Leigh Roberts
“Thank you for taking the time to navigate to our online platform here at Kraken Window Cleaning, and since you’ve come this far I don’t want to disappoint you. Let me explain who I am and what I’ve created for you and I’ll make a note of sustainability.”
My experience in the field of professional window cleaning spands further than knowing which squeegee rubber works well in a cooler climate. I have in-depth hands on experience at project managing the entire ‘Business Experience’ that begins with a simple brand idea on the drawing board, polishing 6m high glass chandeliers, through to print runs of branded stubby holders to give to clients at Christmas time.
I’m very pleased with many of my life achievements and with out a doubt at the top of the list would be my wife and 2 children however my journey into building my own professional window cleaning business has been one of the most authentic and revealing endeavours I’ve applied myself to. One of my strong traits is my inclination to ‘adapt, improvise, overcome’. It’s a mantra my high school maths teacher drummed into me and I’d say that overtime it now occurs subconsciously. Essentially its a mental attitude to respond to events as they unfold in front of you and this has been at the foundation of my decision making process to franchise my small business and create attractive opportunities for driven entrepreneurs. I’ve maintained a keen watchful eye on my small business often whilst I am in the thick of it. I’ve continued to make observations of the business – the marketing, the equipment, the clients. Never completely content that anything was optimal and continuing the questioning process.
The question of sustainability has been a big one. What is a sustainable business model? What does that look like? One ongoing observation I have made on the window cleaning and property services industry is that we have an,
- Endless supply of customers and leads
- Moderate supply of suitable casual staff wanting work
- Minimal supply of business owners
So without the right support structure in-place a typical evolution is the business owners steadily become overwhelmed as the practical cleaning tasks rise up next to the back of house administrative duties and as a consequence both aspects of the business become weak at the knees as the business owner is stretched.
I investigated this issue at length and looked at it from every angle, the answer was clear. Franchise. Now let’s be honest for a moment, I don’t really like the word ‘Franchise’, it sounds cheap and gimicky and at the same times conjures images of Golden Arches and Jen Penmans bearded logo on the side of a trailer. But it is the unique paradigm of a franchise agreement that creates a sustainable space for a driven entrepreneur to enter this arena with a vested interest, with support and backing, to move forward with confidence and make a spectacular life style business for themselves.
So I decided to sell my old window cleaning ute and direct that money into re-branding, manual drafting, and creating a franchise agreement for Kraken Window Cleaning. With a smile on my face I’m really pleased with where our branding adventures took us and I sincerely believe we have created a striking, all be it garish mascot for our franchisees to go out into the world and leave a lasting positive impression on their clients.
Throughout the drafting process I have maintained the theme of ‘Sustainability’. I queried a Franchisee named Sam in a seperate industry. During one of my research discussions Sam explained his frustration with his Franchisor as the royalty payment system created a vacuum of money from Sams business account with automated weekly payments. This approach promoted a lack of interest from Head Office since it didn’t matter whether Sam was kicking goals or if his truck was in the wreckers, the Franchisor would still collect their money. The alarm bells were going off and I immediately disliked this system. Taking onboard the feedback we drafted the 16% of each paid invoice policy.
- For a specific set of clearly defined support services the franchisee is billed 16% on each paid invoice.
Essentially if you don’t get paid then neither do we. This promotes growth and encourages our involvement in the success of your business. We all succeed together or not at all, sustainability once again enters the conversation.
I’ve written extensively about who we are and our journey so far and you will find many interesting blog posts and articles throughout this online platform. I hope you have found some value in this article and I want to be authentic in my intent and re-affirm that we have created a family friendly business opportunity for motivated and driven business owners. I’ve cross checked all of our stages during this process to ask myself
“If I was a new business owner how would I feel about this?”
We welcome you to Kraken Window Cleaning, Franchisee terms are currently set to 5yrs. Dream big and lets get Kraken on building up your business today.
Thank you for reading,
Warm Regards
Leigh Roberts
Director of Franchise Operations