A popular pick: Local sign company grows through strong reputation and word-of-mouth

By Savanah Ramsey, posted Jul 6, 2022 on BizFayetteville.com

Blashfield Sign Company, a business that started in 1986 in Fayetteville, has found great success in the region. Its work, pictured above, can be seen throughout the region as the company has taken on many major clients. PHOTO PROVIDED BY BLASHFIELD SIGN COMPANY.

A mission of helping a colleague and opening an advertising agency evolved to what is known today as a successful and ever-growing sign company.

Anyone who has lived in Fayetteville for any length of time has likely encountered the work of Blashfield Sign Company, a business established by Matt Blashfield in 1986 after working nearly 10 years in the printing industry and opening his own advertising agency.
Growing up in a military family, Blashfield lived around the world in various locations, before eventually coming back to Fayetteville, where he attended Fayetteville Technical Community College and received a degree in graphic design before starting his career.

Today, the company is comprised of 11 staff members who are equipped with experience in advertising, graphic design, mechanical drafting, engineering, marketing, carpentry, sandblasting, vinyl graphics, permitting, woodworking, and more.
“When I was working for the printing company, one of my pressmen asked me to give him a hand one weekend to make a sign,” stated Blashfield. “I went to his house and he had a big chunk of wood that I helped sandblast into a sign. Once I saw him make that, I said, ‘Wow that’s just fascinating,’ and so I began making a couple on my own, which turned out pretty good.”

When Blashfield started his advertising agency, close acquaintances knew that he was also working with signs and asked if he could make them signs.
For the first two years, Blashfield fought against making his company a sign business.
“The girl I was dating at the time said, ‘Look, you’re an idiot. You’re getting all this work brought to your door and you don’t even want to take it.’ So I started to apply my skills that I learned in printing especially during the proofing process.”
The printing process is a critical step in the process of making signs as it is the first step. During the process, Blashfield gives his customers a proposed draft of the sign accurate to what would ultimately be created. Blashfield would include full color descriptions, dimensions, sizes and materials.
With a detailed proofing process, clientele were blown away at the level of thought put into creating a proof of a sign.
“I got really great responses from the proofing system and before you know it the sign business outgrew the advertising business,” added Blashfield.

Since its beginning days the company has retained 98 percent of its clients, which was the main goal of Blashfield when he started his business.
“We do an enormous amount of work with the military in Fort Bragg and what once was Pope Air Force Base. Now, over 30 years later, we’re doing work for military bases around the world,” Blashfield added. “We also work with the Cape Fear Valley [Health] system, and we’ve had them for a client for 28 years. Most of the large commercial and residential builders in this year have also been clients going on 20 years.”
The ability to retain these clients for the amount of time the company has is all thanks to a strong philosophy that is lived daily, inside not only the walls of the Blashfield Sign Company but also the lives of those that work there.

“I would constantly hear complaints from others about how others screw up and don’t fix it. It sent a pretty strong message to me to never be that guy that others will complain about. ‘Never be a problem and always be a problem solver and always have solutions,’” Blashfield explained.

After years of being in the business and living by this philosophy, the company has been able to retain its clientele because there is evidence that the company cares.
By being sure they care about the products they are creating for their clients, the limit for the future of business is above and beyond as their client base continues to grow. “From the hospital system to the military, and the military being one of our largest clients, we can’t get much bigger than that until we settle on the moon or something,” Blashfield added.
“With the equipment available today in the sign industry, it increases the accuracy and speed of production times. Without making any major moves to a new market, I think the current markets we’re in will sustain us for a while.”
In 2020, Blashfield Sign Company was able to thrive through a trying time that had other businesses closing their doors temporarily, and in some instances, permanently.
Aside from completing sign orders, the company likes to participate and interact with other businesses, organizations, and charities within the community.
There are several companies in the area that are military and veteran related that Blashfield donates products to.

“A lot of our staff’s family, spouses, or them directly were either in the military at one time or still are,” said Blashfield. “It means a lot to be able to supply them with materials that’s necessary to do what they need to do and we’re extremely proud to be part of that.”
Blashfield Sign Company prides itself in being an animal friendly business. The organization allows animals in its facility, and makes donations to several animal charities in the Fayetteville area.
In fact, the animal-friendly aspect is so valued by the company that it is manifested in the company’s logo. The company’s logo is Blashfield’s late English bull terrier named Angus. When the company first started to copy many of the ads in the yellow pages that Blashfield made, he decided to use his dog as the logo for the company since no one else had that logo and it helped prevent more copying of his work.
With no advertising, the company has been able to grow and continue to have success based on the work they produce locally, their reputation, and word of mouth.

“Some of the jobs that have been high profile jobs in this area, some people may not know that we’re the ones that did it. This past New Year's Eve in Festival Park, we were actually contracted to do the lettering for the stage and the almost 20-foot tall star that they dropped for the countdown,” Blashfield added.

Other public items that Blashfield Sign Company has also worked on are exhibit projects locally at the U.S. Army Airborne & Special Operations Museum, in Washington D.C. and internationally with an advertising agency in France.

Having the ability to work in multiple markets and industries the Blashfield Sign Company plans to continue producing the best work for its clients with the philosophy that is encompassed deep inside the structure of the company.

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