I wish I had been aware of the other Sign-A-Rama consumer complaints before I had forked out all of our life savings to set-up a new franchise in Regional, Australia. It all seemed like a licence to print money, the other franchise owners I spoke to were all doing well which was reflected in the forecast sales.
I first smelled a rat when I was in Florida for my 2 weeks training which had little or no technical content but was predominantly marketing and sell, sell, sell. It was too late by then to back out.
After some months of doing everthing by the Sign-a-Rama book we were still suffering very slow trading and ongoing losses, we asked for help to try and kick start the business but were told we needed to put our prices up. Our accountants contacted Sign-A-Rama in Florida to try and get some support but their promises all ended with nothing.
When we suggested to Sign-A-Rama that we needed to sell or close the business we were begged by Sign-A-Rama to keep it running until they could find a buyer. They obviously had a buyer in mind but left the sale until we were close to bankruptcy so we were desparate to accept any offer.
So the Sign-A-Rama rip-off formula has continued, obviously you can't make money out of the business at the original set-up cost but at a "fire sale" price it may be possible to make it work, so they set you up to fail and then get the franchise fees on the changeovers, very clever.
Sarmax
Albury
Australia
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