PROVINCIAL EXPANSION

Multi-showroom Kitchen Studio franchisee Ryan Dickins believes the key to being a successful business owner is to have a skilled team behind you. “The other essential is to have a brilliant franchise system,” he says.

After he left school Ryan was employed for several years in the golf industry. “Sport was everything to me at school,” he says, “and I played every one available. If you’d told me I would end up owning a business designing kitchens it would never have been in my wheelhouse! My father is a chartered accountant with his own business and something of a mentor to me, so I think business is in the family blood. A franchise appealed to me because there are so many different advantages to the business: proven systems, big time marketing, lots of experience to draw on, and people who’ve done it before. You are not out on your own.”

Having decided on franchising, Ryan discovered the Kitchen Studio outlet in Palmerston North was for sale. There was a slight problem – he didn’t know the first thing about designing or building kitchens. “I had no joinery or cabinetmaking skills or background,” he laughs. “We came to an arrangement where I bought into the business over 18 months and spent that time learning everything from the bottom up! That was 2019, and since then I’ve built up a team of people I can trust and depend upon, with all the skills we need.”

Solid reputation

Kitchen Studio has an impressive list of statistics behind its operation. The franchise has been running for over 40 plus years and has just been voted the nation’s Readers Digest Trusted Brands winner for Kitchen Designers and Manufacturers for the tenth year running. In their forty years the company estimates they have renovated over 50,000 kitchens. 

“We were the first company to offer in-home consultations with our top kitchen designers,” says Kitchen Studio CEO Dawn Engelbrecht. “That’s now an essential part of our service, along with our Total Trust Deposit Guarantee, which protects client deposits in the unlikely event of franchisee failure, and our Total Trust 10-year transferable warranty, reinforcing confidence in every kitchen installed.

“We’ve had great success in the main centres,” says Dawn, “with client demand building so high that we’re now expanding further into the regions and provinces of New Zealand, opening up new territories and opportunities for existing and new franchisees.”

You have the honours

Ryan Dickins was among the first to take advantage of a new opportunity with Kitchen Studio. “Twenty minutes up the road is the town of Feilding, with some of the biggest saleyards in the country,” he says. “It’s absolutely crowded on market days, so it made good sense to open a satellite showroom there. It’s much more convenient for visitors to pop into our showroom on a market day when they are already there. We really are ideally placed.”

After seven years, Ryan retains his passion for the industry. “I can see myself continuing to grow with Kitchen Studio ten years down the line,” he says. “We have a self-renewing market, an amazing, highly organised franchise, and the company does a really cool gala awards dinner. In fact, I recently tied first for the Kitchen Studio Franchisee of the Year award!” 

“Ryan has been the first to expand Kitchen Studio into a more provincial town,” says Dawn Engelbrecht. “It’s already proved to be the success we expected, and more franchisees will be doing the same. We have a number of exclusive territories available, from around $150,000. If you’d like to join our network, the time has never been better – give me a call to find out more.”  

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