Commercial Cleaning Franchises Might be a Good Choice, But Be Careful

Commercial cleaning franchises have massive appeal for many reasons. Firstly, they are one of the most affordable franchise opportunities around. Secondly, the work really does not require prior experience. Thirdly the franchisor supplies the new franchisee with a ready-made client list of active accounts, meaning that as soon as you sign up, you have customers and you can start work straight away.
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<br>This client list is generally sold at about half the gross income that the accounts should earn in one year. So an account which will bring in $50,000 per year will be sold to the franchisee at approximately half that amount, say $25,000. The franchisor will probably also require on-going royalties, management fees and advertising fees.
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<br>So here we have a franchise opportunity presenting itself as inexpensive to buy, no marketing required, with ready and seemingly inexhaustible supply of work available and sweeten an already appealing package, the franchisor may offer to arrange financing for you on attractive terms.
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<br>At first glance it would seem commercial cleaning is an easy and predictable business to get into. You can purchase as many accounts as you feel you can manage and your revenue should be easy to predict. As you learn the business you can purchase more accounts and put on more employees to cover the work-load. But there are many things that can happen unexpectedly to throw your business plan into disarray.
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<br>Your cleaning franchise agreement may stipulate that the franchisor will offer you accounts which add up to a certain dollar value, but when you get to inspect the details of the account you perhaps will find that you cannot accept all of them. The reason may be that you will need to be in two locations at the same time, or the traveling distance from one to the other is too far to be viable. If you reject a particular cleaning account the franchisor will most likely not be under any obligation to provide you with a replacement, so now your projected income is much different from what you had planned.
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<br>If a client cancels one of the cleaning accounts you have purchased - and this can happen because of a dispute with the franchisor - or for a multitude of different reasons - the franchisor does not necessarily have to provide a replacement.
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<br>Be aware of the ongoing franchise fees, management fees, advertising fees and your debt repayment installments. These will probably be fixed monthly expenses. Even if, through no fault of your own, you cannot reach your planned revenue goals within the expected time-frame, these fees will still need to be paid.
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<br>Be careful of the stated worth of the cleaning accounts being offered to you by the franchisor. In a highly competitive market it is natural that cleaning companies will bid as low as possible to win the contracts. The bidding price that wins the contract may be too low for you to be able to make a profit from, but the franchisor will still ask you to buy the account, still require that his monthly fees be paid and claim it is not his fault that you are unable to make a profit.
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<br>Now perhaps you can see that there are many possible traps the you could fall into when buying a cleaning franchise. If you do decide to investigate a cleaning franchise opportunity, visit a franchise directory and view the many franchises for sale in Cleaning Franchises category. After you have shortlisted a few contact them, carefully read each company's disclosure document, get all the salesman's promises in writing, review the franchise agreement carefully, make sure you clearly understand your obligations and investigate claims about potential earnings. One of the most important steps you should take, but the one most often left undone, is to talk to existing franchisees.
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<br>About the Author: Michael Burdett is a frequent contributor to various <a href="http://www.everyfranchise.com" rel="nofollow">Franchise Directories</a>, including Every Franchise with a <a href="http://everyfranchise.com/franchise-news/" rel="nofollow">Franchise News</a> and <a href="http://everyfranchise.com/blog/" rel="nofollow">Franchise Blog</a> and a large selection of <a href="http://www.everyfranchise.com/Cleaning-Franchise/" rel="nofollow">Cleaning Franchises
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