Well, to start out, I do nothing special. I choose the manager that best understands what I need, send them to training, and let them go.

 

First and foremost, you must have your current operation under complete control with sound, long term management. If this person is you, then you are going to need someone to run your current operation so you have complete focus on the new one. You should also have a sales person in place to keep the inertia of the sales momentum in place so your current operation continues to grow without you “hands on” all the time.

 

Getting prepared yourself, but also preparing your current business for your new focus on something else is priority. Once this is established, then and only then are you ready for your second territory.

 

Choose your territory and begin the search for your Operations Manager. This is the Key! You must find someone you can trust, independent, but not too independent, etc. Hiring “there” locally has created a problem of local people “sampling” the job. They, just like new cleaners, can revolve through the door. In fighting this, I decided its better to invest in someone moving into the territory to take the job. By moving them in, you get them to risk as much as you do in their new position! This is important to your success! You do not want any turnover in managers! I advertised in Eau Claire for the job in Appleton. I found my guy, interviewed, sold him, etc. Then I paid him a $1,000 moving bonus, a $1,000 to attend training, sent him to Fish training, help him get moved, and let him go out and do his thing. My Ops Mgrs are different than the system’s. My managers are trained to spend their time training and hiring staff, completing all the weekly work, then go out and cold call to grow the business. My Ops guys do NOT clean. They are taught manage first, then sell. You teach this person your internal controls, paperwork flow, information flow, communication, customer service, and add your personal controls, then you visit them once or twice a week. You make announcements to the cleaners, monitor the Safety Training, lead, motivate, etc. At first you are there several days per week, then you decrease as time and the operation allows. Depends on your manager and your success. I can’t stress enough how important this step is. Good luck here, there’s no magic to it, its like looking for a partner, but you are still the owner....this is a real balance act, because you need to look for this person to take some ownership in the operation without treating it like its theirs to run into the ground....

 

I pay the managers the same. They get a base of $100 per week to manage the office. They get $100 per week for gas. They get $50 per week for each cleaner that produces $1,000 in weekly production. I lease them a car so they put miles on my car, but they pay for gas...I pay for insurance and expenses. I pay a sales commission of 20% for every 4 week, bi-weekly, and weekly jobs, and 10% on everything else. They keep track of mileage and I split mileage with wages here to pay them.

 

When budgeting for this, I added a bunch for travel, hotels, gasoline etc. to the startup. While the initial costs look low, with a manager, the costs and ownership profit percentages are the same.....There is little economics of scale to building many territories. You will probably have a loss your first year just like your startup. You’ll need to subsidize the cost of your manager several times until the $100,000 sales mark...then you start to make money.

 

We have all the phones answered at our main office, have all the billing and checks going to that office, all the Admin/filing is in that office, the other territories other than Eau Claire do have a phone and FAX. The local phone number rings our Eau Claire office and I have an internal number and internet service at the local office only. This creates an office staff person for your current location and provides support/scheduling and customer service for the additional territories as they grow. Wendy does this part of the whole business, you can call or email her about her specific job duties if you want to know more about this position.

 

I open a local bank account for the manager to deposit money twice a week. With the A/R all coming in to one office, there isn’t much local money, but you must get it out of the hands of the staff quickly, so a local depository to deposit funds is necessary. You’ll simply transfer the money once or twice a week to get the money in for payroll.

 

Other than that, you run the operation according to the UFDD. Secondary territories do not experience the growth like you are there. Keep in mind everything extra you do....Chamber of Commerce, networking, just being local in the market, does not apply here so overall growth is at a slower pace than if you were there every day. If you can get your manager to go and get involved with the Chamber, this is huge! My manager in Eau Claire probably has reached his plateau so he doesn’t take part in anything and the growth shows. My manager in Appleton takes part in as much as possible and has faster growth.

 

Oversight is done on the job. I don’t take the time to try to remember everything, so its nearly impossible to train or teach this in advance. Here, we just learn as you go. There isn’t much for a manager to miss if he has people to clean, an understanding of Fish 3, and can go out and sell on a daily basis. There’s room here to build in for mistakes, you won’t get burned here.

 

None of my offices intersect, Stillwater is 60 miles from Eau Claire, Appleton is 180 miles from Eau Claire, and La Crosse is 80 miles from Eau Claire. I DO run the Stillwater operation out of my Eau Claire office. I only have three full time offices out of four franchises. The little Stillwater office is an address with a broom closet to meet UFDD requirements.

Once established, follow the system....