Riches beyond his dreams

Gary Riches, Driver Hire’s franchisee at Colchester is celebrating a brilliant first year in business. Since buying his franchise in late 2012, he’s gone from strength to strength. Colchester was an already successful franchise when he took it over. Since then Gary and his team have more than doubled its turnover compared to same time last year.

Their efforts have already been recognised by Driver Hire’s own senior management team – earlier this year Colchester were the nationwide network’s ‘Office of the Month’. And now they’ve received external acclaim; Gary has just heard that he is a finalist in the 2013 ‘Startups awards’.

Now into their tenth year the ‘Startup awards’ are run by ‘Startups’ website (www.startups.co.uk), an on-line platform for people new to the world of self employment. ‘Startups’ provides advice and assistance for anyone interested in starting their own business, whether it’s a franchise or stand-alone. Many past winners of the awards have gone on to become hugely successful, including ‘Naked Wines’ and the ‘Cambridge Satchel Company’.

Commenting on the announcement, Gary Riches said: “I have a very committed team here in the office, drivers who we keep busy and satisfied clients which, I reckon, is a good recipe for success. However, never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d be up for a national award in our first full year of trading.”