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This week, we are buzzing from the recent Extra Help Franchisee Conference and Annual General Meeting, which was held on 3rd and 4th October in the lovely city of Bristol …
It was great to host the Extra Help franchisees at our annual conference and AGM!
Our yearly conference is a unique opportunity for Extra Help franchisees to come together to receive advice and share information and experiences and was attended by our franchisees from across the entire country.
“As several new franchisees have come on board over the past year, we began by welcoming them to the Extra Help family!”
We then gave an overview of the year’s events, such as The Franchise Show, which we attended back in February and, as it was such a success, we are also booked to attend next year too.
We then discussed the Venus Awards and celebrated Louise Pen-Collings’ incredible achievement winning Employee of the Year, both at the Devon Venus Awards and then at the National Awards! As you may know, Louise has now left Extra Help and will be deeply missed by us all.
Our charitable activities this year included Louise running the Plymouth half-marathon which raised £400 for charity. Such a fantastic achievement! Also, Naomi and I helped prepare and serve Christmas dinner to the homeless at Shekinah Mission in Plymouth; a charity I support, which helps people to get off the streets and back into employment.
Next, we discussed the results of the recent Smith and Henderson franchisee satisfaction survey. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we received fantastic feedback from the survey and are hoping that our excellent results mean that we will be shortlisted as Franchisee of the Year for franchises under £25k, so watch this space!
“We discussed the feedback from the survey and will action some of the suggestions!”
Our guest speaker, Berkeley Harris, then gave an interesting talk about his experiences in the franchise industry. Berkeley was the Vice-Chair of the BFA and Franchise Manager for WPA Healthcare, looking after 120 franchisees. His presentation was entitled ‘Routes to Market and How to Build More Business’.
Our franchisees were split into groups to discuss routes to new business and came up with several, business development ideas. They all agreed that it was an extremely useful exercise; Moira Tonge, franchisee for Rickmansworth said, “The Extra Help AGM this month was my first. Meeting other, like-minded individuals whose passion in the business was so clear, was so inspiring, it was like meeting up with old friends! Our time spent team building and idea sharing was incredibly useful.“
We then held our Awards Ceremony and dinner, but the next day, we were all up early for the Nova Associates workshop, ‘Communicating More Effectively Using Behaviour Styles – helping build relationships to build your business’. It was a great morning, and we all learned which style we naturally favoured.
The workshop showed us how different people react to different circumstances and how to recognise those traits to communicate more effectively.
Sarah Elliott, Extra Help franchisee for Doncaster, said, “The event was great, and the guest speakers were really informative. It was lovely to meet new franchisees and see people again who I’ve already met.“
“We loved this years conference
and AGM!”
It was simply fantastic spending quality time with the Extra Help franchisees and it was an extremely positive and inspiring experience for us all. Here’s to a very prosperous and fruitful 2017!
Until next time …
CLAIRE ROBINSON
PS: Why not visit www.extra-help.co.uk and find out more?
