Friday 10th January 2014

This week we saw our latest new start franchisees embark on their career with Premier Sport.  We welcome five new franchisees to the network and they are.

Louise Elstone – Maidenhead territory

Gary Scroby – Woking territory

Lawrence Harvey – Reading territory

Andrew Overhill – Taunton territory

Matt Ewer – Rugby & Nuneaton territories

They are all currently attending the induction course at HQ and over the next month will be participating in a series of practical courses to enable them to be up and running as soon as possible, building successful businesses.

Over the coming weeks I look forward to telling you a bit more about our new starters.

The Latest NatWest bfa Franchise Survey shows the economic contribution of franchising to the UK now stands at a record £13.7bn - growth of 20% in the last 5 years - while full-time employment tops quarter of a million.

Franchise businesses across the UK have reported record highs in turnover and full-time employment according to the 2013 NatWest British Franchise Association (bfa) Franchise Survey.

The research, looking at the five years since the country entered recession in 2008, shows a 20 per growth compared to a 2.5 per cent contraction in the overall economy during the same period.

The survey calculates that the sector contributed some £13.7bn, or just less than one per cent of UK GDP, to the economy in the last 12 months.

Over a quarter of a million full-time jobs were recorded for the first time in UK franchise history out of total employment in excess of 560,000, an increase of 20 per cent over the last five years.

With around 4 out of every 5 brands operating a franchise model in this country being UK-owned, domestic success is translating into export success with one in four expanding their business model abroad. And franchisors expect their growth to continue through 2014 – almost 9 out of 10 stating they believe trading conditions will improve in the coming year.

Impressive long-term trends continued at the franchisee level too, with 92 per cent reporting profitability and one in four running multiple outlets, reflecting a maturing and growing industry. Of those new to the industry (up to two years), 80 per cent are already turning a profit.

To read more please go to http://www.thebfa.org/news/bfa-news/franchise-sector-grows-to-record-heights

We've sent a number of communications via our social media platforms containing our #morethansport hashtag and this new campaign was also the main feature in the final weekly newsletter of 2013. To view this again click here.

#morethansport is our external campaign to draw attention to the activities we as an organisation, you as individuals and on behalf of your business carry out over and above our industry activities. We know that when using social media as a marketing tool, posting compelling, high quality content makes a significant impact; #morethansport has the potential to raise awareness of the Premier Sport brand with a wider audience and ultimately influence consumers' purchasing behaviours.

If you have a #morethansport stories that you would like to share with us and our social media communities, please send these through to [email protected]. Every article featured will be in with a chance of winning a £100, £50 or £25 voucher to use in the online store. This term's #morethansport winners will be announced next month.

If you don't already follow Premier Sport, Premier Education, Premier Performing Arts and The Golden Mile on Facebook and Twitter – please click on the links below. Get liking and sharing and encourage your friends and families to do the same...

• Premier Sport - @premsport on Twitter and Facebook
• Premier Education Group - @PremEducation on Twitter and Facebook
• Premier Performing Arts – @PPerformingArts  on Twitter and Facebook
• The Golden Mile – @The_Golden_Mile on Twitter

During the last couple of months we have seen a few incidents of franchisees losing staff to competitors due to exiting staff breaching their contractual restrictive covenants or their non-compete agreement.

In some of these cases contracts of employment and non-compete agreements were in place, which enabled us to legally and formally pursue these breaches and individuals. Unfortunately in one case, the relevant documents had not been completed correctly and the franchisee was left out of pocket and unable to prevent the former employee from poaching customers.

To date, we have had a small percentage of you completing the survey below. We would like you to give some thought as to what new resources, literature, merchandise and kit you would like us to provide to you in 2014.

To facilitate this, we've created a short survey for you to complete. We will in turn review the feedback and let you know the outcomes later this month.

New for 2014 Survey