My Franchise Journey…The Seasons Turn
Note: Post #28. Imagine being 60 years old with a Ph. D. and 35+ years of non-profit administration experience, most as Vice President or Assistant Vice President of Institutional Advancement in colleges and universities. Now you are buying a franchise and becoming a small business owner. This is my story.
We are now in active mosquito season. It is not fully cranked up, but it is coming. I am adding new clients daily, even if it is not at the pace I prefer (I’m impatient!). I am told that given when I started, I am where I should expect to be. Naturally, I would like to have more customers already lined up. I am currently at 25 and have been actively treating properties for 2 ½ weeks. We have been actively marketing for about 5 weeks. My preliminary budget is based on ending the season with 180 clients: a long way from 25. And while we still have 5+ months of the season the bulk of those clients are most likely to sign on by the middle of July. A lot of new client activity needs to happen in the next couple of months! There is plenty of experience from other franchisees that encourages me it will happen, but as the fine print usually says, “previous experience is no guarantee of future results.”
My marketing efforts have been hampered by staffing challenges. Finding people to distribute door hangers and lawn signs is much more challenging than I thought it would be. I keep trying different approaches to solving the problem. It remains unresolved. The timeline pressure stated above creates increased urgency to find a solution. I have a marketing intern starting next week and that should help. I continue to pursue other options as well.
Staffing challenges have also been an issue with Field Technicians. As mentioned in a previous post, my first Tech hire did not go as I had hoped. Such are the potential pitfalls of hiring part-time in a start-up business. The person I hired was holding down another part-time job in addition to the one with me. The other employer ended up offering him full-time work with benefits. Hard to compete with that! So far, I am unimpressed with the few applicants I have to my reposted position. I am able to keep up with treating properties on my own for now, but that will become increasingly difficult as more clients sign on.
Challenges aside, I am having a good time! I enjoy the interaction with clients and working the business systems that keep the work flowing. The learning curve is flattening some. Things that seemed daunting a few weeks ago are much less so now. I even got my licensing issues all sorted out! Two months ago, I passed the two exams I needed and completed what I could to be fully licensed. Today I was finally able to pay for my business license, the last step in the process if you do not count receiving an actual hard copy of my personal and business licenses. I am told not to expect those for at least 3 weeks, likely much longer. If you are keeping score at home — and why wouldn’t you be? — it took two months to process my passing exam grades, trigger the issuance of my personal license, which triggered the process of creating an invoice (getting the invoice took 7–10 business days!), paying the invoice, then repeating the process for the business license. I finally was able to access the on-line version of the invoice and make the payment today. The paper copy of the invoice will not get to me for at least another week. At least now that it is paid, it is fully in effect. Ah, government…they name is certainly not efficiency!
Most importantly, I am getting paid! In that regard, the business system is working properly. Credit card payments are being properly processed and money is appropriately routed to my business bank account. The numbers are understandably smaller at the start. I have a couple of clients who chose to pay the season in full and take advantage of a 5% discount, but most are paying as they go. First treatments are provided at a considerable “try us you’ll like us” discount and half, perhaps 2/3rds, of my client base have yet to have their first treatment. These are folks who either signed up too late to get the full season, 9-treatment package or they chose to start a little later in the season. The dollars will begin picking up next week when most clients will be on board and some will be getting their second treatments.
Since I am wired and trained for observation and study, I have a couple of thoughts based on anecdotal evidence. It seems that most of my clients who signed up early enough for the full season have used mosquito control services in the past. Those who are trying the service for the first time are more likely to delay the start either because of cost or a level of skepticism about the effectiveness of treatment. I think it is also likely that people are not yet spending a lot of time outside and thus are not thinking much about mosquitos. We have had some nice weather, but we have not strung together a number of nice days when people want to enjoy an evening on their deck or patio. People also have not opened their pools. This will all change in the next few weeks and will hopefully prompt folks to sign up for service.
In the more mundane aspects of running a business, I am learning the need for keeping up with product inventory, both on hand and in the van. It is one thing to have treatment product available in your office and quite another to have it on the van. I thought I had enough in the van for the jobs I had lined up the other day, only to run out before the last job. This meant a trip home to restock and return to get the job done. At least I was only 10 minutes away! I also accidently flooded the engine of my mist-blower and could not get it started. I was very glad the van came equipped with two blowers!
And so it goes…I’m settling into a business routine and I now have a feel for things that were foreign to me just a few weeks ago. I am glad for the early slower pace of adding clients. Much more than I have would have been overwhelming while also learning everything else. I’m hoping that organizational procedures and habits implemented now will help me handle growth in the coming weeks/months.
Now if I can just find some people to hang door hangers!