move on, which is quite ironic really because I sold it to him, so I approached him and said, ‘Do you want to sell up?’ He said he did, so we struck a deal.” The benefits were immediately apparent. “Straight away our service levels went up because there were no border issues regarding passing jobs between franchises. I thought, there’s some mileage in this.” Another opportunity for Jason to seize was presented the following year when a local competitor shut up shop. Jason swept up its remaining customers and saw his business go up two or threefold. Jason continued as the owner of a dual franchise for around four years before the owner of Gloucester, off whom he’d bought the Worcester business, decided to sell the second of his Pirtek centres. “That was a big step for us taking on a three van centre (it now has four) and covering a vast area,” Jason says.
The practicalities of managing and staying in touch with all his centres was challenging. The first two years were difficult. Where I was split between two centres, now I was split between three, which has taught me a lot.” It took a couple of years to really get on top of things, Jason says, “but service levels go up because of cooperation and not having any of the border issues. Now they’ve had their best year, probably ever.” Since that time, Jason has increased the number of vans on the franchises, which cover a vast area extending into Wales. “I made my best engineer there – Alan Simpkins – centre manager when the old manager left. “He’s been with Pirtek for 14 years and we had a frank discussion about his strengths and weaknesses before I appointed him. He’s learned about stock control and managing people fast.”
Stock control is critical but easily overlooked, says Jason. “Stock can get in a bit of a mess but Alan’s excellent with stock control. He also has especially good relationships with his customers due to being on the vans locally for so long. He’s probably a good reason why the centre does so well.” With Jason proving the viability of running three franchises alongside each other, he was contacted to ask whether he would be interested in taking on South Wales. His initial reaction was that this was a step too far. Wales was another country, after all, but he heard them out. The Newport and Swansea franchises were owned by a third party, which meant the potential for divided loyalties. “I knew that the previous setup should be improved, but I had an in depth look at the figures and prospects and came back to Pirtek UK and said yes.”
Having expanded to such a degree, Jason says he runs the South Wales franchises
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