Director of Northwood praises FDS

"Northwood was established by Andy Goodson in Portsmouth 1995 and now has 68 branches across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. Andy decided to franchise the business model in 1999 when it became clear what an incredible success it had been. During the first five years of trading it had generated £1,300,000 gross profit! Having researched the market place, Andy spoke to Franchise Development Services (FDS) about his plans. Andy had read about FDS and in particular Franchise Consultant Gordon Patterson in The Franchise Magazine and after an initial meeting appointed FDS to assist with assembling his operation manual.

'Through his relationship with Gordon Patterson, Andy then promoted his new franchise concept in The Franchise Magazine, which is still used heavily even today to promote the franchise concept. This method of advertising has produced the most credible franchise enquiries.

'We have continued to enjoy a good working relationship with Gordon and his team and meet a number of times a year to explore ways that FDS can assist us further in improving franchise enquiries. We have even hosted a Franchisor forum that was arranged by Gordon.

'We will continue to use FDS and The Franchise Magazine and welcome the continued development of the TFM online product, which we will consider sponsoring in the near future.

'We are focused on new ways to generate franchise enquiries and our ideal franchisee profile is someone that does not necessarily want to be a Letting or Estate Agent, but who wants to grow a substantial business. We are looking for presentable and intelligent candidates who have the business acumen to maximise what we consider to be a 'Rolls Royce' of a franchise. Just ask our Edinburgh franchise who generated one million pounds in the first four years of trading.'

Nick Cooper, Director of the Northwood GB Ltd franchise

Nick has been in the property industry for nearly 30 years and has spent the last 10 in the property-franchising sector.

FDS Southern Franchise Consultant Gordon Patterson comments: 'Northwood represents a genuine Business Format Franchise and works extremely hard to ensure that every franchisee follows their system and benefits from their wealth of experience accumulated over the years. This is a good example of successful franchising where both franchisor and franchisee can earn very rewarding profits.'