February 2017 | Business View Magazine

116 117 S ignarama is an interna- tional sign and advertising franchise operating under the umbrella of the United Franchise Group (UFG), led by CEO, Ray Titus. The company was founded in 1986, when the first pilot store opened in Farmingdale, New York. Jim “JT” Tatem, the current President of Signarama, was there at the beginning and, today, presides over a franchise network of more than 800 locations in 60-plus coun- tries around the world. Recently Business View Magazine spoke to JT about the history, growth, and current state of the company that Entrepreneur Magazine named the Number One Sign Franchise in 2013 and 71st overall franchise in 2015. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation. BVM: Can you talk about how the franchise got started? JT: “We were part of another franchise organization that had been around since the ‘70s in the print industry, called Minuteman Press. Minuteman served business owners with commercial and offset printing needs –fliers, business cards, letterheads, etc.–and they had worked very closely with a company called 3M-Minnesota Mining and Manufac- turing.They had a lot of success working with them in their industrial graphics division. Signarama Signarama The way to growyour business