A Fastway courier has a guaranteed income of £700 a week for the first 15 weeks and successful depot owned franchisees can be making upwards of £75,000 by year two to three.
Fastway operates with a system of pre-paid envelopes that the courier franchisee sells to companies. You are then remunerated by the regional master franchisee for these as well as pickups and deliveries.
How much you earn as a regional franchisee will depend on many things: the size of the region, number of people working with you, the state of the depot when you took it over. Ten or 12 of the established franchisees in the ANC network will enjoy an income of as much as £250,000 this year.
After two years, however, Alex Reyner of ANC Manchester puts any profits back into the business. "I've been rather hard on myself as I wanted to repay the bank loan as quickly as possible," he says.
Expansion is where the real money lies. "Fastway encourages courier franchisees to split the territory as there is only so much one man in one van can do," Fastway’s Adrian Waite explains. "You can either take on an employee to drive a second van or sell off half the territory for capital gain."
For depot owners, offering more diverse services, such as archive retrieval and pick up and pack services, is good for business - particularly as the overnight market is crowded. ANC doesn't require its franchisees to do so but encourages anyone with entrepreneurial tendencies.
"We've franchisees getting into the international division, and some are starting to offer archive retrieval and pick and pack services," says John Hamill. "There are many ways to develop as ANC has a broad outlook."
Overall, if you take a parcel all the way from pick-up to destination, your margins are going to be higher than if you've just deliver.
