[Ian Lancaster]

Just noticed Ian's thread on the subject.  Sorry Ian, I've been out and about in our new motorhome, practising for retirement (8 weeks and counting ).

Contrary to some ugly rumours, I'm still about, still running my franchised organisation and still prospering

Check out my website - we are going from strength to strength - all my franchisees are still with me and still happy with their businesses, earning very good money and glad they took the plunge.

As to setting up - yes, I did take the best part of three years thinking and planning my operation, but for someone who already has the workforce and customer base and just wants to change from employer to franchisor it could be done much more quickly.

I wrote my own franchise agreement, that's what took so long, but a few months ago I went to a franchise solicitor and got her to re-write it in such a way that everything I wanted was still there, and everything the franchisees needed was still there but put in the right way so we are all protected in the event of a dispute.

I'm glad some of you remember the presentation I gave at Windex - I still have the Powerpoint article and I'm happy to forward it to anyone interested (unless Ian Wicks would be kind enough to put the link on his website again - I'm not clever enough for that!!)

For anyone considering this way of expanding their business, I can say that I have never regretted it - it is far better than employing, virtually looks after itself and pays us a regular income for very little input.

As for Paul Smith, aka PowerClene - he has disappeared from the face of the earth.  I've spoken to one of his franchisees in Scotland, who never actually paid any royalty fees - the whole house of cards collapsed before it really got going.  I can't understand why he should have failed, he had everything thought out and all systems in place.

All I can say is that my experience is if you think about what you're doing and don't try to go too far too soon, then world really can become your oyster.  I'm too old now to fully take advantage of the opportunities, but if it's properly set up, it can become self propagating - I have one Master Franchisee operating in another area and he has started building his network.  I get a cut of his operation for doing very little.  There's no reason why this pattern can't be repeated over and over again throughout the whole country, and even the world - as I've mentioned many times before - look at Jim's Mowing :

[Window Washers]

Ian,

Thanks for the reply,

if possible could you email me on design@windowwashers.co.uk
so I can write you an email ?


I have no probs putting the talk link online for people to download.

Will sort that out now..


Ian

[Window Washers]

Here we go:

http://www.windowwashers.co.uk/IanLancaster.doc

[Ian Lancaster]

Hi Ian,

I e-mailed you a couple of hours ago

[ronnie paton]

ian just read the presentation and i seen so many similarities iv asked you questions on cleaningpro but would love some questions answered if you could.

Could this work with commercial wrk?

would it make a difference with having set areas(i now you dont stipulate areas) with commercial

when you build a new franchise do you canvass and clean untill its up to what they want?

[Window Washers]

Hi Ian,

I e-mailed you a couple of hours ago

I have replied to that Ian, great minds think a like, maybe it's in the name 

[ronnie paton]

Hi Ian,

I e-mailed you a couple of hours ago

I have replied to that Ian, great minds think a like, maybe it's in the name

you called Ian Lancaster too

[Ian Lancaster]

ian just read the presentation and i seen so many similarities iv asked you questions on cleaningpro but would love some questions answered if you could.

Could this work with commercial wrk?

would it make a difference with having set areas(i now you dont stipulate areas) with commercial

when you build a new franchise do you canvass and clean untill its up to what they want?

Hi Ronnie,

It will work however you want it to.  I can't see it would be any different being commercial or domestic work.  I don't have fixed areas because I guarantee every franchisee will have as much work as he wants, so it doesn't make any difference where he is working, but if you want to have defined separate areas then that would work as well.

When I build a new franchise I just get the work, it's up to the franchisee to go out and clean it

[ronnie paton]

so basically it works how ever i want it too!!! as long has the franchisee agrees.

I wouldnt care abot areas but i wuldnt want to provide them with none stopwork all though i would start them with say 25k a year, would you see this has a problem??

like you have said to Ian if you already have the work load it is easier to start asap, so apart from the franchise agreement what else would i need to consider?

[Ian Lancaster]

apart from the franchise agreement what else would i need to consider?

An awful lot, I'm afraid.  The relationship between franchisor and franchisee is very different from that of the employer/employee.

Each party needs to be fully aware of their responsibility to the other, for a start.  Then there is the question of responsibility towards the customers - although these are the 'property' of the franchisor the franchisee has to accept that his responsibility is to the customer in respect of the quality of his work, reliability, personal conduct etc etc.  These sort of things are the reasons why it took me three years to arrive at a workable basis for my organisation.

Every day a new point would occur to me and I had to accomodate it into the overall structure of my plan.  Just as when you are employing, things you had never imagined occur on an almost daily basis, and you have to have clear and fair guidelines to allow each party to function as part of the whole operation without creating friction.

Every decision needs to be written down so that when a similar situation arises, the solution exists, otherwise you finish up with endless conflict and confusion.

I learned as I went along, made mistakes and corrected them and I'm afraid anyone else would have to do the same, there's no short-cut to suit every situation

[ronnie paton]

Thanks ian helpful as always.