Affectionately dubbed 'the Godfather', Trevor Williams has clocked up a lengthy 11 years as London House Manchester and Stockport franchisee and has signed the franchise contract for a third term.

Retiring from the police force after 31 years Trevor says he wanted to "keep the grey matter going" by working for himself. With a wide range of skills and an enquiring mind, a London House franchise was just the business he was searching for. "The police are trained to do a lot of different tasks, in particularly working with people to get results and I've applied this to my business," he reasons. "The London House franchise appealed because it is very straightforward, the work is good and the company is easy to work with."

London House provides a professional range of investigative services, such as internal theft and fraud checks, counter-money laundering and witness statements, missing persons enquiries, and surveillance, for commercial and private customers. Trevor observes: "Over the years London House has broadened its work aspect attracting more and varied clients to the benefit of everyone at London House."

Most recently, London House has appointed New Business Development Director Mark Blaber to drive the national profile of the company and to build the business coming in on national accounts, which is then passed to franchisees in the relevant postcodes. National account clients currently include Abbey National Plc, Barclaycard, Dixons stores Group and HSBC.

Although Trevor's initial training was several years ago, he recalls: "The initial training was second-to-none and gave me the confidence to run my business. There will always be problems in any new business so London House are always available to guide franchisees and to get a good result -they've never let me down. I'm working for myself but with a team in the background, which is reassuring."

With well over 100 regular customers and a strong referral rate, Trevor has built an easily expandable business that he aims to sell on in the near future. He eagerly points out that franchisees do not need investigative experience to join London House. "Anybody with an enquiring mind, professionalism and a certain amount of tenacity can be a franchisee," he says. "I really enjoy this business, it's exciting and you meet a lot of interesting people. I've never looked back."