Posted:13-January-2021
"With a full diary from the point we opened, our turnover was £100k in the first two months!”
Name: Martin and Michelle Hillman
Franchise: Venture Studios
Location: Southampton
Opened: 2012
Martin and Michelle Hillman joined the Venture brand in 2011, opening their studio on London Road, Southampton in January 2012.
Martin’s background was in lecturing in Graphic Design and Michelle had worked previously as a personal assistant
Why did you go down the franchise route, and why did you choose a Venture Studios Franchise?
“We knew we wanted to work for ourselves, and were attracted by franchising quite simply because of the higher success rates involved in following a proven business model. We were open minded about what type of business we wanted to get involved in and had looked at several different franchise models. The more that we looked at the Venture Model it became more appealing over others that we had looked at. This was predominantly because of the customer experience that Venture offers, coupled with the standard of photography, range of wall art products that the franchise offers its customers, and of course the potential financial returns.”
What support did you initially receive to get the studio open?
“We worked with Venture extremely closely for a full 6 months prior to opening the studio. This began with locating a suitable property, helping on presenting business plans to the bank to raise funding, through to full training for us as new franchisees and recruitment and training of the studio team. This included the very rigorous Venture photography training that all of our new photographers completed.
A key part of the opening process was training for me and Michelle on how to operate the Venture model. This included spending time in other studios observing each different element of the model, and the customer experience. We also received help with a marketing launch plan, which was in place 8 weeks prior to launch and resulted in us having a full customer diary from day 1.
With a diary full of customer appointments at the point that we opened, our turnover was £100k within the first two months of being open.”
What is a typical day like for you as a Venture franchisee?
“The most important, (and probably one of the most rewarding) parts of the day is making sure that the team is set up for the day ahead, in order that they know what the key objectives are. Everything from making sure that we are on track from a customer appointment perspective to editing customers images, and making sure we are prepared for the days appointments, both photography sessions and viewings, to ensure that we give each and every customer an amazing personalized experience.
Another key part of the day and weeks is managing the marketing plan for the studio. This covers a range of activity that is a key part of the Venture model, and is designed to generate the right number of customers from a number of different sales channels. This can be everything from speaking to local retail partners that we work with who use our Venture experience vouchers as a way to thank their clients, through to setting up displays and promotions in local shopping centers.
The working environment in the studio is one of the main reasons that we chose Venture, it’s fast paced, dynamic and creative, and nothing quite beats the feeling you get when you see a customer collect their finished order, and you see how thrilled they are.”
The Southampton studio continues to be one of the most successful studios in the Venture network, and has turned over an average of £500K over the last three years
To learn more about franchise opportunties with Venture Studios, click here for more details!
Interested and want to know more about Venture Studios?
The Venture Studios basic profile outlines aspects of their franchise opportunity
