How Signwave blasted its sales goals

Sarah Stowe

How have Linda Sultmann, Dean Rowland and Leo Baker achieved impressive sales performance results in their first year as management team at Signwave Australia? Sales figures showed an overall increase of 13.3 percent in 2014, a December quarter increase of 24.4 percent, and a predicted 15 percent increase in 2015. 

Two centres in particular, Hawthorn and Ryde, had significant improvement, both reporting over 60 percent increase in sales. A further six of the 17 franchises reported more than 20 percent increase in sales during 2014.

Linda Sultmann, general manager, explains “At the beginning of 2014 we set for ourselves what we thought was an ambitious goal – a 10 percent sales increase for the group. Exceeding that has been exciting and encouraging for us and our franchise partners.”

The franchise development manager, Dean Rowland, says “The results must be filtering into the market as we have had many enquiries regarding opportunities to join the group and for the time being we are steering these quality prospects to some centre owners looking to exit.”

4 key strategies

The trio attribute the results to the four fundamental strategies of 2014:

  • increasing centre volumes
  • improving owners’ discretionary profit and lifestyle
  • increasing brand value
  • improving franchisee satisfaction

“As former store owners, we really understand the importance of franchise partner satisfaction and have worked hard to provide knowledgeable and responsive support to the group as well as focusing  on some centres that have required extra input and training,” explains Leo Baker, franchise operations manager.

Network expansion has so far not been a major priority for the management team. “We are very clear that franchising works when the focus is on the success of the franchise partners through skilled support, providing systems that create efficiency, as well as brand strengthening initiatives and strategies,” says Rowland.

Franchisees are also encouraged to approach the success of their businesses with the long term view of one day exiting. “By strengthening and improving individual areas of performance – such as systems utilisation, client service and staff management – not only do you achieve higher sales and greater profitability, you build a commercial enterprise that is an attractive proposition for future buyers,” says Sultmann. “As master franchisees, we also practice what we teach – believing that building to one day exit is simply good business practice.”

Goals for 2015

This year the focus on the four objectives will continue, with particular emphasis on:

  • sales training and development
  • financial analysis of individual stores
  • brand compliance
  • further development of its marketing strategy

For the first six months the business will focus on boosting existing store performance before expanding the network in the second half of the year.

The group estimates its market exposure with improved digital marketing to have driven about half of last year’s growth. Sultmann says “We are planning some exciting marketing initiatives that will further demonstrate we are an innovative and dynamic brand.”

The trio are confident about the ongoing performance of the group, crediting much of the recent success to a shift in energy within the franchise network. “While getting the marketing strategy and spend right has been critical to achieving the outcome, there is no quantifying the energy that has been created within the group following a return to strong leadership, sound strategy and improved support and we really thank the group for their positive response to our management,” says Sultmann.