When I first started out I was all against the traditional franchise route, large initial outlay and high percentage of turnover had to be paid to the franchisor in monthly commisions.
Saying that, I've just taken out a franchise!! We've just bought into FURNITURE CLINIC Leather Care & Repair Franchise and have been given a large territory, all of Northumberland.
The initial outlay was quite reasonable and myself and one of my technicians (Harvey) have spent two weeks fully hands on training at head office, the confidence it gives you is amazing. Monthly fees are only £200/month regardless of turnover. I've been trading now for 2 weeks and I expect to be break even and turning a profit by the end of March.
As many of you know of me, I don't dive into things quickly, I researched this venture rigorously before making the plunge. We already have 16 people working for us under the Lionheart Cleaning logo but were getting very little leather work, even though I did the LTT course in 2005 and advertise we do leather cleaning and restoration.
The Furniture Clinic franchise is still very much in it's growth stage, I can see the potential of it and wanted to be in from the start to guarantee getting the territory I wanted.
Ben has had a lot of enquiries in the last month from people wanting more information about the franchise. The guy who started just before me is based down in Essex and I know he is getting jobs every day from the Furniture clinic website.
If you are interested give me a call on 07790596782, or email me
ian@lionheartcleaning.co.uk to discuss it more. I get a small incentive for introducing new franchisees, but this is not why I'm telling you about it, my main reason is because I want to see Furniture Clinic with National coverage so that in the eyes of the insurance companies, if they have a leather repair to be done, they call Furniture Clinic.
If you, like us, already do leather cleaning, then you'll know the amount of work that is out there for leather repairs and recolours. Furniture Clinic are top of search engines for leather repairs in most areas, we are starting to get work coming in all the time.
So far our jobs done have included, two car bolsters to repair and recolour, 3 wing back chairs to re-antique, a full suite to basically overhaul and recolour, a chair that has required repaneling work, holes, tears and wear restoration, a leather suite that was recoloured last year by someone in Durham but the colour was delaminating and needed cleaning off and reapplying (she couldn't get in touch with man from Durham)
We've got 6 jobs booked in for next week so far and a man coming down in his X5 from Glasgow (180 miles) to get the drivers seat repaired!
