1. The Challenge

Running your own business is rewarding, but it can be tough. For Simon Mowbray and Stuart King, owners, and founders of Multi Sport Pro in Lincoln, balancing the demands of working on the business and in the business at the same time was a challenge. Stuart explained that “every day, you find yourself wearing all the hats – sports coach, marketeer, salesman, product designer, HR officer and customer care manager”.

Despite feeling stretched, Simon and Stuart were running a very successful business across Lincolnshire. For them, they were desperate to take things to the next level – to scale the incredible impact they were having on schools and pupil’s – all whilst maintaining their high standard of delivery and growing revenue. Without significant investment in their own business, or finding an external partner, the options were limited.

2. The Solution

For Simon and Stuart, the idea of joining Premier Education was one that stuck with them. They could see the previous success of franchisees across the country and believed that the opportunity to capitalise on the renowned brand was one they couldn’t turn down.

“For us, the main attraction of joining Premier Education was the infrastructure and the team behind the brand. That was a huge pull and the main reason why we have merged our existing business into the Premier Education network.”

Now, with a leadership team at Premier Education HQ responsible for other areas including product development, Simon and Stuart don’t have the worry of creating new programmes – instead, they can rely on the ongoing development of Premier Education’s well-established sport, performing arts and personal development products. Simon told us that “being able to access expert knowledge in areas where we are not, really helps productivity, strategy, and provision of best practice solutions.”

Stuart noted that he would encourage anyone to explore the opportunity of franchising with Premier Education, even if they see themselves as a competitor, “you have nothing to lose and it could change the whole dynamic of your business – just as it has with ours. Don’t be put off by the franchise model of paying fees – the support you receive for the money you invest through fees help to grow and support the business you have.”

Supporting that notion, Simon added that, “the national brand, national governing body partnerships and Trustpilot review integration adds enormous creditability to your business and it will definitely differentiate you from the competition in your local area.”

3. The Process

As anyone who has moved from running your own independent business, to being a franchise owner can attest, there is a positive transition involved, and the same can be said for those joining the Premier Education network. We asked Simon and Stuart about the particular challenges they faced during this process.

“It’s important to say that our business doubled over night, so we had a number of positive challenges on how to manage, deploy and maintain a high-quality product to our customers at a larger scale than ever before.”

Simon reflected on the transition, “there have been new processes to adapt to, and methods of doing things in the ‘Premier way’ that have taken some time to get used to, but mostly, these are improved, more efficient ways of working, monitoring productivity and profitability of staff. Since joining in September, we’ve worked hard to integrate these changes and now, we’re operational in dozens of schools and are busy upselling to existing customers.”