The last two years have certainly been a bit of a whirlwind with many ups and a few downs. As Tim often says, "building a business is not easy" (no pun intended) "otherwise everybody would be doing it" - its certainly been hard work. Today I am proud of what we have achieved. I look at our busy office, the sales team busy taking calls, across from me Marketing are working their magic with all the online digital wizardry that todays businesses need to master and behind me finance are busy crunching numbers. Louise Harris is out and about today meeting new franchisees and Operations are busy planning schedules and working on training materials for our franchisees.
Our own warehouse is almost full here at Hanger Lane and we now have over 50 affiliated warehouse across the UK.
Our franchise network is growing fast with nine areas now operational, eight more currently preparing for launch and five currently in planning. All of the south of England is now sold with the South East fully operational.
The first two years have been about learning and building foundations. We have developed our own technology platform (VAULT) which we are incredibly proud of, been awarded BFA membership and been voted in the top 50 UK franchises twice. We have established easyStorage as a credible brand and are making some pretty big waves in the storage industry. We have established our Franchise Council and secured some great talent in our business. And Tim and I now only joke about doing eight jobs each rather than ten!
This is where the work really starts though. We are moving into a new phase of growth and resourcing up accordingly. We are incredibly excited about the future and growing with our franchisees to establish easyStorage as the first truly national storage brand in the UK. We have big ambitions and lots of great ideas to complement the brand as we move forward. I look forward to the next two years and to reflecting back on the achievements yet to come.