In Dec 2021, after fourteen highly successful years as TaxAssist Accountants, Martin and Liz Tapley sold their franchise to new franchisees David and Adele Pearce. Here they share their inspiring story.
“For us to have essentially stumbled across TaxAssist proved to be the single most fortuitous discovery during our working lives.
"A lot has happened and a lot has changed since we started out as TaxAssist franchisees in 2007. Our boys were 7 and 5 years old and Liz, who had had a career break of nearly 8 years, had never encountered a mouse – at least not the type of mouse required when working on a laptop - so the training proved to be beneficial from day one!
“Within 6 months we proudly opened our first “start-up” shopfront (the franchise’s 50th at the time) and set about building our client base.
“Building a profitable business, for us, required both patience and perseverance in equal measure. We also needed the support and experience of a franchise model and a franchise team; and will remain life-long fans of the partnership we discovered, the team we worked with and the model we invested in – TaxAssist Accountants. Looking back we both feel that the support team have demonstrated a fair bit of “patience and perseverance” with ourselves! But maybe that’s the key point. It worked. And it continues to work. Trust the model, trust the team and the results eventually speak for themselves. Along the way our learning curves have been steep. Not always steady and not always enjoyable at the time; but the satisfaction and the pride always came at a later stage.
"One of the franchisor’s greatest strengths has been the recognition, genuine understanding and empathy shown to each franchisee’s differing needs and motivations. And for us the team delivered flawlessly throughout our near 14 years within the network. The team have been helpful and courteous throughout. So good at knowing when to let us be; and so good at joining alongside when we asked for a helping hand. The outcome being a business that had grown sufficiently in size for both of us to know it was time to exit. Because, in another sense, we had proven to ourselves what we needed to prove.
“Nearly 15 years later, and 1.9 miles from our original location, we are now happy to hand over the reins to David and Adele and a fabulous team, who have helped build a 400+ client base – and a brand that has become trusted, well-established and well known within and around the Poole area.
“So a big thank you to everyone involved in our journey. For us this was, without doubt, the most rewarding time in our careers.”
