Cleaning up in business (Daily Mail franchise story)

Cleaning up in business

Daily Mail

By: Linda Whitney

THE attraction of a cleaning franchise is clear if you have ever stood back to admire a floor you have just mopped.

It's about transformation, and some situations need transforming fast.

'We were once called to an empty flat, at the bottom of a block, emanating a dreadful smell,' says Ian McCormac, of ServiceMaster Group, which offers four cleaning franchises.

'There was green mould from floor to ceiling, the toilet had overflowed, the floors were flooded and eight inches of sewage was in the bath.' It turned out that concrete had been tipped down the block's drain, and six months' worth of waste water and sewage from the occupied top flat had backed up into the bottom floor.

'We sprayed the lot with a sanitising agent, sucked up all the water and the flat was stripped back to a bare shell before being re-equipped and sold — a rewarding result,' says Mr McCormac.

If you want hands-on cleaning, ServiceMaster offers two franchises that involve working from a van: residential upholstery and carpet cleaning (a £23,000 investment) or disaster restoration (£25,000), which means cleaning up after floods and fires.

It also offers a choice of two management franchises. ServiceMaster Clean means running a team offering business cleaning, and Merry Maids has domestic cleaners.

'You need management, marketing and sales ability, and the tact to deal with customers and staff,' says Ken Dennis, of ServiceMaster.

Bug Busters franchisees fight bacteria in offices. 'It'said that office workers are exposed to more germs from their phones and keyboards than from toilet seats,' says Tobias Batkin, of Bug Busters.

'Underneath the keys of your computer keyboard lie the rotting effects of lunches as well as skin particles and hair — a moist habitat for bacterial and viral growth.' Its franchisees clean computers, workstations, office equipment and phones, later moving on to manage teams of cleaners. You will also be selling services to companies. The investment is £15,000.

If you like diversity, a Supacleen franchise means opening a one-stop cleaning service for businesses, with office, window, carpet and technology cleaning, plus waste disposal, shredding, janitorial services and more. It's a management franchise you can run from home and costs £15,000.

SERVICEMASTER, 0116 275 9000; Bug Busters, 0800 916 9898; Supacleen: 0845 363 0405.

HOW TO PICK A WINNER

'MAKE sure that you do your homework if you want to pick a winner,' says Alistair Goodwin, the franchisee who has run carpet and upholstery cleaning service Chem-Dry Wirral & Deva for the past 20 years.

'I chose Chem-Dry because I liked the people behind it and the quality of its marketing. I also researched the franchisor's track record.' Mr Goodwin sought out existing franchisees to speak to. 'I found that most of them were more than happy to give me a realistic view of how the franchisor dealt with them,' says Mr Goodwin, 51, a former hospital pathology laboratory technician with a degree in microbiology.

'I joined a local business organisation and met a variety of solicitors, accountants and entrepreneurs who suggested questions I might want to ask the franchisor and franchisees.' Mr Goodwin started the franchise in a spare room, but since the successful expansion now has his own premises and ten employees.

Chem-Dry is currently looking for more franchisees with £26,950 to invest.

¦ CHEM-DRY, 01482 888195..