Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Nichols.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
A few years after returning home from the Navy and attending College I had the idea of running a business in the back of my head. I ended up in the technology field with IT jobs at various education and corporations advancing in a career when at one point I became friends with a hiring manager who ultimately left the company to purchase a FASTSIGNS franchise.
After a number of years of seeing their success and talking about the kinds of things they do in their business, an opportunity became available for a center in The Woodlands and my friend helped get connected to the right people to get the ball rolling.
I reached out to my father who had been in the print industry for many years and was looking to retire from his day job and we decided to go for it. He stayed up near the Dallas area for about a year after I opened the center, at which time he retired and moved to the area to work with me in the sign industry.
Of course, we’ve had our ups and downs learning not just this business but in how to run a business in general. FASTSIGNS as a franchise has been great with lots of resources available and of course many franchisees that will happily offer advice. So while you’re in business for yourself you’re not in business by yourself. It’s allowed us the opportunity to run a great business for almost 10 years and at various times we’ve had up to 3 generations of our family making signs.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Looking back I wouldn’t say it hasn’t been smooth, but we’ve definitely learned different kinds of lessons. The easy ones and the hard ones.
Never having seen a profit and loss statement or having heard of a balance sheet getting familiar with “the books” took longer than it probably should have. Making mistakes on projects is expected, but there were days where it seemed like we were the “we make everything twice sign company.” But over the years we developed our team, upgraded equipment and got better.
Please tell us about FASTSIGNS The Woodlands.
We are a visual communications company, which is much nicer than saying we provide many different kinds of signs. From decals, to building letters, to vehicle wraps, and digital signs we try to do it all. I would say what sets us apart is customer service and turn around times.
We quite often meet with customers who are getting multiple bids and have one many bids because we could produce in days what some others quoted weeks…and on more than one occasion we got the bid simply because we showed up when we said we would. Usually, our customers need to accomplish something on a deadline and keep coming back because we make it easy and follow up regularly.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have a different approach to hiring and make some of the equipment purchases earlier on.
Contact Info:
- Address: 26311 I-45, Ste B
The Woodlands, Tx 77380 - Website: www.fastsigns.com/556
- Phone: 281-292-6059
- Email: 556@fastsigns.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FASTSIGNSWoodlands/
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