FranCast by UFG
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FranCast by UFG
What It Takes to Scale a Franchise Business with Bob Chapa of Signarama, Part 3
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In episode eight of FranCast by UFG, Bob Chapa returns for the final installment of this three-part series to talk about what it takes to scale a business through people, systems, leadership habits, and financial discipline.
Bob shares what excites him most now as an owner, from recruiting and developing talent to watching team members grow into industry leaders. He also talks about the leadership meetings and habits he protects every week, the best advice he received from another franchise owner, and how franchising helped him expand his business by leveraging the power of a global network.
To close out the series, Bob reflects on one of the most painful mistakes of his ownership journey. That lesson became a turning point, shaping how he leads today and why he now thinks so intentionally about long-term business strength.
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:
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/signaramafranchising
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/signarama
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Welcome to FranCast, brought to you by United Franchise Group. I'm Chad Palmer, and today we're wrapping up our conversation with Mandy Roan, Director of Marketing for Signarama, and Bob Chapa, owner of Signarama Troy Metro Detroit. In this final episode, Bob talks about what it takes to scale a business through people, systems, leadership habits, and financial discipline. He also shares some of the hard lessons that have shaped how he leads today. Let's close it out. Enjoy.
Mandy RoanAs a business owner, what is your favorite thing about your job?
Bob ChapaIt's a really interesting switch. It's like the other side of the coin now. So I am unbelievably passionate about creating that excitement and that fun with my team. So showing people, we we just interviewed somebody that has some great vehicle graphics experience. She's worked at many, many sign companies in different environments. And uh when she came in to interview for us, the the look on her face just to see our shop and you know, really, really clean and very presentable to customers. And the wrap bay was nothing like anything she'd ever done graphics in before. I I was pumped. To me, that was like the early days when I was convincing a customer to buy a sign, but this time I was convincing a really qualified person that she should want to work at our company. And I I find just great joy in recruiting, um, hiring, building up people, seeing what they're capable of. You know, I have some amazing people on my team, many that have been there for a really, really long time that are that are now industry leaders, that are, that are running classes at ISA. That, you know, my my original sales assistant, Tori, is now running other classes for ISA and teaching sign companies all over all over North America. And and she she came to me right out of college with a graphic design degree, and she's killing it. I'm very proud of her. Those are the things that I get really, really excited about now.
Mandy RoanUh, what is either the best book you've ever read or a recent book you read that really resonated with you?
Bob ChapaAn interesting time uh not only in in my career, but specifically in the business world right now. Um, I just wrapped up a book called The AI Driven Leader. And it is all about uh not just understanding AI, because that is everywhere. You can't you can't turn your head somewhere online and not be smashed with something about AI. But the book was actually about how to become a stronger leader and how to how to discuss with your team and how to show your team the value of integrating AI into your workplace and into your processes because people are either really, really for it and excited, or they're they don't even want to touch it because they think AI is going to take over the world and shut us all down. So the book was really great. It was, especially the first half of it, was more about understanding how to talk to people and and sort of address their concerns, then use their strengths because all of our team, all of our employees have different unique strengths, then use their strengths to build your AI systems.
Mandy RoanWhat is one tool or report or habit that you wish you would have adopted earlier in your business ownership journey?
Bob ChapaI think that's a great question. We have we have a system in place now. I I guess I would definitely call it a tool that is very effectively tracking the to-do lists and the activities or projects, not the sign work. That part we had that part's already been handled for a long time, but the actual to-do lists and projects that all of our team is working on my leadership team, my marketing team, um, our IT crew, like ever so we have a system now that tracks it globally for everyone instead of each person. You know, somebody has a notebook and somebody uses their cell phone notes and somebody else uses an iPad. So now we have kind of one unique global system, and it's very eye-opening to see why some people are overwhelmed and not able to get things done because they're getting hit by eight different directions, being asked to do things, and other people kind of sit back and only work on three things all week. And and maybe it's because they intentionally do that, they purposely block their time to focus on those three things. So I wish a long, long time ago, that I had better visibility to the things that my team was doing that were not sign project related. I wish I had a better system in place for that early.
Mandy RoanAs a business owner, what is one habit that you habitually protect? I wow and you can't say breakfast with Matt on Wednesdays.
Bob ChapaOh man, you know that's where I was going. That's exactly where I was going.
Mandy RoanI mean, you can, it's fine.
Bob ChapaNow I have to think through. So, all right. I'm gonna reshape the beginning of how I'm entering this one. So uh as a as a business owner, especially coming from being an employee and transitioning, hold on, let me start that over. As a business owner who started as an employee at the business and then transitioned into becoming the owner, uh, I would say that one trait that I just can't stop. It's it's uh become sort of a part of how I operate, are two very, very intentional meetings that I have to have every single week. Uh I can't skip them. We can't override them. We can't schedule other things. Um of the meetings I've talked about many times before, it's a scheduled Wednesday morning breakfast uh with my top, my top guy, Matt. Um, he's my my CFO, my COO now. Um I I don't have any insight into all the day-to-day stuff that he deals with. All of our leadership team directly report to him. So that one-on-one time, it's two and a half to three hours. We meet early for breakfast and we cover a lot of ground. It's rapid fire, it's a lot of information. It's stuff that we don't talk about in Teams threads or emails or random texting. It's it's the nitty-gritty stuff and it's fast decisions. And every time we skip it, every single time we skip it, and holy cow, if we skip it two weeks in a row, it's like chaos. We know the next month is going to be a bit of chaos. And on the same vein of that, uh, early in the week, we have what what what we call our leadership meeting. So all of my senior directors, these most of them are all people that grew in the business with me. In fact, two of my four people on my leadership team were uh hired right when I took over as the owner all of those years ago, and now they're directors of various parts of the company. We have a meeting, it's very similar to an EOS meeting with Rocks and um, you know, a lot of cadence reporting, but it's the same exact thing. When one or two people are out of town or are on vacation and they're not able to make it to that meeting or two weeks in a row of missing the leadership meeting, you can literally just see the wheels fall off a little bit. Like you gotta go, you gotta go grab a wheel and put it back on or put some air in it because they're sort of disconnected from how the other departments are working. And I would encourage any employee that transitions into an owner to be really, really purposeful with at least one to two meetings that you have to have weekly with your team. It's it's like a non-negotiable thing.
Mandy RoanEarlier, you talked about the camaraderie that you have experienced within the franchise network. What is some of the best advice you've ever gotten from another franchise owner?
Bob ChapaWell, this is a great time for me to give uh one of my favorite shout outs to not only one of the smartest people that I know in the world, but one of my closest friends, Maggie Harlow. Uh, we were we were trending in the same direction. We started our businesses at the same time. Um, we were both sort of a type A personality, lots of energy, heavy focused on sales, each of us. And uh she had a tremendous sales background. She kind of came into the business with a tremendous sales background. I came from the production side and had to had to find that and build that in me. But then I got really excited and passionate because we were very uh we were very, I don't know, I combative isn't the wrong word, but we were we were certainly giving each other a hard time over who could win that month, who could have higher sales. And then all of a sudden, she just sort of came to me one day and what we had just started our peer groups, and she said, I I just had a revelation. I just realized that I'm I'm hiring salespeople and I'm training salespeople and I'm giving them all of these great opportunities to sell signs, but every single good project, everything that I know I can close, I'm the one selling it and closing it. And I'm I'm taking away all the projects that they should be successful at. And it it just it hit me like a like a freight train. I was doing the exact same thing. I was more excited about me closing the sale than my company closing the sale. And that completely changed things. In fact, way, way bigger than sales, that completely changed things because it it sort of flipped a switch in my mind that building the people and building the team and processes to be in place so that they can be successful at their role is a much better feeling for me. And the end results are much greater. Having 60 people all doing a great job is much better than me being the best at five people's jobs. I am definitely not the best at every other role. I'm not, and that was a big mental shift for me. Uh, Maggie deserves all the credit, and I I know it also had a really big impact for her business as well because she she stopped being the lead sales rep. We we basically, in our independent markets in Louisville and Detroit, we're able to be like the cool people that the big businesses in town want to go talk to and hang out and have lunch with, but we don't have to be the one that writes up the quotes or gets all the follow-ups because we have a great team behind us that does it. So that that was a really awesome, awesome revelation from a fellow Signarama.
Mandy RoanBob, we often have people who want to expand their business and we recommend franchising. How has franchising helped you expand your business?
Bob ChapaThat's great. I think uh the reality is I have been saying for years and years, when we were in 1200 square feet, I have been saying that we're part of the largest sign company in the world. You know, when we could only make banners and car magnets, I've been saying that we're part of the largest sign company in the world. And that got us in the door to many, many places. And then as our business grew and we got bigger, and you know, now with all the craziness that we do, now I get to lead in by saying, you know, we're we're the largest Signarama in the world. There's signed around, there's 800 plus Signaramas, 50 countries. If you need something done anywhere, I can call somebody right now. I can make it happen. Tomorrow morning, I can have somebody at your address anywhere in the world. And it is so powerful. It is they just stop talking about other competitors. There, there's no conversation about you know calling another local company because our our scale is so powerful now. Um, and I I I love using that. It's helped us build our business for a long, long time.
Mandy RoanAnd in in your years of experience in owning your business, what is one mistake that you made that you're very happy that you made because you learned something important?
Bob ChapaExcellent final question, Mandy. Uh, what what is a mistake that I've made in the past after transitioning from an employee to an owner that I'm actually thankful for? Um I I literally remember, I can still feel it in my core, the the feeling uh in 2008 to 2010 when the economy, especially in my market in Detroit, just completely overnight just tanked, just completely dissolved. And I had to realize so fast that I did not understand banking and financial relationships with the bank. I mean, I had loans, I had a lot of loans to buy the business, um, but I I hadn't spent the time to invest in the relationships with the bank and giving them good reports when times were great. I just made my payments and I didn't really think about it. And I I just it was a complete oversight. I wasn't focusing on our accounts receivable because I cared more about selling and I was excited to go sell signs and make cool things, and I wasn't focusing on the money that was coming in. We always had money in the bank, we were paying our bills. It was, I was sort of my success was based on how much more can I sell, and it was not based on how much can I sell and how can I manage the finances so that we're financially successful. And the fact that I just had blinders on to it for two to three, maybe even four years when I originally took over as the owner, it it almost buried us. I mean, I I was I met with a bankruptcy attorney, that's how bad it was. And uh I look back at it now, and I am so thankful that not only did I have enough fight in me to get out of it and to push through and get past it all, but I am so thankful that my way of learning that lesson was really serious. Like really, really bad. Because if it was just sort of a blip, or maybe it was a little tough to manage the finances, or it was tough to figure out how to be financially profitable, I probably wouldn't have been as motivated to do it. Now I'm really motivated to not only be a financially secure company, but to be secure for years, to build enough strength for years of our company and you know, years of payroll to think about things now that we're doing to be to be prepared for and sort of insulated for. That all came from those lessons in the early years when I was seriously under underthinking the finances.
Mandy RoanWell, Bob, I so appreciate your time sharing your story with us. It's definitely a unique one. Uh, so thank you so much for sharing with us and spending time with us today.
Bob ChapaIt's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for asking me.
Chad PalmerIf today's episode got you thinking about franchising in a new way, be sure to join us for future episodes, is 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.