support provided
- Established, respected brand with over 35 years of experience
- Expansion potential
- UK wide network support and UK based Franchise Support Centre
- Innovative industry where no two days are the same
Why Choose Signs Express?
Offering bespoke signage and graphics solutions to customers large and small we offer room for creativity and innovation working with a consultative approach, offering anything from exterior building graphics, illuminated signage, digital signage, vehicle graphics, exhibition and displays, window graphics, bespoke wallpaper, health and safety signage, eco-products and much more.
Established for 35 years, Signs Express is dedicated to delivering our customers' innovative signs and graphics solutions. We interpret our customers visions and advise on the best visual solutions to bring their brands to life. In an ever-growing industry, our forward-thinking strategy combined with our national coverage and local approach allows us to offer our clients the most effective solutions.
Each and every business needs signage or graphics whether it's to attract customers, engage or inspire employees, health and safety notices or to simply inform, we’re here to support our clients bring their brands to life. Due to the variety of industries we service and the huge range we offer, the signage industry can be viewed as recession proof as every situation presents opportunities.
Extensive Training Programme: Setting you up for Success
With a commitment to help you grow your business and achieve your goals, we offer extensive training and support to our franchisees to ensure you are set up for success. Throughout your Signs Express career, we offer:
- Comprehensive onboarding programme for all new franchisees including classroom learning and hands-on training
- Business Coaching and Mentoring
- Ongoing training for existing franchisees and their teams via our custom-built Learning Management Platform
- Live training sessions from our company owned flagship centre in Twickenham
- Business Health Checks ensuring best practice
- Dedicated Franchise Support Centre and centre visits, offering support and training to our network across all disciplines including finance, IT, local and national marketing, operational, recruitment, business planning and sales
- Social media training
- Exit planning and realising your resale value
- Sharing of best practice from fellow franchisees and from our supplier partners
Hear from our Franchisees:
Kris Bell, Signs Express (Aylesbury): Catching up with Kris after 12 months of ownership:
“The last year has been a whirlwind. Being quite a risk averse individual, I usually spend a lot of time weighing things up, however after the busiest 12 months of my career, I’ve definitely had to adapt the way I work, along with my overall business approach and I’ve learnt a lot about myself for sure, along with help and support from the Franchise Support Centre offering guidance and support each step of the way.
I’ve loved every minute of it (despite the challenges) and I’ve met some fantastic individuals in local businesses and built some great relationships with our customers along the way. I’m really pleased with where the business has been heading and the progress we’ve made as a team, so I felt ready for the next step in my Signs Express journey by venturing into the new hub and spoke model.”
Matt Rutlidge, Signs Express (Central Lancashire): Speaking with Matt as he moves into ownership:
“After 14 years with Signs Express and working as Centre Manager for the past four years, I am thrilled to announce that I am now the proud owner of Signs Express (Central Lancashire), serving the local areas of Preston, Blackpool and Blackburn. I’m fortunate enough to have fantastic relationships with the majority of our customers and suppliers already, however I’m excited to spend the coming weeks and months reaching out and speaking with many more local businesses to see how we can work together.
I’m extremely passionate about what I do and with a dedicated, experienced team around me, we’re excited to see where we can take the business and continue to explore and push the boundaries of what we can create for our local communities and beyond.”
Roy Heeley and John McEntee, Signs Express (Liverpool & Wirral): Discuss what they enjoy most about working in the signage industry:
“Having started the business from scratch many years ago, we are still learning 20 years later! We thrive when working in a creative environment offering a varied and diverse approach to our customers means every day is different. We’re both sociable individuals and enjoy getting out and about meeting new customers. Building relationships is key to the success of the business, leading to repeat business, a solid reputation and word of mouth recommendations. Many of our good friends started off as customers and it’s great that they’ve been on the journey with us.
Work life balance is also essential, our Monday-Friday working days have allowed us to spend time with our friends and family whilst enjoying the benefits of running our own business. Undoubtedly the support from our fellow franchisees along with support from the franchise support centre has been integral to our success.”
Who are we looking for?
Full support and training is provided throughout your Signs Express career, therefore no industry experience is required.
We are looking for two types of franchisees:
- Business savvy, hands-on managers with no industry experience but have the desire, drive and ambition to take a business to the next level.
- Career driven sign makers and production managers that are experienced in the industry with ambitions to own and grow their own business with our support.
Our ideal franchisee will be extremely personable with the ability to build relationships, act consultatively to help build solutions, they will be driven, ambitious, a good all-rounder, creative and not afraid of hard work.
‘A Day in the Life of a Franchisee’
As a centre owner no two days will be the same, you’ll be the key relationship manager for your customers, you’ll be the face of the business, the driving force for innovation, you’ll work in a consultative manner and be the voice of authority in your field, offering bespoke solutions to your customers, all delivered with outstanding customer care.
Investment and Funding:
- Franchise Fee of £8,500 for a resale purchase or £25,000 for a start-up opportunity
- Investment levels vary for our resale opportunities depending on the size of the business. Current opportunities range from £99,950 to £250,000.
- A total investment of £215,000 is required for a start-up opportunity.
- At Signs Express we can support you with funding via our 3rd party financial partners such as HSBC.
- Typically, 30% of the asking price is required in liquid capital, however we will work with you to look at different funding approaches if required.
Please get in touch today to find out more!
- Franchise Fee: £25,000
- Minimum Investment: £215,000
- Minimum Liquid Capital: £65,000
Another Phenomenal Year at Signs Express
Yes, we’ve had to navigate some curveballs delivered by the economy which are beyond our control, but overall, with the moving parts we can control… it’s been another year of progress, strong results and one to be proud of for sure!
We’ve made huge strides as we advance through and deliver on our five-year strategy. We’ve welcomed new franchisees, said goodbye to others, progressed further into our 'Hub and Spoke’ journey and added two more operations to our company owned portfolio. We’ve seen franchisees renew their franchise agreements, supported others with MBO deals, won awards (and narrowly missed out on others!). We’ve climbed the charts (second year running as ‘Rising Stars’) of the Elite Franchise Top 100 and celebrated our Nottingham franchisee being awarded the accolade of Great British Franchisee. We’ve remained committed to develop our eco-credentials, worked in partnership with suppliers to create bespoke training videos and created a new local marketing programme to support our franchisees lead generation. We’ve attended numerous industry events and exhibitions, hosted network meetings, organised social gatherings, and supported the development of an industry-wide apprenticeship, along with the small task of building and implementing a bespoke Learning Management System…
And so, we stop to take a breath and take the time to think about the fantastic dedication, talent, hard-work and determination we’ve seen across our network and Franchise Support team, without whom none of this could be possible.
Hub and Spoke
As we continue on our Hub and Spoke journey to create expansion opportunities for our franchisees, we were delighted to see Kris Bell, owner of Signs Express (Aylesbury) expand into High Wycombe after just a year in the network, Paul Glover, owner of Signs Express (Nottingham) taking on Derby and Signs Express (Bath and Swindon) extended their reach into Salisbury. Alongside this, two of our company owned centres, Signs Express (Twickenham) and Signs Express (Reading) expanded into their neighbouring territories of Battersea and Farnborough! With key learnings under our belt and this model demonstrating profitable business growth, we’re thrilled to have enquiries for further expansion of our network in 2024.
Local Marketing Programme
Listening to feedback from our franchisees, marketing has been a key topic where additional support has been requested and in January this year, we were excited to launch our Local Marketing Programme. Taking away some of the marketing activity demand from over 50% of our network, our experienced marketeers at the Franchise Support Centre now produce bespoke local marketing social posts, online activity, case studies, website updates and much more on behalf of our franchisees ensuring a consistent and engaging approach to marketing, enabling our franchisees to focus on other key areas of their businesses.
Learning Management System (LMS)
After a period of scoping, planning and building, in Q3 this year we proudly launched our bespoke online Learning Management platform addressing some of the training and development needs of our network. With fifty courses already available out of the two hundred we will be creating; this central platform is available for all Signs Express centres and their teams. Health and Safety, operations, finance and marketing are just a few of the business functions the system will cover, to enable structured learning and a consistent approach, allowing upskilling opportunities and personal development within our network.
System Investment
As part of our five-year strategy, another one of our commitments, is to make a significant investment into our customer and order management platform, which would see us introduce a new cloud-based solution for our entire network that improves internal efficiency and customer experience.
Looking Forward to 2024
And whilst Christmas is just around the corner, our minds here at Signs Express are fully focused on planning for our annual Convention being held on Friday 19 January. As our biggest event of the year, Convention brings together our network of franchisees and their teams along with suppliers from across the industry. With a packed schedule full of demo’s, business updates, networking, industry speakers, franchisee panels, our Signs Express awards and much more, it is set to be a fantastic day ahead of our gala dinner and franchise awards in the evening.
2023 has been another year of great progress and high output as we continue to work through our forward-thinking five-year strategy. With a fantastic network and phenomenal team around us, we can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store. Keep an eye out for updates throughout next year as we continue in our development journey!
Opportunities with Signs Express
At Signs Express we’re always on the lookout for talented, driven individuals to join our award-winning network. Whether you’re about to embark on a new apprenticeship, looking for a new creative opportunity in production, thinking about taking that step-up to become a Production or Sales Manager, or even looking to own your own business in an innovative industry where no two days are the same, we have a range of recruitment opportunities across our 60+ locations.
I would definitely recommend franchising to those who wish to own a business with large potential. It’s been a fantastic way to grow my opportunities whilst knowing I have all the support, guidance and reassurance just a phone call away.
Signs Express’ dedicated support team ensure I look at the facts and figures giving me advice on the next steps to take. It’s important to keep looking at the bigger picture in order to keep on track with the growth I want for the business. I have a very exciting future ahead of me.
Signs Express Master Franchise Opportunity
