By Steve Hodgin
Posted on Monday, December 2nd, 2024
I’ve bought and sold sign companies several times. They were small shops—never anything major. I have some thoughts on doing that, but we’ll get to that after a little background.
I started my career following some college art training from my art professor, who had some showcard writing experience. My first nine months were strictly freelance, doing sub work for Longmont Signs and Murals in Longmont, Colorado.
I bought a 1960 English Ford Cortina panel van, which I hand lettered and am embarrassed to show a photo of. It was terrible! I moved to Kalamazoo to get married to my college sweetheart. I got a job painting billboards at Mulholland Outdoor Advertising, which was being sold to Central Outdoor Advertising.
The guy I was training under was a seasoned billboard painter and knew all the tricks of the trade, including a few which were not quite honorable. Namely, being given an assignment to repaint a billboard, he would simply touch up the billboard and apply a clearcoat, restoring the shine to the board. Then he would spend a couple days goofing off and turn in the time as if he had painted the billboard.
I knew this wasn’t right, but I was being trained by this guy, and he said this was a common practice in the trade. Well, his “common practice” got him fired. The company gave me his position as head painter, which I was 1000% not qualified for so I resigned. The sales staff told me that I was great to butter me up, but I knew better.
Then they came up with a new ploy, telling me no small shops anywhere would survive more than two years because the big companies were taking over. What a crock! I started my own shop again in a rented building.
The first sign company I bought was two years later around 1975: ABC sign company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I estimated it had the third highest sales volume in town (excluding the electric and billboard shops) with good accounts and clients. I paid $3000 for it.
The previous owner went into the real estate business, taking a couple large screen-printing clients with him as part of the agreement. I could have done very well with the client base that I purchased, but I was too young and inexperienced. I did not have the knowledge that it took to run the company that I bought.
Furthermore I was not only young but arrogant and foolish. When a medical catastrophe struck, I was not well insured. I missed one premium payment and lost everything. I also owned a pet store at the time. Looking back, I see that such arrogance comes from a lack of self-confidence. If I had made that deal with five more years under my belt, I could have made a very big success out of it.
After that, I moved up to Brighton, Michigan, where I worked for a sign company for a while and worked as a junior design draftsman for Hurst Performance, doing detail drawings for parts used in the assembly of TransAm T-tops, until I made a big move to Durango, Colorado.
Moving to Colorado
There I worked for Four Corners Signs and Neon as their sketch artist and sign painter. At least once per week I made a showcard for Tammaron resorts, advertising big name performers. They were expensive cards. The clients were paying the company around $200 for 1/2 sheet card which included gold leaf borders or lettering.
I only worked there for six months. The man I was to train under died in the hospital without me ever having met him. Six weeks later the owner of the company died. I moved on to be with family in Berthoud, Colorado, where I started my own shop again.
I did well there but eventually migrated down to the Denver area and started a business in Commerce City. After a couple years I had a chance to buy out a one-man operation, Barth Signs. I paid him $3000 in cash for his client list and equipment. He moved to Alaska. That was a good investment and added somewhat to my business.
I took a very large contract in Nashville, Tennessee, and decided to move closer to that area. I tried selling my business, but no one wanted to buy it. (Correction, actually they did want to buy it, but they wanted to wait until the last minute, hoping I would sell cheap since I had a deadline to move.)
Bound for Arkansas
I had a lot of industrial equipment that I had invested in and did not really want to move it. When my deadline came, I up and moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas—lock, stock and barrel. I bought into a partnership with an existing sign business—if you would call it that.
The owner did not have very much experience and was struggling to survive. He did have a large building but his wife was using most of it for a flea market. One of his sons had bought about ten boats sitting out in the parking area. I bought all the boats and sold them or gave them away. The flea market was taken care of about the same way.
I moved the equipment in and we started to make money, but everything was done on percentage basis. Whatever each person earned we received a percentage of. This fellow, who had never made any money at all, suddenly started making five times what he had been making.
But he was very unhappy that I was making more than him. He got mad and asked me to leave, which I did, after which time he never did much business again. I never understood that decision, but he was a very emotional man.
I moved my business to Huntsville, Arkansas, and continued making signs for the Nashville company, which was a fast-food franchise. The owner of that company was indicted for securities fraud, which caused me to lose a great, great sum of money. It took about three years to recover.
Later I saw that Shiloh Signs in Springdale, Arkansas, was for sale. The owner wanted $3000 or maybe $3500. He was a great guy and a good sign painter.
I bought the business and paid him off at about $250 or $500 per month as I recall. After a year or so, I moved the business to a better commercial location nearby and the business was good, but I developed other interests.
At that point I was sort of burned out on the sign business so I bought into a national barter brokerage. I sold Shiloh Signs for $3000 to a guy who wanted to move to the area from Iowa. Later he got a good job working for a bigger company and closed the shop.
I bought the business back but never resumed operation under that name. I just needed to invalidate the non-compete clause. I sold the barter brokerage and got back to making signs.
On to Missouri
I operated as Dynamic Signs until I moved across the state line into Missouri 15 years ago. There was another company using a similar name in Missouri so I worked as an individual using no business name.
For 21 years I made all the signs and did all the interior rustic wood decor for Razorback Pizza, a 20-restaurant pizza franchise operation. I also did the complete build outs on five of their locations. They kept me busy and the work was creative. During that time I did the same type of work for some other restaurants including many interior decor displays.
I gave up computer work years ago. I work nearly exclusively painting signs and murals. I have considered teaching someone to do my work but have never found anyone willing to commit the time and effort into learning the trade. My shop even has apartments upstairs where a trainee could live but no one seems interested.
If I were buying a sign business
All this has given me some insight into what I would look at if I were considering buying a sign business today. I would want it to be located in a community that I would be happy to be a part of. I would also prefer to buy real estate in lieu of assuming a lease. A shop with a 10- or 12-ft. overhead door would be a plus.
There are several things that I would insist on:
I would also vet the shop’s owner to see what kind of reputation he has in the community. Talk with a few of his or her customers to see what it’s been like to work with this sign company.
Finally, I’d make sure the deal is win/win. Both sides should benefit from it.
