X-Press Legal Services
Searching For Homes
As appears in Business Franchise, March 2010 publication, Alison Ledger interviewes X-Press Legal Services Franchise Development Director, Dan Archer.
AL What do you attribute the robust performance to?
DA More remortgage and repossession work has helped as has the government’s Home Information Pack initiative but the majority of the increase can be accounted for by the proactive approach that our franchise owners have taken to building their business during the downturn and their ability to control overheads.
AL Is cost control easier for your business?
DA In some areas yes. As the franchisees work from home office environments and if they have employees they can be “out workers”, managing the overheads and profitability is therefore easier. Our business in relatively unique in this respect in that some of our franchisees start running a small business with a view to keeping it small and others have the aspiration to build a bigger business. Many lower investment level franchise systems have a ceiling but for our business it can start small and be developed into a substantial business.
AL Are their other benefits to home office working?
DA There are both benefits and disadvantages. The flexibility of working when it suits best would be a major advantage. Some of our franchise owners break the day to deal with child care or to suit their lifestyle. One of the drawbacks is that the office is always very close and we are aware that a distinction has to be drawn between home and office life.
AL So what experience do the franchisees need to be successful?
DA It is a common misapprehension that people looking at our business need to have a legal background. The truth here is that the clients are the ones with the legal experience whether it is a property lawyer or the legal team of a financial institution. We are not looking for trained solicitors. The skills that best suit our business are an ability to follow the system, a keen eye for detail and good interpersonal skills. It is an interesting observation that good sales people tend to be better at communication and not so good with detail, whilst detail focused people sometimes struggle with telling the client what they can do for them. We work with both sets of skills to supplement sales skills or data collation skills where appropriate with training and support.
AL What form does the training take?
DA We have a two week residential training course at our academy within Head Office. During the course we cover the legislation which underpins our industry together with the technical/operational knowledge needed to run the business and the sales and marketing process.
AL Is the sales process difficult?
DA Very early in my career somebody close to me summed up the combined knowledge of my marketing qualifications as “what you say times the number of times you say it”, whilst it was painful at the time he was actually spot on. For our business hard selling does not work. Every potential client is already buying what we can provide from another source so all we can ever do is give them a reason to try our service. We provide a framework for our franchisees to follow and support this with online tools, direct marketing, marketing collateral and comprehensive on territory support. As with any part of the business enthusiasm in following the system brings results and you do get out what you put in.
AL After the franchisees have collated the data that the solicitor needs how is it stored?
DA We have a bespoke software package which manages the client relationships and also the cases that we are working on. It is a vital tool as the business is a volume driven consultancy-type service. The software combines the data that has been gathered and produces a standardised report. We are required to keep copies of our reports for 7 years and the archive system within our software is connected to our off site servers for secure storage.
AL You have mentioned the clients, are they just solicitors?
DA We work predominantly for legal firms but we also do work for Estate Agents and Auction Houses, Financial Institutions, Property Developers and Home Information Pack Providers. The high levels of repeat business and relatively low number of clients help the franchisees to focus on managing the client’s account. When each client could order between 10-50 times per month even the most successful X-Press Legal Services franchise owners have less than 50 customers.
AL So what does the future hold for X-Press Legal Services?
DA The business celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and the last 24 months have presented more challenges than the previous 8 years combined. Thankfully the only major change that we face in the next 12 months is anything brought about by a change of government. The strength of the 42 franchisees that we have operating, in coping with the last 24 months, is an inspiration to me and should be one to anybody considering being awarded one of the 18 vacant territories that we have. Our performance together during the recession is remarkable and whatever the future brings we feel that the business is uniquely placed to thrive as the economy recovers.
