hi dennis what happend?
gary
The gist of it was that the franchise had totally changed in the 10 years we had it.
From mainly domestic/commercial carpet & upholstery cleaning to disaster restoration which I was not interested in doing, (especially with them taking 25% off the top!) I could have bought into Servicemaster or Rainbow in 1990 if I wanted DR.
I don't know if you saw the Disastermasters programme on BBC1 recently, after watching that I was 100% sure of my decision.
From a reasonable fee per month to a fee plus minimum goods spend plus enforced equipment purchase at a high cost (their machine came to about £8000 10 years ago and was not a patch on say a Ninja!)
From "the unfranchise" (a light touch, being left to run your business) to tighter and tighter contracts, continual interference and threats if you didn't agree.
I also came to realise that while the cleaning system was good, it wasn't that good and the customers where buying us not some system (I kept them when I went solo which tends to show that!)
I know change can be good but it was just getting ridiculous to me so I called it a day. Quite honestly it was the best thing I did, and just to add I'm not someone who couldn't make it as a franchisee we won Franchisee of the Year in 1993 or 1994 I think it was, I can't remember now!
I have put it behind me, the nightmares have stopped and I haven't wet the bed for ages now!
