"Building homes for people and giving a home to rescue dogs has been our life. Thirty years in the building industry, and thinking long-term future, would I be fit enough to continue climbing ladders in another thirty years? Nevertheless the temptation to change only came when our current OSCAR pet food supplier was planning retirement.

"We knew the product and our three dogs, Vegas, Max and Freddie, were enjoying the benefits of a complete pet care service and nothing but quality food. We were tempted and applied for an information pack. The purchasing experience was thorough and all at a pace to suit our needs.

"Having been self-employed without the support of a much larger enterprise, I was capable of handling the ups and downs of business while Dawn's work at pre-school, for the last ten years, still gave us the chance to enjoy family life. A change of career could not disrupt our lifestyle and OSCAR, as we see it, will allow us the chance to run a successful business with even more time together.

"We are looking forward to maintaining animal welfare in our area and having knocked on enough doors through the building trade, our approach will be much easier when it comes to meeting people and pets – carefully resisting the temptation of taking on another dog from the RSPCA."

An OSCAR franchise provides the security of a strong brand and protected image that gives you the benefit of running your own business to suit your time and circumstances. Within your own exclusive territory you can provide a convenient and free direct-to-the door delivery service with a comprehensive range of quality pet foods that is supported by an honest label policy – follow the OSCAR system and you will find success.

OSCAR has, over the years, gained the experience and confidence to recognise the importance of making career-changing decisions. So, if you want the freedom and security of running your own business there is no question that your change for the better should be with OSCAR.

Is he not nervous about starting a business at this particular time? "Not really" he says. "Joining a proven franchise is a great way to minimize the risk of starting up and the guys at Kids Party Club can show that their party numbers for 2010 are actually up 20% on the year before. No matter what, parents will always want to give their kids a party to remember," says Croke. Kids Party Club is a national children's entertainment and education business, providing professional party entertainment for children, in the safety of your own home or a chosen venue.

Party occasions include birthdays, communions, weddings, crèche and corporate events as well as Christmas parties! In addition, the Kids Party Club - Educational, provides educational puppet shows in National Schools and Libraries around the country on topics including conflict resolution, healthy eating and reading, performed and communicated in an accurate and sensitive, entertaining manner.With two young kids of his own, Steve is more than prepared for entertaining children. "I am very excited about setting up my own business and being part of something that brings happiness to kids and parents in times like this.

Organising parties and thinking of ways to keep children entertained can be quite stressful so it's fantastic that there's a service here to look after these worries. I also have a bouncy castle business so the two will dovetail nicely" said Croke. A Kids Party Club party comprises of a pre-recorded, utterly unique, creative and fun puppet show followed by a kid's disco and a little magic show! The puppet stage is large and colorful, the puppets are big, soft and full of character and the high quality sound & lighting complete this unique experience the kids won't forget! The whole show lasts approximately 75 minutes, which is just about right for the children's attention span!

Senior Care Franchisee Danette Connolly of NAS was awarded the Professional Services Entrepreneur title at the recent South East Women in Business Conference in Carlow. The awards are the brainchild of the County and City Enterprise Boards and were established to reward and acknowledge the role of women in the development of enterprise in the South East. Danette’s first business, NAS (Nursing and Allied Services), was established in 12 years ago principally as a nursing recruitment agency which quickly established itself as the South East’s leading nursing agency.

She then acquired International Nurses Abroad (INA), which places nursing staff in Australia, New Zealand and the US. Following this, Danette developed a state of the art training facility at the Cleaboy Business Park which provides training services to health professionals. Most recently, with her husband Michael, Danette brought the highly successful Home Instead Senior Care franchise to Waterford / Ireland, which provides non-medical care to seniors in their own homes.

With over 65 businesses applying and 15 finalists in the running for the title it was Danette’s drive and enduring ambition that was the deciding factor in her receiving the award. The judges; author Blaise Brosnan, Connor O’ Brien of the Carlow Nationalist and Sheelagh Daly of Wicklow County Enterprise Board were particularly impressed with Danette’s ability to run four successful businesses in the highly emotive caring sector. According to Danette “It is a huge honour to be recognised by such an esteemed panel of judges. Our philosophy at NAS and particularly Home Instead Senior Care is to “keep caring in business.” We work with vast range of people such as nursing professionals, seniors, the sick and disadvantaged, the business community and many others, but we always treat our clients with the same level of respect and professionalism.”

Ciaran Cullen, Waterford City Enterprise Board added “We are delighted that Danette received this award. It’s a testimony to her drive and entrepreneurial spirit that NAS, INA and Home Instead are so successful. In Waterford there is a great tradition of enterprise. In fact, a recent Fresh Start Conference saw over 120 people attend and of which 60 said they would create in total 450 jobs in the next five years. It’s true to say that Waterford is a breeding ground for entrepreneurs like Danette.”

Aug 2011 - Social Franchise Fledglings Early Years Education launches Fledglings Brookfield. Official Opening of Fledglings Early Years at Brookfield by Minister Frances Fitzgerald, TD. The Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald TD, today officially opened Fledglings Brookfield, the second of five early years services set up by the Fledglings Early Years Education & Care social franchise. Part of An Cosán, an innovative centre of learning, leadership and social enterprise in Tallaght West, the Fledglings franchise provides affordable, high quality early years education to disadvantaged areas. The five services now have a combined capacity of 170 new child places, with the creation of 42 jobs in Tallaght West.

Fledglings Early Years Education and Care was set up by Dara Hogan in 2008 in response to the significant shortage of high quality early childhood education places in disadvantaged areas such as Tallaght West.  It was developed as a not-for-profit social franchise to support and mentor early years educators to set up their own affordable services.  Fledglings uses the highly-acclaimed HighScope approach to early education.

Research by the HighScope Foundation shows that children who benefit from early years education have much better outcomes in terms of educational attainment and personal development in later life. Dara has received several innovation awards for his work and is a 2010 Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Awardee. Dara plans to extend the Fledglings social franchise to other disadvantaged communities in Ireland. To search Franchises for sale in Ireland, please click the All Franchise Opportunities button.

Terry Guilford founded the Ultimate Floor Sanding Company from his floor sanding business which started in Galway Ireland 4 years ago under the name of Airc Flooring. Having perfected the approach he went about building the standardized approach, procedures and documentation and sourcing the top level equipment and supplies to build a franchisable business. Initial expansion has been in Ireland but now expanding into the UK.

Challenges

Potential Franchisees are attracted to the franchise business model because it maximises their chances of success while limiting their downside. A good Franchisor minimises Franchisee risk by leaving nothing to chance. The objective is to provide Franchisees with every element of skill and material they need to serve their customers perfectly and to pre-determine the systems and procedures to run such a business.

Solution

accountsIQ accounting, stock control, Sales and Purchase Order Processing solution branded as “The Ultimate Floor Sanding Company” own solution. Franchise specific reporting and KPIs developed and delivered via the dashboard. This ensures a standardised approach and tight controls through a system that is easy to implement for franchisees, while also being easy to use, secure and reliable.

Key Benefits

Online access for Franchisor, Franchisee and our staff

Ability to tailor and brand the solution to the specific needs of the franchise

Strong analysis and reporting capability

A powerful scalable platform capable of handling large volumes of transactions by multiple franchisees in multiple locations

Multicurrency capability to allow franchise to expand into other countries

Ease of use – particularly in streamlining frequent repetitive transactions

Software-as-a-Service pricing model means that the system could be implemented without no up front capital cost while maintaining a predictable cost base per franchisee as the franchise grows.

To search Franchises for Sale in Ireland, please click the Home link above.

Fastway Delivery Franchises Ireland. Tom Dillon, Courier Franchisee in the West of Ireland, originally purchased his Castlebar/Westport area almost 5 years ago. He built up his territory and split 4 years ago with no loss to his initial income levels. At that time he serviced 42 customers all on his own. Over the years, Tom has grown his business by over 120%. Tom has been so successful in growing his business that he has taken on an extra driver in another territory early in 2007, in preparation for splitting once again!

Tom says his strategy for success is: “Delivering. People don’t order goods for no reason. If you deliver every parcel you get on time, then business will follow. You will always be remembered for the parcel you didn’t deliver.” In terms of long term business goals, Tom says: “I wish to further capitalise on the hard work that I have put in over the years and envisage splitting my territory again to reap the awards.”

To search Irish Franchises and Franchising Business Opportunities for Sale in Ireland, please click the Home link above.

A Cafe Franchise with a strong bond to the community - Coffee Franchises 2011:

Esquires Coffee Houses franchise owners Fergal McGovern and Rhona O’Sullivan have followed up 2009’s award-winning success of their Carrick on Shannon outlet by opening a second in neighbouring Longford in 2010. “2011 also looks to be a very exciting year for us as we have just agreed terms on another unit which we hope will be open for business later this year” explains Fergal.  The new Esquires Coffee outlet, which opened in Longford Retail Park’s Axis Centre, has created 20 new jobs as well as offering all the products and hallmarks that have made the Esquires’ franchise opportunity so successful in Ireland and around the world.

“At Esquires, our main aim is serving that perfect cup of coffee combined with the freshest locally sourced produce. Relax with the daily papers and our professional service ‘baristas’ will take care of the rest,” explains Rhona. Irish Cafe Franchising Business: The couple’s Carrick on Shannon Esquires Coffee Franchise was a runner-up in their category at Ireland’s largest retail sector awards, the FBD Retail Excellence Ireland Awards in 2009. In 2010 they finished a very creditable 7^th and were also awarded a place in Retail Excellence Ireland’s Top 50 stores in Ireland. Commenting on the awards, Fergal and Rhona, who between them have 40 years of business experience, were delighted to have received such recognition from Retail Excellence in both their first two years of operation.

“At Esquires we always strive to provide our customers with excellent customer service, it is and will always be a hallmark of our business,” adds Rhona.  The freedom of running their own business under such a renowned name is not the only benefit both Fergal and Rhona have discovered since becoming Esquires franchise owners. “The ongoing support we have received has been excellent,” says Rhona. “The Esquires head office team is very experienced and hands on, they regularly visit us and we know they are always on the other end of a phone.”

"The secret," says Paul, "is a combination of fine tuning operational performance and enticing new customers into the restaurant." He does this by getting out into the community, and seizing every opportunity there is to sponsor events and distribute vouchers so that people have an incentive to visit. "McDonald's is great if you're competitive," Paul adds. "There are lots of measures to show you how you're performing regionally and nationally - as well as your own figures for last week and last year. I just like to beat targets. It gives me a buzz." Paul was on the McMarCo committee for several years. It's made up of franchisees and senior people from Head Office who jointly decide the Company's marketing activity and spend for the following year.

"It's amazing the influence you, just one individual, can have on the decisions of a big company," says Paul. "You really do have an effect. You're involved all the way, from coming up with ideas, to approving campaigns and budgets." To search Restaurant, Burger, Fast Food Franchises for sale in Ireland, please click the home link above.

Hair Elimination Franchising Business - In just over 3 years, No+Vello (Spanish for “no more hair”) have came to a point being the undoubted worldwide franchise leader in IPL (Strong Pulsed Light) hair elimination, opening more than 1,000 franchises in Eleven states. And now a group led by N.Y. businessperson Adriano Lucas is taking the exclusive notion to the America with intends to open more than Hundred franchised places over the next year. Thanks to No+Vello’s tech and exclusive pricing, American clients will ultimately have access to pro and corroborated hair elimination spa treatments at a low, flat rate per treatment that is in addition more operative to a wider diversity of skin shades than ever before. The first center opened that month in N.Y. Major City with intends to open 2 more places in the N.Y. area by the end of the summertime.

Lucas anticipates No+Vello to experience the same direct success in the America that made it one of the quickest evolving worldwide franchises in history. Four years ago, No+Vello revolutionized the hair elimination and skin rejuvenation industry by presenting an improved IPL tech and making it obtainable at a flat charge comparable in cost to waxing. In the past, IPL treatments were geared towards a comparably rich community. 

And not like laser hair elimination and preceding IPL tech, No+Vello has the capability to treat lots of more sorts of skin and hair. The franchise offering is in addition exclusive. In different states, No+Vello has proffered a turnkey package that allows the franchisee to open for business in 3 months. The franchise charge has been in the value range and royalties have only been a flat rate each month with an extra advertising charge.

The franchise package typically incorporates immovable property and lease term settlement support, limitless coaching, nationwide and local promotion support over and above all outfit, studio blueprint and furniture. Lucas, whose The Hair Elimination Organization LLC holds rights to franchise No+Vello, is no outsider to taking well known worldwide conceptions to USA. The preceding investment-banker-turned-businessperson holds the U.S. rights of the European-based, The Ideal Chocolate Cake in the Planet.

He states that when he was presented to No+Vello by a companion, he knew it would be ideal for the America. With 3 worldwide companions, incorporating fine worldwide businessperson Jaime Regojo, Lucas attained the rights to take No+Vello to the U.S. “That is a game changer in the industry,” he said. “I was astounded by the total business. It indeed is a revolutionary production that has been a direct success in each new market internationally. I know it is going to be just as well known in the U.S. if not even more well known.” Lucas states the attraction of the notion is its simplicity, both as a service to the community and as a franchise. “Clients know definitely what they’ll be paying,” he said. “And as they’re paying flat royalty charges, franchisees might effortlessly estimate effectiveness valued on the bases of numbers of treatments.” Lucas anticipates No+Vello to revolutionize the U.S. hair elimination market, as it has in Eleven different states. He in addition anticipates that it is going to not just open up the market to more types of skin, however also to more men searching that service. To search Franchises for Sle in Ireland, please click the Home link above.