Business View Magazine | January 2020

135 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JANUARY 2020 S IGNARAMA robust economies and the overall emergence of new startups.” “As we close out the year, we’ll probably be around 70-80 new franchisees and some are in states that we’ve never been in before, like Alaska,” A.J. adds. “The average time in business for our franchisees is about 15-20 years and we have 30-year franchise agreements. We’re 33 years in the business, so we’re at the point where a lot of the original people have put 30 years in and they’re ready to sell and move on, or those people who bought about 15 or 20 years ago are in their 60s or 70s and are also ready to sell and move on. We’re seeing a little bit of that with a mature brand, which is not a bad thing. We want our franchisees to grow and make money and build their businesses to sell at the end of the day.” “Now, there are some challenges with that because you have people who are in the business and know what they’re doing, and then you have a new person coming in that we’re training, but they don’t know all that the older owner knew,” he adds. “But it’s also a good thing in the sense that it’s a new generation with new ideas. So, it’s been really cool what we’re seeing.” In order to help the newbies, Signarama and the other UFG brands recently introduced a new sales boot camp program. “It’s based in our corporate headquarters in West Palm Beach and it’s free to our franchisees’ salespeople. Everyone from our company speaks at the boot camp; people from our other brands; my dad who’s the CEO; myself; and we all help train salespeople. It started this year and it happens every quarter and it’s been great.” The company also stays in touch with all of its existing franchisees. “We tend to leave the older store owners alone, but for a newer store that’s growing, we’ll be touching base with them frequently,” A.J. states. “It could be weekly; it could me monthly; it depends on where the store is at in the process because we have a