Little Desserts Shop

In 2016 we decided that we needed to expand our business and bring our retail offer to a wider customer base and believed that developing a franchise model was a great opportunity for us. After speaking to a number of different companies we decided to work with The Franchise Company as they really took time to understand our business and explain their franchising process to us. They didn’t use jargon and their development system was easy to understand and just seemed to be logical and make sense. Right from the first discussion they were professional and friendly and really knowledgeable about franchising and this gave us complete confidence in their ability to help us develop what has proven to be a really successful franchise business both for us and our franchisees.

Julie Waites was our lead consultant and she helped us assess our options for growth and decide that franchising was the right move for us. Julie worked closely with us throughout the process from our very first meeting to the end of the franchising process, so we really built up a relationship and she developed an in-depth understanding of what we wanted to do. This also meant that whenever we had any questions, queries or concerns, we knew exactly who to speak to and were able to contact her directly, which made the whole process so easy and stress-free for us.

The first stage in the process was to help us relook at the core business and develop a franchise model that had real benefits for both parties (franchisor and our franchisees) and this involved a very detailed business review and then some in-depth re-modelling of our core business to develop a successful and viable franchise model that would have long term benefits for both parties.

Once the system had been developed The Franchise Company wrote and put together our documentation, including the franchise agreement, operations manuals, franchise brochure  and marketing materials and also helped us to launch the franchise and start to recruit our first franchisees. Access to finance is a key part of the process for our franchisees and The Franchise Company have contacts with the Franchise Units of the banks and introduced us to them and supported us through the process of applying for and obtaining BFA membership

We’d been thinking about franchising for a couple of years and were going to try and do the work ourselves. We just didn’t realise the level of detail of work and the skills that are required to develop a commercially viable and attractive franchise model. The investment we made getting the work carried out by The Franchise Company has really paid off and when we started to recruit franchisees we saw the immediate benefits of the work that had been put into the development process. Without this support we would have made many mistakes and it would have ended up costing us more in the long term to try and put it right. We agreed staged payments through the process which helped our cash flow and meant that we could focus on running our core business whilst the experts focused on developing the Little Dessert Shop franchise model.

Muddy Boots Sleepovers

Muddy Boots Sleepover Parties started in London in 2018 and after a couple of years successful trading we got to a point where we couldn’t cope with the demand for our services and so we decided to look at franchising and so visited one of the BFA franchise exhibitions.

After speaking to a number of specialist advisors we decided to work with The Franchise Company. The Franchise Company is one of the longest established franchise consultancies in the country, and their friendly, expert consultants impressed us straight away with their wealth of experience helping businesses grow and expand. Their straightforward approach to their project development process was really easy to understand so we knew we were in good hands when it came to franchising our business.

We started the project with an in-depth Business Review that really made us look at our business through fresh eyes. Julie Waites was our lead consultant and she really took time to understand our business and work out what was important to us and help us consider various options for structuring our franchise model. After assessing our options for growth we decided that franchising was the right move for us.

Julie was our personal consultant throughout the development process so we really built up a strong working relationship and she really listened to us and developed an in-depth understanding of what we wanted to do with the business. This meant that when it came to franchising our business, it still felt like the same company and the same brand, just with more opportunities for growth.

We were also confident that Julie understood all the unique challenges of our business and made sure we were well placed to combat them so we ended up with a franchise model that was tailored specifically to us and had longevity built into the model from the beginning. Whenever we had any questions, queries or concerns, we knew exactly who to speak to which made the whole process so easy and stress-free for us.

Once the franchise model had been developed the second stage of the process was creating the various documents that are required and The Franchise Company wrote and put together our documentation, including franchise agreements, operations manuals and marketing materials. They also helped us to recruit our first franchisees so we used their knowledge and experience to start us off on the right foot as a franchised business.

We’re thrilled with the work The Franchise Company have done for us and our franchise network is going from strength to strength. We recovered out investment in the work that was carried out within six months of launching the franchise and we have literally been inundated with enquiries from people wanting to join us and become a franchisee. Our model really works both for us and for our franchisees and this is down to the hard work that was put in at the development stage – everything was thought through and planned and this attention to detail has really brought benefits to us as a relatively new franchisor.