Tired of employing have franchising questions.

[Quickwindowclean]

Obviously like many others I've been motivated by looking at some of the bigger companies employing and really up scaling window cleaning.

So I've got a couple of vans 2 in mine I work as well and 1 single in the other ( or it's meant to be ).

I'm just finding it a lot harder staff will always have a different motivation then we will. Going on holiday having time off getting by the easiest possible. Not to mention you might end up getting someone one who is totally unreliable after a month.

And then finally after six months or a year or two years if you're lucky play the slide to move on and you have to start the whole process again.

It's frustrating because I'm not able to be on time unless the other that is running full-time so I want to try to resolve this

I heard of a few people that do franchising

Ian perfect windows and heard of a company called my window cleaner.

All of which I believe provide the work . Providing the work and upscaling is quite expensive though what are the going rates to provide and guarantee turnover?

The total amount of work I could franchise off is certainly about 80k of turnover.

I have been reading that you should probably split this into 3 franchisees?

What sort of premium for the work should it be about £10k per 30k and how about buying the van etc seen on perfect windows site its £8k. 

Been in touch with a a couple of franchise experts they charge over 6k to help you along the way but wanted to get some extra advice here and ask what's the going rate?

My gut feeling is that this is a lot more manageable the franchisee has motivation to work and earn as much as possible

It seems about 20 percent could be the going rate? but I've been advised I could charge even more more because I'm providing all work and it would work out alot better then the 26k offered to be employed.

I also want to know what would I be getting into I would be doing this have an easier life

And the franchise manages his own round with a strict contract 

 

[dazmond]

i know a franchisee....he seems happy...he works long hours though(40+ hours a week mon-sat)he gives 10% to his boss which seems very reasonable.....

i think you need a fair few franchisees to make enough money to get off the tools yourself

 

[Deleted member 257]

10% is closer to the going rate, several companies taking less. From my research.

 

[Quickwindowclean]

i know a franchisee....he seems happy...he works long hours though(40+ hours a week mon-sat)he gives 10% to his boss which seems very reasonable.....

i think you need a fair few franchisees to make enough money to get off the tools yourself

Yeah I'm definitely going to be still working full-time it's just literally the work I can't handle. I don't think I'll never stop the physical side of the job even if I had 100 vans gets you out the house and keeps you honest.!

In the long run I can see some benefits for one I could keep my element of the business under the VAT threshold 2 staff technically will be very motivated 3 business can be upscaled without unreliability and hassle of employing.

Obviously I've looked around but what sort of money is the going rate to provide work and van?

financially wise if I was to take the 80k turnover and employ it would cost about 30k to staff including holidays and me and a casual worker covering his days say 5k running cost of van or more.

To be on the absolute safe side including National Insurance payments everything 40k from the 80 about 16k goes off to vat man so its 64k really so it's basically 24k max profit provided the staff member does not take any extra time off its best case which isn't realistic! Franchising if its 20 percent its 16k profit if its 25 percent you're only 4k off the best case right?

You can see how these numbers are working? Employment can be good but I think it just depends what sort of salary you have to pay to keep someone serious and happy.

Number crunching the franchise model isnt a bad move at all

Would love to hear a bit more 

 

[Quickwindowclean]

10% is closer to the going rate, several companies taking less. From my research.

I think I have seen this as well it's more the package where yeah you're not offered really any work other than maybe 50 customers.

And then you're taught to do it the way the franchisor done it and have his or hers support.

I think I have seen about 20% if you provide the work and get them to thier target.

 

[Part Timer]

@Damo runs a very successful franchise, he should be able to let you know the ins and outs and margins.

 

[Quickwindowclean]

@Damo runs a very successful franchise, he should be able to let you know the ins and outs and margins.

That sounds really good hopefully we can hear from damo soon.

Meanwhile the more I think about it the more sense it seems to make. Obviously it can't be a silver bullet but I do feel like going to be a lot more easier to upscale then employing.

 

[Damo]

Hi, at work at the moment. Will come back to thread later. 
 

 

[NewGuy]

Before I set up on my own, I was considering signing up to a local franchise.

They wanted £11k sign on fee and for that, they would guarantee me X amount of work of my choice within 12 months. They would have provided the branding for vehicle, training, guidance and support. The initial equipment would have been provided at start up only (one backpack and cheap pole) but after that, I would have been responsible for future purchases. 

I would have been responsible for organising my own work. Would have to explain why I lost any customers. 

And they wanted 20% of my weekly income.

Decided to set up on my own instead. 

 

[Quickwindowclean]

Before I set up on my own, I was considering signing up to a local franchise.

They wanted £11k sign on fee and for that, they would guarantee me X amount of work of my choice within 12 months. They would have provided the branding for vehicle, training, guidance and support. The initial equipment would have been provided at start up only (one backpack and cheap pole) but after that, I would have been responsible for future purchases. 

I would have been responsible for organising my own work. Would have to explain why I lost any customers. 

And they wanted 20% of my weekly income.

Decided to set up on my own instead. 

What sort of work "turnover wise" were you offered for that sort of money.

 

[NewGuy]

I could have chosen my own figure but I was intending to aim for a revenue of £50k. But they price jobs too low so it would have been a high volume of work. 

 

[Pjj]

Before I set up on my own, I was considering signing up to a local franchise.

They wanted £11k sign on fee and for that, they would guarantee me X amount of work of my choice within 12 months. They would have provided the branding for vehicle, training, guidance and support. The initial equipment would have been provided at start up only (one backpack and cheap pole) but after that, I would have been responsible for future purchases. 

I would have been responsible for organising my own work. Would have to explain why I lost any customers. 

And they wanted 20% of my weekly income.

Decided to set up on my own instead. 

Sounds like a wise move to go on your own , I like the idear of being a franchise owner but not the franchisees ????

 

[Damo]

That sounds really good hopefully we can hear from damo soon.

Meanwhile the more I think about it the more sense it seems to make. Obviously it can't be a silver bullet but I do feel like going to be a lot more easier to upscale then employing.

Do you wanna give me a call tomorrow or something? 

 

[NewGuy]

Sounds like a wise move to go on your own , I like the idear of being a franchise owner but not the franchisees ????

Yes, I personally would love to reap 20% from franchisees but NOT pay 20% to a franchiser!

 

[Quickwindowclean]

Do you wanna give me a call tomorrow or something? 

That's really kind of you actually.

Do you want to send me your number thank you very much

 

[Davy G]

I could have chosen my own figure but I was intending to aim for a revenue of £50k. But they price jobs too low so it would have been a high volume of work. 

I guess they would be on to a good thing by pricing low. They could expect to easily recruit a lot of reliable customers by being cheap so would always have money coming in. But someone doing the work would be run ragged trying to make enough money to make it worthwhile for themselves because of the cheap prices. Meanwhile the owner sits back and reaps the benefits of money coming in without having to do the physical work.

 

[NewGuy]

I guess they would be on to a good thing by pricing low. They could expect to easily recruit a lot of reliable customers by being cheap so would always have money coming in. But someone doing the work would be run ragged trying to make enough money to make it worthwhile for themselves because of the cheap prices. Meanwhile the owner sits back and reaps the benefits of money coming in without having to do the physical work.

Yes, I'm not necessarily suggesting the model is wrong but it's certainly not for me. It does work for others though. Perhaps I could have swallowed the ongoing 20% fee for guaranteed work but not the £10k buy in with **** equipment (backpack).

The other difficultly would have been the limited scope I would have had to refine the round by dropping the **** jobs. I simply wanted to work for myself and be answerable to only myself.

 

[Davy G]

Yes, I'm not necessarily suggesting the model is wrong but it's certainly not for me. It does work for others though. Perhaps I could have swallowed the ongoing 20% fee for guaranteed work but not the £10k buy in with **** equipment (backpack).

No, I'm sure the model would suit some people on both sides of the deal. Personally, I've spent enough time in my working years making money for other folk.

Time now for the old digger to reap the benefits. Digger was a nickname given to me by kayaking friends over thirty years ago. Me being the only manual worker in a middle class sport in our club, so something of a curiosity among : school teachers, engineers, company executives and students. Them sometimes passing me while I was working on road works. Jackhammering, tarmacing, etc. It was a term of endearment though and I wore it with pride. ?

 

[NewGuy]

I have never made money for anyone in my career to date ? Maybe subconsciously I didn't want to start doing so!

Very important to tale pride of oneself

 

[Pjj]

Yes, I'm not necessarily suggesting the model is wrong but it's certainly not for me. It does work for others though. Perhaps I could have swallowed the ongoing 20% fee for guaranteed work but not the £10k buy in with **** equipment (backpack).

The other difficultly would have been the limited scope I would have had to refine the round by dropping the **** jobs. I simply wanted to work for myself and be answerable to only myself.

They cannot be a very reputable franchise if they are supplying back packs sound like a right bunch of cowboys to me ???

 

[Quickwindowclean]

Well done for going it alone and making a success out of it.

In my case I basically have a chunk of work that I have to choose either to re-employ someone again or look at this route, thinking back it must have taken me about 5 years to realistically consistently make a 60k turnover.

So many trial and error so many mistakes things I did I wish I did sooner took me time to figure it out so supposed the idea would be the franchisee would get there sooner with guidance and also hopefully solve my problem with staying on top of the work and keeping it all in check.

One of the downsides is apparently you have to give the franchisee exclusive rights to at least one postcode or more and if I get any enquiries that I wouldn't mind doing myself from his main area I would need to pass it on regardless. Although I see the logic in this I somewhat not sure about restricting myself exactly but perhaps if I go down this route I need to think bigger scale as there still will be a royalty fee.. in turn he would need permission to work outside his area so I suppose he's much more restricted.

So the problem there would be be the extra workload I have have even hits areas where I work so I was thinking for example of building up his particular list of customers whether or not a few are within my area even though the areas are very big and very dense apparently it could be a problem with solicitor's.

So obviously I've got some concerns and questions but it's either that or just consider selling the round off that I cant handle but it's a good earner still so I wouldn't do that and it seems you could ask for 4x so say 8k for 2k then a 20 percent cut to sell it as a franchise and selling it out right you probably wouldn't get much more then 4x anyway so it's a no brainer.

Another question I've got is for example that route has direct debits BACS transfers but there's always one or two people that just want to pay on the day or next time basically there will always be some **** to deal with it's never going to be all Roses so probably want to know how that goes down.

Obviously I'll have a responsibility to make sure he's functioning so I don't want to over commit myself as I'll be doing this to improve my lifestyle not to work harder. Should he require help building his business and use me to actively get more customers maybe there can be something in the contact where I can do it at x cost as it takes money and time and the 20 percent of clean wont cut it.

Still need to learn so much need to learn what I'm considering is the right move indeed.

Sorry hope this wasn't too long.