FAQs

Puddle Ducks was founded by Jo Stone and Tracy Townend back in 2002. Both had a love of swimming and enjoyed time at the pool with their babies. It was during this time that they discovered a lack of structured baby swimming classes and with a desire to run their own business, bringing complimentary skills from their corporate backgrounds, Puddle Ducks was born.

A few years later, they entered the world of franchising, allowing other entrepreneurs to build their own baby swimming businesses with the added benefit of the years of knowledge and experience that they had built up.

Jo still runs the business and leads the Cheshire-based team at Head Office (affectionately known as Duck HQ).

Our Head of Aquatics, Ali Beckman, has been with the business since 2005 and is the president of our governing body, STA (Swimming Teachers' Association).

Providing an essential life-skill to babies and children and a wonderful bonding experience between parents/carers and their little ones – it is a privilege to be part of this very special journey. At Puddle Ducks the priority has always been to do things right and this is at the core of our Franchise offering. Everything we do is underpinned with the desire to operate at the highest standards, whether it be our 100% child-led swimming programme, or our multi-award-winning franchise operation. As a franchisee, you are never alone and can always be confident in the knowledge that the success of your business and the continued success of the national brand is at the heart of everything we do.

Our franchisees come from varied backgrounds - accountants, midwives, solicitors and teachers to name but a few. The things they all have in common include:

• A positive attitude and a desire to run their own business
• A strong understanding of business finances
• Good with people and leading a team
• A desire to support the wider network for collective success

The initial cost to buy a Puddle Ducks franchise is £24,000 + VAT. This is for an initial five-year term and exclusive territory. The initial franchise fee also includes:

• Full business training
• Training package for a teacher
• Access to our comprehensive online operation manual and suite of e-Learning content
• Initial stock of branded clothing, marketing materials and pool equipment
• 3 days of peer support to secure your fist pool
• 2 fully funded email licences in the first year
• Dedicated web site & launch marketing support
• First 6 months access to our dedicated customer database
• First 6 months of the Management Service Fee and National Marketing Levy
• Fully funded HR support service and Employee Assistance Programme

You will also be required to invest in working capital to launch the business and cover costs until the business turns a profit. The amount of working capital required is variable and will be discussed with you at the business planning stage but is expected to be in the region of £50,000 to £70,000.

We have working relationships with the main UK banks that have franchising teams (Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC and NatWest) and will introduce you to them as part of the application process. These providers typically lend up to 70% of the total investment.

After the initial franchise fee, there is an ongoing Management Service Fee of 10% of your monthly turnover which covers Head Office support, ongoing training/advice, franchisee events and systems development/maintenance. There is also a 1% National Marketing Levy which contributes to national brand, marketing and advertising activities.

Our franchise agreements run for an initial term of five years. At the end of this term, they can be renewed for another five years by mutual agreement, for no further fee. All we ask is that your solicitor review your new franchise agreement, and you share your business plans for years 5-10 with Duck HQ.

This really does depend on how much you push yourself and your business, and how quickly you grow your team! Last financial year (2023/2024) the average income across our network was around £480,000, gross profit on average was 36% and net profit in was 16%. The average earnings that franchisees achieved in that year were more than £75,000. Our top performing franchisee achieved earnings of £175,000!

We pride ourselves on giving you the best training so that your business can get off to the best possible start.

You will receive a mix of both online and in-person training before you launch your business. This will cover areas of the business such as HR, marketing, finance, systems, pools, teaching and customer service. You will also spend time with other franchisees and their teams and will benefit from seeing their businesses in operation.  Post launch, you will receive more tailored training and have access to our suite of training materials on our interactive e-Learning portal.

We also regularly deliver training and upskilling sessions for our franchisees throughout the year in the form of webinars, online learning, affiliation with external providers and access to franchising events.

It will be your responsibility as the business owner to source your own venues to operate your lessons from. However, we will be there to fully support you in person and via our operations manuals with advice and information. You will also receive support from a dedicated ‘Pool Buddy’ to help you secure your first pool.

You are also responsible for recruiting your team members but again you will have the support of documented processes, policies and templates and access to our HR partner via their support helpline.

All Puddle Ducks franchise businesses are set up as Limited Liability Partnerships (LLP).

Yes, we are full members of the British Franchise Association (BFA) and the Swim Teachers Association (STA).

Available ‘virgin’ and resale territories are detailed here (link to where we are putting this)

**Ruth not sure if this would be better as a flow chart but I know this was going elsewhere on the site**

That is great news, and we look forward to telling you more about Puddle Ducks and answering any initial questions that you might have.

Please complete our online enquiry form (insert here) to book a call with a member of our friendly Franchise Support Team to have an initial chat and discuss the areas that you are interested in. From here, we will send you our franchise prospectus and book a time in to have a more detailed Discovery call with you. If you like what you hear on this call, and we think you would make a good franchisee, we will ask you to fill in a short application form and arrange for you to meet the team. This will be a virtual call where you will meet a selection of people from our Head Office team, hear from them and ask them any questions about their area of the business.

Should we all agree on moving things forward then you will be asked to complete a business plan and, once ready, visit our Head Office or our pool (both based in Cheshire) and share these plans. From here you will complete an intent to proceed and pay a small deposit to secure your territory whilst your franchise agreement is produced.

Remember that this process is to determine that this is the right decision for both parties.