Image 212

After a long career in sales and marketing, most recently in the medical device field, Dick Cassidy decided to retire from the corporate world. Shortly after retiring, Dick soon felt bored because he felt that he still had a lot to give. After being a part of a number of startup ventures in his career, often using other peoples money and benefiting those who funded the businesses most, he realized that rather than build something for someone else, he wanted to build something for himself.

That’s when he met a franchise consultant and began the process of finding the right business that he could build without big time and financial investments into infrastructure. At the advice of his franchise consultant, he listened to a Signworld webinar and began the Signworld Discovery Process. “I was intrigued as I listened to the Signworld team and existing Signworld Owners share their experiences. The business seemed simple, interesting and fun. I was always into building things and with this being a manufacturing model it seemed like a good fit. What I really liked though was that I didn’t have to travel to build a big business. In my previous life, I stayed in 2,700 hotel rooms and flew five million miles. I wasn’t interested in doing that again,” says Dick Cassidy.

Early in 2020, after months of investigating Signworld and alternative business opportunities, Dick opened Image 212° in Northlake, TX. “I really did my homework before investing in Signworld. I visited five different franchise brands and I learned a lot in the process but, ultimately, I chose Signworld. I love the ‘no rules, no royalties’ aspect of the model and thought the Signworld team was made up of good people. Not to mention, Signworld has more training and education than anyone could possibly take advantage of,” he said.

While the pandemic shut down most industries, the sign industry is considered essential and so Dick put his sales and marketing skills to good use. What Dick realized in his investigation of the sign business, is that his likely competitors were great technicians, but not very good business people. He could leverage is understanding of corporate structures, professionalism, communication and service to create opportunities. He quickly began marketing his business utilizing an aggressive online campaign and began his outreach to anyone and everyone he met in his former corporate life. The sales started to come in fast and furious as he brought on large scale sign packages with Amazon distribution centers, local police departments and other corporate companies located around the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.

As Dick closed out his first 12 months in business, Image 212° doubled the previous first year sales record coming in at just under $1MM in revenue. Dick and Image 212° were honored as the 2021 Signworld Rookie of the Year.

Today, Dick’s third year in business, he is on pace to do nearly $2MM in revenue.