The franchise model works. You can probably reel off a few household names, businesses that wouldn’t have got to where they are without it. According to the British Franchise Association, the UK franchising industry turns over £15.1 billion per year, generated by 44,200 franchise outlets, 97% of which are profitable. It’s a proven model that clearly works, but can it work for window cleaning industry? Well, many window cleaning companies have franchised their businesses and been as successful as you might expect from those statistics.
Whilst it’s not for everyone, CleanerPlanner decided to look at 4 reasons why you might consider franchising your window cleaning business.
1) Quicker growth
One of the primary reasons many businesses opt for the franchise model when expanding is the scalable nature of franchising and fast rate of growth that it can achieve. This is for a number of reasons which are highlighted in more depth throughout this post, but the primary reason is that you empower your franchisees with the opportunity to run their own business. As a result, they are invested in and motivated to develop new business for their franchise, growing your overall business in turn. As each franchisee comes on board, your network grows and you penetrate a new area, multiplying this effect and achieving more rapid results than traditional, organic growth models.
2) A more motivated workforce
As we’ve just highlighted, franchisees are far more likely to be more motivated compared to an employee. When you offer someone a franchise in your company, you effectively offer them the opportunity to run their own business, control their income and their future.  As a result, they benefit directly from the success of their franchise, meaning it’s in their interest to grow and develop the business, work at a profitable pace and maintain a high standard of service at all times. The result is a more motivated workforce that is incentivised to play their part in growing and maintaining your business as a whole. This is backed up by the British Franchise Association who claim that: “for over 20 years consecutively, around 90% of all UK franchisees reported profitability over the previous 12 months.”
3) Better workforce retention
Following on from that, a very common problem faced by window cleaning businesses that employ staff is finding and keeping hold of employees that will do a good job. Employees are far less invested in your business, making other opportunities more attractive and easier to transition into. Owing to the unavoidable fact that a window cleaning business is relatively easy to set up, sometimes that opportunity is setting up for themselves. A franchisee has already invested their time and energy into developing their own business that they benefit directly from, making it far more likely that they will be around for the long haul.
4) Simpler management
Generally, franchisees manage their own day to day tasks, scheduling and admin. When you combine that with the facts that we’ve already mentioned, it’s clear that franchisees require far less management in comparison to an employee. Your responsibility to organise and motivate is drastically reduced, freeing up time that can be spent on other aspects of growing your business.
The above factors form part of the reason why window cleaning franchises can be very successful. Of course, as a franchised window cleaning business grows, it becomes even more important to stay organised and on top of scheduling, admin, customer communication and debt management.
CleanerPlanner window cleaning software provides the perfect platform for franchised window cleaning businesses, enabling you to provide franchisees with separate accounts, allowing them to take on the day to day running of the franchise. At the same time, you retain control and ownership of their data, and whilst it’s kept separate from your “master” account, you can easily check in and report on their progress as you help them to grow.
Take a look at a success story from one of our customers operating a franchised window cleaning business, start your 30 day free trial or contact us to find out more about how CleanerPlanner can work for your business.
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