Franchise Update – National Franchise Exhibition 2013

Having spent much of last week at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, the Driver Hire Franchise Team is now busy catching up with the small number of enquiries that we gained. As always The National Franchise Exhibition is a great place to meet people interested in one of the following;

• A career change
• Being their own boss
• Finding out more about franchise opportunities – either for themselves or family members
• How to franchise their existing business

With over 140 exhibitors and access to a huge range of free seminars it was certainly a show worth attending.  I attended the exhibition with a number of head office colleagues on both the Friday and Saturday to speak to visitors wishing to find out more about Driver Hire as a recruitment franchise, what support we offer and perhaps more importantly how our franchisees achieved an average annual turnover of over £704k in the last financial year.  The support of our Birmingham Franchisee, Jim Richards on the Friday was also very much welcomed and gave prospective franchisees a valuable insight, being able to speak to someone with lots of experience of running a Driver Hire business.

Whilst attending franchise exhibitions is an important process for those looking to set up on their own, don’t forget to carry out lots of research online, speak to existing franchisees and if you’ve found a franchise you’re really interested in – go and meet the franchisor’s head office team as they’re the ones who will be supporting you in your new venture.

Last week we were also at the HSBC and bfa ‘Franchisee of the Year’ awards on the Thursday night to see our Enfield franchisee, Manjit Singh, receive his finalist certificate. Just seventeen franchisees out of more than 40,000 in the UK were honoured at these awards, so it was a fantastic achievement to be recognised in this way.  It was tough competition for Manjit in his ‘customer service’ category with him narrowly missing out on the overall prize.

Luckily for him and his team their hard work had paid off, finding out the next day that they had won the Driver Hire monthly incentive scheme. The team’s prize is a memorable and unique ‘experience’, which they get to choose from a list of fantastic day out opportunities.

Well done to Manjit and the team.

 

Kasia Baldwin
Franchise Marketing Manager

 

 

 

Photo of Manjit Singh kindly provided by the British Franchise Association