What Franchise Partners Say
Our Franchise Partners have come from all walks of life, backgrounds and stages of career development.
Franchising After a Career with The Armed Forces
Dick Northcote, 64, and his wife, Carolyn, have been running their FASTSIGNS centre in Watford for 17 years. Dick was a pilot in the Royal Air Force for 29 years, from 1963 to 1991, and was awarded the OBE in 1987 for his work in establishing and commanding a new fighter squadron which was needed in the UK to replace those aircraft that had been deployed to the Falkland Islands. When Dick left the RAF in 1991, he joined British Aerospace in Saudi Arabia. However, after three years with BAe, he decided it was time to pursue his ambition to run his own business.
Couples in Franchising
Martin and Janie Drury have been married for over twenty years and set up their FASTSIGNS franchise in Birmingham in 1996. Prior to this, Martin worked for British Telecom and Janie had various jobs ranging from secretarial work and part-time teaching to IT. Martin explains why they chose a FASTSIGNS Franchise: “It seemed like a good business proposition at the time. FASTSIGNS is very well organized with operations manuals to cover most aspects of the business, particularly marketing strategies and materials.” After 15 years with FASTSIGNS Janie feels that things are going really well.
Women Can Run This Franchise Too!
Jenny Boreham set up in FASTSIGNS® Chelmsford in 1996 after she split from her partner. She had started and established a training company working with large organisations so was no stranger to running a business but this time she was completely on her own – or so she thought.
Jenny explains how she came to choose FASTSIGNS and how 15 years with FASTSIGNS has been:
“It was time for me to start afresh, I had been looking at franchising and during a visit to the National Franchise Exhibition I was very impressed with the support FASTSIGNS seemed to offer. They were very open and seemed to be genuinely nice people; I still enjoy their company all these years on.
Over 60 with a FASTSIGNS Franchise
Chris Simpson, 62, set up FASTSIGNS Leeds in 1995 when he was made redundant because the American carpet tile manufacturer he worked for was taken over. Chris explains how he came to franchising: “I fancied a complete change. My background was IT/computing but I moved around into other areas and at the time of redundancy I was Human Resources Director.”
“I had often thought I might move into the restaurant business, but decided I wanted a business to business franchise. So, I bought the franchise magazines and identified a handful of suitable ones; then went to a franchise exhibition in London. I was mostly drawn to the sign or print franchises and I visited a few of them including FASTSIGNS. I liked the FASTSIGNS concept of a retail sign shop - it was different from the traditional sign company and more accessible to customers.”
Franchising After Redundancy
John Harvey, 61, is married with two sons. He left school at 15 and took an Apprenticeship with British Gas. In 1965 his career began with British Gas as a gas fitter and in 1995 he was still with them but had progressed on to middle management sales when redundancy began looming its ugly head. “Having been in such a protected environment like British Gas for so many years buying a franchise seemed like a safer option,” says John.