Window Cleaning Frachisors Jostle For Position

The company now operates in Vancouver, Seattle, Fraser Valley, Calgary and soon Edmonton, Victoria and Portland.

Yes, Those are ‘Men In Kilts’ - Attention introverts with nice calves and an intense interest in gleaming glass. Men In Kilts wants you. Well, you needn’t be an introvert, but it is guaranteed to test you if you are. “I’m very much an introvert, but I love wearing a kilt,” founder Nicholas Brand tells me in our recent interview. “It gets you meeting people and talking to people. I’m handing out business cards all day long. Dale Carnegie talked about disarming the person you’re talking to. The kilt is a natural disarmer.”

A franchising company described on its website as “a team of passionate kilt wearing professionals, providing window and exterior cleaning services to both commercial and residential customers,” Canada-based Men In Kilts knows how to simultaneously take its business seriously and keep things light. There’s a post on its website featuring a bit from a woman describing a traffic jam while picking up her child from school. The cause? Mothers checking out Men In Kilts. The photo accompanying the post is a bunch of Matchbox-sized cars set up to look like traffic.

 “We’re not sending people to Mars,” Brand says. “We’re not curing cancer. Let’s have fun.” By all means. Let’s drive trucks covered in tartan, get chatty with the person in Starbucks who can’t resist asking about the kilt, get a kick out of the women doing double takes on the street. Let’s put “No Peeking” right out on the homepage. No one said business had to be staid. “If I had called it Nick’s Window Cleaning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Brand says. “Men In Kilts is rememberable.”

A created word that gets right to the genesis of this company. At age 24, Brand knew he wanted to start a business. A couple of his teachers in high school had their own businesses – one simply taught physical education because he loved it – and so did his uncle, who retired in his 50s. Brand had seen his parents laid off in their 50s. Put it all together and he saw working for himself as the best way to be in control of his destiny. Brand says he strategically picked window cleaning because about once a month he used to clean the windows at the restaurant where he was employed and he liked the instant gratification of it. He knew he was working on a shoestring.

Over beers with friends and his new wife one night, a friend said, “You should wear a kilt.” They laughed about it. While Brand is Canadian, his father is from Aberdeen in northeast Scotland and his mother’s grandparents are Scottish. He had worn a kilt a couple of times, including at his wedding, where there were 18 people in kilts. So the idea was innovative, but not so far-fetched, really. With his 1985 Honda Accord and a ladder that was bigger than the car, Brand got going. He and his wife delivered flyers. He “horribly underpriced” his services for a while. He rotated three or four kilts hand-sewn by his wife using a Halloween pattern.

He started to like the ‘wow’ factor he got in an hour or two with a customer. “For the first three or four years, it was just me.” Brand said. “I had a friend who would help me whenever.” But the business was building and gaining momentum. He had no time for marketing, working 12-14 hour days, and he needed somebody to manage the business side. Completely self-taught, he learned things like where to buy equipment and that the buildings over four stories high are often safer for window cleaners because of regulations that don’t apply to smaller ones.

Then one of his biggest clients at the time, Brent Hohlweg, told him he thought he was sitting on a gold mine and expressed interest in getting involved. He became a partner in 2006. They talked about getting their trucks to “stick out more” and that a customer had suggested they paint them Tartan. “Brett said, ‘That’s brilliant,’” Brand says. “Business exploded. It tripled the first year.”

The next step was franchising. In 2009 Tressa Wood, who had worked at 1-800-GOT-JUNK, was looking for other opportunities and brought her “massive franchising experience” to Men In Kilts. “Our one-year goal is to add 5 to10 franchises in North America,” Brand said. “Our lofty goal is to have 30 franchises by the end of 2013. We now have six.”

Brand, driving a tartan Mini, still gets approached like crazy. “I interact with a lot of ex-military who wore kilts for the military,” he says. For those interested in acquiring a franchise, there’s even Tartan Boot Camp. You’ve got to be willing to wear a kilt and handle the attention that comes with it. And of course, you’ve got to be dedicated to the company vision. “I’m 10 years into this,” Brand said. “If I knew then what I know now, I’d be five years ahead.” But what fun would that have been? Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/06/22/yes-those-are-men-in-kilts/#ixzz1yjfbaVlK

Seeing Men in Kilts Excites The Franchise King: It takes a lot to get franchise expert Joel Libava’s (The Franchise King®) juices flowing. He’s kind of a skeptical guy when it comes to new franchise business opportunities; most of them put him to sleep. But, one franchisor out of Vancouver, Canada has transformed Joel into a believer. Check out which franchise he’s getting turned on by. Two years ago if you would have asked Joel Libava his opinion on all the new franchise concepts that were being introduced, you would have been met with Joel’s typical response. “And?” In other words, Joel’s been kind of bored. There just aren’t that many franchises that excited him then, and really don’t know. And, it’s not that some of the newer franchise concepts he’s finding out about by the PR community are lousy. It’s just that they aren’t very different. And Joel knows that in a world that throws thousands of marketing messages out daily, you need to differentiate or…well…you know. Then it happened; a young franchisor appeared on the scene that totally changed his mind…and his attitude, quite frankly, about the state of franchising.

Actually, it wasn’t actually the franchisor or the concept that did it for The Franchise King®; it was what the franchisees of this service franchise were wearing that turned Joel on. It was their kilts. Nicholas Brand and the team over at Men in Kilts, decided that the normally boring-but profitable window cleaning business needed a shot in the arm. (Or in this case, a shot in a hairy leg!)So, they changed the delivery method. Franchisees and their team members show up to their residential and commercial window cleaning jobs donned in kilts. They’re a site to behold, and this one thing…this one change…has transformed the entire window cleaning business into one that is all of a sudden being taken very seriously.

As a matter of fact, MSNBC just filmed an episode (below) of Your Business with JJ Ramberg featuring the Men in Kilts franchise. Sometimes, the smallest things in a business are overlooked. When they aren’t, big things can happen. Case in point; the founder of Men in Kilts looked at what his window cleaners were wearing-and changed how they dress….in the silliest way possible. The Franchise King®, Joel Libava, is a franchise industry expert, and the author of Become a Franchise Owner! The Start-Up Guide To Lowering Risk, Making Money, And Owning What You Do. (John Wiley & Sons, Publisher) Joel specializes in teaching people how to buy a franchise.

Telax is proud to announce their partnership with franchise online management expert’s Vonigo, and a deal with franchisor, Men In Kilts Window Cleaning: Telax Hosted Call Center, North America’s leader in cloud-based contact center software, today announced a partnership agreement with Vonigo, the cloudware solution of choice for savvy multi-location service businesses. Supporting franchise businesses in the quest for significant, cost effective growth, Vonigo provides unparalleled cloud computing solutions for their customers. Their approach has enabled Telax to complete deals with long time Vonigo customer, Men In Kilts Window Cleaning. The partnership represents an impressive first step into the franchise industry for Telax. “Telax is going to be a front-line player in the franchise industry. We’re happy to be the first to partner with them. We’re both going to be better able to provide the service our customers expect,” says John Carter, Vonigo co-founder.

Telax Hosted Call Center is North America’s leader in hosted call center solutions. Based in Toronto, Canada, Telax has been providing cloud-based business solutions to prominent public and private sector organizations since 1999. Vonigo, the secret behind efficient multi-location service companies, is a secure online management system that streamlines service company operations across multiple locations, making complex tasks like client relations, estimating, scheduling, work orders and invoicing simple. Eliminating the headaches of on-site software, home-grown solutions or manual operations, the platform is designed specifically for service companies large and small with customers in the field, including franchise operations. Vonigo shines best for any service company with multiple locations and smaller companies aspiring to grow. Customers include Men in Kilts, Frogbox, and Better Life Maids.

Men In Kilts was started in 2002 by Nicholas Brand with $500, a squeegee, and a hand-sewn kilt. The first franchise was opened in 2010 in Vancouver, B.C., with Fraser Valley, B.C., Seattle, Wash., and Calgary soon to follow. Men In Kilts’ commercial and residential services include:

•     window cleaning
•     gutter cleaning
•     pressure washing
•     exterior building cleaning
•     snow removal services will be available in all colder markets later this year

Men In Kilts plans for fast expansion into all major cities across North America, including Toronto, San Francisco, LA, and Denver. The company projects a 300 percent increase in system-wide revenue in 2012.

FiSH Named a Top Low Cost Franchise: In addition to being named one of the top 50 large franchises based on franchisee satisfaction, Fish Window Cleaning® also has been recognized by Franchise Business Review as one of the 14 top low-cost service franchises to own. To be recognized, franchises had to have one of the highest franchisee satisfaction scores in their business category and require an average investment of $100,000 or less.  The selection was based on a survey of over 11,000 franchisees from low cost franchises representing more than 130 brands.  The franchises named have differing business models, but all had these traits in common: no requirements for a big office, retail space, a lot of inventory or any resources that require large amounts of capital.

The survey used to gauge franchisee satisfaction featured 33 benchmark questions for franchisees to rank their system in the areas of financial opportunity, training and support, leadership, operations and product development, core values, general satisfaction and the franchise community.  An additional 19 questions asked franchisees about their market area, demographics, business lifestyle, overall enjoyment of running their franchises and their role in the franchise community. Fish Window Cleaning was founded in 1978 by S. Michael Merrick, and began franchising in 1998.  Currently the system has 239 U.S. locations.  FISH is the largest window cleaning company in the country.  The organization ranked 14th in the 2012 Franchisee Satisfaction Survey conducted by Franchise Business Review, 68th on Dun & Bradstreet’s AllBusiness Allstars 2012 Top 100 Franchises, 119th on Entrepreneur Magazine’s 2012 Franchise 500 and was named to the 2011 Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing businesses.

Window Genie of Chicago Gives Back to Benefit the American Brain Tumor Association: Bill Grogan, owner of Window Genie Chicago gives discount to customers who donate to the American Brain Tumor Association. Window Genie is the Cincinnati based franchisor of home services known to “Clean Windows and a Whole Lot More!” Doing a whole lot more now includes giving back to the community through the new program, Windows 4 Wishes. Window Genie’s culture is defined by 5 foundational pillars, one being “community citizenship.” Windows 4 Wishes is the corporate initiative encouraging community outreach amongst all Window Genie franchise owners. Each locally owned and operated Window Genie location owner will choose an organization/charity to benefit in their community. With Windows 4 Wishes, there are four ways in which a franchisee can give back to the organization/charity of their choice: donate money, volunteer their time, promote that organization for free and/or offer free Window Genie services.

Bill Grogan, Window Genie owner in Southwest Chicago has chosen to give back to the American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA). Representing Window Genie, he participated in the 5K run/walk on Saturday, May 12 in Chicago called Breakthrough for Brain Tumors. Bill personally raised $285 for the team Miracle Minds of Mokena. Miracle Minds of Mokena came in second place overall by exceeding their goal of $20,000 and raising $31,646 for the ABTA. In addition, ABTA has provided Grogan with a form for him to distribute to his customers to raise awareness and encourage donations. For each customer that chooses to donate to ABTA, regardless of the amount they give, Grogan will offer a 10% discount on Window Genie services for their home. Grogan said of his choice to give back to ABTA, “I am supporting ABTA because a very good friend has been battling a brain tumor for two and a half years. Also, my neighbor recovered from a brain tumor seven years ago, but another developed last month and he had surgery to remove that one. I want to contribute what we can to ABTA because of what they do to help individuals facing brain tumors.”