Revive! East Anglia Shares The Secrets Behind Their 15 Years of Success

Revive! Auto Innovations Cambridge became Revive! East Anglia from the one-and-a-half decade of continual success. What lays behind their success? We spoke with Nathan Holmes, Andy Blackhurst and Adam Holmes to share their secrets.

A history of success

When Nathan Holmes launched Revive! Cambridge, back in 2007, he had one single ambition, building a business and not just being a "man in a van". Now 15 years later, he is the major shareholder in Revive! East Anglia, boasting a varied property portfolio and 16 people employed in ten vans and two workshops.

By 2012 when Nathan had smashed every Revive! sales record and built his fleet of vans, he decided that time was right to take Revive! Cambridge to the next level. He invited employee Andy Blackhurst and good friend Adam Holmes (no relation) to become shareholders and join him in the business. Success struck further, so they bought adjacent territories to create Revive! East Anglia has a whole network of car repairs.

Revive! East Anglia became the first in the network to turnover £1m. As a result, they doubled the number of vans on the road and opened a workshop within the EMG Group dealership’s Cambridge site in 2013. Then a second, larger 6,000 sq ft workshop unit, was acquired in 2018.

Today, Nathan, Adam and Andy just renewed their franchise agreement, with the future looking bright as they inch closer to their £2m. To realise this goal, they invested in diamond cut, wheel repair equipment, two specialist vans and installing a diamond cut lathe in their new workshop, which is neatly located on the outskirts of Cambridge. New equipment that is a testament to the quality of Revive!

In summary, numerous highlights have struck Nathan and his fellow directors. In addition to winning awards at every Revive! annual network conference, in 2016, Revive! East Anglia was named "Franchisee of the Year" and won the Customer Services Award in the prestigious BFA HSBC Franchisee of the Year Awards.

We reached out to the directors

Adam Holmes reflected on their continual success saying, “Winning the BFA Franchisee of the Year has got to be up there in the highlights. Not just for us as a management team but you can’t win a customer service award without all the guys you’ve got working for you. It just shows what level of care and repair we are delivering."

“Another standout moment was being the first million-pound business. When we first started it really was a man in a van operation. Fifteen years ago you maybe had three or four vans on the road and perhaps did £200,000 a year, but to suddenly get to that milestone was massive. We really need to push on now and try to be the first £2m Revive! business.”

Adaption is the key to success

To not only survive but thrive, adapting to the ever-changing marketplace is one of the keys to East Anglia’s success. For example, Covid helped drive retail sales, whilst the shortage of new cars led to dealerships focusing more on the second-hand market with older vehicles on the forecourt needing more repairs. Similarly, meeting the changing demands and trends, electric vehicles will become an increasing part of the team’s workload. As Adam reflects, “for anybody in the repair industry the next five or ten years are going to be massive, but after all, whether it’s a Tesla with all these fancy bits or an automated car, they will still get crashed, still get scrapes, still, need to be repaired. It will be business as usual - we just have to make sure that we keep up to date.”

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What does Revive!'s head office provide?

And that is where Revive! head office comes in. As the individual territories grew, Revive!’s head office team constantly evolved and adapted to ensure it stay ahead of the industry technology and meet the needs of each franchisee. Finding success through personalised business strategy for each franchisee.

The team at East Anglia value the level of support and training they received from head office over the years, particularly within IT. Revive! HQ has its own IT department, which developed the Revive! app and a bespoke backend Management Information System (MIS). This technology gives franchisees the tools they need to automate the administration of the entire repair process from quotation to invoicing with up-to-date business data and performance statistics. Ultimately, to design winning growth strategies for the changing climates.

It comes down to sales

What motivates the team at Revive! East Anglia to do better and better? One thing – healthy competition!

Adam explains: "Monthly sales figures for every Revive! territory are shared by head office with the network. East Anglia keeps a keen eye on their fellow franchisees' performance and always wants to be ahead. Revive! has a great franchise model and everything else that goes with it, but sometimes it’s that drive of competition that makes you want to be the best. Whether that’s being the best with customer service or quality of repair it’s competition from the network that motivates us to be always at the top.”

Summing up, Nathan added, “When I first set up the franchise I had ambitions to build a bigger business and now all those years later I am very proud of the successful, award-winning business we have become.

“The support we have received from Revive! head office and the quality of training we have been able to access as part of the network have played a big part in helping us get to where we are now. Revive! is a fantastic brand and we’re proud to be part of it.”

For just £50,000 in total investment and third-party financial help, you can become one of Revive! Auto Innovations' franchisees. As it is now, Revive! spans the entirety of Britain with 55 outlets, enjoying a demand of 18.75 million cars that needs repair.

So whoosh up to the "REQUEST INFORMATION" button and begin driving your franchise journey to success!