“We had a great first year and this has been the catalyst for us to expand. Our first 12 months trading turnover was over £400k, we smashed our projected business plan by 18% and we employ 2 fitters, 2 fabricators and 1 full-time equivalent in our garden centre showroom.

Husband and wife team, Helen and David Thomas, had been working together in France for 10 years so when they decided to make the move back to the UK, they knew that their double act would continue in their new business. Helen explains how choosing the right franchise gave them the kick start they needed when hopping back over the channel.

“Our children had started to fly the nest and our business in France had become frustrating with the bureaucracy and high taxation, so we decided to move back to the UK. We wanted a business that would harness our existing skills and, having looked at franchises in France, we knew that the support of a good franchise would give us an extra helping hand.

“I have a background in administration and David used to work in telecoms before we moved to France. We had always renovated our own properties in the UK and David already had qualifications in bricklaying and plastering so we moved out to France to start our building and renovation business. We wanted to continue doing what we were good at and, although we had looked at franchises in retail and a coffee shop franchise, we decided to focus on franchises that would renovate kitchens and bathrooms. We had the luxury of spending two years researching the franchises available but, once we got to this point, Granite Transformations was the only real contender.”

The franchise provides a unique franchise business opportunity in the fast-expanding home improvements market. We offer quality-minded homeowners an extensive choice of makeover solutions, without the demolition, debris and disruption associated with conventional kitchen and bathroom installations. Our exclusive ‘top that fits on top’ concept allows our beautiful, high grade work surfaces to be fitted directly over existing worktops, tiled walls and other finishes, eliminating the need for demolition, shortening the project timescale and reducing costs.

Meeting the support team

“We enquired through the company website, spoke to some of the team and then were invited to spend a day at head office with Danny Hanlon, the Chief Operating Officer for Europe & North America. Granite Transformations, under the parent manufacturer TREND, is a global franchise with major operations in Australia and North America.

“We began to like the business more and more and were impressed that Danny was still so passionate about it years after he joined the business. The head office staff were another element that made us feel the franchise was well set up and solid.”

The franchise gives you the chance to run a business enterprise from sales and design consultation, through measuring up and manufacturing, to installation and customer service. Few other franchises give you quite the same opportunity to handle complete projects from beginning to end, meet with customers in their own homes, and take such pride in the quality of each job and the genuine pleasure it brings. And none involve the distinctive makeover products you’ll find with TREND.

Setting up our business

“We’re originally from the Wirral and when we were shown the free territories that we could establish our business in we had just a couple of prerequisites – we didn’t want to be in London and we wanted to be near to the coast. Whilst we hadn’t necessarily wanted to settle back in the Wirral, we decided to take the Wirral and Chester territory as it gave us a great scope for expansion and our knowledge of the area could only be a bonus.

“We completed our initial training three months before we could fit out our factory location so it was great to then receive a lot more support when our doors finally opened for business in August 2014. We chose to have our showroom in a separate location with plenty of regular footfall and so opened our first 7 ½ square metre site in a garden centre.

“Our initial projections were guided by the head office team and we took orders on our opening day! After eight months of trading, we found time to review our position. Head office arranged special rates with a business consultant at Winning Pitch and this really gave us focus and structure to move forward.”

Our first year trading

“We had a great first year and this has been the catalyst for us to expand. Our first 12 months trading turnover was over £400k, we smashed our projected business plan by 18% and we employ two fitters, two fabricators and one full-time equivalent in our garden centre showroom. We opened a second garden centre showroom in year two and our aim is to create a showroom within our factory site.

“Our ultimate goal is to make a million of course! We’re a long way off retirement and what we really want is a business to enjoy and run long term without the headaches we found with our business in France. We’re certainly enjoying it and the continued head office support limits the headaches. We’ve been able to take a break at Christmas and we can bring our two friendly dogs into the office who sleep under the desk most of the time.”

Moving with the times

Granite Transformations is undergoing a rebrand roll out programme for the next three years across all its franchise locations worldwide. The business started as a kitchen worktop replacement service over 20 years ago but their range of surfaces and tiles has expanded so far that for several years they have been doing complete kitchen and bathroom renovations as well as other projects in both residential and commercial spaces. Their latest developments in cutting-edge techniques and designs has resulted in rapid growth for the organisation and its stakeholders and, from January 2017, new showrooms will be known as TREND Transformations.

Creating the new TREND showroom

“As our franchise locations have been doing great over the last three years we have decided to expand once again. It made sense for us to be involved in the rebranding process because it is an opportunity to grow the business and offer our clients more product choices. This will be our third showroom and it will be joined to our fabrication factory in Ellesmere Port. This showroom is a much bigger space than our other garden centre location – approximately 102 square metres. We are trying to emulate what they do over in America but, as with most things in the USA, they often do things bigger and better. Our displays will differ to theirs slightly but the point is to make it as similar as possible to keep the brand uniform identifiable. The idea behind joining the showroom and fabrication unit together means the bigger space will allow us to display all the new products that we are getting including the beautiful Orsoni mosaic tiles.

“Both of our garden centre location showrooms will be given a facelift making soft changes in terms of signage and colour displays to make the transition to TREND Transformations. Because the showrooms are in busy areas and people know us and what we do, we will do a soft campaign about the changes to assure our customers that we are still the same company with same great customer service. We are not planning a huge campaign on this as the main focus is on the new showroom.”

Investing in our future

“The cost of the expansion is currently projected at between £60,000 to £62,000. This figure might change – with construction nothing is guaranteed. But two weeks into the project everything seems to be going well. This is a huge investment for our business and we hope to make a good return from it. Head office has been extremely supportive and it’s been key to our expansion and success as franchisees. They have been involved in terms of finance, construction and design. They are 100% involved in this project and it makes it easier for us.

“To spread the word about our rebrand to TREND Transformations, we are going to contact our previous customers who can recommend us by word of mouth. We’ll have two openings – a soft opening and then something formal where we can invite the local mayor. We can follow that with a longer launch campaign which we can run for a couple of months.

“I hope the new showroom will be a space where our customers can realise their dreams of home improvements, be it kitchen or bathroom. We’ve completed projects all over Liverpool, North Wales, the Wirral and North Cheshire and I hope that, whether our visitors are families, architects or designers, everyone will enjoy time in our lifestyle design studio.”

The new TREND Transformations showroom will open at Unit 17, Junction 8 Business Park, Ellesmere Port from mid-April.