{"id":17329,"date":"2023-01-16T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T09:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/?p=17329"},"modified":"2023-01-16T07:54:17","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T07:54:17","slug":"family-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/family-values\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Values"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

How two sisters who decided to invest in a travel franchise together have become closer and more successful than they ever dreamed possible<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starting a business can be hard. But going into business with a family member can be even trickier.<\/p>\n

But for Lesley Robertson and her sister Nicole, who joined The Travel Franchise in February 2019, the partnership has such incredible benefits that they have no regrets.<\/p>\n

Not only has their company become a huge successful, but it has led to them becoming closer than ever\u2026 literally living two doors away from each other in Cardiff.<\/p>\n

For years the sisters had dreamt about ways they could work together, but they didn\u2019t know where to begin.<\/p>\n

Until, that is, they attended one of The Travel Franchise\u2019s Discovery Meetings in Heathrow, where the company showcases its business and explains how franchisees, regardless of travel experience, can train to become homeworking travel consultants operating under the Not Just Travel brand.<\/p>\n

Having listened to co-founders, Paul Harrison and Steve Witt talk, the sisters realised that investing in a travel franchise could give them an exciting \u2018business in a box\u2019 and one they could shape to be their own.<\/p>\n

Nicole looked at Lesley and said: \u201cThis is it! This is what we\u2019ve been waiting for!\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesley, who had previously managed estate agents and worked in retail management, trained with Nicole, a former sales director in fashion wholesales and launched their Not Just Travel homeworking travel agency from their respected homes \u2013 Lesley in Cardiff, Nicole in London.<\/p>\n

Within four months they had achieved over \u00a3140k in sales, despite only working part time and after nine months they decided to go full time, working around school runs.<\/p>\n

Both sisters attended Not Just Travel\u2019s supplier training days and listened to their Business Development Manager\u2019s advice \u2013 a support service that comes free along with the franchise.<\/p>\n

They also carried their business cards with them every day, promoting the business at their schools, kids\u2019 clubs and hairdressers. Their hard work paid off and recently they\u2019ve been celebrating several big single bookings and have high hopes for 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people say I\u2019m mad,\u201d says Lesley. \u201cBut Nicole and I have always been incredibly close, even when we were living apart. I couldn\u2019t imagine being in business with anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesley admits that to work with a family member it\u2019s essential to have complete trust in each other. \u201cThere\u2019s no clock watching. You\u2019re never thinking, \u2018I\u2019ve worked more hours than them\u2019, as you know implicitly, they work as hard as you do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my children are ill, Nicole picks up the extra work, and vice versa. We cover each other\u2019s holidays, school events and fam trips.\u201d<\/p>\n

Setting up in business together has been so successful, in fact, that Nicole and her family have moved to Cardiff to be closer to Lesley and ended up buying a house just two doors down from Lesley!<\/p>\n

The sisters are now more of a double act than ever before and enjoy attending Not Just Travel\u2019s optional training sessions together and find working together even more fun and sociable than they ever imagined.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are really glad we chose The Travel Franchise \u2013 it\u2019s a great company to work for,\u201d says Lesley.\u00a0\u201cMy advice to other would-be travel consultants is to be prepared for a lot of hard work and be patient. It will be worth it, as you get what you put in!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How two sisters who decided to invest in a travel franchise together have become closer and more successful than they ever dreamed possible Starting a business can be hard. But going into business with a family member can be even trickier. But for Lesley Robertson and her sister Nicole, who joined The Travel Franchise in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":17330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1490,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-travel-franchise","category-leisure-franchises"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Nicole-and-Lesley-Robertson-lr-1-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}