A flexible approach
When it comes to supporting our licensees we never lose sight of the fact that all our pubs and business partners have individual needs. Rather than adopt "a one size fits all" approach we tailor our support to the needs of the business, taking into account licensee experience, local market conditions and your aspirations for the pub.
The starting point is always establishing the most appropriate business agreement for the incoming licensee once a pub has been identified. This will be determined by a number of factors, such as type of pub, finance available and your personal motivations, but our aim is always to be as flexible as possible.
Rather than have a standard tenancy agreement, we take a pub-by-pub approach, which can range from fully tied to free of tie and anything in between. Length of term can also vary from a typical three year tenancy to longer, lease-style agreements.
Download our guide to running your own pub business
Business development
Our award-winning Business Development Managers (BDMs) are the best in the industry and have been carefully selected to share their experience with licensees. They are the key link between you and Admiral and will work hard to help you maximise the potential of your pub business. They are there to listen first and then work with you in true partnership, helping to grow your pub sales and profitability. The emphasis is always on building a positive working relationship, always supportive and unhindered by red tape.
Many of our BDMs have run pubs themselves so they understand the pressures and the challenges unique to the business. They are there to help you develop your pub and can support you in many different ways – from products, pricing and understanding your profit and loss account through to expanding your business, developing special events, accommodation, marketing and PR.
Training
We know that we are only successful if our licensees run thriving pubs. Therefore in addition to industry-wide mandatory courses, we also organise a number of free training workshops designed to help you build your business, covering subjects such as finance, pricing, marketing and retail standards.
These training programmes have been devised specifically for busy licensees – they are short, focused, practical and are typically held in an Admiral pub near your own. These courses are delivered by our own specialist trainers and designed to help you maximise your business – and your profits. All our new tenants receive free membership of the BII giving further access to a range of e-learning courses and training programmes, as well as a host of other business-building benefits.
BII membership
We recognise the enormous benefits licensees can realise through belonging to a professional membership of the BII's standing. We are therefore the only pub group that offers all our new licensees free BII membership for the life of their agreement.
Through your free membership you will receive discounts to BII-approved training programmes and e-learning courses. On top of training, your BII membership provides a number of important benefits including:
- Access to a buying club, plus discounts on a variety of professional services including stock taking, accounting, marketing and HR
- Money off energy bills and business seminars
- Free helpline offering independent advice on a range of subjects such as legal affairs, health and safety, licensing and business and finance
- Access to the BII's mentoring scheme
- Subscription to the award-wining BII Business magazine.
By utilising the full range of benefits through the BII we help our licensees build thriving, profitable businesses
Investment
We are also investing to improve and expand our licensees' pub businesses. We recently tripled the amount of money that we invest in our pubs each year and currently have such projects underway across our pub estate.
This work enables us to ensure that our diverse mix of community pubs continues to thrive and that the amount of profit our licensees make continues to grow. Like everything that we do, we know that we can only be successful if our licensees are running sustainable and profitable pubs.