Business View Magazine September 2018

212 213 BVM: Anything new from the corporate end? Willis: “In the last 12 months, we’ve made tremendous investments into personnel and technology.We have implemented a brand new corporate website that is already significantly in- creasing our online lead generation and provides customizable, locally-optimized pages for each franchise.We have a new operating system that we rolled out two months ago that provides a total operating solution for the franchise includ- ing scheduling, CRM functions, e-mail marketing, and QuickBooks syncing. It manages the entire business for the franchisees through a web-based platform and mobile app, allowing them to op- erate paperless, if they choose to. We are also upgrading and modernizing our training to offer additional topics, and moving to regionally based training to allow more franchises to attend while lowering their travel expense.” BVM: Any significant long-term priorities for the company? Willis: “We are 100 percent focused on helping grow our existing franchises’ revenue. It benefits us as much as it benefits them and it makes us a healthier network. Another focus that we cur- rently have is national accounts. It’s really more than just national; we’re calling it ‘strategic ac- counts’ now, because we see it as having a global impact.We have a new strategic accounts team made up of three people who are dedicated just to strategic account expansion. A third focus is opening additional milliCare locations.We have gaps in the country that are hungry for a milliCare franchise and we want to fill those as quickly as possible to aid in that strategic account expan- MILLICARE sion. A fourth area is continually improving our technology. Just like the website and the operating system, we’re continuing to look at technology–how can we streamline systems, how can we have all of our systems working together? We want to be mobile; we want to be sure that we can put information in the hands of the franchise owners quickly and easily.” Helton: “Our goal is controlled growth.We’d like to add six to eight units within the next 12 months, and then add 12 to 15 a year for the next four or five years.There are a number of major cities in the U.S.where it would make a lot of sense for us to have a presence.Our focus is on the U.S., but we will continue to review international opportunities, as well. BVM: Any other information you’d like our readers to know about? Willis: “I think it’s important to touch upon our sustainability and commitment to environ- mental responsibility.Milliken and milliCare care about the impact to the environment and we know our clients do, too. The milliCare dry carpet cleaning process uses 99.5% less water than hot water extraction– and hot water ex- traction uses 319% more energy to clean the same square footage as milliCare. It’s not just our processes that are environ- mentally responsible–it’s our products, too.Our core carpet cleaning products are Green Seal GS-37 certified.And we made packaging chang- es to our Dry Carpet Cleaner and our Detergent Residue Neutralizer that will save an additional 29,829 lbs. of packaging per year.That’s almost 15 tons of plastic that will not be required.” PREFERRED VENDORS n Gallagher Franchise Solutions www.franinsurance.com Gallagher Franchise Solutions is the preferred insurance provider of MilliCare.  Our 3P Commit- ment is to, Protect their business, care for their People, and grow their Profit. Our dedicated portal provides access to tailored insurance programs and exclusive resources 24/7. Contact us to see what Gallagher can do for you! n Wind River Marketing LLC www.windrivermarketing.net Wind River Marketing specializes in B2B lead gen- eration via cold calling, email and SEO. Our mission is to help our customers target the right audience, at the right time, with the right message, while maxi- mizing their marketing dollars and ROI. Our strength is in our people, process and technology.