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So, how did you hear about the DOR2DOR franchise?
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Via the web. We had decided to look for a franchise and were researching. We then got in contact with Andrew Frisbee who Jeff Frankling had appointed to help recruit DOR-2-DOR franchisees.
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What attracted you to DOR2DOR?
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It was a business to business franchise that could operate from home. The straight forward business concept appealed, and the fact that many business have a need for the service. There were good processes already in place within the franchise which meant that the business could be up and running quickly. In addition, I could see an opportunity for growth and liked and trusted the franchisor, Jeff Frankling.
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How has your employment background helped you in your new business?
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My management and organisational experience, initially in the hotel and restaurant industry and more recently in leading a management training organisation helped a lot. This is because to successfully operate the DOR-2-DOR franchise you have to deliver excellent customer service and attend to detail. Having done these things before certainly made establishing DOR-2-DOR easier, though it didn't remove any of the associated hard work! In addition, we understood the importance of establishing a good marketing and sales plan and being sure to communicate regularly with the local businesses likely to use our service. We still try and mail potential customers about once every three months, and we always report back to existing customers on the progress of the work we are doing for them.
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Describe your first six months
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Explorative and, like any new venture, a bit of a roller-coaster ride. There was an initial push to get a base line of customers. I also learnt how the systems worked, and started to try and establish a weekly routine. Finding and keeping reliable distributors was the first hurdle. I realised that in order to keep good people we needed to increase our rates of pay especially in Cambridge which has virtually full employment. I also needed to find some admin help, and get a driver to help lessen the work-load associated with taking rounds to Distributors. We still have these original recruits, Tanya and Martin, who work part time.
I quickly found the paperwork excessive and was very keen for a more automated process of managing rounds, distributors and customers. DELIVER-IT the business management software developed specifically for franchisees of DOR-2-DOR through the tremendous work of Swansea Franchisee Hayley Marmont has been a godsend. It has helped our business to grow and operate more effectively. Without it the admin overhead would be too much, and very boring! In addition, Deliver IT is a good sales aid. When selling, we sometimes describe the system to customers to explain how we can meet their needs to target certain demographics and geographical areas. Many find this interesting and it gives them even more confidence that we can do a great job for them.
Our first large customers were Anglia Conservatories and a local Pizza Company. We then attracted business from a large estate agent. To get these initial customers we cold-called and sent a large number of mailshots to kick start interest. My husband, Nick, helped to get these early customers on board. Now, we have regular business from Pizza Parlours, Home Improvement businesses, Estate agents and Cleaning companies. However customers don't always have needs that coincide, so there is often a juggling act needed to make sure rounds go out profitably.
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And the future is….?
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The future is about deciding on our strategic direction and how we want to grow the business. There are some issues to address over the size of the territory we have, and whether we should stick to targeting a core-set of business types. The territory may be too big, and we might decide to only markets to those market segments that we know definitely achieve a good result from this form of promotion. We also want to think about how we can address the Recruitment market. At the moment this market only has the local paper and web sites as promotional outlets these outlets do not address those people who are not necessarily looking for a change of job in the way that a leafleting campaign would. On balance the future looks good and after two years, we can safely say that the business is 'established'.
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