Fame beckons at last for Ed Brewer, our General Manager of Business Development. The team at FranchiseSales.com managed to find his best side and, along with some wise words about becoming a franchisee, have posted it to YouTube for posterity.

Left to right: Mike Jackson, Steve Ray, Mike Say, Nick Smyth, Angela Tolputt, Claire Power-Browne, Bob Wynne, Vicky Hollin, Richard Grant

Welcome to our latest intake of new Consultants who joined us for the client acquisition week of their training programme at the end of April. We’ve known Angela and Vicky for a while as their partners are already running Auditel practices and we are delighted they are now joining the Auditel Network as consultants in their own right. Claire is also joining an established and very successful practice which was set up by Steve Ray in 2007. Claire and Steve are old family friends and are running their practice as a limited liability partnership so Steve joined us for a couple of the sessions by way of a refresher. Nick and Bob are also old buddies who will be running their new Auditel business in partnership under a limited company, demonstrating yet another way in which the Auditel business system can be successfully applied to different business models.
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Our new series of Discovery Seminars has been going extremely well so we’ve added some more dates for May. Seminars are held at our head office training suite in Winchester and start at either 10am or 1.30pm. As well as presentations and Q&A sessions about the Auditel cost management consultancy opportunity, you will have the chance to meet members of the Support Team and, if there is a training session in progress, perhaps also with existing franchisees.

Enterprise Nation hosts the UK’s largest website for home-based entrepreneurs and as well as providing hundreds of free resources, advising the government on this increasingly important sector of the economy and running the annual Home Business Awards they also produce an annual Home Business Report. The latest of these was published in October 2008 and one of the most surprising results (from their point of view, not ours!) was the number of respondents who started their home business by way of a franchise. (more…)

Starting a new business at a time when every news bulletin seems to presage the end of the economy as we know it might seem slightly mad but entrepreneurs know that crisis and opportunity go hand in hand. Even in the deepest recession, people still need goods and services - there will always be a demand that needs to be met by somebody.

Of course being a successful entrepreneur doesn’t have to mean shouldering all the risk of starting a new business from scratch. It can also mean investing in an existing opportunity - such as a franchise - and maximising all the possible returns, both financial and lifestyle. If you want to get off the corporate treadmill and work for yourself but have concerns about working by yourself this could well be the route for you. If so, you should come along to the Business Start-up Exhibition, which is being held at Olympia on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th November where our Business Development Manager, Ed Brewer, will be giving a presentation at 12.30pm on exactly this subject. You can also visit us on stand 65 where Ed and other members of the team will be happy to chat to you about franchising in general and the Auditel opportunity in particular.

For more information, or for free tickets call Laura March on 0800 5833355.

According to the home business website Enterprise Nation, you can be at least £30,000 in pocket by starting a business from home when increases in the value of your home and savings on fuel costs and motoring expenses are taken into account.

Supported by research carried out by estate agents, Homefinder UK and motoring experts, The AA, Enterprise Nation reckon that having an office in the house adds an average £28,000 to the value of your home while avoiding the daily commute can save over £2,000 a year. (more…)

There’s a good article by Rachel Elnaugh in the July/August issue of The Franchise Magazine in which she makes a very good case for franchising as a way to realise your entrepreneurial dreams. Rachel’s an entrepreneur herself, having founded the ‘experiences’ company Red Letter Days, and was one the original Dragons in series one and two of Dragons’ Den, so she’s well-placed to understand the pitfalls of starting a new business. (more…)

Another day, another portent of impending financial crisis. If the last six months had been an episode of Dad’s Army, this would be the point at which Private Frazer cried “We’re all doooomed Cap’n Mainwaring!”. After years of what some would call generous and others would call reckless mortgage lending, the banks and building societies are finally reigning in their largesse. The sky is black with chickens coming home to roost. (more…)

Despite its apparently epoch-making levels of tediousness, Mr Darling’s first Budget was actually pretty good news for anybody thinking about starting up and running their own business. In addition to the usual plans to tax all the fun out of our lives, there were a number of new initiatives and pledges of cash designed to kick-start the UK’s nascent entrepreneurial culture and to encourage innovation and wealth creation. (more…)

The tree’s up and the lights are on, the turkey’s stuffed and the dreaded works Christmas party is over for another year. It’s finally time for a few days of festive cheer in the bosom of your family, catching up with the in-laws and trying to work out the instructions for your new, must-have techno gadget. I know it’s unlikely, but should the novelty of all this yuletide merriment wear off and you need a good ploy for sloping off to your shed or study for a few moments of peace and quiet, how about the excuse of doing some important research. For anybody planning the move into self-employment, preparedness is key, and it’s not all about business planning and market research. (more…)