Case Study - Terry Lucking

Terry Lucking, Belvoir's Peterborough franchisee, has received two accolades in the franchise's recent awards. Announcing his achievements, Belvoir co-founder and CEO, Mike Goddard, said: "Terry's success has been incredible – his is the fastest overall development in our history. His business has grown consistently by 40 per cent per annum.

Mike Goddard continued: "With energy and passion, Terry has also proactively taken great interest in the development of the network, which now has 97 outlets. He has twice been chairman of our franchisees' Networking Group covering more than four years and is making another significant contribution to franchising as a representative on the bfa's Franchisee Forum. Terry also serves on the committee of The Guild of Lettings and Management."

Terry became a franchisee in 1999 after a career in the food industry spanning 22 years. He was a director of two major plcs before being headhunted to become managing director of a successful family farming business in Cambridge.

When the family were invited to sell, Terry headed a management buy-out but lost to a competitive bid. He resigned and decided to look for a new challenge in a completely different industry, embarking on extensive research into many different types of business and opportunity, including franchising.

While he was thinking about what to do long term, he developed and successfully sold on a small chain of travel shops and a vegetable processing business. He also operated as a debt mediator for six months.

Terry was not interested in manufacturing because of the huge capital costs involved in setting up from scratch. He recognised his talents lay in managing businesses and driving them forward. He said: "I wanted to be in a positive industry that was expanding, not consolidating – or contracting - and where people are valued for their skills and abilities."

Having researched franchising and compared it to other start-up options, Terry concluded that it was the safest route to being self-employed with optimum opportunity to make money from a relatively modest investment. He commented: "Franchising offers a fast start in business. I didn't want to waste time setting up and trialling my own systems. That's the beauty of franchising – someone has done it all before, so it's tried and tested."

He narrowed down his choice of possible franchises and investigated those specialising in property. In late 1998 he met Belvoir's Mike Goddard and set up an exhaustive interview with him. "I asked a lot of searching questions," Terry explained. "This had to be a two way interview because I needed to have confidence in the organisation where I was about to invest a considerable sum of money.

"I made a decision quickly to go ahead. My training with Belvoir was extremely thorough and enabled me to make a quick entry into the business. Once I began trading I appreciated the enormous value of Belvoir's on-going support, especially their bespoke legal advice line and the website," Terry added.

He opened his outlet early in 1999. Working in a small business was a shock after a large corporate culture where he had two secretaries and someone to manage the diary. Suddenly Terry was thrust into an environment where he had to use a computer and learn to multi-task."

Seven years on we now employ nine people," Terry said. "Two of my stepsons are involved in the business and my wife Liz shares my passion, vision and energy for property. In fact, one son, Luke, has the distinction of being the UK's youngest landlord, making his first buy-to-let investment when he was just 18."

Terry is now in phase three of his franchise's plan with a growing portfolio of over 510 properties in Peterborough, surrounding market towns and local villages. He enthuses: "Property is a fast growing sector as the demand for private rented homes continues to increase, for a variety of reasons. The business has the benefit of requiring personal involvement and hence great personal satisfaction. It also has the advantage that no one customer represents more than 5 per cent of the business."

Terry continued: "The last seven years have opened my eyes to just how much money can be made from property. I was too busy in my former life to see outside of the plc box!"