Martin & Co Aldershot Celebrate Start

“Ahead of target” are three words that any business likes to hear, but to be comfortably ahead of your targets less than a year on from signing your franchise agreement, as with Martin & Co’s Aldershot office, is an impressive achievement. In their first six months of trading the business was comfortably ahead of targets by £8,000, had employed their first member of staff and had helped 60 tenants move in!

The opening year has been hard work but worth it according to franchise owner Richard Oldaker, “James and I have both worked flat out this year to make sure that our business is successfully established and are looking forward to reaping the rewards in the future. We aim to stick to the business plan we built with Martin & Co, we will always keep a very close rein on costs (always easier when it’s your own money), year 2 should see us earning closer to the sort of money we were used to and year three should take us into unchartered territory.”

Fellow franchise owner and colleague James Wiggins admits that despite both he and Richard having a background in sales they have still learnt a lot in their first year. “The big learning curve for us has been the running of the business side of things as this has been completely new to us. Fortunately, the support we have received from Martin & Co (particularly in the build up towards launch) has been great and they have pointed us in the right direction when it has come to getting finance in place and making sure we launched on time. The other thing that has been really exciting for us has been being able to start a fresh and be building a solid reputation within our area.”

On owning their own business, both felt that they had made the right decision with Martin & Co. “Coming in to work every day you get the feeling that you are creating something which is great, best of all it belongs to you.” James comments. For Richard it is the independence that he enjoys most “For me being in control of my own destiny is great, not having to bow down to corporate regional managers or a managing director’s decisions is nice. Especially as I always felt I could have done a better job than some of my old bosses anyway!” So far the friends and colleagues have enjoyed their working relationship adds Richard “We always make sure our decisions are made jointly and we haven’t had a falling out yet, so let’s hope it stays that way!”

Richard strongly recommends the franchise route to anyone looking to own their own business. “James and I were confident about getting the business off the ground having turned around flagging estate agencies in the past; however we weren’t confident with all the things involved with getting to the point of opening the doors. The funding, shop fit, business plans, legalities of lettings , software systems, accounts, joining the Ombudsman and NALS, the list is never ending. We were guided through the process and have had continued support since launching from our operations director, who always pushes us to do more and more business!”


Contact:
James Wiggins & Richard Oldaker – 01252 311974, richard.oldaker@martinco.com & james.wiggins@martinco.com