How I Think About Growth: Lessons from Scaling a Franchise Brand

I want to be upfront about something. The big growth years at Signarama, the real hockey stick from zero to where we are, that happened under my dad and Jim Tatem. I have seen growth in my tenure, but I did not build the foundation. I inherited it. What I’ve been responsible for is something different. It isn’t building the franchise network from scratch. It’s keeping a 40-year culture intact while dragging it into what a modern business has to look like in 2026. And honestly, that has been its own kind of hard.

Franchising overall is not slowing down. The IFA projects over 851,000 franchise establishments operating in the United States in 2026, generating more than $936 billion in economic output. The model is still one of the most proven paths into business ownership. But scale brings its own set of pressures, and not all of them are visible from the outside.

The six-week plan

I was listening to a podcast recently where someone said: I don’t have a one-year plan anymore. I have a six-week plan. And then I build the next six-week plan. The first time I heard that I thought it was a little extreme. And then I thought about it for about five more minutes and realized he’s probably right.

Things are moving that fast. Not just in technology, but in how people work, how customers interact with businesses and what they expect, what tools are available, what problems look solvable that were not solvable six months ago. The idea that you can set a direction for a year and just execute it in a straight line doesn’t match the operating environment any of us are operating in personally or professionally.

Now add 300 plus franchise owners to the mix. The challenge of franchising is that you’re not just pivoting yourself. You are bringing an entire system with you. An email migration that takes a normal company a few months can take us over a year. Moving everyone onto a new operating system took three years. Not because people were trying to be difficult, but because change in a franchise system is genuinely complicated. You’re asking hundreds of independent business owners, with their own employees, their own workflows, their own muscle memory, to do something different. That takes time. Think about how much the world changes in a year and a half. That is the gap you are managing.

“You’re not just pivoting yourself. You’re bringing an entire system with you. That takes time and it takes trust.”

What I am trying to protect as we scale

Signarama is a relationship-based, family-run company. That isn’t a tagline. That is how the business actually operates. I give out my cell phone. I stop into stores when I am on vacation, in shorts and sandals. I travel to see owners. We have franchise owners I have worked with for 15 years. We text about football. We know each other’s families. That is the culture.

And in the same breath, my dad and Jim Tatem were not as focused on process discipline, data control, and technology standards as the business now requires. Things that were optional ten years ago are requirements now. And there is a real tension between a 40-year culture of be an entrepreneur, do what you want, and the reality that a modern franchise system needs structure and standards to protect the owners themselves. I do not always love everything that comes with that. But it is a requirement of doing business in 2026. So, the job is to move people along without losing what makes them want to be part of this in the first place.

Warning signs that growth is going wrong

If you are opening new stores and doing resales, but same-store sales are not growing the way they should, that is a red flag. The system is growing, but the existing business isn’t getting stronger. That tells you something is off under the hood.

The other thing I watch is how owners are feeling. Feelings can be wrong. People are not always rational about their situation and sometimes frustration is more about a bad quarter than a systemic problem. But a lot of feelings are true, and you have to take them seriously. Talk to your owners constantly. Look at the data. Get honest feedback from your staff, because I am not in every store every day. I do not always know what is actually happening on the ground until I ask.

We do quarterly meetings specifically to step back and ask: where are we on our goals? What are we missing? What do we need to stop doing? What does the next period actually look like? That rhythm forces you to confront the real picture rather than just staying in motion.

Industry data reinforces why this matters, Franchise Business Reviews research shows that the lowest-rated areas in franchisee satisfaction surveys consistently center on feeling unheard, inadequate marketing support, and a disconnect between what the franchisor promises and what owners experience day to day. Those gaps rarely show up in the financial reports first. They show up in the conversations you have with owners.

Scaling internationally without losing the common thread

You can’t control everything across international markets. And honestly, some of that is by design. The reason we franchise rather than just opening company-owned locations everywhere is that we believe a committed local owner, operating in their community and market, will outperform a corporately run location almost every time. That belief doesn’t change when the owner is in Australia or South Africa or the UAE. We want them to implement the culture and the brand. The local knowledge and relationships are theirs to bring.

Our job is to stay connected. That means text messages, WhatsApps, traveling to see them, bringing them in to be part of the larger family. It’s the same formula domestically; the distance is just different, but the approach is the same. You show up. You stay accessible. You make sure they feel like they are part of something, not just a satellite office.

The interest in international franchising is growing rapidly. According to IFA data, roughly 30% of franchisors are actively exploring overseas markets, and that number continues to rise. The brands that do it well carry the culture with them. The ones that struggle try to operate it from a distance without establishing the relationships that create the common thread.What growth actually requires of you personally

I want to be direct with franchise candidates about this. You are the sign person in your community. You are the sign man or the sign woman. This is not something you invest in and let it grow by itself over in the corner. You have to be in it.

When we say things like be part of the family or live the brand, I know that can sound like corporate-speak. It isn’t. It is a description of what actually works. The owners who are embedded in their communities, who show up, who make it their identity, they do well. The family is around them. The system supports them. The ones who keep it at arm’s length and treat it like a passive investment find out the hard way that this is not that kind of business.

“You are the sign person in your community. This is not something you invest in and let it grow by itself. You have to be in it.”

What a well-run location looks like in five years

I will be honest: five-year predictions feel a little ambitious right now when I am operating on six-week plans. But here is what I believe.

The core of the business doesn’t change. The demand for signage and visual communications isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the global signage market is projected to grow from roughly $33 billion in 2026 to nearly $58 billion by 2033, according to Grand View Research. The need is expanding, not contracting. What changes is how efficiently you can serve that demand.

I think we will see a lot more AI on both sides of the operation. Front-facing, maybe handling the early conversation with a customer, answering questions, qualifying the inquiry before a person gets involved. The tire-kicker work that nobody enjoys doing. And back-facing, on the design and production side, moving things faster and more accurately. AI integration in the signage industry has already hit 41% in 2026, with nearly half of operators planning to add AI for content creation within the next twelve months. This is not a future consideration. It is happening now.

I also think 3D printing continues to get cheaper and more integrated. We are already working with a couple of companies in that space. And if you look at what was demonstrated at Drupa, the technology for more automated production is already there. Whether it is fully in our stores within five years, I do not know. But the direction is clear.

What doesn’t change is the tech stack conversation. The obligation we have as a franchisor is to maintain a core set of tools that work together and eliminate wasted time. I don’t want our owners to spend energy on admin tasks and workflow friction. I want them focused on the things that grow the business: building relationships, developing their team, selling, being present in their community. The tech stack’s job is to clear the path for that. That is what it has always been for.

Key Takeaways

• In franchising, change takes longer because you are moving hundreds of people with you. Budget for it. And do not let it become an excuse for never changing at all.
• Warning signs in growth: flat same-store sales while new locations open, and owners who feel something is off. Industry research shows franchisee dissatisfaction most often surfaces in conversations before it shows financial performance.
• The global signage market is growing steadily toward $58 billion by 2033. The demand is there. The owners who will capture it are the ones who are embedded in their communities and running efficient, technology-supported operations.
• The tech stack’s job is to eliminate wasted time so owners can focus on relationships and growth. That is the whole goal.