Member Article

Entrepreneurs inspire budding franchisees at The National Franchise Exhibition

When The National Franchise Exhibition returns to Birmingham’s NEC on 14 and 15 February with the ever popular Growing Your Own Business seminars, there will be two exciting speakers ready to share their experiences with visitors.

Steve Feeney, founder of Essential SEO and Peter Higgs, who created PGH Pest Control will share the ups and downs of their careers to date, how they became successful through fighting adversity and how budding entrepreneurs can motivate themselves to do well.

Steve joined the corporate world as a young man, shunning the opportunity he had to be a professional sportsman. He set up his first business – a loan company – in 2003, and soon had 70 staff and a turnover of £36million. Unfortunately this company was badly affected by the credit crunch in 2008 and did not survive the fallout.

Undeterred he started again in a new industry with a new product. In the past twelve months Steve’s new search engine optimisation company, based in Worcestershire has grown by 80 per cent and he is happy to be heading a small team of experts offering a genuinely high quality product. The company is currently developing software to allow businesses to compare their online ratings directly with competitors and they hope to bring out a new app in 2014. Steve says; “success is not about money or size; it is about the value of the relationships that you can build with your clients.”

Peter Higgs left school at an early age with no qualifications. Even as a small boy he loved animals and wildlife and knew that he wanted to work in this field. He got a job helping a gamekeeper which only flamed his passion further. It was through a college course that Peter gained his pest control qualifications and he decided to go it alone. With no experience and very little business knowledge Peter realised that it was going to be a lot more difficult than he had at first thought but The Prince’s Trust took him on and trained him in all aspects of how to run a company. Peter now owns his own 100% environmentally friendly pest control company in Guildford with five members of staff and is looking to take on a further three members of staff this year. He also hopes to eventually turn his business into a franchise. His understanding of animals is what makes PGH pest control really stand out, with its humane methods and respect nature.

Steve will be presenting at The National Franchise Exhibition on Friday and Peter will be there on Saturday. Both speakers will talk about their experiences, what obstacles they encountered and how they overcame them. They will also offer top tips and advice and answer questions from their audience about how starting up a business can bring great success; all it takes is a little bit of determination.

The National Franchise Exhibition will take place at the NEC, Birmingham on 14 & 15 February. Doors open at 10am each day, and the exhibition closes at 5pm on Friday and 4pm on Saturday. Admission on the door is up to £10, but to book tickets in advance and gain free entry to The National Franchise Exhibition visit www.franchiseinfo.co.uk and enter the promotional code NFEBGY. For more information follow @UKfranchising on Twitter

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Promotional Products Week .