[davids3511]

Shouldn't you be asleep?

Yes, I should have and I should be working by now too. Did you have a nice coffee yesterday afternoon like usual?

[Ian Gourlay]

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

Hi Lewis perhaps I should take my own advise and use search enine to seek out words of wisdom of this Super Window Cleaner.

I filled in a form regarding getting a Service Master Franchise round about the same time as you read an article in Sunday Times Business about this Imigrant  from India who did not go into the Corner Shop business but had acquired a Service Master Cleaning Franchise and was making a mint. I think in those days it required a massive amount of loot and I had not carried out my first bank robbery so was a bit stuck as loans required security and I was only very very young  Anyway at the time I wanted Wimpy Bar which required even more loot

[Ian Gourlay]

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

Ive been trying to tell new carpet cleaners that for years

How much do you pay your Window Cleaners

Just thinking how would it work out if you supplied van and equipment and took say 33% or 50% of takings

How would you verify takings in fact if you employ staff do they collect the money etc

What percentage of customers can you get to pay by direct debit to avoid hazzle of collecting the moniee

[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

Ive been trying to tell new carpet cleaners that for years

How much do you pay your Window Cleaners

Just thinking how would it work out if you supplied van and equipment and took say 33% or 50% of takings

How would you verify takings in fact if you employ staff do they collect the money etc

What percentage of customers can you get to pay by direct debit to avoid hazzle of collecting the moniee

Hi Ian I will try and answer your questions.

Pay wise, at the moment they are paided a daily rate of £60, when they are in a van on their own they have a target figure of £4k of work to be cleaned per month, on any work cleaned about this figure then they are paid 50% of the work done, so for instance they clean £5000 in the month, they recieve their normal wage of £60 per day, I work a 4 day week and the also get 50% of the £1000 they are above target, so £500, I also pay £10 for any new customers they get.

If its a 2 man set up then their target figure is raised to £5200.

I use the aworka programme and they mark off all the work they do each day and who and who hasn't paid etc, there are checks in place to make sure that they are not doing work on the sly, ie all the vechicles are fitted with gps tracking.

I always call/text the night before, they don't so I know who are going to be cleaned and who are not.

Because I call/text, all the money is left in a secure place so no collecting, I do have plans to gain all their emails so I can send a invoice via aworka when their house is cleaned and they have forgot to leave payment, to pay me online.

For the last 10 years I have always collected over 90% on the day of clean with this method, the rest either pay online send a cheque or pay double on the next clean.

In theory I could get over 90% to go on standing order, but the problems start when I have to miss them because of weather, holiday, sickness or breakdown.

[William McCafferty]

Jesus...no wonder staff turnover in the cleaning industry is high.You are paying a bloke £1200 per month (20 days) to turnover £4000 for your business,honestly i cannot see for the life of me anyone who will stick around for that long term...am i missing something here??

although I only pay £60 per day, the day is only normally 5 or 6 hours long.

[bobplum]

Jesus...no wonder staff turnover in the cleaning industry is high.You are paying a bloke £1200 per month (20 days) to turnover £4000 for your business,honestly i cannot see for the life of me anyone who will stick around for that long term...am i missing something here??

[/font]

recession?

[Perfect Windows]

Jesus...no wonder staff turnover in the cleaning industry is high.You are paying a bloke £1200 per month (20 days) to turnover £4000 for your business,honestly i cannot see for the life of me anyone who will stick around for that long term...am i missing something here??

It's the way of the world.  Anyone paying the overhead on employing someone (running and insuring a van, dressing them, finding customers, paying for water and equipment, etc) is probably going to hand over about 30-35% of what they take in salary.  I worked in IT sales for years and in one memorable year sold £48M worth of equipment - what % of turnover do you think I was taking home?

Vin

[Erithwc]

How does bsm and other driving schools do the franchise thing 

Could work with window cleaning aswell.

Paul

[Dani J]

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.

With a attitude like this, do you wonder why you haven’t got a franchisee yet 

[Perfect Windows]

Posted elsewhere by me, so apologies to anyone who's read it before:

I think one of the things that's missed by people on these forums is that, in general, you are all successful entrepreneurs. I know there are varying degrees of success on here, but you've all taken the plunge, taken a risk and jumped in. "Entrepreneur" sounds like a bit much for "just a windy" but the first definition I came across just now was "a person who organises and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk". You've all shown the initiative and taken the risk.

Franchising is suited more to slightly different people, namely people who want a degree of hand-holding. They are people who want more certainty about where their money (and time) is going. After all, there must have been times when you doubted what you were doing. This is a way of reducing that fear factor.

Instead of buying equipment then going blind into the market, these people will have a degree of knowledge about what's coming up. They'll know what turnover figure they are going to get to (and when). They'll know what expenses they can expect - the franchisor has done it, so that's all part of the knowledge they are gaining. Thus, unlike you or me or all the others on here who just set up (more or less) blindly, they have some certainty about the way their business will go. They are prepared to pay for that certainty, so a franchise is one route for them.

It's easy to make a post about their being idiots or mugs but the truth is it takes all sorts to make a world and some people want to run their own business but without all the uncertainty that it brings.

Vin

[Ian Gourlay]

One of the biggest problems you will have to overcome is trust

You read in the press and on shows like Fake Briton about dodgy Franchise schemes that have not been proven

On the other hand there is also a danger of Franchisee ripping you off and not paying your percentage for the considerable work required to build business but it does look to me that a Window Cleaning Franchise has a better chance to make a reasonable return for both parties and less hazzle than a maids type franchise scheme

I can see problems establishing a nationwide brand but should work well in a County or region as its more about round and business building, so if you can build a good canvass and leaflet team  that just keeps going  in theory the model is sound

[CLEANCARE WC]

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

you old git! in 1977 the only franchise I had was on my mums nipple!

[Perfect Windows]

Jesus...no wonder staff turnover in the cleaning industry is high.You are paying a bloke £1200 per month (20 days) to turnover £4000 for your business,honestly i cannot see for the life of me anyone who will stick around for that long term...am i missing something here??

It's the way of the world.  Anyone paying the overhead on employing someone (running and insuring a van, dressing them, finding customers, paying for water and equipment, etc) is probably going to hand over about 30-35% of what they take in salary.  I worked in IT sales for years and in one memorable year sold £48M worth of equipment - what % of turnover do you think I was taking home?

Vin

Well you obviously wasn't on a commission was you for sales turnover!!

What?

[Window Washers]

Jesus...no wonder staff turnover in the cleaning industry is high.You are paying a bloke £1200 per month (20 days) to turnover £4000 for your business,honestly i cannot see for the life of me anyone who will stick around for that long term...am i missing something here??

you are looking at it through your eyes, not that of a person needing a job to pay thier bills £300 a week for an unskilled job plus bonuses at really that bad a deal for the millions that are unemployed 

[William McCafferty]

Dan

Personally I feel that what I pay in wages is fair for the work they do, at £60 for a 6 hour day, they could complete their round in 3 days and still be paid for 4.

also they have space and time to do extra work where they get paid 50% of what they clean.

so if they worked a 6 day week they could earn £500 to £700

and yes I will make a profit out of their labour which I have no problem with.

of course if they feel hard done by, then they need to get out there and start door knocking and build their own business up.

[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.

With a attitude like this, do you wonder why you haven’t got a franchisee yet 

considering I have only been looking for a franchisee for the last 3 to 4 weeks, I have had a lot of emails and texts for futher information, so thats shows that people are interested in franchising.

Soon I will be dropping thousands of leaflets of the franchise deal, though letter boxes every week.

Its a simple matter of time before I get my 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on

[William McCafferty]

 so if you can build a good canvass and leaflet team  that just keeps going  in theory the model is sound

apart from my time door knocking for double glazing and other products, I did work for Homecare (Birmingham) in 1982, who had 2 teams of 4 door canvassers that got enough carpet, curtain and upholstery cleaning work to keep over 6 cleaners working full time.

Homecare paid their canvassers a basic plus commission and it worked, I will do the same, but window cleaning is a lot easier to get than carpet cleaning.

[Ian Gourlay]

Hydro

you have considerable experience at the hard end of Sales the part most want to avoid the Canvass

How do you keep teams motivated to go more than two hours at a time  without constantly loosing them.

In other words what is the person specification for Good Canvassers

[William McCafferty]

Hydro

you have considerable experience at the hard end of Sales the part most want to avoid the Canvass

How do you keep teams motivated to go more than two hours at a time  without constantly loosing them.

In other words what is the person specification for Good Canvassers

This is the hardest part, but I have learn't a lot over the years, the main one is treat the staff in the same way you would like to be treated if it was the other way round, be fair, fun to work for and generous.

When I worked at Homecare they paid a basic plus commsion of 25% of the sale, also every friday when we got back to the office and after we had finshed any telephone callbacks, the party started, the training room would be full of booze, beer, wine and sprits and there was no limit on what you could drink, after a couple of hours of this, the managers took us all out on the town before finshing off in the curry house.

I was 18 at the time and I would have paid them money to employ me.

They also ran many competitions on sales, not only was the winner who got the most sales in ££ but also prizes for the amount of customers you got, this one I liked the most, when I was there most of the canvassers wanted to knock the big and posh houses, I prefered the working class areas and council estates, when the others got a sale it would be for well over £100, with me most of my sales where in the region of £30.

But while they where knocking loads of houses and only getting in a few, I would be getting into loads of houses and picking up small but many jobs.

With my canvassers I will take them out and stay there while they knock, if they are having problems getting leads then I will door knock with them, or move to another area, you will be surprised on how you can get a different responce by moving a couple of streets away.

The other motivation will be money, I want them all to earn a fortune, because if they are doing so, then so am I.



 

[Ian Gourlay]

Was Homecare that cut price operation. What puzzles me the prices have stayed the same on the leaflet for as long as I can remember

Were they quoting £45 for a Suite in 1982