This year’s winner is a former Card Connection customer, who bought their Middlesbrough franchise back in 2019.

Thayalan and his wife Silva built on the foundations left by the previous franchisee and overcame some early store losses that were no fault of their own, to get the area quickly back into profit. Thy achieved this by spending time developing existing customers through trading up and supplying more giftwrap and gift bags. Also, after speaking to other Franchisees, they followed by example, investing in Card Connection’s party products to gain valuable extra sales.

Last year they have managed to grow sales by 7%. Needless to say, these sales have led to them having many happy customers on their hands!

Working harder and smarter, while delivering fantastic service to their customers had seen them being rewarded with this much deserved regional award.