Fibrenew : From Three Jobs in Five Years to Fibrenew Owner Craig Burton

This Fibrenew franchisee profile features Craig Burton, who runs Fibrenew of Metro Austin in Texas after going through training in September 2011. The video opens with Craig laying out the personal context behind his decision to look for a franchise. He had been through three jobs in the preceding five years and had concluded that stability, security and loyalty were no longer dependable in the conventional employment market. He also was not convinced that what he was doing made any material difference. Craig describes the search for a franchise opportunity in plain terms — the harder he works, the luckier he gets — and lands on Fibrenew as the answer. He has been operating ever since and frames the work as fun every day. When asked what he does, he describes a smile that pops onto his face: he owns a franchise, fixes leather, vinyl and plastic, and works on furniture, boats, airplanes, cars, and effectively anything in those material categories. Repairs, restoration and color changes are all part of the menu. The interview gets specific about why a franchise was the right structure. Craig's framing is that buying into a franchise means buying into a method that has been established to work and a training architecture that has been proven to bring new owners up to speed. The work also produces what he calls a sense of meaning — every job matters to a customer who cares about their item, and when the work is done, the item is better. That visible improvement is the source of the daily satisfaction he describes. Craig closes with a pitch to fence-sitters and a family fit. The market is endless because leather, vinyl and plastic are everywhere; the service holds up in a good economy (helping things look perfect) and in a bad economy (helping things last longer); and the initial investment is substantial but reasonable. On the family side, Craig describes his wife Nancy and their two daughters as the centre of his life and Fibrenew as a model that fits the time-commitment, availability and financial-reward profile his family established. This watch page is part of the Fibrenew Canada content series on Franchise Direct Canada.