Special Feature
your customers. Five Minster franchisees came from the forces and they are all running successful businesses and building valuable assets for themselves.
“You need to be a leader who can motivate, train and develop employees”
What do you enjoy most about owning your business? I like being in control of my own destiny and I like the fact that the nature of our business means that there is no such thing as a typical day; I love the tremendous variety that comes with working with so many diff erent business professionals from a wide range of industry sectors.
Minster Cleaning
Services Nick Barber
Nick, 54, has been franchisee for Minster Cleaning Services’ N orthampton and Milton Keynes branch since 1996. Annual turnover at the branch is now over £1.7million and Nick was named as Minster’s Franchisee of the Year in 2010, 2013 and 2015 and was a 2014 B2B bfa Franchisee of the Year fi nalist.
What did you do prior to investing in a franchise and what led you to Minster Cleaning Services?
I spent 16 years as a Royal Air Force navigator. On leaving the RAF I wanted to go into business on my own and had identifi ed franchising as the best way forward for all the usual reasons: the relatively high success rates of a franchised business compared with starting one from scratch, a tried-and-tested business model with established systems, and so on. I met Chris Campbell at a franchise exhibition; he had been a fellow fl yer in the RAF and had taken on Minster’s Southampton franchise just over a year earlier. He was already building a strong business on the south coast and I could see the massive potential.
How was the transition from life in the forces to self-employment? Have there been any challenges? Minster eases this transition by providing help and advice from the very fi rst day. The comprehensive support package takes care of the main day-to-day business activities, including IT, accounts, marketing and training, as well as providing professional advice on employment law, health and safety and environmental legislation, so franchisees can concentrate their eff orts on business development. Minster is very much a ‘people business’ and the main challenges come from employing large numbers of people, which is why organisational and managerial skills are so important.
Have the skills you gained in the forces helped you in running your franchise? My 16 years in the RAF gave me an excellent grounding for a career with Minster Cleaning Services. Serving in the forces gives you lots of responsibility and encourages a ‘can-do’ attitude – great attributes for setting up a business. Minster Cleaning Services is a business where I have been able to use the people- management and organisational skills that I developed in the RAF. Ex-forces people make ideal Minster Cleaning Services franchisees: Minster off ers the opportunity to create a large business; it’s a real management business where you need to be a leader who can motivate, train and develop employees as well as build up good long-term relationships with
What are your plans for the future? More of the same. I have no plans to take things easy for the foreseeable future and I see no reason why we shouldn’t continue to be so successful. The size of my territory, which includes Daventry, Corby, Kettering, Bedford, Milton Keynes, Wellingborough and Northampton, gives me almost unlimited scope for expansion and we put a lot of eff ort into making sure the quality of our service is so high that our existing customers have no reason to go elsewhere. Well-trained, motivated staff are extremely important and we have found that by fi ne-tuning our service to match clients’ ever-changing requirements we’re picking up extra business, both from existing customers and by recommendation from our happy customers.
What advice would you give to anyone considering a franchise? Check out the franchisor’s credentials very carefully. Do your homework and make sure there is a market for the product or service in your area of interest. Speak to as many franchisees as you possibly can. Make sure that you have a big enough area to generate the level of income you require. Make sure you read the small print – understand what you are you getting for your money and what rights you will have. Do you have exclusive rights to the area in which you will operate? How long will your franchise last and what options do you have to renew? What support will you get at the start and what continuing support is available? If you have people-management ability and are prepared to work hard, buy a Minster franchise!
February 2017 |
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