Michael and Lesley Cairnduff discuss their OSCAR franchise journey.

“It all started back in 2017. We already knew the OSCAR brand as we had been giving it to our dogs for 20 years or so! We received a letter from our local advisors in Jan 2017 explaining that they were selling the business and the timing was a near perfect fit. Michael was coming up to retirement in February (after nearly 40 years in financial services), I was in a demanding job and we were both ready for a more flexible lifestyle and change of pace.

“To begin with it was surprisingly challenging! Getting to know an existing customer base certainly took some doing. Creating responsive customer records helped us enormously. Getting to know our customers well is one of the most rewarding parts of the job and means we can work with them to make sure that we deliver exactly what they need.

“It’s fair to say that being here in Co. Down means we are not able to ‘pop in’ to Head Office at Preston, but the team there is always responsive – and small enough to be flexible too – so we simply work through logistics together.”

Michael explains, “We’re not just about selling pet food – we genuinely want to help our customers give their pets what they need. When personal circumstances are challenging, we make sure we go out of our way to help them as best we can: for example, offering flexible payment plans and 10% off to existing customers who are key workers during the COVID pandemic.

“In the last 18 months, OSCAR has made great strides in helping franchisees with their marketing strategies and ideas and this has been very beneficial. COVID-19 has certainly had an impact on the traditional methods of marketing, but social media and online sales have really taken off and this has been an important learning curve for us. Sharing marketing knowledge and being social media ‘savvy’ is definitely an advantage.

“If you love pets as much as we do it’s a job that’s full of joy and nice conversations! Pet owners tend to be lovely people and it is an absolute privilege to help them and see their pets thrive.”