Case Study - Steve Sykes

Steve originally came to Recognition Express in 2002 when he set up the Crewe franchise.  He was so successful that he bought a second territory, the Wirral, five years later.

Steve has been married to Karen for 30 years and they have three children; Stuart (26), James (22) and Jennifer (21):

"I didn’t ever want to leave Recognition Express, because I like the business and I get on very well with the franchisor, but somebody made me an offer I couldn’t refuse! Being the franchisor, rather than the franchisee, was a very interesting and valuable experience, but I’m glad to be back where I belong."

Born and bred in Cheshire, Steve started his career in retail management, with a management training course at the Cooperative Wholesale Society. He then moved onto other high street retailers until realising that there was a big world out there and he wanted to be part of it. He was bored of being in the same place day after day.

From retail Steve moved to the signage sector, where he stayed for 10 years, working in a B2B environment providing equipment and sign products to the leisure and hotel sector.

“I did quite a bit of travelling, saw the world and worked very long hours, but somebody else was benefitting from my hard work, and I always knew I wanted to work for myself one day.”

Why franchising?
I came across Recognition Express when I visited the National Franchise Exhibition at the NEC. I felt an affinity with the nature of the business having been involved in the signage sector. I like the idea of actually selling products rather than information and I liked the quality and range of goods on offer. I could see that there was a huge market place.

From a practical viewpoint, I was looking for a business I could operate from home as I didn’t want to take on a huge overhead. Another unique selling point of Recognition Express is that it has manufacturing capability locally through its own in-house production facility, plus nationally and internationally.  This means we have the flexibility and capacity to copy with any size of order.

How did you find your way back to being a Recognition Express Franchise Owner?
I stayed in touch with the franchisor, Nigel Toplis, and he knew that I’d been made redundant. There was a resale opportunity, he approached me to see if I was interested, and I was.

This time around the challenge is different. It’s not a virgin territory and I’ve had to hit the ground running as it’s a busy franchise. You can’t hit ‘pause’ whilst you find your feet!

What are the characteristics of running a B2B franchise?
You need confidence to sit in front of people and promote your business. It’s not all about price and is more about building client relationships. Most people prefer to know who they are buying from and what they are buying. Reliability, meeting deadlines, is very important in this sector. You can’t afford to let people down. Accuracy and attention to detail is key because there are no grey areas. It’s either right or it’s wrong.

What are your future plans for the business?
My ideal would be to develop this into a family business. My eldest son, Stuart, is interested in getting involved on the sales side and developing the territory.
I’ve taken on a 30 year old, established business and my target is to cross-sell a wider range of products to existing customers as well as develop new business.