Franchise of the Month!
This months FOM caught my ear at a recent franchise conference that Terri, Jeremy and I attended. Here’s the reason.
The business is a B to B service that is demand based and needed by ALL businesses. Not only that, but the service is a contractual, recurring service with a 90% renewal rate (system wide).
The parent company has been around for 50 years in Canada and the AVERAGE length of partnership of their franchisees (how long they have been franchisees) is 13 years. The oldest is 38! That means they’ve CHOSEN to renew their contract 3 or 4 times! Honestly I don’t know how long the contracts were back then I wasn’t even born (kidding). The company is now franchising in the US.
The business itself is commercial outdoor services. Strictly B to B. Industrial, hospitals, churches, top branded fortune 500 companies. Reliable continuous work. Your service lines that you offer: snow and ice control. That’s the bread and butter. Then landscaping management – everything but cutting the grass. And finally litter control and line painting and power washing and other ancillary lines.
Day in a life – coaching your sales people and your technicians. Overseeing the work. Again, the work is planned and scheduled – up to 18 months in advance. Nurture your accounts to keep that 90% renewal rate that they enjoy now.
Who they want – People with B to B sales or operational experience. You are personable and organized. Operational excellence is in their DNA and should be in yours. And finally you are a relationship builder. You will be out in the field calling on decision makers and building relationships (facilities managers, property managers, etc)
GIGANTIC average annual volume system wide – in excess of 4MM. Yup thats in the item 19. Top HALF of owners exceed 6.5MM. Again this didn’t happen overnight – this is very mature system.
The corporate office works on securing National Accounts. Some of which are HUGE brand names that are in every town you might be offered a territory. And nationally, these “built in revenue” accounts are something like 20% of the their business. That’s a nice way to launch your business instead of starting at zero.
You’ll start with a low number of employees to start with – your first hire being your Ops Mgr. You will be heavily involved the first 6-12 months. Not a semi absentee model.
They only want to be in the SNOW STATES for this initial roll out in the US. Target markets include: Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Denver, Salt Lake, Indianapolis, Boston, Westport (Connecticut), Minneapolis and Madison Wisconsin. This list is NOT all the markets they are open to – just the hot ones that they know will be very successful.