Apr 26, 2016 | Blogs, Coconut News, News
As you may already know, our Founding Director Sarah Carlile, is taking a short step away from Coconut Creatives to have her second baby. From April onwards, Sarah will be putting her feet up and waiting for baby to arrive in early May. However, the Coconuts are sure she won’t be disappearing completely as Sarah has never been known to fully sit back and relax! Paul Clegg will be stepping up as Managing Director and taking the reins at Coconut Creatives.
As the former Franchise Recruitment Manager at Mac Tools, Paul has a great understanding and knowledge of the franchise industry and really knows what makes franchisees and franchisors tick. Having joined the team last summer, Paul has embraced the Coconut Creatives ethos and takes care of the client management and keeping the team motivated and organised!
Paul will be aided in his duties by two more Directors, Adam Knight and Adam Lovelock, as well as the usual Coconut team made up of Rebecca, Helen, Tania, Amy and Rachel who help to take care of the client work and keep the Coconut Creatives cogs turning!
“I’m happy to be leaving the day to day management and running of Coconut Creatives in Paul’s hands. I will be taking a short space of time away from the business but I will still be working away behind the scenes! The Coconuts know that they can call on me anytime. With the business in Paul’s capable hands, our clients both present and future can be assured that there will be no disruption from the Coconut service in my absence. The team are excited about the changes being made and we’re stronger than ever. Every member of our team has something different to bring to Coconut Creatives and Paul will be keeping them all in order and making sure we continue to provide our outstanding service,” explains Sarah.
It’s business as usual at Coconut Creatives and they will be continuing to work hard to make sure that each and every client receives the very best service and continues to recruit those all-important franchisees.
“It’s been an exciting couple of months at Coconut Creatives and I’m really looking forward to managing the team on a daily basis. They’re great to work with and have adapted really well to the change of directorship! They accepted me straight away as part of the team and are always receptive and responsive to new ideas. It’s great to see the way Coconut is evolving whilst still maintaining the core services and values. I hope to keep these as well as bringing my own ideas to the table,” adds Paul Clegg.
Apr 25, 2016 | Coconut News, News
The first Coconut Qualified Professional Franchise (QFP) workshops of the year have got off to a roaring success. Our first QFP workshops of the year ‘Speed up Your Network Growth’ and ‘How to Motivate your Franchisees’ provided franchisors, both large and small, with skills and knowledge to take away and implement within their businesses straight away.
“Every time we hold a workshop, it’s great to see so many people in the room who are engaged and taking in the advice that we’re giving. We work hard to make sure the workshops run smoothly and that the content is interesting and valuable to everyone there. There was such great feedback at this workshop from the franchisors who attended and we’re so pleased that our content also helps even more people become qualified in the franchise arena,” explains Paul Clegg, Managing Director at Coconut Creatives.
Since 2010 we’ve had over 200 franchise brands from the franchise industry benefiting from our practical workshop programme to fine tune their franchise recruitment and marketing performance. Our workshops have grown year on year and we’re so proud that they’re now accredited by the bfa. Franchisors take away such valuable information and we provide relevant examples and case studies.
Here’s what a few of our attendees had to say:
“Great day with plenty of hints and tips to take back and start implementing. I loved the guest speaker and it was invaluable to share ideas with sector colleagues,” Karen Atkinson, Cafe2U.
“Fabulous, one of the best and most relevant courses I’ve attended for this stage of our franchise development,” Lisa Curteis, Rosemary Bookkeeping.
“It has been the most inspiring, relevant workshop and I’ve been left with so much that will help me to make improvements – something from every part of the day. The workshop content delivered above and beyond my expectations,” Amanda Wigzell, Little Squigglers.
“I have been wowed into a new world of marketing my business in a clear way and in manageable chunks,” Clare Carrick, Back in Motion.
“This course gave me the tools and the confidence to take my business further and feel ‘I can do this!’,” Rosie Mead, Musica.
Our next workshop, ‘Exhibiting and Speaking Effectively for Franchisee Recruitment’ is taking place on 14th July. Contact us on info@coconutcreatives.co.uk or 01725 511 673 to book your place!
Dec 7, 2015 | Coconut in the Media, Coconut News, News
Coconut Creatives were recently guest speakers at the Smith & Henderson 2015 Best Franchise 
Conference. Our Founding Director, Sarah Carlile, explained all about the 5 ½ marketing mistakes made by franchisors and even had a little guide to give away as a bonus!
We were delighted to be asked to speak at the event and hope that everyone who attended enjoyed finding out more about the mistakes made by franchisors and how you can avoid making the same mistakes!
The Best Franchise Conference is designed to offer advice and guidance to franchisors looking to recruit more quality franchisees and improve network performance. The guest speakers come from all sectors across the franchise industry and each and every one of them has valuable advice to give.
Other guest speakers included:
- Dave Williams, RBS
- Jo Stone & Tracy Townend, Puddleducks
- David Paulson, TaxAssist Accountants
- Matt Davies & Rod Levington, Business Doctors
- Graeme Payne, Victoria Hobbs & Shelly Nadler, Bird & Bird
- Chris Roberts, Franchise Finance
- Carl Reader, Social Media Exchange
- Martin Jones, Home Instead Care
The key note speaker was Neil Clough, a finalist on The Apprentice in 2013. Since The Apprentice, Neil has gone on to build his own highly successful sales training and recruitment business. Neil gave an inspiring talk and inspired our franchisors to go home and push their networks forwards.
The Best Franchise Awards also took place during the conference. These awards recognise the very best franchisors in the industry based on feedback from thousands of franchisees. Being recognised in these awards helps differentiate franchises from the competition and build trust with prospective franchisees.
Winners included:
- Best Franchise (less than 25k investment) – diddi dance
- Best Franchise (£25k-£75k investment) – EweMove
- Best Franchise (75k plus investment!) – TaxAssist Accountants
Please contact us
to get a free copy of our 5 ½ marketing mistakes guide. We can help you avoid them!
Nov 20, 2015 | Coconut in the Media, Coconut News, News
Here at Coconut Creatives, we’re well versed in hosting and attending franchise events. That’s why we’re helping the BBIC (Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre) to host two pilot franchising events next year. We’re looking for franchisors who would like to get involved in the Yorkshire Franchise Seminars.
These seminars are offering the chance for franchisors who are looking to recruit franchisees in the Yorkshire are to get in front of an audience of prospective franchisees. The seminars will be providing prospects with information on how to get involved in franchising.
Each franchise brand will be given 3-5 minutes to present themselves and their brand to the audience with an opportunity to network with prospective franchisees throughout the event.
These pilot seminars are free to be involved with and are a great way to get to know prospects in the Yorkshire area. If you’ve got any prospects in the area, why not invite them to come along? Meeting you in an informal, no obligation environment might help their decision-making process!
We’re only looking for 6-8 franchise brands to get involved so don’t miss your chance to support and benefit from two great events!
Contact rebecca@coconutcreatives.co.uk if you’d like to get involved.
Oct 8, 2015 | Coconut in the Media, Coconut News, News
As you may know, we attended the National Franchise Exhibition at the Birmingham N.E.C at the 
beginning of this month. We even exhibited for the very first time!
The show was a great success for us with three speaking slots, lots of meetings and a busy stand. We’re looking forward to making contact and working with everyone we met at the show over the weekend. It’s been an exciting time at Coconut Creatives with our new, revamped team and we’re offering even more services than ever before. We’re excited to be back in the office and working our magic for our clients. We look forward to taking on even more clients soon.
We were invited to speak on one of our expert topics, Social Media on the first day of the show and we were so pleased with the results. During our Social Media seminar, our hashtag #ishouldcoco was seen by over 7,500 people!
If you missed us at the show, or if you did attend and want to find out more, why not come along to our Social Media Skills workshop on 4th November to learn more!
….and don’t forget to #ishouldcoco!!
Sep 22, 2015 | Coconut in the Media, Coconut News
Here at Coconut Creatives, we’re excited to be attending the National Franchise Exhibition at the Birmingham N.E.C on 2nd & 3rd October.
As well as being available on stand, we’ve been putting time aside on both days so that you can come and talk to us! Each team member attending specialises in a different area of the business so if you’re struggling with a certain part of your recruitment then let our specialist take you for a coffee and together we’ll recommend tweaks to help get you where you want to be:
Sarah Carlile, Founding Director
Adam Lovelock, Head of Online Marketing
- Follow up after exhibitions ‘how to ensure you maximise the potential of the leads you receive at the show;
- Email marketing – tips and tricks to super charge your email marketing
- Social media for franchise recruitment – how can you find and recruit franchisees through social media?
Adam Knight, Head of Technology & Systems
- Tracking and attribution – knowing how and where people find you online is hugely important so you can accurately measure your ROI and return on time with your marketing
- User experience – this is crucial to ensuring you do not put up barriers to the right potential franchisees finding you at the right time
- Funnel marketing – having a clearly defined sales funnel can make the difference between a business doing well and sky rocketing.
Paul Clegg, Marketing Account Director 
- Recruitment process – are your prospects falling out of your process at a certain point and just not progressing further? If so, a recruitment process review is crucial to see why this is happening
- Paul spent several years working inside the world class Mac Tools franchise recruiting 30-40 franchisees PER YEAR for 3 consecutive years UK-wide. His experience in his area is vast, book a meeting with Paul to discuss your own recruitment growth and how you can improve it.
Helen Thresh, Client Account Manager
- Market Your Franchise webinar programme – how helping your franchisees market their businesses supports your network as a whole
- Franchise marketing workshops – if you would like to join us on one of our specialist marketing workshops then Helen’s who you need to speak to
Nick Carlile, Board Director & Coconut Company Secretary
- Glean Nick’s experiences of launching and growing the world’s first property franchise, Platinum
Property Partners
- Talk to Nick about advanced sales strategies you could adopt which have generated him millions of pounds of investment across the franchise offering and other business ventures
- Franchisor thinking of selling your franchised business or want to attract capital investment into your franchise? Nick’s your man for pulling together an investment plan and/ or preparing your brand for sale. Nick has generated several million £’s doing exactly this in other businesses.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to pick our brains! Come and see us on Stand H240 or contact us to book a one-to-one meeting with a member of the team.
