When Richard Shaw and Oliver Wood met as school kids, no-one could have predicted that many years later, after separate, successful careers, they’d enter into business together.

But that’s what’s happened and thanks to some twists of fate and complementary business skills, Oliver and Richard are backing easyStorage Huddersfield, offering a unique self storage service to areas like Huddersfield, Halifax, Wakefield, Barnsley, Bradford and Leeds (west and south Yorkshire).

Richard has taken on the franchise, and Oliver, an experienced franchisee, has invested and has become a board-level director with a very active part to play.

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Having achieved his degree in business studies, Richard, who lives in picturesque Scissett, worked for 10 years in the corporate supply chain for both Unilever and for Asda. He’s passed his Class 2 Driver's license which will allow him to drive the easyVan. After university, he went travelling where he fell in love with New Zealand, which boasts mountains, lakes, forests and beaches. (To this Southerner, that sounds rather like Yorkshire!) However, he describes himself as ‘a home body’ and plans to stay put in Yorkshire. And just to prove it, he and wife Alex had their first child in January of this year. 2023 – new business, new baby - is a year we don’t think he’ll forget in a hurry. (It would be remiss of me not to mention that the family is, in turn, owned by two cats, Tinker(bell) and Baloo.)

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Oliver lives in historic Skelmanthorpe, home of ‘Scat Lass’ Jodie Whittaker (the Doctor Who actress). Other than a spell learning to become a ski instructor in Canada as a youngster, he has remained a strictly ‘local boy’. He started his first franchise, one of three, at the age of 19. In typically Oliver understated manner, he describes it as a ‘steep learning curve’. He must have risen well to the challenge as they sold him another three franchise areas.

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It’s that taste for franchising that leads him to want to support Richard’s plan for a new business. Together they met easyStorage at a franchise show where the team and the bright orange van impressed them enough to want to take the next step, a ‘Discovery Day’, where they found out more. The distinctive branding, the recognisable name, the finances, the technology and the team all fed into the mix to give them the confidence that this was the right business for them.

As good friends, they’ve had the honest conversations that business partners need to have (the ‘what if’s) and are very clear about what each brings to the business. With his logistics expertise, Richard is the day-to-day, full-time face of easyStorage Huddersfield. Oliver’s business skills and understanding will be brought into play for back-office things like business development.

It’s clear that Oliver likes things to be very orderly. This is perfect for his easyStorage role but must be a challenge for him and his wife Lucy who share their Skelmanthorpe home with their two young daughters.

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Before the easyStorage Huddersfield business was up and running, Richard and Oliver flew out to Monaco for this year’s franchise meeting. There they met Stelios (Sir Stelios Haaji Ioannou of ‘easy’ brand fame) at the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation. The foundation runs in countries where Stelios has lived (UK, Monaco, Greece and Cyprus) and it exists to help local communities in crisis.

They also met many existing franchisees, and were able to learn from others’ experiences and understand some of the ‘coal face’ challenges, as well as organising some live ‘on the job’ training with Navin, the franchisee in neighbouring Derby.

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They laughed when I suggested that ‘what happened in Monaco stays in Monaco’, but it’s clear that the entire team worked hard, played hard, had lots of fun and learned loads.

And having networked there with their colleagues, they know that they have a support network, one that is unique to franchising. Franchisees benefit from sharing experiences and sharing each other’s successes. They depend on each other to maintain the company’s good name.

Somehow you just know that this likeable, enthusiastic but pragmatic Yorkshire team will be a success. Having set everything up over August, they plan to be at the 150th Anniversary Penistone Agricultural Show on September 9. Look them up: they’ll be the ones having fun, introducing people to the big easyOrange easyVan!

To book storage at around half the price of traditional storage, please call 01484 627595 for a no obligation quote.