White-Collar Business
Paul Bentley, West London/Hammersmith, England In 2004, after 12 years of working in the legal publishing and the exhibition market, Paul Bentley was overtaken by entrepreneurial spirit. Realising that he wanted “a white-collar business that offered a clean, professional environment,” he began exploring how he could start his own company. Paul looked into a number of franchising opportunities before settling on FASTSIGNS®. He opened the new sign and graphics centre in the Hammersmith area of west London in autumn of 2004.
Paul joined the FASTSIGNS® system with a strong background in the media, publishing and advertising industries. For five years, he was a publisher with Euromoney Institutional Investor, overseeing the publication’s circulation, editorial and advertising functions. Paul then moved to American Lawyer Media, a large U.S.-based legal publisher, to become its operations director. In that role, he managed operations of the company’s London office.
As he explored opportunities for his own business, Paul says,
“I found there were no other FASTSIGNS®-type operators in or near west or central London. FASTSIGNS® offered the kind of professional environment that I wanted, and was a good fit with my skill set. It’s a type of media sale, a business-to-business sale, and sales driven.”
In opening his own sign and graphics centre, Paul also returned to the work environment of his college years. While a student, he made spending money by creating signs from vinyl and polystyrene and selling them to exhibitions.
“That was in the very early days of vinyl,” he recalls.
“The industry has shifted to full colour graphics, but the sales process isn’t all that different.”
Today, Paul’s FASTSIGNS® centre targets business customers, specifically, the advertising agencies, law firms, banks, event planners and exhibition halls of west London. In the year since it opened, the Hammersmith FASTSIGNS® has recorded steadily increasing sales and built a loyal base of return customers.
“Paul’s started to get regular repeat customers,” says Andy Simpson, a former FASTSIGNS® U.K. franchisee and now the U.K. franchise business consultant (FBC) for FASTSIGNS International, Inc., the worldwide franchisor of FASTSIGNS® centres.
“Paul and his staff offer great service and quick turnaround, which customers need.”
“I am very happy with the career choice I made to open my centre,” adds Paul.
“It was, quite simply, the right move for me at precisely the right time.”
