Your chance to explore a wealth of franchise opportunities

The British & International Franchise Exhibition is open from 10am each day, closing at 5pm on Friday, March 18, and 4pm on Saturday, March 19.

This year’s British & International Franchise Exhibition will feature a host of new and leading franchised businesses, five theatres featuring valuable and informative free seminars, plus advice from keynote speakers and experts. Together these provide a comprehensive source of ideas and information to suit every interest, knowledge level, skill and budget.

A good first stop for visitors to the show is the Franchise Starting Point where industry experts can help anyone who needs guidance to plan their day and ensure they make the most of the business opportunities at the show. Each session is tailored to visitors’ needs to meet their requirements, providing answers to all their key questions before they set off on the hunt for that perfect business.

Visitors considering franchising as their next career move should head to the Careers Clinic. A new feature at this year’s event, the clinic will be home to experts from Personal Career Management to help visitors further their careers by benchmarking their skills and discussing options to provide a clear, focused and realistic career plan.

One of the most popular features of the exhibition is the highly successful Franchise Owner Panel, which due to the high level of demand, has been extended to take place over both days. There are frequent sessions providing an important opportunity to hear the realities of franchising from franchise owners themselves. Visitors can hear about their experiences, and receive valuable advice on the transition period from employee to a self-employed franchise owner.

Another important feature for those keen to develop a franchise business is the Business Plan Clinic sponsored by Lloyds TSB Commercial, which provides a key opportunity for franchise owners to gain free expert advice on this vital subject as well as have all their funding queries answered.

There is also an extensive conference and seminar programme, which covers all the important franchise-related topics. They range from the popular British Franchise Association seminars such as An Introduction To Franchising, to sessions on Families In Franchising, High-level Investment Franchising and Franchise Resales.

Several distinguished keynote speakers will be addressing the Franchise and Growing Your Own Business events including Duncan Berry from Choice Hotels, who will explain how international franchising can benefit your brand. Mr Berry is Chief Executive, UK, Choice Hotels Europe, the UK subsidiary of Choice Hotels International, the global hotel group behind the Comfort, Quality and Clarion brands and one of the largest and most successful lodging franchisors in the world. Another key speaker is Richard Forte, Chief Operations Officer at McDonald’s UK, who has responsibility for managing the day-to-day running of all 1,200 UK restaurants and his seminar will cover Why Franchise Owners Are Well-placed To Weather The Economic Storm.

The British & International Franchise Exhibition boasts a far greater range of exhibiting companies from overseas than in previous years, and the list of exhibitors includes new and established leading ethical franchising companies including Bar Sport Franchise UK Ltd, Dream Doors, Explorer Travel, Laptop Learning, Ovenclean, and Signs Express.

As the only London exhibition endorsed by the bfa, visitors to the show can be confident about all the franchise opportunities presented to them as it will only feature companies that have been bfa-accredited in accordance with its code of ethical franchising. This means all companies at the event have proven to be a viable and reputable enterprise.

Visitors to the event are impressed by what they find. Helen and James Spall from Ascot who visited the exhibition in 2010, summed this up when they said: “The structure of the exhibition’s initiatives and seminar programme is based on ‘what you need to know’, so it gives people a real chance to be introduced to the industry. At the end of the day, the franchise industry is all about running a business and that’s about dealing with people, so being able to meet face-to-face is great.

“We’ve got more out of today, including a one-hour speaker session, than we have from hours of researching, appointment bookings and looking through company listings on the internet.”

“The British & International Franchise Exhibition is a one-stop shop for anyone interested in a career in franchising. The wide variety of features at the show offer valuable advice from experts and allow visitors to get right in to the heart of franchising and learn about developing a career in the industry.”

Adrian Goodsell, Franchise Exhibitions Manager at Venture Marketing Group, organisers of The British & International Franchise Exhibition.

For the latest news and updates about the British & International Franchise Exhibition, follow the exhibition on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ukfranchising, join The Franchise Exhibitions Group on Linked In or become a fan of the FranchiseInfo Group on Facebook.

Future Events:

The Scottish Franchise Exhibition, Thistle Hotel, Glasgow, May 19
The British Franchise Exhibition, Manchester Central, Manchester, June 10 to 11
The National Franchise Exhibition, NEC, Birmingham, September 30 to October 1