Posted:27-February-2023
Hitting the ground running with a Get Ahead franchise
- Name: Kristy Roff & Suzanne Evett
- Location: Berkshire, North Hampshire & Surrey
- Franchise: Get Ahead
- Date launched the franchise: May 2019
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you were doing prior to buying your Get Ahead franchise business?
Suzanne came from a corporate HR background and saw the attrition of highly-skilled employees who ended up leaving because they couldn't work flexibly around their families. Kristy spent eight years in radio and 10 years at an IT consultancy but craved a better work-life balance.
How would you sum up Get Ahead in less than 50 words?
Get Ahead is an award-winning virtual outsourcing agency that helps businesses of all sizes and sectors to get ahead. Our team of over 70 expert virtual experts delivers marketing and business support to allow business owners to focus on what they do best.
What made you choose franchising? And why Get Ahead?
Having met when our children were young, we had been talking for years about how we could find a way to work together and utilise all those skills that were being lost from the workplace in a positive way. We came across Get Ahead on social media and loved their flexible working ethos. When we saw our local Get Ahead franchise was available on Facebook, we knew it was the right opportunity.
Going down the franchise route meant we could hit the ground running, using all the branding, collateral, and business reputation that would have cost us both time and money to build ourselves.
How did you raise the finance?
The cost of the Get Ahead franchise is accessible at under £10k, so we were able to fund it from our savings. The start-up costs were also low – just a laptop each was all we really needed to get started.
Have you received adequate training and support?
The training, both at the start and ongoing, has been fantastic. We began with a face-to-face induction with franchisor Rebecca. It was a great opportunity to really get to know her better, as well as the business and was the basis of our strong working relationship. Since then, Rebecca has always been at the end of the phone whenever we have needed support.
We have regular check-ins with her and monthly all franchisee meetings, where we really get to learn from each other. Rebecca has also organised training in specific areas over the years, which has been really helpful.
How would you describe your day-to-day role as franchisees? How does it work running the franchise together?
To make our partnership work as effectively as possible, we have clearly defined roles and processes. We understand each other's strengths and run our business accordingly.
Kristy has a brilliant commercial brain, with vital attention to detail and financial prowess. She has homed in on the right clients with the right needs and matched them with the right skills in our team, demonstrating the ultimate power of an outsourcing team by delivering a range of outsourced skills through several different virtual experts, all under one roof – the Get Ahead brand. Suzanne is an operational whizz who has an excellent ability to get to grips with issues and find solutions. She finds the perfect balance between day-to-day wins and getting the job done while never losing sight of the bigger, long-term picture.
We pride ourselves on building and retaining solid relationships. We check in with our clients regularly and ensure we're always accessible to both clients and our virtual team to discuss all aspects of delivery.
Have you taken an active role in the wider Get Ahead network?
We have helped to develop training opportunities for the entire Get Ahead team, introducing regular Lunch & Learn sessions with one of our virtual experts sharing their expertise.
Sessions have included things like how to make great videos, how to use Google Business Profiles and exploring healthy and unhealthy boundaries and the power to "say no". There is such a diverse range of skills in the team to tap into we strongly believe we can all learn so much from each other.
We have also worked with our franchisor Rebecca to introduce the Circle platform for central communication and job posting and created an award for a virtual expert of the month to build a sense of community and loyalty in the team.
What have been your highs and lows?
Covid-19 was a massive challenge for our business. Company-wise, we were hit with a decline in revenue. We both had to home-school our children, and we were ineligible for any government assistance, having only recently started our business.
We immediately put new strategies in place to ensure a continued focus on our business, including a job-share arrangement. This allowed us to each be the principal contact for our business for 2.5 days a week, as well as prioritise our children. We re-strategised and quickly demonstrated to our target market how outsourcing could enable them to thrive in this new environment. Social media was a key marketing tool, and we maximised the resources our franchisor developed in terms of remote working guides, infographics, radio interviews etc.
Despite everything, we still welcomed new clients on board that year and delivered a huge online event - the Enterprise Lab's virtual expo StartUp>ScaleUp Summit. With our team of seven super Zoom facilitators, we delivered the behind-the-scenes operation, coordinating two free days of business learning, 200 exhibitors and 72 speaker sessions. Kristy appeared in a ‘Fireside chat’ at the summit, talking about the advantages of outsourcing. We couldn't believe the buzz of delivering such a huge scale event, and we hadn't even left our desks.
We offered our services free of charge to a community initiative during lockdown, getting decent coffee to hard-working NHS staff, to give something back. We also started a charity business quiz virtually to get business owners together for a bit of fun and raise money for charity.
As lockdown eased, our business growth accelerated, with year-on-year income up 50% in 2022, and we’re expecting to do the same again this year. Our biggest highlight was when Suzanne delivered all the elements of the International Inhalation Asia Conference in Hong Kong. She completed it despite political riots forcing a last-minute venue change and lots of on-the-ground troubleshooting.
Despite the challenges, there have been many highlights. We have exhibited at many events and were thrilled to win 'Best Stand' at the Reading Business Expo in our first year. Our first business birthday was reported in What Franchise, and we also appeared in the Basingstoke Observer. We were very proud to be shortlisted in the Encouraging Women Into Franchising (EWIF) awards 2021 in the New Woman Franchisor category. Organisers said that there were a record number of entries that year and the standard was the highest in the entire 12 years of the EWIF Awards. Attending the Prestige Awards event in August 2022 with franchisor Rebecca Newenham was brilliant, as she collected the award for Business Support Service of the Year – South East. It is a privilege to be part of such an ambitious franchise, delivering top-quality services.
Winning the Great British Franchisee Award has to be our biggest success to date. We are chuffed, thrilled, delighted, honoured, and fit to burst. It is a recognition not just of the work we do but also of the other magnificent people behind our business, including our franchisor Rebecca Newenham, our team of fellow regional directors and our superb, talented team of virtual experts. We are proud of our accomplishments in our 3 years of business and really excited about our plans going forward.
Has becoming a franchisee changed your life?
Yes! Becoming franchisees with Get Ahead was a great decision for us, and we would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone considering it.
The life-changing difference is the freedom. Not just the freedom to work from home or with flexible employers. The complete freedom of being in control of doing what you want to do when you want to do it. No more black clouds hanging over our heads, no more Sunday night feeling.
How do you achieve a work-life balance?
Having become friends when we had our babies, long before we became franchisees, there's no question between us that family comes first. We both value work-life balance and ensuring we're able to be there for our children is essential.
Flexibility is at the heart of our business – for us, our clients and our team. It is critical for both professional and personal success, being able to give as much time to our homes, our families, and our well-being as we do to our professional lives. Being able to flex with the demands of both allows us to feel that sense of freedom.
Can you tell us why your franchise is ideal for those looking for a scalable opportunity?
When the adjacent Surrey territory became available in 2022, we knew it was the right next step for our business. We have created a southern super-hub and are able to tap into a whole new area of prospective clients. The Get Ahead franchise is ideal as it’s completely scalable, with no upper cap on your earnings. You can grow as much as you choose within your territory, at your own pace, as well as expand into available new territories if that’s right for you.
Can you tell us about any community involvement?
During COVID-19, we did our best to get involved and help our local community. We offered our services free of charge to a community initiative to give back to the NHS staff who were working so hard at the time in such difficult conditions. A local man was trying to get decent coffee to all the staff, predominantly through pod machines in each department. He needed a logo to represent his cause and to ask big coffee brands like Starbucks and Nespresso for support. We designed the logo, and he went on to get several hundred machines and several thousand capsules/pods delivered to hospitals in the south east and London.
We also started a charity business quiz virtually during lockdown on Friday evenings to get business owners together for a bit of fun and raise money for charity. It was important to bring people together during that challenging time and help others in need.
We have supported local charity Victoria's Promise, and one of our key clients is a charity based locally, Heartburn Cancer UK.
Suzanne uses her skills and sits on the Business Team for Basingstoke Gang Show (BGS), a biennial variety show enabling 70 Scout and Guide members to perform for 11 nights in a professional theatre. She is responsible for all things press, publicity, social media and data! Get Ahead is also proud to be a BGS sponsor.
Kristy started up a local community group, Bump Into Mums, 11 years ago. Despite handing the day-to-day reins over to a team of volunteers, she still supports their efforts and is extremely proud of the brand she built and developed.
What is the most invaluable piece of advice you could give someone looking to buy their first franchise?
Do your due diligence and ensure it’s the right option for you. Then go for it!
In your opinion, what makes a successful franchisee?
Someone that’s passionate about what they do. To us, running our franchise doesn’t feel like work because we enjoy what we do. We are both passionate about our business and the value of outsourcing. We love exhibiting at expos, sharing our passion, making new connections, and finding new clients, being out and about with like-minded folks.
Also, play to your strengths. For us, that means taking on different roles in our partnership but also outsourcing the tasks that can be done more effectively by others, freeing up our time to focus on what we do best.
What are your plans for the future?
Taking on the Surrey region gives us immense scope to continue our growth trajectory. Our exceptional growth this year has been driven by an increase in sales order value resulting from a better understanding of client needs and spotting opportunities to develop and grow each client account by providing a wider range of services. We have also been able to drive bigger projects with higher income values, proving their worth through quality services from our excellent team of virtual experts. These are all key development strategies that we will look to continue in the future.
If you had to do it all again, what would you do differently?
Avoid a global pandemic! But seriously, it’s been less than four years since we started our franchising journey, but we wouldn’t change a thing. There have been tough times both for the business and each of us personally, but it has all been part of the journey. We are immensely proud of how far we have come and everything we have achieved.
Interested and want to know more about Get Ahead ?
The Get Ahead profile outlines all aspects of their franchise opportunity and allows you to contact them for further information or to ask a question.
