Review of Maid2Clean

This is one of a few examples of Business Opportunity Watch Reviews which are available for the public to view on the public section of the website. The reason for making a small sample of the reviews freely available is to help potential customers decide if they want to subscribe, and also to communicate some matters of general interest arising in the case of some of the reviews. All the other reviews are available only to subscribers.

 

Review from Business Opportunity Watch Rating Reviews
January 2008 Issue 11

MAID2CLEAN
Maid2Clean Ltd
Caiden House
Canal Road, Timperley
Altrincham
WA14 1TD
Telephone: 0845 257 (MAID) 6243
www.maid2clean.co.uk

A selection from testimonials from current Maid2Clean franchisees:

Paul Daley - Maid2Clean North Staffs:

I have just completed my second year in business as a Maid2Clean Franchisee, I have now got 135 regular paying customers and by the end of my third year I expect to have over 200 customers with a turnover of around £45,000. This will pay me far in excess of what I was earning as a Senior Production Manager in the pottery industry.

Growth in my Maid2Clean business has been maintained every single month and I see no reason why it should not continue to grow for the next few years, particularly as I shall be targeting the elderly where more and more people are requiring our services.

The Maid2Clean business concept really does work, the residual income means that I can take 3 or 4 holidays each year and the money keeps coming in, and the way that I manage the business means that the majority of my time is spent acquiring new customers, consequently this should lead to continued growth.

One piece of advice I would certainly give to any perspective Maid2Clean franchisee, is to listen to Elaine, she is very experienced in this field and whatever problem the franchisee has they, will have had themselves, and I have always found them very willing to help.

My aim, in a couple of years time, is to rent an office and employ someone to manage it for me, enabling me to take semi-retirement.

The only regret I have is that I did not do join Maid2Clean a few years earlier.

Linda Kenyon - Maid2Clean North Manchester:

Many of my friends, including my father, have ridiculed me for spending money on a franchise when this was something I could quite easily have set up on my own. Little do they know that without the support and advice that Elaine has given me over the past 12 months, I know I would have failed at the first hurdle. As it is, I have no doubt that Maid2Clean will give me everything I have longed for all these years and I am now building a great future for myself and my family.

Maid2Clean is without doubt the best decision I have ever made in my life and I would like to thank Elaine for giving me this fantastic opportunity and helping me along every step of the way.

Tony Ingles - Maid2Clean (Peak):

As the Maid2Clean system allows me to price extremely competitively, I find I always have a waiting list of customers. I can't recommend Maid2Clean highly enough.

Andy & Paula - Maid2Clean Enterprises (Sheffield):

We have both been amazed by the way things have taken off in our area even though Sheffield has a large number of cleaning agencies already. We are able to offer customers a very competitive alternative with Maid2Clean and this has been very successful. We would not hesitate in highly recommending an opportunity of purchasing a franchise from Maid2Clean to anyone and friends of ours are considering this option. All in all becoming part of the Maid2Clean group has been one of the best decisions we have ever made.

Karen Hawes - Maid2Clean Northampton:

Having spent 12 years bringing up children, the prospect of returning to employment was not an attractive one. Over a period of 3 months, my husband and I looked at just about every franchise available in the UK as well as a few established business that were up for sale.

We quickly concluded that the Maid2Clean proposition was right for us. The prospect of flexible working hours with good, residual returns and a relatively low investment was particularly attractive. 9 months later I am in charge of a successful and profitable business. I still have time to 'do lunch' with my friends while earning a respectable income. More importantly for me, my hourly rate is much higher than I could ever have hoped for in a 'proper job'!

Graeme Pirie - Maid2Clean Walcote:

When I started looking for a domestic cleaning franchise I had the mindset “how hard can this be?”, I thought I would go for a look then consider just going it alone. But like any other business there's a morass of little but important things that need to be in place – all of this was provided by Elaine, meaning all I had to do was get on with it! This is a people business, it's about organization, determination and people management.

After 8 months, my Maid2Clean business now has almost 100 clients and revenue around £3000 per month. Every month grows by around 20%. There's plenty ups and downs of course but there's a great team of franchisees who meet at the conferences and freely share their experiences with each other whenever possible.

Have I done the right thing? Without a doubt!

Stewart Ferris (Maid2Clean York):

I started in earnest with Maid2Clean about 14 months ago and have already built a client base of nearly 100. Lessons are learnt every day, but the back up from Elaine and the other franchisees is excellent. As with any business there are hassles, but these are balanced by watching the business grow on an almost daily basis. You get out of this what you put in to it, which means it grows faster if I work harder!

RATING REPORT:

The Maid2Clean franchise was started in 2004 by Mike and Elaine Hanrahan following three successful pilot operations. In fact, Mike and Elaine have been running a domestic cleaning business since 1993, so they have 14 years' experience of the business.

It's a big advantage for their franchisees that the couple still have their own Maid2Clean business in South Manchester, because this means that they are ideally placed to help and advise their franchisees.

The development of the Maid2Clean franchise has been impressive. After barely four years they now have over 70 franchisees. In addition, they have two operations in Northern Ireland and another one in Southern Ireland, and they have just launched in Canada.

Anyone who has looked into domestic cleaning franchises will know that there are a lot of this type of franchise - ranging from the very long-established to those set up in the last year or two, with prices from below £10,000 to nearly £30,000.

So how do you choose between them?

I thought it would be helpful to readers looking for a domestic cleaning franchise to do a summary comparison of the cost of each franchise, what size of exclusive area you receive, how long the company has been established and the number of franchisees they have.

So here are the comparison figures, starting off with the cheapest franchise and ending up with the most expensive:

Spot On

www.spotoncleaning.biz
Franchise cost: £4,999+ VAT
Size of area: The website states that the size of the area is "200,000 population". It's important not to be misled by this figure because a population of 200,000 will equate to a far smaller number of households. What you're selling is a service to households and not to individual people, and that's why franchisors normally quote an area size in terms of households. Giving all franchisees the same terms to purchase a specific number of households avoids the problems of some franchisees being unfairly disadvantaged and other being unfairly advantaged by demographic factors (i.e. certain areas will have far fewer people per household than others).
Date started: July 2007
No. of franchisees: Unknown

Dolly Char

www.dollychar.com
Franchise cost: £6,950 + VAT
Size of area: 40,000 target households with an annual income of £30,000+ (equivalent to a population of around 500,000).
Date started: 2004
No. of franchisees: 7

SelClene

www.selclene.co.uk
Franchise cost: £7,500 (although the company also offers a partnership arrangement for only £250 and a Mini-Franchise option is also available as a percentage of the normal franchise fee if want to start off with an area of less than the 100,000 household that comes with the full franchise.)
Size of area: 100,000 householders
Date started: 1987
No. of franchisees: The company has 85 franchised areas with some more areas in development. The actual number of franchisees is not stated, but it must lower than 85 because many franchisees have more than one area.

Kingsmaid

www.kingsmaid-franchise.co.uk
Franchise cost: £7,500
Size of area: 120,000 target households
Date started: 2006
No. of franchisees: Not stated on the website, but 21 franchisees are advertising their services on www.yell.com

BelleCasa

www.bellecasa.co.uk
Franchise cost: £8,950 + VAT
Size of area: Unstated - email sent but no reply received
Date started: 2001
No. of franchisees: A map of "current franchises" on the website shows only five, but this is clearly not right because I found 24 franchisees advertising their services on www.yell.com

Maid2Clean

www.maid2clean.co.uk
Franchise cost: £9,999 + VAT
Size of area: 100,000 households
Date started: 2004
No. of franchisees: over 70

Castle Angels

www.castleangels.co.uk
Franchise Cost: £10,000 + VAT
Size of area: Unstated - email sent but no reply received
Date started: 2003
No. of franchisees: Unknown

Time For You

www.thecleanersolution.co.uk
Franchise cost: £11,750 + VAT
Size of area: Unstated - email sent but no reply received
Date started: 2001
No of franchisees: 147

Swissmaid

www.swissmaid.co.uk
Franchise cost: £15,000 +VAT
Size of area: Unstated - email sent but no reply received
Date started: 2001
No of franchisees: Not shown on the website and I couldn't find any franchisees advertising their services on www.yell.com

Merry Maids

www.servicemaster.co.uk
Franchise cost: £15,900
Size of area: Normally between 70,000 and 100,000 homes per territory depending on the demographics.
Date started:1991
No of franchisees: Over 100

Daily Poppins

www.dailypoppins.co.uk
Franchise cost: £15,995 + VAT
Size of area: Over 60,000 households with more than 30,000 potential customers
Date started: 1997
No. of franchisees: Not stated on the website, but I found 10 franchisees advertising their services on www.yell.com

Molly Maid

www.mollymaid.co.uk
Franchise cost: £16,975
Size of area: 12,000 households
Date started: 1985
No of franchisees: Over 400 worldwide

MyHome

www.myhome.com
Franchise cost: £29,500
Size of area: 25,000 households
Date started: 2001
No. of franchisees: Unstated, but the website shows that 72 areas are covered.

Obviously, this is a very broad brush comparison which does not indicate specific items like pre-launch publicity and post-launch publicity, which are included in the cost of some of the franchises and not in others. My comparison does, however, include one of the most important items, which is the size of the area.

I found these results surprising because I expected to see a fairly clear correlation between the cost of each franchise and the number of franchisees. A higher number of franchisees clearly indicates that the business model is a successful one and therefore worthwhile paying a high price for. On the other hand, a low number of franchisees indicates that either the franchise is new and has not yet been tested in action by many franchisees or - in the case of a franchise that has been established for several years - it either indicates that a number of franchisees have left or it indicates that not many are joining. If few franchisees are joining, the implication is that either the franchise model is not right or it is not being marketed properly, neither of which bode well for the franchisee's own business, whose structure and marketing is determined by the franchisor.

Maid2Clean comes out well from this comparison, with a healthy and steadily-growing number of franchisees and a generous number of households in its exclusive area.

Maid2Clean also includes in the cost of its franchise a number of other benefits not included in the cost of most other franchises, as follows:

"1. We pay for 10,000 of your Maid2Clean leaflets to be distributed

2. Launch assistance provided at your site giving your business 100% undivided focus allowing you to run the business from the start.

3. Personal training and mentoring for each franchisee alongside the main training programme.

4. 2-months' initial cleaner acquisition programme paid for by us.

5. Pre-launch marketing campaign to promote your business.

6. Post-launch national advertising campaign

7. Bespoke Maid2clean Client and Cleaner database to make it easy to run your business."

If you go to the Maid2Clean website you can obtain full details of the franchise, which includes other benefits I haven't mentioned here.

If you're interested in a domestic cleaning franchise, then Maid2Clean should certainly be on your list.

Make sure that you investigate a couple of other franchises, too though - not only for comparison purposes but also because you will find out valuable general information.

A key step with each company is to contact a number of existing franchisees to find out how their business is going "from the horse's mouth". Normally, you can independently access a list of franchisees from www.yell.com simply by keying in "cleaning - domestic" as the type of the business and entering the name of the franchise as the company name and and not specifying the location so that Yell does its default search for the whole of the UK.

Make sure that you contact franchisees who live in a similar area to the one you will be operating in. For example, a domestic cleaning business set up in a rural area faces difficulties that a business in a big town won't face, so make sure that you are comparing like with like. It would be a good idea to get some demographic statistics for different areas, covering matters like whether there are a lot of old people, whether there are a lot of students, how the area's population is split between different income groups etc.

There are many other factors to consider, too, and these are well set out in an article by Martin Gover, MD of SelClene, which is as valid today as it was when it was written for us in 2001.

Probably the most important initial consideration, however, is whether you are suited to becoming a franchisee. You have to be prepared to follow the franchisor's plan. So if you are the kind of person who likes to go off and do their own thing then you're unlikely to be happy as a franchisee.

You can, of course, consider setting up your own independent cleaning business - lots of people have, but it won't be as easy or as quickly successful as it would be if you joined a good franchise.

Another consideration, obviously, is whether you would be suited to running a cleaning business - whether inside or outside a franchise. You won't be doing the cleaning yourself - instead, your job is to organise the cleaners and meet potential clients. Essentially, it is a people business and you need to like dealing with people and you need to be good at organising people - although Maid2Clean makes the organisational aspect as easy as it can be with their bespoke software.

Your main problem will be finding reliable cleaners, so when you've found good ones you need to hang onto them. This will obviously be easier if your cleaners like working for you, and that's down to not only terms and conditions and pay but also management skills and treating them with respect.

Good, reliable cleaners will be the key to your success, because they lead to satisfied clients ... and one of your main ongoing marketing methods will be word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied clients.

I first reviewed Maid2Clean as a young franchise in September 2004 and I rated it 7 out of 10. Since then I've watched its careful development and I've been impressed by the success it has achieved. I think Maid2Clean deserves a 9 now.

Rating:

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