Lincolnshire businesswoman Julie Taylor is “on a high” thanks to a colleague who secretly entered her for a prestigious franchise industry award.
Julie, who is a Director of Franchise Resales – which has clients countrywide – is excited after being named a finalist in the Ambassador of the Year category of the EWIF (Encouraging Women into Franchising Awards). The winner will be announced at a virtual ceremony on March 11.
After more than 20 years in the industry, Julie remains as passionate as ever about making more women aware of the brilliant opportunities that investing in a franchise can offer them.
As well as talking about the amazing number of brands that might appeal to them, she explains how flexible a franchise can be, whether they choose to be an owner-manager or have ambitions to eventually manage a chain of branded outlets.
Julie loves to help franchisees to get their businesses off to a great start, by offering training and expert advice on how they can grow their sales.
She was nominated for the competition, which is run by What Franchise? magazine, by colleague and Marketing Manager Teri Wright, who wanted to recognise Julie’s hard work in promoting branded businesses as well as the way in which she has developed Franchise Resales by appointing more women to its team.
Teri said: “Once the industry was heavily dominated by male franchisees, but we have seen growing interest from women keen to take the franchise route into business ownership. Julie is fantastic at raising awareness of the benefits.
“Franchise Resales is seeing good growth and Julie has brought extra “balance” to the business in recent months, with the appointment of more females – creating a superb mix of dedicated staff keen to help all potential clients.”
Julie, who is also a director of sister business The Runo Group, was thrilled to hear of her Awards nomination.
“I’m absolutely delighted to be a finalist in the Ambassador category. I understand this year’s awards have attracted a lot of entries. I’m sure I’m up against some stiff competition – I’ll just have to contain my excitement until the winners are announced!”, she said.
In recent years, there have been many initiatives to encourage women to become involved, not only in franchising, but the UK business population at large. The BFA (The British Franchise Association) and EWIF are just two organisations helping to get the word out.
Julie began her career in the industry by working with RE/MAX, before going on to have various roles within retail and property franchising. When she decided to launch her own business, Franchise Resales was one of her first customers.
After working with Founder Derick Simpson in various roles, her son Michael joined the business in 2012 – taking over Julie’s role, when she moved up the ladder. 2015 marked another milestone when Julie and Michael headed-up a management buy-in becoming the Leadenham business’ new directors.
