From humble beginnings, Thomas Cleaning Franchise is going from strength to strength, and the future is looking even better. Laurence Thomas, CEO, says, “Our franchise business ran along quietly beside our core cleaning business with just four franchisees who were staff members from our core business. We knew that the franchise was working well them, so we wanted to push it more to the general public. Our aim was to create a really compelling franchise package and bring on a further 12 franchisees. We estimated a marketing budget of £3,000.”
As a proactive EC member, he knew that the only way he was going to secure 12 franchises in 12 months was through one thing: implementation.
Laurence says, “I made the most of my Training and Event Pass, and attended courses that I thought would help in selling franchises. A great course was on goal setting, which gave me real clarity. I started planning the following day before the current day was over, which gave me real focus on what I needed to achieved each and every day to get me to my target. Things started happening when I created a Discovery Day, where potential franchisees could learn about the franchise. We were overbooked; it turned out to be so popular!”
“We knew that selling the first franchise was going to be tough and at one point we thought it wasn’t going to happen. But I kept implementing and then had a breakthrough. Two weeks after the first Discovery Day, I sold the first Thomas Cleaning Franchise and what followed was a snowball effect. Because of the numbers we were generating to our Discovery Days we knew we needed a bigger office, so we took on the neighbouring office and knocked through. This helped us to create a dedicated room to hold Discovery Days and Franchisee Training, and through this we exceeded our targets. And the cost of recruiting franchisees was only a third of what we estimated.”
Laurence has since capitalised on his success, including employing staff, organising his first ever franchise conference and creating and automating new support systems. He says, “I like to keep the momentum going so we’re always thinking of what’s new and how we can support our franchisees even more. We’re exhibiting, and always taking on new people. Our superfast progress was made possible through EC.”
Laurence Thomas – Thomas Cleaning
