At Diamond Logistics, once upon a time, we used to franchise our Network Partner opportunity to people outside of the industry, who wanted to take advantage of our 20 plus years of expertise and start their own logistics business.
But franchising really wasn’t for us.
That’s not to say that it’s not for everybody. In fact, we have lots of courier franchise competitors in the market such as Mailbox, RDS global, World options, and InXpress. But it really wasn’t for us.
Let me give you six reasons why.
1. The business owner must take responsibility
You have to be able to sell – and take responsibly for your results. There can be a mentality in franchisees of looking out of the window for responsibility – not looking in the mirror. Often this is people who are taking the plunge into self-employment for the first time and are not used to the daily motivation, grit and motivation needed to establish a new business.
A Diamond Network partnership opportunity does not mean you buy a van and or warehouse and you open the doors and the parcels and products flood in.
Not at all.
It’s effectively the opportunity to SELL and OPERATE locally. So unless you are a salesperson, or partner with someone that is, this is not the opportunity for you.
2. We prefer a bit of experience
Also at Diamond you need logistics experience. The reality for most courier franchises is they are cool with you having zero experience – whereas we are not.
Our business offering is quite complex including a three-service offering and we found that people outside of the industry had far too long a learning curve for them to get up and running and training quickly.
You’ve got to have an existing logistics business, whether it be courier, carrier, APC Network member, haulier or Palletways member.
3. Our ambitions are different
We don’t make profit from selling Network Partnerships. Our profit comes much longer-term, such as when our network partners are invoicing more than £50,000 per month in fact.
Our interest is very much in making sure we train people up and get them going and that they build long term sustainable businesses. Not just flogging a £30k franchise to pocket the fee.
The key reason we decided to go down the route of Network Partnership for Diamond was so we could quickly build a network to enable every business in the UK to access the logistics services they need to deliver for their business.
For us, it’s always been about building the network.
4. We give geographical exclusivity
We believe this is important if you are an ambitious courier company owner.
If you are, then you will want to be able to sell without restraint in your local area. For the first year, we will give you geographical exclusivity, and as long as you continue to meet your performance targets, you will retain that exclusivity moving forward.
5. We have some great technology
A massive key difference is our technology. We own it, we developed it – and it’s the only one of its type in the UK with 3 services in one fabulous platform.
We’ve invested millions in state-of-the-art tech and it uniquely twins experience (30 years now!) with innovation.
I’ve seen our competitor’s software and frankly it’s either owned by someone else – which we used to do but it frightened us from a business continuity perspective – or it’s not invested in because the owners are very keen to make a profit first.
We were able to negate profit for a very long time whilst we developed our software because we were absolutely focused on ensuring that our software met not only the needs of our business when we started creating it (which was over five years ago now) but also the ongoing requirements of what we deem the future of logistics to be in the UK. Local fulfilment and delivery.
Our platform uniquely combines Same Day, Overnight and International carriers, as well as eCommerce fulfilment. It includes a warehouse management system with full storage inventory and stock synch plus it integrates with all the major marketplaces.
It’s a huge platform the likes of which you’ve not really seen.
6. We don’t recruit just anybody
Please note I say recruit – not sell to.
You have got to be able to emulate our values, be keen, understand what we do and don’t do, and generally be able to be part of the Diamond family.
It’s pretty Marmite – you’ll either like it or hate it.
But it is a long-term relationship we are setting up here with you acting on our behalf for potentially decades so who we recruit is extremely important. Not just anyone makes it at Diamond. If you do not have a logistics brain or have not got considerable experience in the logistics industry, this is not the franchise type opportunity for you.
If you think a Diamond Network Partnership could be the opportunity to diversify your courier business, get in touch with our team today – Call 0333 567 5888, email npsales@diamondlogistics.co.uk or complete the below Contact Form for more information:
