Jonathan Holden, COO at Molly Maid, on helping franchisees take advantage of the huge industry growth
What is the Molly Maid ‘growth mindset’?
JH: Like all businesses we do an annual business plan setting out key initiatives, what it is we are trying to achieve and our specific objectives – lots of rather dull management speak I know – but what we are really drilling down to is what are we going to do to help franchisees grow their business. This is the most important question every franchisor should be asking themselves and of course, answering. It’s what has driven so many of our enormously successful initiatives throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic.
Give us an example of this in action.
JH: Even though demand for home cleaning has soared, we thought that the first part of 2023 might be a bit softer because of the cost-of-living increases. So, to help franchisees continue to add new customers and grow, a key initiative in our 2023 business plan was to pay for an increase to every franchisee’s Google paid search campaign in the months of January, February and March. It cost a lot of money but has helped us set another new sales record for monthly sales in January and February (at the time of writing March results are still coming in). But it all started with asking the question I mentioned above – how do we help franchisees grow?
Of all the new initiatives you’ve implemented in the past few years, which one has been the best in terms of helping franchisees grow?
JH: It is without a doubt our Best Employer in Homecleaning branding. In the past couple of years, we had more new customers wanting our services than we could possibly meet – meaning we needed many more staff members. When you combine this with the staff shortages that many industries are experiencing, including ours, we knew that attracting staff was the key ingredient to help franchisees grow. We also knew that a combination of great pay, the benefits of full employment and fantastic bosses in our franchisees, meant that we had the best employment offering in the industry. It’s this combination that allowed us to come up with our Best Employer in Homecleaning branding and it helped our franchisees to get the staff they need to be able to grow their business. Last year (2022) we had a few franchisees double their annual revenue and we set a new annual sales record, and Best Employer had a huge role to play in this.
What are the benefits of growth to a Molly Maid franchisee?
JH: Sales growth of course means higher profits and a more valuable business for a franchisee but it’s also a lot more fun to be leading a growing business than a declining one! As a Molly Maid franchisee grows their business, they get advertising refunds and once they reach annual sales of about £400,000, qualify for our President’s Circle, but we also have annual travel programmes too. We’ve been to Venice, Athens and Rome, and this year we are going to Seville. Celebrating growth is a big part of our culture at Molly Maid.
At a glance Molly Maid
Established:
1984
Number of franchised outlets:
70
Location of units:
Across the UK
Investment range:
£18,975
Minimum required capital:
£8,000
Contact:
Aaron Watson, awatson@mollymaid.co.uk
