Journey to success
ONE YEAR ON…
The last 12 months have have been like no other. For Ben and Karen Wheeler it’s involved more life changes than most.
B
en and Karen Wheeler recently celebrated their first year as franchise owners of the X-Press Legal Services Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire territory; providing
solicitors and conveyancers with a complete range of local property searches and reports as part of the conveyancing process. During their first 12 months, the Wheelers
witnessed a general election; the UK formally leaving the EU; Harry and Meghan leaving the Royal Family and a Covid-19 Pandemic – and that’s on top of setting up their new franchise venture after spending more than two decades in education.
What have been the highs and lows of setting up your own franchise business? Both Karen and I had incredibly busy lives at school as head of PE and senior leader. Aside from the actual teaching of lessons we had to plan lessons and mark students’ work; mentor both students
24
BUSINESSFRANCHISE.COM Karen and Ben Wheeler
and staff and plan, develop and deliver education strategy as well as performing many duties around the school. We were controlled by a timetable that meant we were spending longer and longer hours on the job, both in and out of school. Starting our own business was a really positive
move for us both – for the first time we were able to plan our own workloads. The flexibility that being a franchise owner gives you also helps with striking a work-life balance and has had a marked improvement on not only our physical but also our mental health. As former PE teachers, we are driven to work hard and have a desire to win, and we really do think that by opening our own franchise we’ve created stability through a winning business model. Of course, one of the low points for us (and the
rest of the world) has to be the COVID-19 pandemic which struck just as we were starting to gain traction and new clients. Warm contacts we had created suddenly were not readily available.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
