A Lancashire business is celebrating its first new recruit after developing a franchise package with franchise consultants FDS Northern.
Blackpool based Voucher Packs has sold its first franchise for the Leyland and Chorley area. The company, which offers a Royal Mail delivered direct mail service for advertisers, began working with FDS Northern to create a franchise offer in 2004. Richard Wood of Voucher Packs, said developing the franchise offer had been far simpler than expected working with FDS Northern. "From the day we launched the business five years ago, we knew we wanted to franchise the company," he said. "The business model is based on an American idea, delivering a pack of money-off and promotional vouchers to households in a given area on behalf of local companies and it has been franchised successfully across the USA. "But franchising our business represented a significant investment in time and money so we wanted to make sure we got everything right. Tony Urwin and the team at FDS helped us do that." Tony worked with Richard and company Managing Director Andrew Wearing to develop an operations manual for new franchisees, a exercise which involved breaking down every aspect of the business process. "It was a learning curve because we knew how our business worked on a day to day basis, but translating that into a format a newcomer could understand was more complicated than we expected," Richard said. "Tony helped us create a pilot business which was run by a member of our team, following the manual exactly, to make sure we had tested every aspect of the offer. "He also worked with us on all the legal documentation, putting together a prospectus, and on our advertising, giving us the professional presentation we wanted to appeal to franchisees." The business is now looking forward to a sustained period of growth and has already had a flood of enquiries from across the UK. "FDS Northern has been a critical part of the franchise process for us, helping us to decide where we wanted to go and how to get there," said Richard. "Tony and his team understood our business and our passion for the product and put the foundations in place to help us grow." Tony is confident that the Voucher Packs network will thrive because the company has a clearly defined offer and a commitment to potential franchisees. "What has become clear working with Voucher Packs is how committed they are to the success of the network both now and in the future," he said. "The work they have done in developing the franchise offer has underlined this and I am confident the brand and its network will grow and grow."
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