Case Study – Access4Lofts
From Consultancy to Ownership: how The Franchising Centre doubled down on its specialty and became a franchisor itself
When the endgame is in sight, and it’s time to sell your franchise, who knows it’s worth better than those who helped you build it?
In many ways, this is the textbook tale of a successful franchise: a small business founded on a great idea decides to expand through franchising, spreads to nearly 100 locations across the country, and eventually the franchisors decide to cash in on their success and retire. Their franchise is now so valuable they can attract a major buyer, and set off into the sunset to live the dream with a substantial nest egg.
Only this story has a twist: this franchise wasn’t bought by the usual, larger corporation. It was acquired by the very same franchise consultancy firm who helped them build it!
In June 2024, The Franchising Centre made an extraordinary and unprecedented move in acquiring the Access4Lofts franchise. A longtime partner in their recruitment and franchisee support operations, we saw the owners of our biggest client deciding to exit not as an ending, but as the start of something new and incredible.
It all began a long time ago, in a loft far, far away…
Well, Plymouth in 2005, to be precise and the loft belonged to Tim & Lindsay Brown who had recently left their fast-paced jobs in London. They had moved from Windsor to Devon in what was to prove to be the start of a life-changing adventure.
While Tim continued to commute to his job as a Corporate Sales Manager for a time, Lindsay had quit her job as a Marketing Manager to raise their young daughter. Both hoped to find a new career in Devon, but they were unsure which direction to take. In the meantime, they wanted to improve the space in their new home by making use of their loft space, and better, safer access was their first priority.
However, searching around, they found no-one in the local area who could do the job for them, so Tim decided to tackle it himself. Even with a lifelong knack for DIY, this was quite an ambitious project, which Tim threw himself into whole-heartedly, and the results were enough to impress several visiting friends and family who asked if he could help with their lofts!
Having seen the gap in the market for themselves, and discovering a flair for the work, Tim & Lindsay put their experience and expertise to the task and started looking for opportunities to start their own business. They were indirectly aware of the benefits of franchising from their own business backgrounds, and initially pursued that route as a great way to start their own business.
However, confronted by a complete lack of franchises in that line of work, and a clear shortage of companies that even offered the service, they did what any smart business people would do, and started their own independent company… Access4Lofts was born!
From man-in-a-van, to a life-changing plan
For eight years, Access4Lofts operated successfully as a local Devon business as Tim & Lindsay worked hard to perfect their business model. After overcoming the usual ups and downs, and other obstacles that new businesses face, they soon realised the huge potential for the company to expand into other areas of the UK.
Deciding that franchising their business was by far the best way to do this, they refined their systems so that they could easily be replicated by others, and their first recruit came in the form of their friend, Graham Ormesher, who launched the very first pilot franchise in Preston, Lancashire, in 2013. Graham was a canny businessmen himself, and he, Tim, and Lindsay proved to be a formidable team together, and both sites enjoyed record growth in the coming years.
In 2017, when Graham was approaching the end of his 5 year franchise agreement, Tim and Lindsay approached him to join the Access4Lofts board of Directors and together the team launched into the next phase of their franchise plans.
Their first task was to improve their systems to be both more scalable on a national level, and to appeal to a wider range of franchisees. Taking their initial man-in-a-van model, which was essentially a simple “business-in-a-box concept”, they added new and improved systems, including expanded supply arrangements, a new training centre, and a fully integrated, bespoke quoting, marketing and admin system and accounting support system.
The streamlined offering attracted a lot of success and, in just 18 months, Access4Lofts grew to 21 franchises. However, as it expanded, the Access4Lofts team found they were reaching the limits of what they could achieve alone, and were determined to find a way to fulfil the franchise’s full potential.
Taking their franchise to the next level
“One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt about succeeding as a franchisor is not to try to do everything yourself. As you start to grow, you have to recognise where your gaps in knowledge and skills are, and bring in the right people to help you. First was Graham, and later the team at The Franchising Centre, both of which were massive turning points for us.” – Lindsay Brown
In September 2019, Graham met Shirley Hughes, The Franchising Centre’s Executive Recruitment Consultant, at a British Franchise Association networking event. They ended up chatting about the challenges Access4Lofts was now facing, and how much more potential Graham and the team felt was still untapped. Shirley passed on his details to TFCs Head of Franchisee Recruitment, Dugan Aylen, who reached out shortly after to discuss a plan.
As is standard practice at TFC when approached by a new client, planning and analysis did not rely on just one person within the firm, but called upon the skills and experience of a whole set of franchising experts who could contribute at different stages during the process. Taking a really deep dive into everything that made the Access4Lofts franchise work so well, and how it could be improved in the future, left the team very excited about the possibilities. They very quickly returned to the franchisors with a development and recruitment plan that could serve as a road map for the franchise’s future.
Access4Lofts and TFC really did hit it off from the very beginning and, looking back at the results, it’s clear that this moment was a true milestone in the growth of the franchise, as Tim, Lindsay and Graham instantly felt that their vision and goals closely aligned. By outsourcing much of their recruitment and marketing to the TFC team, they could focus on the core business comfortable in the knowledge that their growth as a franchise could continue in a sustainable and scalable way.
The initial plan included a 5 year growth strategy with measurable performance and return on investment as well as a clear set of detailed goals, objectives and exactly how they could be achieved. TFC also carefully matched the franchise to a consultant who could best represent them and understand their business. In this case, it was Steve Felmingham, who was to continue to play an increasingly crucial role over the next 5 years.
While Steve would be the primary lead for many of the new strategies, he was far from the only one involved. Working alongside him would be a whole team of experts with varying specialist skills so that TFC could always offer an adaptive and bespoke service to what was to become one of their most successful clients.
“Handing over recruitment to The Franchising Centre allowed us to tap into new channels for finding quality franchisees. Their systems for recruitment and vetting are just brilliant compared to anything we did before. It also gave us more time to focus on the business itself, and how we could support and train new partners. As that grew, they were even able to help us immensely with that side of the franchise, too!.” – Tim Brown
The best laid plans…finding the seeds of opportunity in a crisis
Just 2 months after the initial introduction, Access4Lofts signed an agreement with TFC. With the groundwork being laid in the first quarter of the year, everything was in place to launch the new recruitment drive in February 2020.
No doubt the following month, March 2020, will stick in your mind as much as it does ours…. The pandemic put the whole world on hold and, along with it, everyone’s plans. The Access4Lofts and TFC partnership was no exception but, as the first lockdown drew to a close, they took the brave decision to relaunch. As so much was still uncertain about the future, this was a big gamble, albeit a calculated one, and it was to pay off big time.
Thanks to three key factors, the middle of 2020 was to prove to be the beginning of Access4Lofts becoming one of the UK’s fastest growing franchises. Firstly was a significant rise in demand for their services. With people spending more time at home, they wanted to make more of their spaces, and improving their loft access was an effective and affordable solution for many. As more and more customers began to look for a loft access service in their local area, more and more people also began to recognise the same gap in the market Access4Lofts had originally been founded on, and began to look for their own opportunity to tap into it.
Secondly, was the increase of people suddenly finding themselves either out of work, or now having the mental and physical space to reassess their working lives and the direction they wanted the future to take. Many found they now had substantial redundancy packages they wanted to invest, too! Thanks to the simple but effective model Access4Lofts could offer, and the help from TFC in continuing to market it and work with prospective franchisees, summer and autumn of 2020 saw a big rise in new enquiries.
Finally, Access4Lofts and TFC were among the first to fully embrace the move online which was occurring right across the business world. Consultant Steve, along with Tim, Lindsay and Graham, began conducting ‘Discovery Day’ meetings entirely online through video calls.
During 2020 and 2021, dozens of franchisees joined the network and, incredibly, not a single one had met the team face-to-face before committing to joining the franchise! A real testament to the power of how the right kind of franchise with the right kind of message, and the right systems in place to deliver it, can achieve incredible results – even in the face of adversity!
Five years of incredible growth…
Steve and the TFC team recruited their first franchisee for Access4Lofts in July 2020, who came through the profile they had created together on Franchise Local. He’s still with the franchise, but now works very closely with the training team, helping them prepare new franchisees for business.
Over the last 4 years, Access4Lofts has enjoyed a staggering 60-70% conversion rate on all its franchise leads, and has now filled 97 of its 139 mapped territories. Not a single franchisee has failed, and many continue to exceed the financial projections presented to them at the start of their journey. Quite a few have gone on to add extra vans to their fleets, and even purchase neighbouring territories.
Of course, success presents its own challenges, and Access4Lofts soon came up against a very common problem faced by franchises as they reach a certain level of growth: the bigger the network, the bigger the responsibility when it comes to supporting and managing their partners.
During their period of rapid growth, the Access4Lofts team had already worked closely with Alan Bradley, Head of the TFC Digital team, to introduce their own in-house app using the Ziik platform. This allowed them to greatly streamline all their comms, manuals, training videos, and even supply ordering systems, into one easy-to-use platform. However, they reached a point late in 2022 where they needed more help and decided to tap into another of TFC’s key services: Franchise Relationship Management (FRM).
Spearheaded by the very same Steve Felmingham who had been working so closely with them since 2020, the service is designed to bring in experienced franchise experts to act in a purely advisory capacity, or as an operations manager or non-executive director, or anything in between. Its purpose is to help franchisors with any number of tasks relating to manage their network, such as streamlining training and support, improving legal agreements and operational guidelines, dealing with disputes, and helping franchisees achieve their potential.
This was to prove to be a very fruitful relationship for both parties, as Steve and the team found themselves even more deeply involved with the day-to-day running of Access4Lofts. An arrangement which was to prove to be pivotal for the next stage of the story!
A game-changing moment
In early 2024, the Access4Lofts team set-up a call to deliver some surprising news – the owners were planning to retire and wanted help finding a buyer for the business! While initially saddened that such a great working relationship might be coming to an end, the TFC team knew this was the desired end game for many franchisors and was a result of having been so successful in helping them grow their network.
Then the seeds of an exciting, new thought began to grow: what if they bought the franchise themselves?
This would be a totally unprecedented move, and a complete change from their traditional business model, but the TFC team felt this was an opportunity too good to miss. After all, they had been deeply embedded in every aspect of the franchise for several years and already understood how it worked far better than any 3rd party buyer. They had worked hard to put all the key systems in place, and Access4Lofts had always been keen to adopt any innovative new strategies presented by the team, and these had all paid off in terms of increased recruitment and profitability.
Most of all, they knew just how strong a model Access4Lofts was – both as a business, and as a franchise – and just how much potential for growth still existed. After all, they had helped build it!
TFC put in their bid and purchased the franchise in early 2024, marking the start of an exciting new chapter for the firm as they took on the mantle of franchisors themselves.
“Initially, we were very surprised that TFC was putting in a bid but, the more we thought about it, the more delighted we were with the idea. After all, who better than the team who had played such a big role in getting the franchise to where it was today? Access4Lofts has been a real labour of love for us, so we were also very happy with the idea of someone taking over who could preserve the vision and culture we had worked so hard to build.” – Tim Brown
While so much happened during this time, it’s incredible to think now that the time from the first call TFC had with the team to actually buying the franchise outright was only 5 years! That’s just 5 years for Access4Lofts to go from a small franchise enjoying the first real flourishes of growth to a nationwide success story with its owners ready to sell up and retire.
Graham is still working in the business facilitating a gradual transition, while Tim & Lindsay have recently enjoyed a much-deserved holiday before deciding their plans for retirement. Not bad for a business which started out of a spare bedroom office!
The original team may have moved on from the franchise, but the Access4Lofts story is far from over. With plans in place to fill the remaining UK territories and start expanding abroad, you can expect to hear a lot more about it in the near future!