Business View Magazine - October 2018

264 265 MAIDPRO about the residential cleaning industry and how to succeed,” Kushinsky declares. “We’re going to give them all the tools that they need. Every one of our franchisees has a primary coach, a desig- nated person in our office. Then, we have a series of specialists that they can go to any time that they want for additional information; whether it’s a marketing specialist, an employment specialist, a financial specialist, technical specialist, or op- erational specialist.We hold multiple, daily webi- nars on different topics.We also have a help desk, so, if they want a quick answer to something, they can submit a case and people on the help desk will get back to them, immediately.” In addition to regular conventions, where all MaidPro franchisees can get together, the com- pany also has peer performance groups, which are both regional and revenue-based. “They have a monthly call, and they also have what we call ‘meet-ups’ every six months on a regional basis,” Kushinsky notes. “They have their own space within our intranet, so they can communicate via our discussion board on the peer performance group level. Also, in our software, they have peer performance groups KPIs (Key Performance In- dicators), so they can view them as a group and work together on that.” In addition, MaidPro takes the concept of group cohesion way beyond the “office.”“We also have something, which I think is unique to our compa- ny, which we call our Adventure Trips,” Kushinsky says. “We go on trips that can be three days, in some cases it can be ten days out of the coun- try.We’ve gone down the Colorado River, and provide a lot of our services based on what the consumer wants. Some want one person– a very personalized service in their home. Other con- sumers might want two people for a little faster clean, but still personal. And there are a few who do want a very rushed ser- vice, where four people might come in the home and knock it out in an hour, but that’s very infrequent. And we don’t have a lot of other rules that many other franchisors do, like requir- ing a certain minimum market- ing spend.We’re a friendlier franchisor.” When vetting potential franchisees, Kushinsky says, “Ideally, we’re looking for people who are very coachable. They don’t need to have any back- ground in residential cleaning, nor do they have had to run their own businesses, before. They do need to be good with people; good managers, with a good understanding of finances and general business concepts. And we want people who are very focused on build- ing a good culture in their busi- ness. Our franchise salespeople communicate with the pros- pect. They’re very open about the pros and cons, and our goal is to give the prospect as much information as we can, so they can make a good decision for themselves.” After awarding a new franchise, MaidPro begins an open-ended process of training and support. “We’re going to spend our time teaching them all