Sandip Kalkat

Sandip Kalkat promised himself that by the time he was 30, he would own a Maserati sports car. That, he felt, would be the ultimate symbol of success. But by the time he was 28, it had become clear to Sandip that he was never going to make that kind of money as someone else’s employee. So just four years ago the former IT project manager and self-confessed ‘car nut’ decided that in order to achieve his life’s ambition, he would break out of employment and launch his own lucrative business.

“I had fancied doing something on my own for some time, but an offer of voluntary redundancy came at the right moment and gave me the push that I needed – as well as the capital – to make a firm decision,” he recalls.

Sandip was attracted to the idea of franchising as a lower risk route to self-employment and so started to research the various opportunities available to him. As his passion had always been cars, he was particularly interested in automotive franchises.
“I wanted to find a business that would give me a real buzz as well as the opportunity to make a lot of money,” he says. “Although I’m ambitious and want a good lifestyle, for me, enjoying what you do is really important. After all, to make a success of your own business, you have to be prepared to put in the hours and work harder than ever. You’ve got to love it!”
Sandip looked at a number of different franchises but he kept coming back to automotive paint-work repair specialists, ChipsAway International. He admits that he was surprised to find that ChipsAway was a franchise organisation: “I’d heard of ChipsAway, of course, but never realised that I could own and run a ChipsAway business myself.” Sandip found repairing minor paintwork damage to original standard appealing and was impressed by the unique ChipsAway technology and huge potential marketplace. Accordingly he signed up for one of the company’s free open days to find out more. He visited the Midlands-based ChipsAway headquarters and spent the day with other potential recruits, watching repairs being done, talking to existing franchisees about their experiences and questioning members of the management team. He had a chance to try his own hand at a repair and was surprised how easy it was. “I was very excited by everything I’d seen and heard at the open day,”
Sandip says, “so much so, that the next week I went back with my deposit!” In common with most new ChipsAway franchisees, Sandip had never done anything of the kind before, but says he found the paint process easy to learn and the ongoing advice and support from the ChipsAway management team invaluable. Within a couple of weeks he was brimming with confidence.
“I was eager to get out there and get started. My first repair took me three quarters of a day, my customer was delighted and I was well proud of myself,” he smiles. “Of course, with practice, you get better and better. Nowadays a similar repair takes me an hour and a half.”

In addition to comprehensive training, ChipsAway franchisees benefit from a tailored, high impact launch on their territory, supported by a business developer – an established ChipsAway franchisee who mentors the new franchisee on a one-to-one basis until they are ‘fully fledged’. As motorists represent ChipsAway’s prime target audience, these launches tend to be held in a busy retail outlet car park over a weekend. “My launch was fantastic,” Sandip says. “It was cracking weather and we staged a promotion from Friday to Sunday. I was absolutely astounded by the response. Over the weekend, I wrote £18,400
worth of estimates and booked in £5,000 worth of confirmed work.

At the start, Sandip estimates that he was repairing between seven and ten cars a week. Currently, he averages around twenty a weekand he is never short of work. Much of Sandip’s work is on prestige cars, although he undertakes Motability work and has some fleet customers too. “The key is getting your name known,” he explains. “After that first launch, a few of my mates helped me drop leaflets into houses on myterritory, just a few streets at a time. Once people have had a repair done, they tend to come back and they also tell their neighbours and friends. I’d say that most of my work now is from word of mouth recommendation.”
Sandip has just turned 32 and, yes, he attained that longed-for Maserati two years ago. In fact, he’s recently bought a second – this time a Maserati Quattroporte – and these days he finishes at 4pm every weekday and doesn’t work weekends!

“The plan was always to work flat out for a couple of years to build up the customer base and put some money behind me, but then to take time to enjoy my success,” he says. “I have a hectic social life and like to travel – I’m shortly off on a luxury cruise up the Nile, so I’m really looking forward to that!” Undoubtedly, Sandip’s ChipsAway franchise has delivered the lifestyle he always aspired to. He has his fabulous car (a far cry from his first Ford Fiesta) and is earning substantially more than he could have hoped for in his previous career. “But best of all,” says Sandip, “I love every minute of every day!”
“Before, I was part of a big organisation and couldn’t really see what impact I personally made in my work,” he says. “With your own business, you can see your input and take a personal pride in your work. This business must be one of the few where your customers smile at you and say ‘thank you, that’s brilliant!’ as they hand over the cheque – that means a lot.” Sandip operates from a personalized ChipsAway VW Transporter, customised as a fully equipped mobile workshop, which enables him to provide his repair services wherever is most convenient to his customers, whether at home or at work. He may consider a second vehicle or perhaps open a ChipsAway CarCare Centre at some point in the future, but for now he’s more than happy with his lot.

“My ultimate goal is to retire early and have a place in Spain,” Sandip concludes. “After all, you’ve always got to have a dream!”  ChipsAway developed the first ever SMART (Small and Medium Area Repair Technology) system for repairing minor damage to automotive paintwork in the USA. The concept was launched almost 13 years ago, in the UK, offering a high quality, low cost and convenient alternative to traditional body shop repairs. ChipsAway International has remained the dominant brand in the SMART repairs sector, with over 370 successful franchisees in operation nationwide and master franchises all over the world.
With 32 million cars on the road in the UK alone, and an estimated 15 million repair opportunities annually, this franchise is set to grow and grow, creating for Sandip Kalkat and hard-working, ambitious people like him, an opportunity limited only by their dream.