Emma opens its first Independent Store in the UK with a successful launch in Dorridge

There’s no shortage of kitchen renovation companies. After all, there are more than 30 million homes in the UK, with 10s of 1000s more being built every year. That’s a lot of kitchens, and demand just keeps on growing, so there are a lot of businesses which offer what they think homeowners need.

So, how do you stand out from the crowd and carve out your own piece of this £5billion+ market*?

For the goodbrother kitchens franchise, that’s all about the customer journey.

That means fundamentally redesigning what the kitchen-buying experience should look like. So, no massive showrooms full of stuff customers are not even sure they want, and no pushy sales pitches of products they never even asked for.

Instead, goodbrother guides customers through a process built around their ideas, their vision, and their timeline, starting long before they ever walk through the door. The online design tool means that by the time a customer arrives for an appointment, they’re already informed and already engaged. They’ve done the groundwork themselves, at their own pace. The job of the goodbrother consultant is to refine and elevate that vision, not to start from scratch.

It’s a fundamentally different model, and it works because it’s built around how people actually want to buy kitchens.

Underpinning that modern experience is an equally fantastic product range. 

goodbrother’s kitchens are supplied by Baumann, a family-run German manufacturer with over a century of heritage behind them, founded on precision engineering, a broad range of styles, and the kind of quality that speaks for itself. These are products designed to match any customer’s expectations and bring their vision to life.

However, neither goodbrother nor Baumann are the kind of businesses which rest on their laurels and expect yesterday’s hero product to still be a winner tomorrow. That’s the kind of old-fashioned attitude goodbrother set out to change. Instead they are both constantly refining and innovating in order to stay at the very forefront of the market.

Which is why the goodbrother team recently travelled to Germany to visit their manufacturer and supplier directly. This wasn’t a team building vacation, it was a working trip, focused on product training, getting under the bonnet of the existing range so they can describe and position it with real authority, and reviewing new products that are in the pipeline for future launch.

It’s the kind of involvement which makes a huge difference to any forward-thinking business. Not just knowing what you’re selling, but understanding why it’s the right choice for a customer and being able to articulate that in a way that builds confidence and drives decisions.

Why that matters to you

Anyone can decide they want to set up a kitchen business. You can find suppliers, put together a showroom, hire some staff, and open your doors. It won’t be easy, but it’s doable.

What you can’t easily replicate is the ability to genuinely anticipate what customers want next, and to know how to bring it to them before the competition does. That takes more than a trade show visit once a year – it means understanding how customer tastes are shifting, what captures the imagination, and what customers really want for their homes. It also means having the supplier relationships and market knowledge to turn those insights into a reality.

It’s the kind of deep knowledge and expertise which only comes with years of experience but, when you join a franchise like goodbrother, you tap right into it from day one.

Success without the guesswork, and without years of expensive trial and error.

If you’d like to explore what that might look like for you in your area, get in touch to schedule an initial call.

Source: * JKMR 2024 Overview Report on the UK Fitted Kitchen Market

When you ask most people about what running a kitchen business looks like, they’ll probably picture the same thing: measuring rooms, chasing suppliers, managing tradespeople, and working through a never-ending pile of administration. That’s the traditional model, and it’s exactly what goodbrother was built to leave behind.

What goodbrother feels takes time to fully appreciate is how deep that difference actually goes. It doesn’t just apply to the customer experience. It also applies to what your life will be like as a part of it.

Systems, technology and operational support take care of much of the day-to-day administration that would normally sit with the owner. That means fewer hours spent on scheduling, chasing, and coordination, and more time focused on customers and growth. The result is a modern, appointment-led operation where franchise owners can focus on what actually moves the business forward: customers, relationships, and growth.

Many people also assume that running a business like this means you need to be a designer – you don’t.

You may choose to lead consultations personally, or you may come from a management, sales or business development background and build a team around you from the outset. The model is flexible enough to work with your strengths, not against them.

So, what does a typical day in the life of a goodbrother franchise owner actually look like?

8:00 – Starting the day

The day begins with a review of the business. Upcoming appointments, live customer projects, new enquiries and sales opportunities are all visible in one place. AI-powered support tools work in the background to keep customer records current, confirm appointments and follow up on enquiries, meaning you arrive at your desk knowing exactly where the business stands, without having spent an hour making it so.

9:30 – Preparing for appointments

goodbrother studios operate on an appointment-led basis, which changes the nature of every customer interaction. Customers book dedicated consultation time, arriving already engaged with their project. There’s no cold selling, no pressure, and no starting from scratch. By the time you sit down with a customer, the groundwork has already been done.

11:00 – Working with customers

For most franchise owners, this is the part of the day they value the most. Customers investing in their home are looking for expertise and confidence, not just a catalogue and a price list. The goodbrother approach is all about understanding how people live, what matters to them, and how to create a space that reflects both. That kind of conversation builds real relationships and sets the business apart from the traditional showroom selling process with a more consultative, appointment-based approach.

13:00 – Reviewing Performance and Opportunities

Successful business owners know they need to keep on top of their numbers, which is why part of the day involves reviewing enquiry levels, the sales pipeline, upcoming appointments and overall performance. With live visibility across the business, you can identify opportunities and make decisions based on actual data rather than instinct.

14:00 – Building your local reputation

A well-run goodbrother studio becomes a trusted name within its local market. It’s not something that just happens overnight, of course. It’s built through relationships with architects, builders, developers, interior designers and other complementary businesses. These connections become long-term sources of opportunity, and many franchise owners find genuine satisfaction in becoming a recognised business leader within their area.

17:00 – Leading the team

As the business develops, your role will naturally evolve, too. Coaching designers, reviewing performance, improving customer experience and identifying the next growth opportunity gradually take precedence over technical tasks. How closely involved you remain in day-to-day project delivery is largely a matter of personal preference and most owners find their own natural balance over time.

For many, this shift from operator to business owner becomes one of the most rewarding stages of building a business. You will stop working in the business and start working on it.

More than a design studio

The most persistent misconception about businesses in this sector is that they’re about kitchens. In reality, they’re not, not primarily. Successful goodbrother franchise owners are building businesses: creating local brands, leading teams, delivering exceptional customer experiences and building valuable assets for the future.

Some choose to remain closely involved in design, while others focus almost entirely on leadership and growth. What they all share is access to a proven brand, established systems, modern technology and ongoing support – a foundation that would take years to build independently – along with the visibility and control to know exactly where the business stands and what needs attention next.

The goodbrother model doesn’t ask you to fit a particular mould. It gives you the infrastructure to build something that works for you.

If being a goodbrother franchise owner appeals to you, and you want to be a part of it, please get in touch to schedule a call.

Most franchise opportunities will tell you they put the customer first, but the moment AI enters the conversation, it tends to become about cost instead: fewer staff, lower overheads, tighter margins.

The goodbrother™ franchise uses AI to improve the customer experience first and foremost. Yes, it does streamline the business and bring down costs, but it’s actually about driving revenue by focusing on what’s most important.

Every decision starts with the same goal: giving every customer a faster, smoother, more informed journey, from their very first enquiry through to the moment they sit down with a designer. The reason for that sits in the part of the business that hasn’t changed, and never will.

This is a people business, and it always will be

Buying a kitchen is one of the biggest decisions most people make for their home, and decisions like that are built on trust, not on a screen. No customer wants to be sold a kitchen by an algorithm, and nothing in this business will ever change that. The conversation about what a family actually wants, the judgement of a designer who has seen a hundred similar spaces and knows what will work in this one, the reassurance of dealing with a person who cares about getting it right: none of that is up for negotiation, not now and not in twenty years’ time.

What changes is everything happening around that relationship. Two AI agents already working quietly across the network, Sophie and Ava, mean a customer never waits days for an answer, never turns up to an appointment underprepared, and a designer’s time never gets eaten up by admin instead of doing what they do best. That’s the part that’s allowed to evolve – the part that matters most stays exactly as it’s always been. Better, even.

Not every business is willing or able to make that distinction, though, which is exactly why a competitor running things the old way starts falling behind.

Ahead of the competition, not just the curve

Being at the cutting edge isn’t about owning the newest technology for its own sake, it’s about what that technology lets you do that the kitchen company down the road simply can’t. A homeowner calling round for quotes notices which business answers straight away, which one already knows their name and what they’re looking for, and which one leaves them waiting on hold or chasing a call-back that never comes.

It’s a benefit that extends well beyond the first phone call, too. Every enquiry a competitor misses, every customer left waiting, becomes ground you’ve already covered, because by the time they’ve finished calling around, you’ve already answered.

The goodbrother franchise has already made the calls others are putting off, and it means stepping into a business operating ahead of where most of the market currently sits.

If you want to talk through what this looks like in practice, please get in touch and schedule that call for whenever suits you.