Franchise Article

What is NXO?
NXO is the UK's premier network of marketing franchises. To date, there are a total of 15 individual NXO franchises throughout the UK. Each one establishes and maintains its own client base, but they all have access to what the company calls the NXO Creative Hub: a tool that enables communication between the different franchisees. Every franchisee has at least 10 years' experience in the business of marketing. Because it is impossible to be trained in every aspect of marketing for every type of business, the CreativeHub allows any of the 15 franchisees to approach the others with any marketing question and quickly find answers, input, and creative solutions to any problem for any client simply by asking the rest of the group. In essence, what NXO represents is the brilliant hybrid of the small business and corporate models of operation.

Who makes up NXO?
There are 15 different marketing franchisees serving cities and regions spanning from Gloucestershire to Glasgow and 11 employees who oversee the NXO central headquarters, attending to HR needs, maintaining the Creative Hub, and a performing a host of other duties. All of them have a profound amount of business experience, mostly in marketing, and have been responsible for some of the most well known advertising campaigns in the UK.

Philip Dyer , the founder and chairman of this 13-year-old network, serves primarily as coach and mentor to the franchisees. After years of experience as a marketing executive with companies like ALSTOM Transport, Compass plc, Sharp, and Shell, he is such a knowledgeable and experienced leader in business that he was recently invited to give a talk to graduates and fellow entrepreneurs at UCLan's Inspire 08 event.

Some of the franchisees that Dyer has the privilege of working with are also marketing authorities in their own rite. Hailing from some of the most influential marking firms in the UK, they have done extensive work for some of the most notable companies in the UK, if not the world. For example, NXO Liverpool's Craig Torrie was one of the first entrepreneurs to join the network, bringing with him years of experience with brands like Adidas, Princes Buitoni, and GORE-TEX. James Hill, owner of NXO Gloucestershire & Wiltshire, came to the group with 20 years of marketing experience with the likes of Zurich Financial Service. He was responsible for famous campaigns like Allied Dunbar's "There May Be Trouble Ahead" and Zurich's "Flying Pigs." And NXO Tayside & Fife's Fraser Ritchie brought with him the experiences of marketing huge names like Fiat, Royal Mail, Continental Airlines, and Cancer Research UK.

What does an NXO franchisee do?
In the words of Craig Torrie, "I have been able to split my work between providing consultancy services directly to clients in sectors where I have a lot of experience and delivering tactical work in conjunction with the NXO Creative Hub." Because of his link to the rest of the network, he is able to "provide genuine end-to-end solutions" to clients facing nearly any marketing challenge. "NXO," he continues, "provides a unique opportunity for marketing people to run their own business, on their own terms, while still getting the support of being part of a large organization." On an everyday basis, there is no limit to the kinds of clients a franchisee can serve.

The transition from being the chief marketing executive of a large firm to being the owner and operator of a small consultancy business, however, can be a difficult one. The problems that some franchisees run into in the course of living the day-to-day life of a small business owner are not necessarily the ones you might expect. As James Hill puts it, "Most of the challenges I've faced are practical, diary management, creating spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, mastering IT and mobile internet, e-mail and so forth. Having the luxury of a highly capable [personal assistant] for many years has rendered me useless."

Fraser Ritchie adds that what he has found most difficult is separating business and family life. He says that one of the greatest perks of now running his own business from a home office is "seeing more of [his wife] and the girls-i.e. stopping to play for an hour when they get back from school." But mixing work and play like that is also a hardship: "how easy it is to be in work mode 24-hours-a-day if you're not careful." And even when he has his life balanced, he still finds that he needs to spend more time working than ever before.

What kind of work does NXO produce?
When all those daily activities, projects, and balancing acts come together, what an NXO franchisee produces is nothing shy of amazing. A good example was the W. L. Gore & Associates corporate 50th birthday party. Headed by 3 NXO offices and a team of 18 people, the event cost some £500,000, used 12 tonnes of stage equipment, and exhibited the musical talents of the Red Hot Chili Pipers. In the end, this project was deemed the "best ever, most memorable party," which is no ordinary complement.

It is no surprise that NXO requires any prospective franchisee to have at least 10 years of marketing experience; the bar has been set at an amazingly high level, and excellence is necessary not only for the success of the individual franchisee, but everyone else connected to the Hub. If you have a history in marketing and a desire to excel in the industry, there are few business opportunities with an outlook as bright as NXO's. It would be well worth your time to seek further information about them.