From Apprentice star to retail queen

Self-described 'pocket rocket,' Frances Bishop, explains how she runs her £1million business after coming third in The Apprentice

By George Letheren Smith

“People accuse me of using my husband's money to do what I’ve done,” she says. “Now, I’m going to pay for his retirement - so the tables have turned!”

Frances was part of Alan Sugar’s search for the UK’s next star entrepreneur in 2016 and went on a challenging journey.

Frances Bishop was fired from The Apprentice after the notoriously difficult interviews stage leading up to the final. Photo courtesy of BBC

In a famous interview with Claude, which went viral, he raged “I don’t know what you’re doing here?!”

But, Frances’ success hasn’t come without hard work and she believes her experience on The Apprentice defined that; although, she did apply as “a bit of a joke.”

The experience led to her taking a year off social media, and allowed her to start to look for problems within her company.

“I came back and I found all the things that were wrong with my business. I’d been brutally cut down on TV. They said ‘this is crap, this is crap, and this is crap. Your business is terrible!’”

After careful consideration of the advice given to her, she now cites Claude as her “bezzie!” “I’ve got him on WhatsApp,” she said.

Despite not winning The Apprentice, Frances’ high street children’s clothes store chain, has achieved rapid results in a quick timeframe.

Frances Bishop at the till of Pud Store. Photo courtesy of Twitter.

“My bank manager said that not winning was the best thing that ever happened,” she said.

As she sipped her cappuccino, she described the magical moment she discovered what her business idea would be, after picking up her son from school in her husband’s brand new Mercedes Benz.

“I was in Lidl car park, opened the boot of my car and it was quite new, quite an expensive car. I had my little boy in the back seat, screaming as they do, he was only six months old at the time.”

“Paint was everywhere. And I mean full on emulsion paint. I was stood there, I had a trolly full of shopping, kids crying, and I wasn’t bothered about the car - screw the car!”

A £90 Hugo Boss jacket laid in the middle of the paint - which she was forced to replace for her son, with a five pound alternative from Asda.

This sparked the idea for her new business venture. Frances runs an affordable children’s high street retailers known as ‘The Pud Store.’

“Why is there not a chain of shops in kids wear, that’s fun, inclusive, doesn’t care if you’ve got £5 in your pocket or £5000?”

Her growing success is unique, as The Pud Store currently has no transactional website and uses Facebook as a platform to promote her brand to her clients.

Emphasising her commitment to the community, she chooses to keep the page closed so her clients feel a part of her journey.

“This is why I feel like I can share my life story on there. It used to be 600 members, it’s now nearly got 20,000 people on there,” she said.

The former Apprentice star currently has three stores in Newark, Mansfield, and Doncaster, with Barclays funding the opening of two new stores in March 2019. Just this year, her stores have made over £1million in turnover.

Despite Frances’ clumsiness, eccentricity and scattiness, The Pud Store has gone onto match trends of top UK retail stores, replicating strong results in every store she opens.

"Landlords are now starting to approach me and saying ‘you’re the pinnacle of high-street retail. Even though you’re little, you’re doing what the big guys can’t’” she said.

Frances explained how she tries to capitalise on the experience of everyone, including some of her older customers, who may shop for their children or grandchildren.

“I do have a tendency to adopt OAP’s. It’s great! We can learn so much off them to be fair. The grandma’s come in and I’m fascinated to know how businesses were run 40 or 50 years ago. I tell you what - they were running a hell of a lot better than they are now!”

Frances also believes that opportunities to work should be given to everyone, adding that “businesses owe society something.”

She said, “We should be trying to help people back into employment, we should be inspiring them to do more and I think a lot of businesses think ‘well if she’s not qualified, then she can’t have the job.”

Previously, Frances has said how she believes the key to her business success is to ‘kill them with kindness.’ Currently working on developing two new stores with the firepower of Barclays behind them, her dream is now to become “the Mary Portas of the high-street.”