Franchise and Business Opportunity Directory

The Answer to Grow Any Business and Access Unlimited Abundance: OneCoach Founders Co-author a New Book to Help Entrepreneurs Succeed Faster

In 2006 Tony had reached a crossroads in his career. After 15 years the company he had worked for gave him a choice, move 250 miles to Watford or take voluntary redundancy.

When it comes to buying a franchise, you need to look at yourself as well as the type of business you are launching.

Running your own business is not always easy – especially during the early days. In fact, well over a third of small businesses fail within the first three years of trading.

Two members of the British Franchise Association have teamed up with the leading virtual PA and telephone answering franchisor, Kendlebell, to make its services an essential part of their own franchisees’ business success.

Kendlebell’s new franchise has been set up to give entrepreneurs with a passion for sales and account management an opportunity to use their skills to help grow the business.

Virtual PA business Kendlebell has launched a second type of franchise and found it comes down to matching people’s skills to the challenges of running a business. 

As only the third franchisee to join nxo , the UK’s first and only marketing agency franchise, Craig Torrie could be regarded as something of a pioneer.  But with a franchise network growing fast around him and Craig’s own business proving highly successful in its own right, Craig’s pioneering spirit is paying off.

After 15 years as a primary school teacher, a Worcester woman has turned her mentoring skills to local businesses.

Following a career in corporate banking spanning some 25 years, a Warwickshire woman is focusing her marketing skills on helping local businesses to take on the big brands by tapping into the power of the internet.

National franchisor, ORCA Websites, has launched a UK-wide recruitment drive as it expands its operation.

For people considering owning a franchise, the opportunity to work from home often features near the top of their wish list.

Most franchises involve the franchisee purchasing a product from the franchise owner and selling it at a profit, according to a prescribed sales process.  The business becomes a means of earning a wage and can, in time, become a worthwhile asset in its own right.  But rarely does a franchise involve either the franchisee owning premises or the business having an in-built profit-escalator, generating outstanding capital growth in addition to regular cash profit from the outset.

The shockwaves from the global credit crunch are continuing to ripple through the mortgage market and it seems that lenders are withdrawing and changing products on an almost daily basis.  And as we’ve become accustomed to mortgages running alongside the Bank of England base rate, the fact that the last two percentage cuts have made virtually no impact at all on our repayments has come as something of a shock.  The lack of correlation is because rates at which banks lend to each other have fallen out of line with the Bank of England Base Rate.

TaxAssist Accountants has been short-listed for the 2008 British Franchisor of the Year Award by the British Franchise Association (BFA).

The national finalists have now been announced for the Express Newspapers Brand Builder of the Year Awards 2008 and MOLLY MAID was one of three to get through to the final stage.  This award recognises franchisors that have added value to their brands over the past 12 months. Chief Executive of MOLLY MAID Pam Bader OBE says “We are continually focusing on adding value to the MOLLY MAID brand, and we are delighted that the BFA and Express Newspapers have acknowledged our achievements by placing us in the final three for this prestigious award.”

UK Websaver – the loyalty card scheme which was one of the fastest growing franchises of 2007 – has signed up its 100th franchisee.

MOLLY MAID UK recently held their latest National Conference at The Abbey Hotel in Great Malvern, a historic hotel providing amazing views of the Malvern Hills and the Vale of Evesham.

MOLLY MAID UKrecently held their latest National Conference at The Abbey Hotel in Great Malvern, a historic hotel providing amazing views of the Malvern Hills and the Vale of Evesham.

MOLLY MAID UK recently held their latest National Conference at The Abbey Hotel in Great Malvern, a historic hotel providing amazing views of the Malvern Hills and the Vale of Evesham.

MOLLY MAID UK recently held the latest National Conference at The Abbey Hotel in Great Malvern, a historic hotel providing amazing views of the Malvern Hills and the Vale of Evesham. “This beautiful and historic venue gave the perfect backdrop to our latest conference where we had the pleasure of bringing our Franchise Owners together to learn from each other and help improve their business” said Pam Bader OBE, Chief Executive of MOLLY MAID and past Chairman of the BFA.

MOLLY MAID recently announced its annual worldwide turnover had topped the £100 million level.  The company with the iconic pink and blue brand cleaned over 1.8 million homes in 2007 generating annual consumer turnover of £111 million pounds.  With house prices in the UK topping the £200,000 level, many families need both partners working and this has lead to an increasing number of women going out to work full time pushing demand for professional help in maintaining the home.

It’s that time of year again. National Pet Month runs from 5th April to 5th May and everyone and anyone involved - pet people, pet projects and pet care - should take this opportunity to join in the fun. As one of those professionals who work with animals Oscar totally understands the true meaning of owning a pet and through preventative healthcare, grooming and feeding the company offers a complete pet care service direct to your door.

By Simon Rickett, co-founder and director of UK Websaver and Activ Web Design

What is a Franchise?

TaxAssist Accountants is proud to announce that 8 of its established franchises have recently signed 10 year franchise agreement renewal contracts. This level of commitment from the franchisees demonstrates their continuing belief in the TaxAssist Accountants support structure, business model and brand name and the considerable benefits of joining and staying with the TaxAssist Accountants network.

MatchPoint™ Franchise Consulting Network 

Norma Ingle runs a Kendlebell business at Ware in Hertfordshire. And she wouldn’t want to do anything else!             

MOLLY MAID, the UK’s biggest domestic cleaning company, has teamed up with some of Reckitt Benckisers’ top brands, including Cillit Bang and Dettol, to run two promotions in leading UK supermarkets, Morrisons and Co-op.  The two separate promotions cover the first half of 2008, the Morrisons promotion was launched in store on the 14th January and the Co-op promotion will be in store from the 18th February.

February marks an important month for Bryony Dalgleish of MOLLY MAID.  It marks her 20 year anniversary with MOLLY MAID as a Franchise Owner in the Farnborough area.  Her success was celebrated in the MOLLY MAID support office where she was presented with a 20 year pin and a bouquet of flowers from Pam Bader OBE, FRSA, Chief Executive of MOLLY MAID UK.

Blind sales are outstripping curtain sales for the first time ever in the £1.4billion UK soft furnishing market. In one of the UK’s fastest growing sectors, sales of Plantation wood shutters are up 63% in the past two years replacing the net curtain as the UK’s favourite window treatment.

MOLLY MAID, Britain’s best known domestic cleaning company is celebrating another successful year in 2007 and looking forward to an exciting year in 2008. 

Remember Dial a hubby, that cheeky little company that teased the nations husbands with slogan ANYTHING YOUR HUSBAND CAN’T OR WON’T DO, WE DO.

Lesley Lavin- Cheadle, Cheshire

Having just turned 50 and got to a stage in his career as a company director, Derek Hodd needed to do something new. “I didn’t want to get work as an employee and the advantage of a franchise is that I could try something totally different, something I’d never done before & have the support of a proven business model. Derek Hodd was first attracted to Expense Reduction Analysts by the opportunity to run his business in a white collar, B2B environment.

littleAngels offer specialist photography services to pre-school groups, offering unique and exciting products.

The internet has forever changed the way we do business and information is now just a mouse click away. This year over £48 billion will be spent shopping online, £13.9 billion of which will be in the 10 week run up to Christmas. With over 67% of the population currently online, this averages about £509 per person!

TaxAssist Accountants, the UK’s leading accountancy and taxation service for small businesses reaches its 11th Anniversary and celebrates in style.

Warrington, Cheshire, Steve Jenner is selling his franchise, Lasertech North Kent, after being offered an opportunity that became available because of the skills he learnt a as franchisee.

Direct Debit is an efficient way of collecting regular payments on time each month. It can be an important and integral part of a business and TaxAssist Accountants have teamed up with London & Zurich to deliver the right solution whether they are a Sole Trader, Partnership or Limited Company.

Warrington, Cheshire, Following the successful completion of their residential training course, 7 new Lasertech franchisees started trading this month

Sarah received her award from Geoff Hurst at 2020’s Annual Conference which was attended by over 400 accountants in Birmingham.

CASE STUDY 1

Buckinghamshire based New Opportunities, a leading provider of outsourced call centre services, reveals its plans to open at least another 10 call centres through-out the UK in Quarter 4 of 2007.

New Opportunities opens a new office in Coventry, officially open for business on the 22nd October 2007.

TaxAssist Accountants announce phenomenal fee bank growth and thousands of new client sign-ups.  It took the TaxAssist Accountants network 10 years to grow to a £10m fee bank.  It has taken just a further 9 months to grow to £13m and with 22,000 clients being serviced across the UK, this has been seen as an astonishing rate of development.

 ·        Take a critical look at your strengths and weakness - are you sure you have the capacity, temperament and skills to run your own business?;

If you’ve been scanning this site for any length of time, chances are you’ve got at least three terms that make sense to you, the three that pretty well sum up the core of a franchise purchase: <i>franchisee</i> buys <i>franchise packet</i> from <i>franchisor</i>.  So far you’re in good shape.  But if you really want to make it in the world of franchising, there are a host of other terms that pop up—even as you glance over this website—that the successful-franchisee-in-the-making has to be aware of.  Lets touch on a few of them to get you started. Though it seems reasonable to conclude that a franchise is a franchise is a franchise, that’s not the case.  There are three essential varieties of franchises, each with a different mode of management and financial involvement: <i>job franchises</i>, <i>management franchises</i>, and <i>joint venture franchises</i>. If you’re a stay-at-home mum looking for a home-business opportunity, chances are your mind is hovering around the <i>job franchise</i> model.  <a href=”http://www.franchisegator.co.uk/Berkley-Brewer--franchise/”>Berkley Brewer<a> is a perfect example of this type: for a generally low initial cost, you buy the rights to the franchise packet, own the business, and run it all by yourself.  Not a single employee is necessary. <i>Management franchises</i> are a slightly different beast, only because the isolation/autonomy factor is reduced.  This kind of franchise is built on the backs of employees that the franchisee manages.  Imagine, if you will, an <a href=”http://www.franchisegator.co.uk/Auntie-Anne-s-franchise/”>Auntie Anne’s<a> pretzel shop run solely by the owner.  It wouldn’t work.  However, throw in a handful of faithful university students cooking salty snacks at the direction of a shrewd franchise owner, and you’ve got a recipe for greater profit than the average <i>job franchise</i> can manage with it’s lone owner/operator. The third category is much rarer, generally only occurring in large-scale, international franchises.  Unlike the other two models, <i>joint venture franchises</i> are financially backed by both the purchasing franchisee and the selling franchisor, making it, overall, the most costly of the three varieties.  Feel like a franchising pro yet?  Don’t; there’s still more to learn. An important consideration for any budding franchisee is competition—those other pesky businesses trying to steal your customers.  Of course, every company on the planet has to contend for their clientele, but there’s a special problem for franchises: other franchises with the same name.  It’s hard enough to open your own <a href=”http://www.franchisegator.co.uk/AlphaGraphics-franchise/”>AlphaGraphics<a> and compete with the three other print shops on the block, but to have to put up against another AlphaGraphics, with the exact same products and business model around the corner?  That’s not right.  And that is exactly why such franchises are provided <i>exclusive areas/territories</i>, in which only those franchises run by one contracted franchisee are allowed, to ensure that competing franchises don’t kill each other off.  This has been made possible by a special EU <i>Block Exemption</i> that bypasses standard competition-upholding laws to specifically defend franchises from themselves. But the geographic fun of franchising doesn’t stop there.  Say the owner of a booming <a href=”http://www.franchisegator.co.uk/MOLLY-MAID-franchise/”>Molly Maid<a> franchise isn’t entirely content with her single-franchise success.  Depending on what the Molly Maid franchisors choose to offer her, this entrepreneur may want to turn her little pack of pink and purple cars into a <i>regional franchise</i> in which are multiple franchises in her territory all under her leadership.  If her business gets big enough, she may eventually see fit to set up a training and support infrastructure and simply become franchisor to a host of <i>sub-franchisees</i>. Success comes in different forms though.  While that hypothetical Molly Maid franchise continues to grow with no end in sight, a <a href=”http://www.franchisegator.co.uk/Pinnacle-Chauffeur-Transport-franchise/”>Pinnacle Chauffeur Transport<a>franchise across town is doing much the same.  The franchisee here however, has grown tired of the business—despite its success—and wants to change career paths.  Depending on the nature of the franchise and its contract terms, he has three basic options: <i>re-sale</i>, <i>buyback</i>, and non-<i> renewal</i>.  Each term is fairly self-explanatory.  In <i>re-sale</i>, the franchisee turns to a fellow entrepreneur interested in taking over right where the business and sells it to him—generally for a very good mark-up from what it started at.  <i>Buyback</i> is an action taken on the franchisor’s part, in which he <i>buys back</i> the franchise from the franchisee.  If the designated term on the franchise contract is up, the franchisee who has already reaped the financial rewards of the business can simply choose not to <i>renew</i> the contract and walk away.  In any case, our dear Mr. Pinnacle doesn’t do too bad for himself by selling out. From start to finish, buying and running a franchise is not a simple matter—though we’d all like it to be.  In no small part, this is due to the whole new diction and associated frame-of-mind that a new business owner must take on when jumping into the realm of franchising.   Even still, the wide range of terms does provide a ray of hope for the prospective franchisee in that it proves there is a great diversity of options in choosing and establishing the right franchise, which means that finding the right combination of traits in a business to fit your traits as a business owner is very much a realistic possibility.  

Here’s a different kind of business for sale.  Even for those who have been browsing business opportunities and reading about the wide variety of franchises at their fingertips, this next franchise opportunity may be one that’s rather stealthily slipped under the radar—unless, of course, you’ve ever had a few minutes to blow while waiting for a friend at a local coffee shop.