Richard Marshall, Dream Doors Wakefield
Former sales manager Richard Marshall set out on a path to owning a £650,000 a year kitchen showroom after attending a franchise exhibition.
33-year-old Richard had been looking to put his considerable business expertise to use in his own venture but was looking for the right model in which to invest.
Following a positive meeting with the Dream Doors team at the NEC in Birmingham, Richard and his partner Jamie-Louise Brewer pulled out all the stops to get on board with the company as quickly as possible. Richard, who previously worked as a business to business sales manager for nine years, said:
“I was first introduced to Dream Doors at the National Franchise Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. I had thought for a while that I wanted to run a business of my own, so I started to look at franchises. I looked at Dream Doors’ products and thought what they offered looked unique and it clearly had the right earning potential.
“They stood out from the crowd – plus it was nice to be able to speak to them in a neutral environment with no pressure.”
Richard and Jamie-Louise have now generated over £650,000 in sales in their first year – earning a handsome, six-figure take home salary.
Richard said: “It’s been brilliant. We’ve followed the model set out by Dream Doors. We’ve already built up a very good rapport with customers and are generating a lot of enquiries. We were able to get started really quickly.
We went to the NEC in February and began having meetings with Alex Waite (Dream Doors’ director of franchise recruitment) very shortly after. We got started very quickly and are now earning far more than we used to.”
Jamie-Louise, who was a personal banker with a major high street bank for ten years before making the move, said: “I left my bank job at 7pm on a Friday and started working with Dream Doors on Monday – no rest for the wicked.”
Dream Doors’ comprehensive franchisee training scheme helped the couple settle into their new venture quickly.
Jamie-Louise said: “My initial reaction when Richard started talking about kitchens was: ‘We don’t know the first thing about kitchens.’ But we had really good training to get us started and it alleviated a lot of our worries. We haven’t looked back really.”
Dream Doors’ director of franchise recruitment, Alex Waite, said: “When it comes to recruitment, almost half of our new starters either come directly from a first meeting at an exhibition – like Richard and Jamie-Louise – or they are someone we have invited to attend an exhibition. Being able to meet potential new franchisees in a comfortable, well-equipped and neutral location makes exhibitions a vitally important part of our recruitment process.”
