A new entrepreneur gets a good sign

The sign business has been so good to industry rookie and Gulf Coast newcomer Brian Lamb that he recently bought out one of his closest competitors — after just six months in town.

Lamb, a onetime executive in GE's manufacturing division who has also run smaller firms in the steel and electronics industries, first bought two Signs Now stores in March. One store is in Bradenton and the other is in Sarasota. “We've seen steady growth since we bought the stores,” Lamb tells Coffee Talk.

The stores were doing so well, in fact, that Lamb began talking acquisition two months ago with Christian Slager, the owner of the Budget Signs store in Bradenton. Slager's Budget Signs store is half a mile from the Signs Now location.

Lamb bought Slager's store after six weeks of negotiations. Terms of the sale, announced in late August, weren't made public but Slager will be the general manager of the Signs Now location as part of the deal. Signs Now is a Lakewood Ranch-based national franchise firm.

The Budget Signs deal made sense because the stores had very little customer overlap, says Lamb. He says the deal also gives him more access to equipment and know-how in large format digital services, which includes using photos and complex artwork to create large signs.

That Lamb is in growth mode at all is somewhat surprising, considering the sign industry has been hit especially hard by the recession. But Lamb says he and his business partner — who also is his wife — have succeeded, so far, through a combination of investing in direct mail marketing and tireless networking.

Lamb declines to say how much he paid for the two Signs Now stores or how much he has invested in the business since March. He did say, however, that he and his wife have invested many 12-hour days into the venture.

“I've run businesses before, but none of them were mine,” says Lamb. “This is a new kind of challenge.”