Our Story

Back in the day, HaveToHaveOne “Take Control Signs” happened almost by accident.

 

Plagued by Cold Callers and Junk Mail, our founder Trevor Clark had had enough.  

 

Cold Callers – invariably selling things he’d absolutely no interest in – would ring his door bell often at the most inconvenient times...  during a meal, in the middle of a film, or interrupting an important phone call.  Sometimes even when his beloved Aberdeen FC was about to score one of its not-too-frequent goals.

 

Junk Mail was also rampant, consuming too many forests of timber.

 

So Trevor scribbled out a sign on a piece of cardboard and stuck it to his front door…  “No Cold Callers or Junk Mail”.  But it had only limited effect.  Many “visitors” just ignored it.

 

So he did two things.  He made his sign more professional looking, to give it more authority and make it harder to ignore.  And he introduced some edgy humour to it, suggesting what might happen if it wasn’t observed.

 

That worked!  Cold Calling and Junk Mail fell away markedly.  Friends and neighbours also started asking him to make the sign for them, and as gifts for their own equally plagued friends.  One Cold Caller, a Double Glazing guy, did still ring the bell, not to sell his wares but to ask where he could buy a sign for his own front door!

 

That’s when Trevor realised he was onto a winner.

 

Our team member Ainure Nasirova, a talented professional Health & Fitness Photographer with Website Design as a sideline, who’d worked with the Clark family in another business, got involved to take the  “Total Control Signs” concept to a whole new level online.

 

Trevor also started the task of creating a catalogue of signs addressing other hot issues far beyond Cold Calling and Junk Mail... like Security and CCTV, Business Signs, No Parking, No Dog Poo, No Fly Tipping, No Smoking, No Outdoor Shoes Indoors, and other Home Rules subjects, plus some Life Lessons, Home Truths, and Motivational Themes.  As well as loads of LOL Family Funnies starting with long suffering Mothers-in-Law — a nod to the late, great Les Dawson.

 

The rest, as they say, is history.  Today, “Take Control Signs" at HaveToHaveOne.com is the UK’s biggest seller of the most diverse range of professionally made, low cost signs that help make our increasingly undisciplined world just a wee bit less fractious, and let you laugh a little as you address your pet hates.

 

Many of our Signs also strike a chord as the perfect “I found this and thought of you!” everlasting little gift for someone special — and at less than the cost of a greetings card that’ll likely be in the Recycle Bin within a month!

 

Thank you for your interest in our business.  We hope you’ll enjoy our website, and that you’ll introduce your friends and family to it.