Tony Neeson - owner of shuttercraft Northants - is our newest franchisee and before joining shuttercraft was self-employed running his own property maintenance and plastering business for over 25 years. As plastering trends have changed in the last 10 years and artex becoming less popular, Tony decided it was time for a change and started looking into franchisee opportunities, which is when he came across shuttercraft.
Tony started researching franchises 2 years ago and attended the Franchise Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham, where he was able to gain an insight into franchising and how they worked. He also researched franchising further through newspapers/magazines and more recently through the internet. This is where he discovered the exciting opportunity that shuttercraft offer.
Tony chose a franchise over other business start ups such as a Private Limited Company because he didn’t want the hassle of setting up a new business from scratch and liked the idea of joining the market leaders in a growth industry where he could benefit from the economies of scale, buying power and brand awareness of an established company. He specifically chose shuttercraft because he was impressed with the high quality of products retailed, the extensive and ongoing support given and felt that the shuttercraft franchise would be a great opportunity for him. He was also impressed with the information available on the shuttercraft website which gave a good insight into the opportunity.
Tony officially launched in early June 2013 and was already pricing up jobs for friends and family in the weeks leading up to launch who were particularly impressed with high quality and value for money shuttercraft’s premium window shutters offer. It soon became apparent that Tony is a very well connected man in and around Corby, Northamptonshire and has been putting his connections to good use by securing advertising space on local taxis, a low cost regional advertising campaign on his local radio station and has already started forming affiliates with tradesmen in his area to make his marketing investment go a very long way.
Tony is lucky that he has a very supportive wife who’ll be helping out by putting her organisation skills to good use and taking care of the paperwork, income and expenditure records and accounts, allowing Tony to concentrate on the front of house duties of taking to customers, providing a professional surveying service and installing shuttercraft’s premium window shutters in customers homes. His wife also executed a highly successful launch campaign on Facebook which drove a significant number of people to Tony’s website, which resulted in 50+ likes on his Facebook page and a number of enquiries from people interested in shutters. With so many costly marketing opportunities out there, Tony and his wife have managed to capitalize on a very cost efficient channel, that of social marketing.
