With his practice almost ten years old, TaxAssist Accountant Richard Preedy took the time to reflect on his journey and experiences so far as a franchisee.
On March 17th 2014, I opened the doors to my first TaxAssist Accountants franchise business. I had always wanted to own and run my own business and I was lucky to be in the position of being able to buy into a franchise I knew well and into a location I was very familiar with.
Launching your own business is such an exciting time but it is incredibly important you carefully evaluate the opportunity and research the franchise if that is the route you wish to take, as you are not buying a ‘job’, you will have to create the sales and have an entrepreneurial energy and optimism to get through the tough times in the beginning.
As a general comment about buying into a franchise, I was looking for a business opportunity that would take me through to my retirement and the business asset would build as long as I continued to put the effort into growing it. There have been and continue to be, some very successful franchisees who have gone on to sell and there are many case studies documented on the TaxAssist Accountants website which prospective franchisees can read.
I think what I love about TaxAssist Accountants is that I feel valued by the Master Franchisor. I feel they have a clear understanding that they will do well if I do well. From the moment I engaged with the team in Norwich, I have been supported on this journey, from all aspects of running my business.
There is an amazing technical team, whom I use frequently, and they are able to answer and clarify some of the difficult tax questions. There is also a recently formed tax planning department offering service and advice on areas such as Inheritance Tax and Corporate Tax Structures, something I wouldn’t necessarily be able to do on my own.
I recently had feedback from a marketing specialist, that the services offered by the TaxAssist marketing team are exceptional - from branding to social media and website updates. When you are running and building your own business, creating and posting content takes time and it’s great to know the Support Centre team in Norwich are there providing a consistent presence.
I think my final thoughts on the last 9 years would be, running my own business has afforded me the flexibility I would never have been able to achieve in corporate life. Recently, with the challenges around elderly parents, it has been invaluable to be able to work around situations that arise, but that is only based on the hard work and effort invested over those previous years. You can not underestimate how much you will need to do to get your business into a sound financial position and then maintaining and growing that will be your next challenge.
Saying that, I would honestly highly recommend anyone who is looking at a franchise to investigate TaxAssist Accountants, it was one of the best business decisions I ever made.
March 2023
