SBDC Success Story
Surely Signs President Randy Rice credits his mother with the inspiration for starting his own business. Shirley was a sign painter - the hand-painted kind – and Randy remembers tagging along when she did her work, creating her works of art. Now Randy makes his own signs and he uses technology to help produce his works of art, which includes traditional interior and exterior signage, window graphics, vehicle wraps, trade show displays, banners, yard signs, stickers and more. Randy can turn pretty much anything into a sign.
Decades of experience in the corporate world as an engineer and customer service manager serve as a foundation for Randy’s business strategy. He prides himself on understanding customer needs, designing high quality, customized solutions and maintaining strong customer relationships.
Randy came to the Illinois Small Business Development & International Trade Center at College of Lake County when he had already decided to purchase a franchise from Signworld, which he says is an impressive operation. The SBDC/ITC helped to answer questions about things like forming a legal entity, the best approaches to marketing, financial management and more. After Coronavirus hit, the SBDC/ITC focused on helping businesses to get disaster funding. Randy applied for and received disaster funding through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, which helped him to stay open and work on growing his business. Most important, Randy says, were the consistent check-ins to see how things were going, to offer encouragement and pass along additional opportunities to grow the business. Randy also is involved with the combined Green Oaks, Libertyville, Mundelein, Vernon Hills (GLMV) Chamber of Commerce, the Waukegan Chamber of Commerce and Business Networking International (BNI). We salute Randy’s entrepreneurial spirit and his drive to succeed and we are honored to include him among the many businesses we have had the opportunity to help.
You can reach Randy at Randy@surelysigns.com and (224) 715-8493. Visit:
www.SurelySigns.com.