[Ian Rochester]

This is really a follow on from the Rainbow Franchise thread and I first wrote this in there but thought I'd copy it across onto a new thread.

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!

[robert meldrum]

Hope it works for you Ian

I've done both LTT and FC courses and based within the Glasgow area as are several others. Can't imagine why someone would feel the need to travel so far for a car seat repair. But,,,,,,,none of us are franchisees, so we'll all have to make a greater effort.

When I looked at the FC franchise I thought it was an awful lot more than £50 a week.

Pity the franchisors / product suppliers don't use their data bases to offer work to people who trained with them, while obviously insisting on using their products.

One thing Ben is good at, is getting the FC name in the public domain and he has an excellent web site.

[derek west]

ian
all them jobs you list that you have done so far, were they all FC leads that were passed on to you?
derek

[Ian Rochester]

Yep, all came through FC either people contacting Ben and being referred across to us, or through our dedicated 0800 Furniture Clinic phone line.

After doing the LTT course we have advertised leather cleaning and repairs under the Lionheart Brand for the last three years now and are lucky if we get 2-3 a month.

So far we are getting about 6 a week, priced from £75 to our max at the moment of £750.

The area we are in is quite rural, so in reality I'm not expecting to get masses and masses of jobs from it, however the more densely populated areas, especially the South Coast, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow areas are not covered at the moment and Ben is inundated with requests for work from those areas.

[LTT Leathercare]

Robert due to the huge increase of work we now get through our website and through our office we have just expanded our database of technicians so if you want to register with us please feel free.
At present we get 500+ jobs a month and that number is going to rise significantly over the next few months with the work we are doing with insurance companies and retailers.

We carefully researched the franchise route several years ago but did not go down it due to the fact that we wanted to continue our training courses.  If we had gone down the franchise road this would have been impossible as franchisees will not like other people being trained when they have paid a lot of money for a franchise in their area.  

Anyone coming to complete our 4 day trianinng course will be eligible for work from us, simply add it into the business you already have.

[robert meldrum]

That's a decent volume of work Judy...................presume you've had none in the West of Scotland ?

robert m

[LTT Leathercare]

We have a lot in Scotland but I am not sure we have all your details with postcode areas etc.  If you want to ring Lesley on Monday she can make sure we have the details.

[Mike Halliday]

talking of a car owner travelling 180 miles, I think car repairs are an untapped market I've got this to do on Friday. 45 grand mercedes.

[LTT Leathercare]

People will spend good money to have their cars done well.  We get a lot of detailing referrals and many people drive hundrede of miles to come to us because of the work we have done with BMW,s, Porsche, Mercedes, Jaguar etc. We are recommended by a lot of the owners clubs.
Recent job done on a Merc, not very old but seats had gone shiny due to incorrect product for cleaning and care so he was prepared to travel from Aberdeen to have a restoration job done so that it looked like the rest of the car.  He was thrilled with the results.

[LTT Leathercare]

Mike that looks like a tricky one how will you go about it?

[derek west]

ian
so did the clients contact you direct through your link on FC or do FC contact you to inform you of a job thats come in?

judy
why did you not source that job out to someone you trained closer to the client?

derek

[Mike Halliday]

whats tricky about it is, its had a homemade repair done on it already, when I inspected it I tried to lift it off the underneath patch so i could start from fresh, but its stuck down too well. its been like this for 2 months so it must be a pretty durable repair.

its hard to see from the photo but they haven't glued it down perfect, it has some ripples, I'll scalpel these and glue them down, then follow normal repair precedure (clean it- sand it-fill it -sand it -spray it etc)

 if I'm honest the only problem I'll have is replicating the grain pattern across the repair, I've discussed this with the client and they are happy for me to colour repair it ( they are getting it ready to be sold)

I did actually give them the option of letting me drive the car to you and having Andy do it. but they didn't go for it. for future reference how much would you charge for this?

[derek west]

mike
rough guess
£120
derek

[Ian Rochester]

Derek,

We've had referrals from FC, I've had email requests through our northumberland@furnitureclinic.co.uk email and I've had people contacting me on the 0800 numbers.

Nothing personal to Judy but I was promised work from LTT after doing the course in 2005 and registered on their site as a trained technician, didn't get any work in 3 years.

The two week course that Ben runs with his time served upholsterer, Craig is excellent, first day is spent on the basics with Keith, then the rest of the time is one to one either in the workshop doing actual full repairs and restorations or out on the road with Gary doing jobs in peoples home or pricing up work.  On the course we covered all aspects of restoration, from simple worn bolsters to a full 6 seater suite that needed fully renovating and recolouring from blue to brown, also did a jacket repair, learnt to slip stitch, did work on handbags, did a frame repair on a sofa at someones house that had a broken wooden strap along the front, did lots of jobs requiring degreasing, sanding, spraying, graining, finishing.  Got involved with panel replacing, dacron wrapping, button repairs.

It was quite comprehensive and needed the two weeks to cover everything.  I sent Harvey on the course first then I followed on two weeks later.

[clinton]

At least a hundred pounds i guess

[John Kelly]

The difference with having a franchise is that you are giving a dedicated territory. We were being passed work by a supplier which was good, no fees to pay etc but then someone else was trained in the area and they started getting a share then someone else, nightmare.
I would urge anyone wanting to seriously increase their business to enquire with fc. They do insurance work for us and as I have said in the past they are bursting with work and are having to turn it down in areas which aren't covered.

[LTT Leathercare]

Derek
The client had a reference from someone in the Mercedes owners club and he insisted that we do the job so he was quite prepared to drive down to us.  Otherwise we would have given the work out as we do with other jobs.  

Obviously we are limited with the number of jobs we can do in Harrogate and have technicians locally (as with all other parts of the country) that we pass work to but we do a lot of very high end work on high value cars and furniture so that our teaching is always kept fresh and up to date.

We have highly experienced technicians in the South of England, Glasgow, Manchester, London and Birmingham so maybe Ben would like to pass the jobs on!!!!
We also have a full database of time served upholsterers who we pass work out to, these are people who have trained for years on upholstery and furniture repairs.

Mike
You may have a problem with this as a very bad repair a has been attempted that has deformed the leather (often the problem with people using DIY kits on their expensive leather!!!)  
Looking at the extent of the damage we would suggest a replacement panel and recolouring to match would be the preferred option particularly as he is getting it ready to sell.  We can match a panel if this is required.  No repair work on damage of this extent will fool a critical purchaser and they will immediatley want a £500 discount on the price to replace the seat.  It is a buyers market at the moment.  

Ian
Not sure that you kept your registration with us up to date and obviously we use technicians who use our products but we have passed out a lot of work in your area - sorry if you feel you have been left out.

[derek west]

apart from the £200 a month, how much does an FC franchise cost and can you run it through your own business name or does it have to be run with an FC van?
derek

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

I have a leather cleaning site to rank with the best and get referrals from this .

I have thought about rebuilding the site which has good rankings for leather cleaning and cleaning leather and offering details of leather cleaners, Shaun and Pete are already on it.

In no way would I claim the expertise of LTT or FC, just a high ranking site.

Cheers

Doug

[derek west]

doug
ranked 2 on google behind FC who are number 1.
email me doug with some details, derek@affordablecleaners.co.uk if thats ok.
derek