Sam Reed Jr. was a corporate executive, working for PepsiCo in sales and operations before taking an early retirement.

He’d always wanted to own his own business, so he contacted Bob Tierno with The Entrepreneur’s Source and started looking at franchise organizations. After completing the TES profile assessment, he identified AlphaGraphics as one that might be a good fit.

Sam Reed

“I decided I had a little left in my tank, so I started exploring franchise opportunities,” Sam says. “I developed 10 decision criteria, and AlphaGraphics met nine of them.”

Sam had some very specific goals in mind: a business-to-business opportunity near to his home in Dallas; the flexibility to sell his business, or pass it down to his children; a comfortable six-figure income down the road; and the scalability that could offer additional locations.

He purchased an existing AlphaGraphics business center in Dallas in January of this year, and his sales have increased month over month.

“In March, we exceeded January and February’s numbers combined,” Sam says. “I bought this business with the aspiration of doing $2 million in annual sales, and I believe we’ll get there.”

He says he noticed an “infectious culture” within AlphaGraphics almost immediately.

“I was hesitant to go spend three days in Salt Lake City for AG Discovery Day,” Sam says. “But it was a highly valuable experience. We were evaluating each other to ensure that it would be a good fit, and I appreciated the chance to spend time with the CEO and company leadership, to understand the philosophy and where the organization was going.”

He says he was impressed by the competitive advantage of AG’s expansion into marketing services – “anyone who picks up a periodical knows that the printing industry is changing” – and that he could tell he was buying into a very supportive network of other AlphaGraphics owners.

“I talked to 25 or 30 other owners during the process, and we have a very active owners group here in Dallas,” Sam says. “This was a significant investment for me, and it wasn’t a decision that I could get wrong.”

And while he’s only a few months in, Sam is confident that he is well positioned to meet his personal and professional goals as an AlphaGraphics owner.

“I am really enjoying this business, and I’m learning something new every day,” he says. “Many of our customers don’t yet understand the full scope of our capabilities, and that represents an opportunity for huge growth potential.”