Pet care franchise We Love Pets, who recently reached the finals of the 2024 BFA HSBC UK Franchisor of the Year Awards, has created a brand-new role to support their franchisees, recruiting their very first ‘Franchisee Success Manager.’

Kat Turton (39) has stepped into the newly created role which will see her working with all 121 franchisees, focusing on helping them to achieve sustainable growth, with a healthy profit. With a 20-year career in sales and marketing behind her, Kat is highly skilled in two key areas, which franchisees can sometimes find challenging.

Kat recently undertook a two-week tour of the UK with MD Ryan White, to meet as many of the franchise network as possible. The pair covered 2,200 miles over nine days and met with 49 franchisees. They drove from the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire to Eastbourne on the South coast, and from Bridgend in South Wales to Beccles in East Anglia and all points in between. The tour will continue in the New Year.

Of her new role Kat said: “Having recently met so many franchisees on our grand tour, I’m absolutely blown away by the company and their network. Over the two weeks I got a good sense of what a real family the company is, and how integral each franchisee is to the success of the brand. It was great to see franchisees leaning into their passion for animals and animal welfare and heartening to see how proud they are to represent the WLP brand and the values it stands for.”

Explaining about her newly created role Kat said: “I have been brought on board to help support the franchisees and give them the confidence to successfully run and grow their own businesses. Self-employment can be daunting, even with the support of a franchisor; bumps in the road happen for all businesses and my role is to help them navigate situations they may never have been exposed to before. I’m here to make sure that their journey is smooth and successful and to see an increase in their profits.”

MD Ryan White who undertook the 2,000-mile journey with Kat said: “The last couple of weeks have been an integral part of Kat’s introduction to We Love Pets. As she so rightly said, we are a family, and it was important to us that she met as many members of the network as possible, to hear about what’s important to them, their challenges and successes and to build a good relationship with her from the very start. We are proud to have brought Kat on to the team to further support our franchisees and can’t wait to see them fly with her help in 2025.”