What makes you notice or ignore a store’s sign? The answer makes this franchise $115 million a year.

In 1992, a sign maker named Blair Gran stared at a wall full of half-finished jobs in a small shop in British Columbia and felt something click. Sign making was treated like a commodity – orders in, banners out – but when thousands of signs came through his shop, he couldn’t help but recognize the difference between the good and the bad. He could see that every sign that left his store helped a business get noticed, or made it disappear in plain sight.

He decided to create a new kind of visual communications company called SpeedPro. The vision was simple but ambitious: don’t just print, be the last mile of visual marketing. Make a brand impossible to ignore – on walls, windows, floors, vehicles and any surface a customer can see. The tagline is: “Amazing. Great. Graphics.”

By 1996, the concept had crystallized into a franchise model. SpeedPro specializes in large format printing, wall, window and floor graphics, event displays, digital displays and signage. In less than five years, Gran opened 30 Canadian locations, each run by an owner who gambled not just on print, but on the idea that better visibility could change the course of a company.

Then came the bigger leap. In the early 2000s, Gran headed south, determined to prove the model in the much more competitive American market. In 2003, SpeedPro Imaging took root in Texas with three pioneer studios in Austin, San Antonio and Plano. They were small, streamlined operations built around large format printing and fast turnaround time.

From there, the network grew studio by studio, owner by owner. Over the next twenty years, SpeedPro evolved into a US-based large format printing franchise whose major product applications now include graphics, displays, signage and vehicle and fleet decals – work that most companies simply cannot handle in-house.

Why SpeedPro works

Today, more than 130 independent SpeedPro studios in the US generate roughly $115 million in annual sales. SpeedPro has a branch in Canada which operates more than 50 additional units.

The franchises serve everyone from local contractors and universities to Fortune 500 brands, says SpeedPro CEO Paul Brewster. Entrepreneur in a new interview. Brewster has led the company since 2022 after working his way up to COO. Gran has left the company for over twelve years and is no longer involved.

“It’s a great origin story,” says Brewster. He points out that SpeedPro’s product focus is exactly why the franchise works: companies want the company’s offering. SpeedPro has achieved growth of more than 5% in each of the past four years.

“We are the latest step in visual marketing,” Brewster explains. “Every business needs to attract more customers. The more visually appealing a business is, the more likely people are to stop and buy.”

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He says SpeedPro has been able to differentiate itself from the competition through three things: growth, profitability and efficiency. “We run the company with the idea that each of the individual studio owners is their own business owner,” he says.

Growth means new customers; profitability means strong margins at the studio level; Efficiency means staying at the forefront of technology and operational changes, including AI and evolving printing equipment. Brewster reveals that each SpeedPro studio is profitable, which he calls “very unique for a franchise.” In the top quartile, owners’ discretionary profits are about 26% of sales, with an average of $445,000.

That economic engine is supported by consistent demand. In 2025 alone, Brewster says SpeedPro will have added 20,000 new customers to its existing customer base, almost all of them business customers.

The typical SpeedPro franchisee

Brewster has a clear image of the typical SpeedPro franchisee: mid-career, corporate and ready for change. They are about 45 to 55 years old and have worked for a company and reached middle management. “What they do is take a step back and say, ‘I’m going to bet on myself,’” Brewster says.

To open a SpeedPro, that bet usually falls between $234,000 and $350,000 for a total investment, depending largely on the lease and location. In return, the owners receive a relatively low workforce, a technologically advanced product line and access to national accounts.

“One of our owners in Addison, Dallas, has been part of the system for 20 years,” Brewster notes. After leveraging business support by working with the home office to develop a marketing plan, using sales tools and investing in technology, the franchise owner “had explosive growth. Last year he just saw gross sales skyrocket into the 80% range,” Brewster shares.

Challenges against weathering

The past decade has not been smooth. Brewster lists challenges: tariffs on equipment and consumables sourced from China, Europe, Mexico and Canada; price increases for vinyl and paper; labor shortages; and SBA loan problems came on top of the whiplash of COVID, when only “essential businesses” were allowed to stay open.

“To be successful, you have to make sure your gross margin is right and your profit margin is right,” he says of dealing with those cost shocks.

The work, he adds, is less about a single crisis than about sustainable change. Each year presents something different, but SpeedPro’s concept and service was in high demand no matter what the company was faced with, he says.

For Brewster, the hardest part isn’t the macroeconomics; it manages a human system.

“The most challenging and surprising thing for me is that I have 130 owners that I work with all the time,” he says. “Life comes at them all the time… family issues and health issues and business issues… so the challenging part for me is still keeping them on track and getting to work and building their business.”

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In 1992, a sign maker named Blair Gran stared at a wall full of half-finished jobs in a small shop in British Columbia and felt something click. Sign making was treated like a commodity – orders in, banners out – but when thousands of signs came through his shop, he couldn’t help but recognize the difference between the good and the bad. He could see that every sign that left his store helped a business get noticed, or made it disappear in plain sight.

He decided to create a new kind of visual communications company called SpeedPro. The vision was simple but ambitious: don’t just print, be the last mile of visual marketing. Make a brand impossible to ignore – on walls, windows, floors, vehicles and any surface a customer can see. The tagline is: “Amazing. Great. Graphics.”