MANAGEMENT FRANCHISING
“THE COMPREHENSIVE SUPPORT PACKAGE TAKES CARE OF THEMAIN DAY-TO-DAY BUSINESS, SO FRANCHISEES CAN CONCENTRATE THEIR EFFORTS ON BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT”
Describe the process for getting on board...
MINSTER CLEANING SERVICES
55-year-old Nick Barber is the franchisee for Minster Cleaning Services’ Northampton and Milton Keynes branch. He was named as Minster’s Franchisee of the Year in 2010, 2013 and 2015 and was a 2014 B2B bfa Franchisee of the Year finalist.
What did you do before franchising and what prompted you to make the change?
I spent 16 years as an RAF navigator. On leaving the RAF I wanted to go into business on my own and had identified franchising as the best way forward for all the usual reasons: the relatively high success rates of a franchised business compared with starting a business from scratch, a tried-and-tested business model with established business systems, and so on.
How did you find out about franchising and this brand in particular? I met Chris Campbell at a franchise exhibition; he had been a fellow flyer 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.
Minster eases the transition from employment to self-employment, or in my case, from the forces to civvy street, by providing ongoing help and advice from the very first day. The comprehensive support package takes care of the main day-to-day business activities including IT, accounts, marketing, training and operations, as well as providing professional advice on employment law, health and safety and environmental legislation, so franchisees can concentrate their efforts on business development.
How was trading in the beginning and how is business today?
I joined Minster in 1996 taking on Minster’s Northampton and Milton Keynes territory as a ‘new start’, so with no turnover at all. Today, annual turnover at the branch is approaching £2million. As an essential business-to-business service with multi- sector appeal, office cleaning is less susceptible to fluctuations in the economy than most sectors so growth over the years has been fairly consistent.
What qualities do franchisees need to operate a management franchise and to be a successful franchisee? Minster is very much a ‘people business’ and the main challenges come from employing large numbers of people, so organisational and managerial skills are very important.
My time in the RAF gave me an excellent grounding for operating a management franchise. 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 had developed in the RAF. Ex-forces people make ideal Minster Cleaning Services franchisees: Minster offers 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 your customers. Five Minster franchisees came from the forces and they are all running successful businesses and building valuable assets for themselves.
What are your plans for the future of your business? 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
Bedford, Corby, Daventry, Kettering, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Wellingborough – gives me almost unlimited scope for expansion and we put a lot of effort 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 fine-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.
Would you recommend franchising, and Minster, to others? I would definitely recommend franchising. It’s great to be in control of your own destiny and yet have the support of the franchisor and the other franchisees in the network. You must be prepared to work hard and, if you have people-management ability, you’d be well advised to buy a Minster franchise.
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BusinessFranchise.com | June 2018
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