Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995                   TAG: 9503040016
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: G-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF DEBELL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WITH HELP, A NEW PLAN BROUGHT IN BANK LOAN

Today, he's the full-time owner and operator of Sign Design, a small business on Cloverdale Road between Bonsack and Daleville.

"I just like making signs," said Williamson, 44. "It was a sideline that grew into a business."

Williamson started his company in the summer of 1989 with one employee. They specialized in sandblasting high-quality signs out of redwood.

Today there are five employees. Williamson spends more time managing and selling than making signs.

The product line and design capabilities have expanded, owing to computer technology and the addition of former ad designer Phil Renfroe to the staff, though fine wooden signs remain the signature product. Gross sales last year were around $330,000.

The company is taking stock to see where it wants to go. Williamson is involving his employees in the planning, partly to relieve the stresses of one-man decision-making and partly because he feels a responsibility to them.

"My goal is to produce a plan where, if they want to make it happen, it can happen," he said.

Not surprisingly, Sign Design did not achieve its present position without undergoing the usual growing pains of small business - notable among them the difficulty of raising capital.

Soon after launching his business, Williamson realized he needed to computerize to grow and be competitive. It would cost $25,000.

He went to five banks. All turned him down, advising him to come back after establishing more of a track record.

"It seemed like they were saying, 'Wait until you don't need anything, then come back to us and we'll lend it to you,'" Williamson said. "They required me to take the risk myself."

That's what he did. Unable to buy the computer outright, he entered into a costly lease-purchase arrangement to get it.

With the new equipment, business grew 10 percent to15 percent annually. Employees gradually were added. And Williamson worked with the Blue Ridge Small Business Development Center to fine-tune his business plan and put a good accounting system into place.

Last March he went back to the bank. He needed $25,000 to pay off the lease-purchase contract and add new equipment. He got it.

"Those records probably were as good a reason as any why we were able to borrow money," Williamson said. "You've got to have it in [the lenders'] language. I would give the business development center most of the credit for that."