Franchising Buying a Jim's Franchise

Is there anyone on here with experience buying or running a Jim's Framchise.

A franchisee I spoke for a Jim's Cleaning Franchise said he makes some good money. $2-$3k per week. That involves residential cleaning at day and some commercial cleaning at night. It also includes contracts for lease cleans for rental properties and contracts with builders for new home cleans.

The fees are $650 per month flat fee no matter how big he business grows.

A simple model, physical work but you just get in and out nothing else to worry about. Can work hours to suit lifestyle and take on as much or as little work as you like.

Thoughts and opinions on buying into a franchise like Jim's

 

From the mowing standpoint, a friend of mine does it.
He is semi retired so it suits him, he also picks up a few cash jobs on the side.
It is quite dependant on the region/zone that you purchase.
Ultimately it is a business already set up, so easier to get into/go to work.
If you're a "driven person" you probably wouldn't sign up to it long term, you would build the run/area up and on sell, or just do some leg work early on with advertising and word of mouth to build your own business

 

Yep, have a crack yourself first.

 

There's a pretty comprehensive franchise thread or two on this forum if you do a search.
The general consensus is that franchises suck.

 

If you compare franchises to property, generally speaking the more problems you can solve the more money you can potentially make.

Franchises are for people that dont want to or (think they) cant solve problems. Be a problem solver and you should make more $$$

You can purchase commercial cleaning business as stand alone (non franchise).

Got a mate who does this well. He will approach places and ask if they are happy with the current contract cleaners. He quotes on the job and works it for a while and then flips the cleaning contract to someone else, rinse and repeat.

 

Generally quite right.

 

Yes I checked the current franchise threads. Generally about food franchises. Couldn't find anything about Jim's franchises. But gathered the general concensus was that they are no good.

 

Some franchises are highly profitable

 

I think you need to decide whether you want to buy a job or buy a business.

I would imagine most Jim's franchises are jobs. There is only one employee (you), you only work in the business (you can't work on the business), when you go on holidays, there is no income, when you go to sell, there is nothing to sell (except for some dilapidated pieces of equipment), ...

There is nothing wrong with this as long as you know what you are getting into.

 

As per @kierank (I think you need to decide whether you want to buy a job or buy a business)

Generally with "Jim's" they contract the "clients" into a regular mow/clean contract.....
So you have the "good will" or "Jim's contract" to on sell.

Agreed, nothing wrong with it "as long as you know what you're getting into"

Having done the hard yards building a business, it is a good way to get the required experience

 

For the franchisee or the franchisor?

One of the papers in my MBA was about franchising. Australia has one of the largest franchise markets in the world, but (and damn I could have saved the MBA fees and just come here) most simply don't stack up. Like the previous posts, best to build a business yourself and save both the fees and control of the franchise.

Let me use an IP analogy. Would you buy an IP that had fixed monthly fees. Maybe, that could be strata fees. However, would you buy an IP that could only be painted a specific colour? Or one that must have the kitchen replaced, using specified materials, at a specified timeframe, if it need be replaced or not? Or install blinds from a specific vendor, again at a specific time, if they need be replaced or not. Unlikely. That is often the world of a franchise owner.

Like anything read the terms VERY carefully, and preferably seek indepent advice from someone (accountant/lawyer) that is experienced in franchising.

 

Who'd want to cut lawns all day for what amounts to a normal wage. Searing heat in Summer. Quiet in winter. The only benefit I could see is that maybe, just maybe, one day you might come across some Swedish topless bathers in a backyard pool.

I'd rather be selling icecream in an air conditioned shopping centre, scooping a cone every now and then and growing fat.

 

Just get an ABN, liability insurance, few decent cleaning products/equipment, some business cards and flyers from vista print, and boom, your in the cleaning business for under $1000.

Next find the real estate agent with the most properties on their books and give them a cover letter, cert of business rego and copy of liability insurance, just hang tight as they probably use you as a back up initially. Start face book page, word of mouth etc, etc.

This way 6 months in and you decided gees this sucks! You can walk away and not do any of your start up cash, or you can ramp it up with more agents etc and reap all of the income ( a dollar saved is better than a dollar earnt ).

 

I don't know if I would classify Bjorn, Sven and Lars as much of a bonus - maybe a 5 day/wk coffee and sambo kiosk in a busy CBD office foyer might kick a few goals.

 

You've got to ask yourself - why are these franchises selling, i.e, why is there demand for them?
My random thoughts from experience:

• The franchisor wants to sell to you, then they want to sell you to make more money for them. They are not trying to help you, they want to make money from you, that's all they care about in the end.
• It's always easier to buy than sell. Everybody in this world has lots of experience in buying products/services, but very few have the ability to sell successfully. I believe this is the biggest deep down reason people fall for franchises, they are sold to, because it's easy to buy provided you have access to the funds. How many people have you seen save hard for a long time, then crazily spend it all on an impulsive purchase, spending is easy when they've got you in a certain state of mind. If people simply got much better at selling, nobody would need these franchises as you would have customers begging to buy services/products from you. How crazy would it be for you to pay someone else if you can do it yourself?
  
• Whether you're structured as a franchisee or other freehold business, you got to get good at selling if you want to achieve awesome results. Some people are natural salespeople and other have to work hard at it. Either way, ther's no way around it if you want to succeed.
• Ask yourself, if you buy such a franchise for say 50k, then had to sell it immediately due to unforeseen circumstances, what do you think someone else would pay you for it if you had to sell in a hurry? (that's basically what it would be worth), forget about promised potential earnings.
• So many more which have been mentioned before, such as buying yourself a job, locked into certain suppliers, royalties to pay the franchisor, etc, etc
• How did all these franchises start in the first place before they started diluting themselves all over the place? Likely as small businesses, probably solo operators with minimal start up costs, and effort over time has produced the results. Why not read about how all these franchises got to where they are and simply pick all the good stuff and emulate them, without paying a cent to anybody.

 

hey colin

what do you mean flip the cleaning contract?
does he say this job will net you $300 per week, for 5 hours work,
Ill sell it to you for $x

 

I agree with @Ace in the Hole recently I had to negotiate some compensation for a franchisee with respect to a lease within a shopping centre in city fringe. I was shocked to find out the franchisee has been losing money every week for 2 years. the franchisee has no control over marketing material, fit out, raw materials etc. the franchisor leased the shop and gave franchisee licence to occupy. where's the bargaining power? no autonomy.

I pretty much started my own from scratch. it took a while to get established but no one is telling me what to do, wear or sell. the ability to sell is paramount in every business. if you can't sell you are no good to starting a business generally unless your expertise is so sought after that you don't need to work hard on marketing. franchising agreement is like vendors contract or OTP contract it will always favour the franchisor or developer/vendor.