From Employee to Owner: Bob Chapa of Signarama, Part 1

In episode six of FranCast by UFG, the show kicks off a three-part series with Bob Chapa, owner of Signarama Troy | Metro Detroit, the largest Signarama location in the world, a Hall of Fame franchisee, and a mentor to many owners across the network.

Joined by Mandy Roan, Director of Marketing for Signarama, Bob shares how he got his start in the sign industry, what first drew him to the Signarama franchise model, and how he made the leap from employee to owner. He reflects on growing up in an independent family sign company, then discovering a franchise system that offered something very different: structure, support, shared knowledge, and a network of people invested in each other’s success.

This episode is a strong starting point for anyone curious about what first attracts people to franchising, how the owner mindset begins to form, and why the right system can completely reshape a career path.

Be sure to follow Bob: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobchapa/ and learn more about Signarama: https://signaramafranchise.com/

Stay connected with Signarama on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/signaramafranchising

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/signaramafranchising

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/signarama

To email us your questions, you can reach out to francast@ufgcorp.com.

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Transcript

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Chad Palmer 0:09

Welcome to FranCast, brought to you by United Franchise Group. I'm Chad Palmer, and today we're kicking off a three-part conversation from the franchise owner's perspective. Joining us today are Mandy Roan, Director of Marketing for Signarama, and Bob Chapa, owner of Signarama Troy, Metro Detroit. In this episode, Bob shares how he got his start in the sign industry, what first drew him to the Signarama franchise model, and how we eventually made the leap from employee to owner. Let's get into it. Enjoy.

Mandy Roan 0:40

Well, Bob, thank you so much for joining us today on FranCast. I like to start off the interviews by asking, tell me what franchising means as if I have no experience in it. What is a franchise? What is franchising? Explain it to us in basic terms.

Bob Chapa 0:55

Well, what a what a great jump-in question. So uh from my perspective, my career path, uh, franchising is what I would call an organized system, uh, an entire family, a breath of fresh air, a backbone, uh, a larger brain. Uh, franchising is really a way to launch a business with a set of history and workflows and background uh and a tremendous team, both on the corporate level, but also fellow franchisees that can really help anybody be successful. Um, it's been a complete game changer for me, for my career path, for my family, certainly for my business.

Mandy Roan 1:36

And at what point did you first get introduced to franchising?

Bob Chapa 1:40

So, my my background story in franchising is a little bit unique. I grew up in a family-owned sign company. Um, I was a teenager dealing with an independent sign company. My parents had started in part of Michigan here, and my dad would kick the bed in the morning, and I'd have to get in the truck and go sweep the floors and cut some metal up and basically just do all the grunt work at the sign shop. And I remember vividly back then that uh everyone, because we were an independent sign company, everyone was our competition. Everyone was sort of looked at with a bit of a side eye and really kind of on an island. And I really specifically remember at those times with the family business, just sort of struggling to kind of make a place for ourselves and in our marketplace. And when I went off to college uh to do something completely unrelated to the sign industry, I thought I was going to be an architect and design buildings and spaces. Uh, within a few years of that path, uh Signarama, brand new Signarama franchise location, opened up just quite literally directly across the street from my apartment at the time. And I stared at the now hiring sign for a few weeks until I finally decided that my my background, you know, 10 plus years of weeding vinyl and making banners and would probably help me out with that job interview. And I walked in and I just I saw a completely different version of a sign company. It was it was clean, it was vibrant, it was it was fun. It was uh at the time, it was small, it was the the traditional early footprint of a Signarama location, uh, but it just had a completely different vibe to it. And the original owners, Ed and Joanne Progar, uh were just two of the most incredibly nice people that I've ever met in my life. And uh, you know, I fixed their plotter, made a couple signs, they hired me on the spot. And over the course of the next year, I started to realize this is back when Signarama only had about a hundred locations, and just in the United States, really, and I started to realize that everybody was trying to be helpful. And you could call anybody at any point. You could call the home office, you could call a Signarama in New York, you could call a Signarama in Indiana. Everybody was taking calls and trying to answer questions, and it just gave me a completely different perspective and a lot of excitement about the sign industry. I was trying to sort of push it off and have have that not really be part of my path. And uh it became pretty evident to me that the franchising side of building a business was very powerful and very, very exciting. And I I just couldn't get away from it. The farther I got into my college path, the more I was sort of locked in to the excitement of our Signarama growing and building and the brand growing and building, and eventually I uh made them an offer to buy the business and the rest is history.

Mandy Roan 4:38

Was there anything that you took with you from you know your experience with your family sign shop versus working in one that was part of the franchise? Where I guess in that kind of mind shift did you decide that you wanted to be a business owner versus either working independently or what have you?

Bob Chapa 5:01

Yeah, that's a great question. I think I think part of the the idea of growing up in a family business uh always sort of motivated me and inspired me to be a little bit more of an entrepreneur. But at that stage of my life, I wasn't I wasn't really seeking that. I I was kind of locked in on what I wanted to do and wanted to be. But the hard work and the hustle and the the extra effort that you have to be, it has to be ingrained in you to be successful as an entrepreneur. That part that foundation was sort of set, but it just seemed like everything was a bit of an uphill battle. And I just remember going to my first you know franchise regional meeting in the Midwest, and it was in a random conference room at a Holiday Inn, and you know, eight different people showed up in their Signarama trucks and hugged each other and high-fived, and you know, somebody brought coffee and somebody else brought donuts, and it was just the most kind of eye-opening experience that all these people just came together and hung out for a day, and then just got back in their sign trucks and just drove back off to all their random cities and back to their homes and all fought the same battles and the same struggles and the same hiring issues and production issues, and I just remember every single meeting that I went to, every encounter that I had just felt like I couldn't I couldn't get away. I couldn't break away from that network and that camaraderie that was there, even if I wanted to, to be honest with you, even if I was like really dead set that I wanted to do something different, once I realized that franchising brings a completely different level of involvement, um, and just people that care, like the the caring part of it, uh I I just got sucked right in. And then, you know, after years and years of that, it just sort of made me realize that the more effort and impact that I can give to new franchisees and even to struggling franchisees or really successful ones that just sort of locked in relationships for life at that point.

Mandy Roan 7:07

And I want to go back to the early days of your transition. So going from working in the shop to making the offer to buy it. What were some of those early days struggles and how did you have to change kind of your day-to-day thinking, interacting with people who were formerly your peers, who are now your employees? What were those early days like?

Bob Chapa 7:29

Uh yeah, those were some of my favorite days, uh, to be honest. We still talk about it at the office all the time. Um, I I remember at that time, I truthfully I felt too young to be even running the Signarama. I just had a lot of experience, and Ed and Joanne they just had so much trust and confidence in me. It really boosted me and it made me want to work as hard as I possibly could for them. They were fantastic owners and just really great mentors, and they made me feel like anything that I pushed myself for, I could accomplish. They they sort of taught me the value of being a great franchisee and a great business owner and the impact that it can have because by the time I was wrapping up college, I there was not a chance that I was going to go off and be an architect. They they sort of uh helped me see the bigger vision and the excitement of that. But all of the people that I was working with at the time were either my age, you know, early, early 20s, maybe there was, you know, an older production guy or something, but it wasn't it wasn't like uh a you know corporate job. It was a lot of folks that were my age, that were used to being a peer or a coworker. Uh, and you know, every every day back then had its had its ups and downs, tougher jobs, bigger deadlines. So when that transition came, uh frankly, I was so excited, Mandy, to uh just to dig in and take take hold and ownership of all the parts that I didn't do as an employee, the the financial part, the banking, uh you know, kind of worrying about the money, and which obviously is pretty important part of business. Those are all things that I didn't do. I I cared deeply and I was ultimately responsible for every sale and every dollar and the profitability of every job. But once that transition happened, um I just I just dove in headfirst. And I had already built such an incredible team, some just really great relationships. And I on top of that, I was really, really aggressive. I went on a bit of a hiring spree. Um, I did not just sit back and do the minimum that a Signarama franchise should do. I I doubled down, I hired extra people, I moved into a big, way bigger space, not just like sort of bigger space, I moved into a way bigger space, and I I just had a mindset that I could help to develop our franchise and what it felt like to be a Signarama. And those days, early days with the team and refiguring out our roles and how to go from an employee to an owner and not only keep the relationship strong, but actually make them even better because I I could be seen as a more of a leader than just a coworker. Um, those those were just some interesting times. And that was really more self-development for me. It was more about uh becoming a different type of a person than just being a great employee. I I felt very confident and very proud that I was working as hard as I could for the original owners. There wasn't much more that they had ever needed to ask of me. Um, but when when I actually took the reins and I actually signed on that paperwork and you know, my I had just gotten married and our literally our house was on the line. Our house was the collateral for the loan, and I just I just couldn't couldn't hold back. At that point, I just went went all in on everything.

Mandy Roan 10:59

So for anyone who's in that mindset of they're working in the business, they think there's something there, they're considering taking the leap to business ownership. What are some key either characteristics or habits that they'd likely have to break or have to kind of shift their thinking on in order to take over that owner mentality, working more high level, working more big picture like you did in that transition versus in the day-to-day in our you know, business weeding vinyl on the table and uh putting the sign together.

Bob Chapa 11:31

Sure. So, you know, I've I've been a part of the sign around franchise system for for a long time now. I think I'm coming up on 26, 27 years from the beginning when I first got started. And I have seen now many, many great Sign arama owners that were employees that started out as an employee and became an owner. I've also seen some that didn't didn't really push themselves and didn't that transition didn't really click for them. Um, I have thought about this this part for quite a while because of my interesting path and sort of a non-traditional path to being becoming a franchise owner. I think that the biggest factor, the biggest thing that an employee who strives or wants to become a franchisee or an owner, I think the biggest thing that they would really have to have is the ability to not be introverted, to not be focused on just their their piece. Um as a as a great employee, I I worked circles around everybody else at the company. I I took ownership of my work, I took ownership of the people above me of their work, and that's why they continue to give me those great opportunities. But when you're ready to make the leap to become an owner from an employee, you have to really think about things differently. You're you are ultimately responsible for the output and the work of everybody. And you can't just think about your part. If all you do as an owner is think about your part, all the rest of those pieces may or may not work. It's just a never-ending struggle. It's a hamster wheel that keeps going. So I had to learn very quickly how actually exciting it was to help people become better and be excited and motivated. And uh I I sort of just did some really deep dive studying on company culture and building the very best environment that I possibly could for my team. Uh, that's sort of been a cornerstone of my career for a very, very long time. And uh it's led to challenges because sometimes I push the team a little bit far on things or in directions that they're not expecting. And other times, I am just wildly surprised that our culture is basically set in stone. It's it's granite and it is almost impossible to break, even when we get one bad bad apple or one bad person that that makes it through the interview process within a couple of weeks, two to three weeks, the whole rest of our team recognizes that they just don't fit the vibe and the energy level that we have. So I think the the more direct answer to your question is you you can't be introverted. You most really good employees focus on their own space and their own bubble of the company. But to become a great owner, to transition into an owner, you have to be able to think about all of those spaces together, even though you may not ultimately be responsible for those parts.

Chad Palmer 14:30

If today's episode got you thinking about franchising in a new way, be sure to join us for future episodes, because that's what this podcast is all about giving you a behind the scenes picture of franchise ownership. Thanks again for tuning in to FranCast brought to you by United Franchise Group. We really do appreciate you being part of the conversation and look forward to having you back for the next episode. Until next time, I'm Chad Palmer. Thanks for listening.