Apr 10, 2015 | Clients in the Media, News
Mail Boxes Etc. (MBE), a client of Coconut Creatives, Stratford-upon-Avon recently had the opportunity 
to witness history in the making. Cynneth Bonanos’ store partnered with West Midlands auction house, Cuttlestones, to provide pack and ship services for a very interesting one-off auction.
MBE is one of the world’s largest non-food retail franchises with over 1,500 stores in five continents including over 150 in the UK and Ireland. They are the only high-street chain that offers consumers and local companies a truly comprehensive range of business services. Their high-street, one-stop-shop concept offers a mix of logistics, postal, print and copy services to help meet people’s every day needs.
The sale, which attracted an international audience of bidders, included lots derived primarily of arms and armour held within a single, private collection that spans various periods and continents. It included a set of 19th Century Horse armour, which comes complete with knight in full suit of armour and was formerly housed at The Metropolitan Museum, New York. Also included was the world’s largest trebuchet arm, a giant crossbow designed by Leonardo da Vinci, and several 18th Century flintlock pistols, alongside a host of other fascinating items.
Cynneth and his team from MBE Stratford-upon-Avon were there on the day to help remote bidders from private collectors to public museums, snap up their favourite lots with confidence, partnering with Cuttlestones to ensure that all lots were collected, packed and shipped to their lucky new owners – wherever in the world they might have been!
“As a local business, we thought it was great to have a presence at the auction. We had pre-priced the lots in advance so that we could give quotes for packing and shipping in both the UK and overseas quickly,” explains Cynneth.
The collection was sold because the museum wanted their exhibitions to focus on three key periods – the Civil War and World Wars I and II.
“Packing everything up from the auction kept us busy for at least a month after the auction and it really tested our limits. The auction really boosted our sales for the month. Suits of armour and cannons are not something we package up everyday! However, it’s not too difficult because a suit of armour is extremely light and you can custom-build the box. Some of the weirdest items we packaged were a stuffed Dodo and Heron – the person who bought the Dodo wanted it to keep in his house,” adds Cynneth.
MBE’s experience and expertise in packing and shipping is unrivalled and they assist key clients such as world-renowned auction house Sotheby’s and, working together with Nike, assisted in increasing their in-store sales of Nike id by 80% through offering a click, design and ship service worldwide. They are full members of the British Franchise Association, promoting ethical franchising and are the only national network of Pack & Ship stores approved by UPS, Parcelforce Worldwide and FedEx.
“The diversity of the collection really was astonishing. There was everything from tribal and oriental armour through to medieval suits of armour and heavy artillery, and even lots with a Shakespearean connection. This was a once-in-a-lifetime sale of items and the fact that the items hail from a single, private collection and have been housed in a museum for several years. Add to that the rarity of many of the items and we saw global buyers out in force,” adds Ben Gamble, managing director and head auctioneer at Cuttlestones Auctioneers and Valuers.
Apr 1, 2015 | Clients in the Media, News
Mail Boxes Etc., a client of Coconut Creatives, have scored a hat trick this month. Not just one but three 
new franchisees have opened their own Mail Boxes Etc. stores this month. Imran Naveed, Ahmad Nawaz and Louis Owens are all proud new owners of their very own businesses in London – Stratford, Welwyn Garden City and Lewisham.
Imran is completely new to the business and is looking forward to getting stuck into his new venture. Ahmad, who was already an employee in a Mail Boxes Etc. store, is hoping to use his existing knowledge of the business to build his own successful store and Louis, formerly a serving member of the Royal Navy in logistics, is enjoying transferring his skills from Navy logistics, to a slightly different form of logistics, in everyday worldwide document and parcel delivery.
Mail Boxes Etc. is one of the world’s largest non-food retail franchises with over 1,500 stores in five continents including over 150 in the UK and Ireland. They are the only high-street chain that offers consumers and local companies a truly comprehensive range of business services. Their high-street, one-stop-shop concept offers a mix of logistics, postal, print and copy services to help meet people’s everyday needs.
“Mail Boxes Etc. was a great opportunity for me because it fit with my existing skillset and you get great support behind you when setting up your business. The support from the team at Mail Boxes Etc. has been brilliant. The biggest thing they did for me was to negotiate the lease of my store. I want to be hands-on in my business so even if I employ more staff I’ll still be heavily involved in the business. It will just mean that I have more opportunity to go out and get more business,” explains Imran.
As a successful global brand, Mail Boxes Etc. have learned what it takes to keep ahead in the retail sector and they’re sharing this knowledge with each and every one of their franchisees. With multiple revenue streams, franchisees benefit from a high-street brand that has dominated in its marketplace for 35 years and their longest-serving franchisee in the UK network has just celebrated 21 years!
“I was already working for Mail Boxes Etc. when I decided to become a franchisee. I knew that I had a lot of experience in the business and knew it would be an easy transition to become a franchisee. When you become a franchisee you are given much more responsibility and you have to come up with your own solutions to problems rather than having someone tell you how to do things. My business is going well so far and there’s always someone on the end of the phone at head office if I ever need any help. My plans for the future of my business are to make this store as successful as possible and look at opening more stores in the future,” adds Ahmad.
Mar 24, 2015 | Clients in the Media, News
TJ Sutherland and Steve Brown, who are part of Rosemary Bookkeeping, a client of Coconut Creatives, are a father and daughter team, have achieved massive growth in their business over the last few
months. For four consecutive months the pair have achieved a massive 15% growth, month on month, for their business. TJ and Steve have been running their Rosemary Bookkeeping franchise for over four years now and to be achieving growth as they are is a testament to the hard work that they put into their business on a daily basis.
It is important to acknowledge that TJ and Steve have managed to sustain this growth under difficult family circumstances. Steve’s wife, TJ’s mother, has been critically ill over the last few months and Steve has had to take over the running of the house, care for his wife and run the business – they even took on four new clients in this time. That makes their success even more astonishing!
The pair have been flat-out busy for the last couple of months but their hard work is really starting to pay off for them. Their client acquisition is growing month-on-month and they don’t have any plans to slow down yet.
The Rosemary Bookkeeping franchise now has over 20 franchisees nationwide, servicing the SME market of over four million businesses in the UK. The franchise is based on a business concept that has been established and refined since 2002 providing a unique bookkeeping system within a fully-supported franchise package. Franchisee obtain huge flexibility with superb work-life balance.
“In November last year, we took on two new members of staff, Bianca and Adam. Adam is a graduate and in the beginning we had to put a lot of time and effort into training them both up. However, that time and effort is starting to pay off now and it has freed up my time so that I can concentrate on going out and bringing in new business,” explains TJ.
“We all work really hard as a team and we’ve been getting a lot of enquiries through our website. We’re also starting to promote our business on Twitter and Facebook to really get our name out there. We’ve been running for four and a half years now so we’re starting to take on bigger clients and getting much more recognition in the marketplace because of this,” adds Steve.
“This growth is really exciting for us and we want to carry on growing in the same way. We’ve got no reason to stop! We can just keep on taking on more members of staff and we want to eventually double our turnover,” adds TJ.
Rosemary Bookkeeping delivers intelligent bookkeeping services to SMEs, accountants and franchisors ensuring a consistency of delivery and high-quality work. Their practical, down-to-earth and friendly approach provides clients with information that enables them to understand and make decisions on their businesses, gives peace of mind that HMRC will be happy, whilst charges are fair and reasonable.
The franchise is backed by four successful business women, Claire Watson-Bardot, Joanna Dennis, Sarah Carlile and Lisa Curteis who have over 60 years of business and bookkeeping experience between them. As an Associate Member of the bfa Rosemary Bookkeeping has a proven ability to sustain a franchise network successfully.
Mar 24, 2015 | Coconut in the Media, News
Here at Coconut Creatives, we’ve been sharing our knowledge yet again! When Premierline Business
Insurance asked us what impacted our business the most this year, we were only too happy to oblige to help them put together their article about small business trends in 2015.
“We’re always looking for opportunities to develop our business and look for ways that will make our services more accessible for those small businesses who may not have a large budget. We were only too happy to share our advice with Premierline for their article and we hope that it will help and inspire other small businesses to do the same,” explains Sarah Carlile, Founding Director of Coconut Creatives.
Premierline’s article shares expert advice from business experts who have been sharing their thoughts both on what they think has impacted their business the most in the last year and what they think will be the next ‘big thing’ for 2015.
Find out more about our involvement with Growth Accelerator here.
To read the full article click here.
Mar 3, 2015 | Clients in the Media, News
New Horizons, a client of Coconut Creatives, have just added yet another new franchisee to their UK 
network. Baltic training, headed up by Antony Hobbs, have just added a New Horizons training centre franchise to their existing business. Making them the first independent IT training company in the UK to do so! Baltic training are now the proud owners of New Horizons Newcastle and they’re taking advantage of a global brand to set them apart from their competitors.
“At Baltic training, we offer the same kind of services as New Horizons. We were predominantly an IT professional apprenticeship business using government funding to help 16-24 year olds into their first jobs in IT. We used to write most of our own content but it takes up a lot of our time and resources which was when I started looking for alternatives and came across New Horizons,” explains Anthony.
“Linking our New Horizons franchise to our existing business, which is already accredited as a Tech Partnership Gold Provider, allows us to offer more up-to-date and innovative services than ever before. This will set us apart from our competitors in a huge way because many of them are still using training content that is no longer current in the market.”
New Horizon’s is the world’s largest independent IT training company. They provide a wide range of computer training and complementary programmes for many small, medium and large organisations as well as individuals improving their career. Franchisees operate their own dedicated learning centres and quickly become the single source of IT training for their customers.
“Now that we’ve partnered with New Horizons, we will be delivering the most up-to-date and technical experience to our customers. I’m looking forward to this the most. As soon as Microsoft release their new curriculum, we’ll have it straight away and it will give the businesses that we work with a much better chance to progress. We’ve already got a great infrastructure in place and partnering with New Horizons will only help us to expand and develop our business even further,” says Anthony.
As New Horizons continue to add to their UK network, it was decided to hold the latest franchisee training in London as a sign of the commitment to building and developing a strong UK network. As well as the comprehensive training programme, new franchisees and prospects are invited to attend the New Horizons Annual Conference. Annual conferences are a great way for both experienced and new franchisees to come together and learn more about both each other and their businesses.
“I travelled over to America to attend New Horizons’ annual conference because I wanted to see if it was a valid opportunity. At the conference, I met franchisees from all over the world and I realised the true scale of the opportunity. Attending the conference was really the selling point for me,” adds Anthony.
Along with an award winning training programme and comprehensive support package, new franchisees are offered an exclusive territory in a major city along with training programmes for all employees. In addition, the package includes ongoing training events, all conferences, a wide variety of online events, self-paced e-learning resources and a wealth of tools that franchisees can use to train their employees.
“The training that we have received from New Horizons has been extremely worthwhile and it’s all helping us to get their systems in place. We could have done all of this ourselves but the advantage of working with New Horizons is that it’s on a much bigger scale and our products will be much quicker to market.”
to witness history in the making. Cynneth Bonanos’ store partnered with West Midlands auction house, Cuttlestones, to provide pack and ship services for a very interesting one-off auction.
