[Dave Willis]

Why don't they buy it? I think you've been trying to sell a franchise for two years now probably more. The people who are interested don't buy it obviously. What are their excuses when they walk away?

[William McCafferty]

Why don't they buy it? I think you've been trying to sell a franchise for two years now probably more. The people who are interested don't buy it obviously. What are their excuses when they walk away?

Not quite, I looked at franchising 2 years ago and last year I was ready to get my first one, but I took on a member of staff before I found a franchisee, and I didn't have enough work for a franchise, 2 staff and myself, the other problem that came up was I went into hospital for a operation, this was not planned or expected, within the space of 2 weeks from me seeing the consultant who said I needed an op I was under the knife, the best way forward then was to put franchising on hold until I am ready again.

I am now at that stage again and although I am due another operation, I have had time to organise for it, and still offer a franchise package.

I think that I have been actively looking for a franchise for the last 4 weeks or so, so far I have had 10 enquiries, 8 are no good because of location or the fact that they are already a window cleaner, the other 2 I am still having talks with.

The other thing I will not do is just to take the 1st one who comes along with the money, they have to be the right person I am looking for, and if that takes time.

This is a business not a race.

[Ian101]

Do people really buy franchises in window cleaning?  A relatively easy business to setup so why would someone buy into a franchise? 

I have a franchisee. He went from a full time job working 60 hours a week to being my franchisee. In 6 months I have pulled in £4100 worth of work for him. He was earning a wage from the very first week. His first day saw him bring home cash and cheques.

He has 4 kids and a mortgage. He could not give up his job to become a window cleaner as he could never have built up that much work in such a short time and he couldn't window clean part time either because he was already doing 60 hours a week. Now he is doing 22 hours a week less for £200 a week more.

Genuine question so not knocking but what stopped him just buying a round ?

[William McCafferty]

Do people really buy franchises in window cleaning?  A relatively easy business to setup so why would someone buy into a franchise? 

I have a franchisee. He went from a full time job working 60 hours a week to being my franchisee. In 6 months I have pulled in £4100 worth of work for him. He was earning a wage from the very first week. His first day saw him bring home cash and cheques.

He has 4 kids and a mortgage. He could not give up his job to become a window cleaner as he could never have built up that much work in such a short time and he couldn't window clean part time either because he was already doing 60 hours a week. Now he is doing 22 hours a week less for £200 a week more.

Genuine question so not knocking but what stopped him just buying a round ?

I don't know about you but most rounds I have seen for sale are badly priced and cancel when a new cleaner comes along.

He also has the problem of learning how to clean, what equipment to use and were to get it from.

I know that it took me a couple of years to get a decent round up and running, just like everyone else all the mistakes you are going to make are always at the beginning of starting up, franchising is a safer bet unless you have time, money and patience

[davids3511]

Do people really buy franchises in window cleaning?  A relatively easy business to setup so why would someone buy into a franchise?  

I have a franchisee. He went from a full time job working 60 hours a week to being my franchisee. In 6 months I have pulled in £4100 worth of work for him. He was earning a wage from the very first week. His first day saw him bring home cash and cheques.

He has 4 kids and a mortgage. He could not give up his job to become a window cleaner as he could never have built up that much work in such a short time and he couldn't window clean part time either because he was already doing 60 hours a week. Now he is doing 22 hours a week less for £200 a week more.

Genuine question so not knocking but what stopped him just buying a round ?

How much would that cost? 4k of well priced work(average job price £13.00 north west england), system, poles, training, access to spares for every item in his van within an hour of asking, access to decent 18lpm pressure washer, gutter vac and so on.

Also, you are assuming a 4k round has recently been up for sale in this area. There was one a while ago, average job price £5.50.

He has a fulll round, had his van kitted out, trained for two weeks on his work (he was earning, not me), has access to spares and other equipment all for an initial 3k fee. I try to just cover my costs with the initial fee. I am only interested in the ongoing monthly fee. That's where I make my money. I think he got a great deal.

[Ian Gourlay]

Hi

I know nothing about Window Cleaning apart from seeing Water Fed poles in Canada  Years ago mentioning them on a British forum and told load of TOSH never catch on here etc.

So I went for Carpet Cleaning

But I do believe Window Cleaning offers long term growth. and regular cash flow apart from when it rains snows etc etc.

But now I see These Franchise Companies starting

First What are they going to do I cant do myself as I guess I would still have to build Customer base.

In my part of the World I drive through town and see lots of Window Cleaning Vans is there really an opportunity to gain many customers.

What is this £10000 I presume its Franchise Fee What is this 20% , and what is this system Forum Admin have posted is a Information Package do I have to pay roalties is it Endorsed and checked out by Cleanitup

Is it that I do franchising and people pay me 10grand plus 22% sounds good 4 of those a year would do nicel how long for UK coverage

[William McCafferty]

Hi Ian

And welcome to the windows section.

With most franchises you pay a upfront fee for the franchise licence, you then normally have to purchase your equipment and find premises etc and then you have to pay for advertising materal and go and find your customers, and when you get then you also now have to pay a commission on all the work you do.

With the franchises packages that are most common on this forum is totally different, yes you do have to still pay the upfront fee, this varies from £3k to £10k

If you take my packages for instance, at the moment I offer 3 different ones at 2 different rates of commission.

If they go for the total package of windows, gutters, solar panels, carpet and upholstery cleaning they will get the following equipment

Wfp system plus poles and backpack
Gutter vac plus poles and camera system
Carpet cleaning machine (jaguar or similar) plus chemicals
Ncca training course
Round management
Laptop
Uniform
Stationary and leaflets
3 months in the field training with a member of my staff who I pay his wages, earning £200 per week from day one and increased every week by £125
Within the 1st year I will get them to a turnover of £50k or more

They do NOT ever have to find one single customer, I do all of that, so if a customers cancels I replace straightaway with another, if after they reach their target figure they still want more work I will supply it, all they need to do is to be able to clean it.

and before they even part with any money they can try it out for 4 weeks and if it's not for them they walk away.

I think this is a good deal for a upfront fee of £7500 paying a commission of 22.5% for 5 years with the commission dropping down to 20% if they want to renew the franchise agreement, if they don't then all the equipment belongs to them, but the customer database comes back to me.

[L.Doubtfire - The Blade Runner]

Ian Lancaster is the man for franchises.I guess the only reason Ian
Has`nt replied to this `thread`before now is that he`s done it all before,
Been there `got the `T shirt`so to speak.
Regarding franchises I`m no nearer at understanding them now as I was
In 1977 when I applied for a local franchise with ServiceMaster.


Lewis  Doubtfire

[William McCafferty]

Hi Ian

And welcome to the windows section.

With most franchises you pay a upfront fee for the franchise licence, you then normally have to purchase your equipment and find premises etc and then you have to pay for advertising materal and go and find your customers, and when you get then you also now have to pay a commission on all the work you do.

With the franchises packages that are most common on this forum is totally different, yes you do have to still pay the upfront fee, this varies from £3k to £10k

If you take my packages for instance, at the moment I offer 3 different ones at 2 different rates of commission.

If they go for the total package of windows, gutters, solar panels, carpet and upholstery cleaning they will get the following equipment

Wfp system plus poles and backpack
Gutter vac plus poles and camera system
Carpet cleaning machine (jaguar or similar) plus chemicals
Ncca training course
Round management
Laptop
Uniform
Stationary and leaflets
3 months in the field training with a member of my staff who I pay his wages, earning £200 per week from day one and increased every week by £125
Within the 1st year I will get them to a turnover of £50k or more

They do NOT ever have to find one single customer, I do all of that, so if a customers cancels I replace straightaway with another, if after they reach their target figure they still want more work I will supply it, all they need to do is to be able to clean it.

and before they even part with any money they can try it out for 4 weeks and if it's not for them they walk away.

I think this is a good deal for a upfront fee of £7500 paying a commission of 22.5% for 5 years with the commission dropping down to 20% if they want to renew the franchise agreement, if they don't then all the equipment belongs to them, but the customer database comes back to me.

so after 3 months training you would have been paying them £1700 per week??

Not quite, my target for them is to reach £50k within 1 year, I will start them off on £10k and increase their round by £6k per month, after 3 months they should have a turnover figure of £28k, which works out at almost £560 a week

[Crystal-clear]

pure you are spending far too much time defending your ideas m8t!,
ive noticed on some other posts havnt really read them all they are quite long

you will sell one soon just keep focused and maybe sell a bit cheaper at first to gain confidence,prolly advertise on other sites too.

the reasons why someone would give you 10k is simple they have a family,rent to pay and no time or headset to take a risk also quite simply they dont know the ins and outs of the trade as well as you do.. a cancelation to you is part of expanding but to a new starter its "am i doing something wrong" with you to back him up he aint got a bad deal at all.

there will always be someone who wants to earn a salary and always someone who wants an easyer life thats where you pure will profit as you are willing to take risks and work harder,

[Silver Surfer]

So out of the 28,000 turnover.....22.5% franchise fee...less 22% tax....

[Dani J]

Hi Pure
My advice to you, that’s if you want it 
Is to go cheaper for the 1st franchisee I would say around £7000 this is just for window cleaning, because you haven’t got any franchisee as yet, so who ever comes 1st they need to see more evidence of how you run your franchisee, so to peak you don’t have a row model yet, also, I wouldn’t complicate it too much, just stick to window cleaning franchisee and nothing else.

That’s my view. 

[William McCafferty]

So out of the 28,000 turnover.....22.5% franchise fee...less 22% tax....

Your figures are flawed.

[davids3511]

So out of the 28,000 turnover.....22.5% franchise fee...less 22% tax....

What do you expect after 3 months? The franchisee wouldn't be able to handle any more at this stage anyway. He has clearly stated the monthly turnover will rise well beyond 28k within the first year.  Poke holes in it all you like but it can work well for both parties involved.

[TomCrowther]

Shouldn't you be asleep?

[William McCafferty]

So out of the 28,000 turnover.....22.5% franchise fee...less 22% tax....

What do you expect after 3 months? The franchisee wouldn't be able to handle any more at this stage anyway. He has clearly stated the monthly turnover will rise well beyond 28k within the first year.  Poke holes in it all you like but it can work well for both parties involved.

I have given up now, if I get a franchisee then great, if I don't then I will just employ more staff and give them the franchise after a years service.

and I like the bit about lowering my franchise fee because I haven't had one or proved that I can franchise a business.

So the next time a newbie comes on here saying they are going to start a window cleaning business, I expect to hear to words " well as you have never cleaned windows before and therefore have not proved yourself, you need to charge less than the other cleaners in your area" after you have built up a business to their level then you can charge more.

[richywilts]

where do you get all this work for them hydro how can you guarantee them amounts

have you got a huge round your splitting or canvassing work on there behalf

[KS Cleaning]

where do you get all this work for them hydro how can you guarantee them amounts

have you got a huge round your splitting or canvassing work on there behalf

Exactly what I was thinking.There are no guarantees that leaflet drops and canvassing will bring in the amount of income being mentioned.

[William McCafferty]

where do you get all this work for them hydro how can you guarantee them amounts

have you got a huge round your splitting or canvassing work on there behalf

Richy

at this moment in time I can afford to carve off £10k and if pushed £20k

to generate the figures I am quoting and taking away the amount of new jobs I am already getting, I need 10 new customers each and every week.

I don't knock door personally, but if I went out I can get 20 to 30 without really trying.

but with every new franchisee I will employ a salaried paid canvasser who will come out with me every day to follow up the leaflet drops I am already doing, as soon as I get 4 canvassers I will make one the closer who will get a percentage of each new job he or his team gets.

and then I will start again on a new team.

its the double glazing way and it works

[William McCafferty]

where do you get all this work for them hydro how can you guarantee them amounts

have you got a huge round your splitting or canvassing work on there behalf

Exactly what I was thinking.There are no guarantees that leaflet drops and canvassing will bring in the amount of income being mentioned.

at the moment I am getting new work coming in on a weekly basis and i am not really trying, yes in the future that might slow down but it will not stop, I use to door knock for double glazing over 30 years ago and the estates were hammered, but we all still got new business, now 30 years later double glazing canvassers hit the doors every night of the week and the companies concerned spend a fortune doing this type of marketing and the reason why is because they still are getting more new work to make it cost effective.

will there come a day when every household has a window cleaner?

NO