DAY IN THE LIFE OF …

How does Soul Origin’s national manager, leasing and development, help franchisees do better business?

Nick Patrick, Soul Origin.

What are your responsibilities?

I am responsible for overseeing the leasing and development functions for Soul Origin. This includes scouting new sites and feasibility screening, negotiating new leases and lease renewals, as well as managing our team responsible for new store design, new store fitouts, documentation review and lease execution. I also handle general property and network growth strategies.

How often do you interact with franchisees?

On a daily basis, even though my primary focus is not franchise recruitment, which is run as a separate although interdependent function to property at Soul Origin.

I find that because franchisees are at the forefront of the business, they are able to provide a wealth of information that is relevant to leasing and property development.

We need to ensure that we are continually learning from, and adapting, the business decisions we make. Especially when a franchisee’s success can be so heavily dependent upon the property decisions made in collaboration with our franchise partners.

It is therefore crucial that I am communicating regularly with our franchise partners not only to understand their needs but also to learn from their experiences of opening new stores in new and different markets.

How do you measure your success?

Being in a sales driven retail business success is fairly easy for us to measure. With the key performance indicators for our team being centred around new store sales performance and occupancy cost targets.

How do you manage your day?

I typically start by organising myself for the day. Looking at upcoming meetings I need to prepare for, setting a plan for the day and responding to any emails that have come in overnight.

I spend a lot of time on the road and interstate looking at new sites so I rely heavily on my diary to organise my day and the week in advance, to make sure I accomplish everything the business needs on time.

Briefly describe a typical day in the office – is there a pattern to it?

My days can be fairly varied given the amount of travel the role requires. Though a typical day will usually involve meeting with other members of the development team to manage work in progress, spending some time on the road looking at new store opportunities or meeting with landlords, and using the afternoons for admin and replying to emails. However, this is of course all interchangeable and every day is different.

How often are you travelling and why?

Travel requirements ebb and flow. A typical month will generally average two interstate trips. However, the frequency of travel is really dependant on what opportunities we are looking at, where we have strong franchise interest and what opportunities are currently available in the market. Some weeks may see two or three trips while sometimes I may not travel for three or four weeks.

What are the biggest challenges in this job?

The biggest challenge of this job is managing timeframes. Everything we do in property needs a substantial lead time – from site identification, new store design, lease negotiation, and construction through to franchisee training, review of legal documentation and franchisee cooling off periods.

If the process and timeframes are not well managed, then costly delays can occur. Some stores we are opening now started with landlord discussions that began more than 12 months ago.

What do you enjoy most about this role?

I love working in the dynamic environment of food retail. Property and development is just one cog in a very large machine which needs to work in unison to effectively deliver business objectives. Working for a retailer gives you exposure to a broad range of business functions including new product development, operations, marketing, finance, administration and IT. Each of these represents an opportunity to learn and develop as a property, franchising and retail professional.

What’s the biggest motivator for you on a daily basis?

My biggest motivator is seeing new stores open and trade successfully. I get great satisfaction reaching the end of the new store opening process, which often started more than 12 months earlier, and seeing a store trade strongly from day one.

What’s the best thing about working at Soul Origin?

For me it is the team that I work with – though I love the products we sell! We have great people at Soul Origin and extremely supportive and passionate founders who make it easy to get out of bed and come to work with each day.