Owners from 40 franchises across the United States gathered in sunny Florida Feb. 29 and March 1 for Pirtek USA’s 10th Annual Franchisee Conference at the Crown Plaza Resort.

The weekend started off with the opening cocktail reception held Friday night. Pirtek’s existing and future franchise owners attended the event and were able to mingle with each other, representatives from Pirtek’s corporate office and participants of the vendor showcase. Each year, Pirtek invites a limited number of vendors to attend the conference and showcase their products to the franchise owners. This year’s participants included BB&T Insurance Services, Equipment Data Associates, Gevity HR, Newton RBS Lynk and World Wide Fittings.

This year’s conference entitled “Create Your Future,” focused on franchise owners growing their business by using the experiences of long established Pirtek franchises. The more experienced franchise owners gave presentations on how they grew sales, what tools work best, following a proved and tested system as well as examples what not to do. These powerful presentations were well received by the other franchise owners because they were based on true life experiences. Some challenges faced by franchise owners include battling three hurricanes back-to-back in 2005 and having a majority of the staff leave on the same day. Recommendations for innovating marketing, sales plans and managing service technicians also were discussed.

Part of the day was dedicated to the popular round table discussions, which serve as workshops for focusing on specific topics related to managing a Pirtek franchise. A Pirtek USA team member explains, discusses and has a question and answer session on relevant topics. Some of these topics were building effectiveness in your business, creating a great sales plan, accelerating your receivables, climbing the mountain, and turing a center around.

The 10th Annual Awards Dinner held Saturday night allowed recognition of franchise owners who have done an outstanding job throughout 2007. Some of the awards included the Mentor of the Year awarded to Ken Adair, who owns two Pirtek franchises in Elk Grove Village and South Holland in Chicago. Rookie of the Year was awarded to Gabe and Erin Gilliam, franchise owners of Pirtek Kent in Seattle. Franchise of the Year went to David Johnson, owner of Pirtek Plano in Dallas.

“David has been a role model franchise owner,” said Gwyn O’Kane, vice president of franchise development. “David epitomizes what a great franchise owner can achieve by following the system. David is building a successful franchise and he is now recognized by his fellow franchise owners as a great mentor and advocate of the Pirtek System.”

“Getting our franchise owners together for this annual event is an important part of our franchise program," O’Kane said. “It is a wonderful opportunity for everyone involved in Pirtek to share, learn and celebrate being part of a network that now includes over 300 locations in 13 different countries. The feedback we received this year was unanimous that this was the best conference ever and I believe it was because we had the best speakers ever. After all, who better to present than Pirtek franchise owners themselves sharing their experiences.”

For more information, please visit http://www.pirtek.com.au/

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