Q. What was your background (personal, educational, commercial) before you invested in the franchise?
A. My undergraduate and graduate degrees are both in communications and I was a director of a technology focused public relations agency on the east coast before moving back to Chicago (where I am from). I wanted to own a business that used my communications background.
Q. When did you join the franchise and what stage of your business journey are you at?
A. I bought my AlphaGraphics (it was an existing center) in October 2008 and so I am in the middle of my journey – more stable than the beginning but not looking at retiring yet. 😊
Q. Did you consider any other franchises before investing in this particular brand and if so, what factors influenced you to choose this one over the others?
A. I actually owned another franchise before AlphaGraphics – when I first moved back to Chicago, I owned a residential house cleaning franchise which I opened from scratch and then sold a couple of years later. Then when I was looking at my next business, I was not specifically looking at a franchise because I had done that already but was looking at resales since I started the first one from scratch. I did look at SignsNow but ultimately chose AlphaGraphics because I liked the idea of helping businesses with their marketing and marketing ideas but also being able to fulfil them.
Q. What is your view of the franchise’s product/service? What competitive advantages and disadvantages does it have?
A. When I first got into the business 17 years ago people were saying why go into print because print is dead – we are still here and just like with so many other things there is the advantage of speed and getting a product to a customer as well as giving the customer the ability to come in, talk with a real person, touch the product, etc.
Q. What initial training and support did you receive? Was there anything that was missing/lacking from the initial training and onboarding experience?
A. We spent three weeks at the corporate headquarters and then another week in a different center before starting in our business. Now with training videos and virtual training and everything web based I think you can get better support without even having to go for as long as we did.
Q. What is the ongoing support like? How easy is it to get in touch with the franchisor and head office team if there is a problem, challenge or issue?
A. We have had good support throughout the time that we have been in the network. Of course, part of the advantage of a franchise is also the support of the other owners across the network and being involved in the network I have built connections with many other owners to help me with problems and help me in my business as well.
Q. How easy or difficult have you found it to market the franchise locally? How does the franchisor assist and support with marketing?
A. Now most of our marketing is done online through our website, paid search, google, email marketing, etc. AlphaGraphics through its parent company Fortidia owns its own CRM solution which integrates with us.
Q. How long was it before you saw a return on investment?
A. I purchased an existing AlphaGraphics so we were past break even when we bought the business.
Q. Were there any unexpected costs?
A. I think when you buy an existing business you don’t always anticipate the amount you want to reinvest in the business. As a custom manufacturer we are equipment intensive and at the beginning you want to offer the latest and greatest. Plus, having purchased the week of the recession in 2008 things changed as far as access to capital, etc.
Q. What have been your biggest challenges to date? How have you managed to overcome them? What help has the franchisor provided?
A.I think buying the business right before the 2008 recession and then COVID were the two biggest challenges to my business. The franchisor went out of their way to help support the franchisees at those times.
Q. What does your working day/week look like?
A. I am more of a workaholic in general and love what I do, so my typically day is about 7-7 Monday-Friday, but part of that is the ability to leave in the middle of the day if I need to take care of something or go to my son’s school when he was younger to participate.
Q. What is being part of the franchise network like? Do you have much communication with other franchisees and does the franchisor encourage this?
A. As I said, the best thing about the franchise is the network and the other owners. A day does not go by that I don’t interact with another owner – I’ve texted with five other owners just today. The franchise does help support this through their focus groups – and I have done three of them and I’m in my fourth now. These are two year commitments with six or seven owners where you talk monthly and then meet quarterly at each other’s locations to see their operations and meet their team. Once you have these types of relationships and know these owners intimately those relationships continue for years and these are people I speak with regularly.
Q. Has the franchise met your needs and expectations, both financially and otherwise?
A. Yes, it has – I believe in the power of the network and as with most things you get out of it what you put in so many times I see someone that isn’t as successful because they don’t participate and they don’t follow the system. If that is your plan, then why invest in a franchise – a franchise system is meant to be followed and you are part of a group so make the most of it.
Q. Is there anything that you would do differently so far in your business journey?
A. I probably would have made hard staffing choices earlier. Sometimes I am too nice a person and hang onto employees longer than I should which doesn’t help me or my business. The advantage of my owner’s group is that it forces me to make those types of decisions for my business.
Q. If you could start again, would you still buy this same franchise? Or a different one?
A. I love what I do and would not change it. I love being an entrepreneur and love partnering with my customers to help them grow their businesses