Virtually yours
Do you want to work from home providing admin support to a whole range of clients? The Smart PA Group has global aspirations since its model of providing remotely based support to businesses means its reach is international. It’s about to launch in the US and is looking for partners in the Asia.
The group was set up around three years ago, but was always intended to be a franchise. The first two years were taken up with establishing a quality control model, a successful business which could be franchised. It has revenue of £7,000 per month and returns a gross profit of £4,000 per month.
The original idea was to provide both administrative support to businesses and domestic support, such as executive shopping. Andrew Wright, one of the founders along with Sarra Bejaoui, said the first years allowed the company to learn from its mistakes, invest in research and hone a successful business model. “I could see the real growth was in servicing the business community, providing administrative support on a remote basis,” he says.
A father of two, he has worked mainly overseas, in the US and South America, selling franchise licence technology for many years.
He says the company could have launched as a franchise earlier, but wanted to fine tune what it had to offer, including its manual and training programme. It calls its franchisees partners. “Once they get through our extensive training programme, we believe we are setting up partnerships,” says Andrew.
International ambitions
Smart PA aims to have 60 partnerships in the UK and around 200 in the US. Andrew says it does not ask for a lot of money upfront – the franchise and two lots of three-week training sessions cost £2,400 plus ongoing support and a content management system – but is keen to get top quality partners. “It’s about setting up a business in a box,” says Andrew, “but we want it to be top quality and for our partners to be successful. We are talking to large globalised companies about what Smart PA Group can offer their companies so quality is vital.”
He says the company advertises on Workingmums because it provides very good potential partners. Many of the women have years of experience, but want the kind of flexibility to be able to run a business from home and to get a good work life balance. Andrew says some applicants want to start part time and ease up to full time. “They can grow the business to the level they want,” he adds.
The organisation expects its partners to earn a basic of £50,000 per year growing to £100,000 per annum.
Potential partners fill in an application form and are told what it is to be a Smart PA partner, both what is expected of them and what they get in return. There is then a Q & A session on the phone and face to face, followed by the training. Partners don’t need to have any PA experience as the training sessions show them how to provide all the services they offer, such as doing Powerpoint presentations. Many of those who have applied are entrepreneurs or have been high-level business executives, says Andrew. “They all have different skill sets and experience. There is no one perfect profile that will guarantee that they will be successful partners, according to Andrew. He has been impressed with the professionalism of working mums’ applicants. “One woman had a list of 50 questions for us. Such feedback inspires us,” he says.
Find out more about the Smart PA Frachise at the Workingmums' Franchise Zone.
