From Perth to Portsmouth for one of Drain Doctor’s shining stars
Allan’s military skills equip him well for plumbing career
Allan Rook joined the Drain Doctor franchise team in 1994, bringing with him a wealth of experience and expertise from a career that has taken him around the world several times!
From his Scottish birthplace, Allan’s family moved to a remote part of Western Australia, where he led a gloriously rural early life. Returning to the UK, Allan joined the Army at 18 where he became an aircraft engineer, going on to serve in the UK, Germany, Malaysia and Singapore.
Having honed both his organisational and entrepreneurial skills in the forces, Allan moved back to Australia with his family after leaving the Army, buying and building a highly successful fast food outlet, which gave him a good grounding in delivering great customer service and satisfaction.
Returning to the UK, Allan set up his own plumbing, maintenance and bathroom fitting company, which he ran successfully in the Wiltshire area for several years.
Keen to grow his business and keen to learn more about doing so, Allan came along and took part in one of the Drain Doctor franchisee awareness days at the franchise head office in Peterborough. Allan says:
“I’ve always been a hard worker and very self-reliant and I knew I had what it took to make a real success of my business. But being your own boss means having to become master of a huge range of business skills and, although I’d attended some business courses, the introduction to Drain Doctor showed me just what I would need to really grow and run a business profitably.”
Allan then took the franchise for the Southampton franchise territory area and over the next few years also purchased the Portsmouth franchise territory for Drain Doctor too. He also joined forces in his franchise business with his new wife, Jacqui, who now shares the job of managing the franchise areas with Allan.
Living and working together definitely seems to be a winning formula for Allan and Jacqui who have gone from strength to strength, becoming the first franchise to achieve a five diamond pin award in 2005, with a turnover of £500,000 in less than 30 weeks. That year also ended with a turnover of over £917k with ten technicians and vans.
Allan says:
“Joining the Drain Doctor franchise family and becoming part of The Dwyer Group, one of the world’s largest franchisors, has enabled Jacqui and I to build a business that gives us an enormous amount of professional and personal satisfaction.
“Having enjoyed a long military career, I certainly feel that the discipline, motivation, attention to detail and teamwork skills I honed during my time in the Army have really helped me in running my own business.
“We now run a profitable and successful company that has become a real cornerstone of the community, with a great team and regular customers. Having grown and expanded, with the ongoing support of our franchise consultant, we feel like we really have it all – a thriving business and the freedom to enjoy and make the most of our leisure time.”
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