Franchise Success Story

Franchising should be easy, you’re buying a time tested & proven business that you can develop and grow within the area of your choice. But what about making it even easier?

Mark Payne & Graham Perry bought the second Furniture Clinic franchise in Margate, Kent in April 2008. Within 2 months their business had grown to a stage where they have put a second van on the road and are having a workshop built in Mark’s garden to help cope with larger jobs such as the complete restoration of car interiors & furniture.

“What’s made setting our franchise up very easy is the constant supply of work given to us by head office. This work amounts for good proportion of sales, giving us a guaranteed and steady cash flow. This security makes it much less a burden to experiment with new advertising ideas, as we try to further increase sales”, said Mark.

Furniture Clinic currently spend over £50,000 a year on advertising in related magazines, newspapers and the internet to generate sales of their retail products – a direct off shoot of this has been high levels of enquiries from people wanting their leather either cleaned, repaired or restored.

Ben Staerck, Furniture Clinic Sales Director ad’s; “Our advertising currently generates about 20 or so jobs a day from people all over the UK wanting their leather repaired. Our long term aim is to get franchisee’s in all areas so we can service all of these enquiries, and obviously, the more successful we can make these enquiries, the more money we’ll spend to generate them as the business grows”.

Furniture Clinic operates on business to consumer and on a business to business basis.

“The beauty of this business is, in addition to the work from head office, you can also get plenty of regular work from car dealers, furniture shops and other businesses. With car dealers for example, when they sell a second hand car, the leather is often scuffed or scratched and needs repaired – this is where we come in. F  ixing the leat          her makes selling the car easier, and so, as far as they’re concerned, the service we offer is invaluable, which is proven by the repeat business we’re getting.”