Name: Helen & Bernard Imarhiagbe
Plan: 4

Sharing backgrounds in business, information technology and research, both Helen and Bernard have a wealth of theoretical experience but were lacking in hands-on, practical business experience. Neither had previously worked in the commercial cleaning industry either.

Keen to create their own family business, the pair were original deterred by the significant barriers to entry when starting a new venture. High levels of financial investment, targeting and winning customers, building a brand and making a profit were all substantial challenges. After finding out about franchising options, they attended a number of franchise exhibitions in London and both felt that this was the direction for them as a lower-risk option.

Now that the decision had been made to opt for the franchising route, Helen and Bernard now needed to identify their chosen franchise partner. Helen explains:

“Jani-King is an international organisation with presence in many countries. We were impressed with the extensive client list with large corporate chains and after listening to testimonials of franchisees within the industry, Jani-King was the perfect fit. Jani-King is one of the few major companies that source contracts for franchisees, giving new starter businesses a boost from the beginning and we were really impressed by that.”

Once their decision had been made, the pair embarked on the thorough training process, which includes a 5 day course covering areas such as business administration and finance, customer service and support, and operational cleaning tasks.

“Once our training was complete, we were impressed by the speed at which our plan was delivered. It took a few days after our franchise training for Jani-King to deliver our purchased plan instead of the contractual 150 days, we were delighted to be able to get started so soon! Jani-King also provided us with a walkthrough to introduce new franchisees like ourselves to each account which made starting work much less daunting and helped us familiarise ourselves more quickly and efficiently.”

With their Plan 4 structure in place, Helen and Bernard are looking to the future and are working towards increasing their turnover through further investment into their franchise.

“We found the Jani-King franchise process very supportive and never pressured. They provided extensive training, staff recruitment support and extensive walkthrough accounts. We are very happy with our choice.”