01
Shop roulette
Each city gets a new vendor. One ghosts. One prices letters and forgets the raceway. One is cheap until the city asks for PE.
For franchise development & multi-site operators
Your Sign Resource is the Sign Program Office: one brand book, one standard package, one calendar for partner fabrication and local install — so opening day does not wait on a crate.
What development already feels
You do not have a “signage need.” You have a date, a landlord, and three incomplete shop bids.
Each city gets a new vendor. One ghosts. One prices letters and forgets the raceway. One is cheap until the city asks for PE.
The general contractor marks up a number they did not build. Embedment, landlord criteria, and light-up get lost in a schedule of values.
A brand board with no site pack, no installer scope, and no one who will put a shovel in the dirt on that address.
Reframe
Shops fabricate. Cities stamp. Installers dig. Development approves. Without one owner from brand file to light-up, each handoff resets the date — and site 8 looks different from site 1.
Temporary banners that train customers to ignore the building. A monument in a crate while the store is open. Internal email that starts with “who owns signs?” You cannot hire a $60k PM later if the work is still tribal knowledge in your inbox.
The program
Two weeks. Standard wall, monument, colors, exclusions, installer scope language. Site 7 becomes a clone, not a custom job.
Each opening gets a survey/design pack, split quote, vendor assignment, and a date that matches development — not the shop’s hope.
We sell in the installer with a two-trip scope a crew can bid. You approve finishes and cut the deposit. We stop calling it a project.
Included in the retainer: standards, queue, per-site pack, vendor coordination, weekly status. Not included: city permit clerking, city fees, crane, new power, fab invoices.
Price against the alternatives
| Per-site shop bids | GC markup | Sign Program Office | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who owns the date | Nobody | Shared | Named |
| Site 1 vs site 10 | Starts over | Starts over | Same package |
| Your team’s hours | Every city | Every pay app | One weekly status |
| Cash shape | Lumpy surprises | Buried in SOV | $8–10k/mo floor |
| First thing you get | A rendering | An allowance | Brand book + opening list |
First artifact
After the sprint you can forward a standard package and this year’s site queue internally. That is the sentence development repeats to finance: “We hired a sign program office.”
“We locked one sign package and one vendor path for the 10–12 openings this year. Design, shop, crate, and local install sit with one owner. City permits stay with the GC unless we add them later.”
Risk off the table
VP / Director of Franchise Development, multi-unit operators, and brand ops people sitting on an 8–12 site calendar with no sign owner. Not a single storefront. Not a shop that needs a $45 code review.
Next step
Brand, number of sites, first three cities, and the date the first store has to look finished. Twenty minutes. Then we tell you whether a sprint is worth it.