"Minster Cleaning is all about people"

Mike Parker, Managing Director of Minster Cleaning, shares the company's values and some insights about the success of the business.

What makes the success of Minster Cleaning?

The Minster Cleaning success model can be boiled down to its focus on people, whether staff, existing customers or new leads. Mike explains that 40 years of business success, besides growth strategies, can only exist if the right people collaborate and are organised towards a common goal.

"Business at the end of the day is just about people and guess what... franchising is also all about people. Whether you're dealing with your own customers, with enquiries coming in for new business, with your own cleaning workforce or your office team, it's all about people." The right people are the key to a growing franchise network.

Full support from four departments

Minster Cleaning's Network Support Centre includes four departments that support franchisees: Marketing, Operations, Finance, and IT.

"Within marketing, we generate leads via multiple channels. Google PPC, SEO / website, direct mail and e-mail marketing are primary sources of new leads. We also focus on customer retention, delivering Net Promoter Score email surveys which enable franchisees to garner and respond to feedback."

The Operations department supports franchisees in ensuring that the day-to-day running of their businesses is reliable, efficient, and up to standard.

"For example, in our business, when you clean a floor, you can actually damage it if you apply the wrong products. Thorough training in cleaning methods and products for different material surfaces is therefore crucial. You have to know what you're doing, making operations a key part of the success of the business."

Minster Cleaning treats the payment of cleaners as a social responsibility." We want our staff to be paid accurately and on time. A large proportion of our workforce doesn't have financial resources to fall back on. So if you don't pay them on time, you actually give them a whole lot of problems, and that's not the relationship we want. Having a reliable payroll system in place is therefore vital and, amongst other duties, our finance team provides support to help things run efficiently to assist franchisees in delivering this." says Mike.

Lastly, the backend of a successful franchise is found in healthy and functional IT systems. Franchisees receive ongoing support from the IT team to ensure the smooth running of their branches and facilitate the daily work required to deliver a quality commercial cleaning service.

A recession-resilient business

Despite the pending recession, the cleaning sector as a whole is incredibly recession resilient. No matter what, cleaning is an inelastic demand-driven business as facilities must be cleaned, especially after a renewed focus on hygiene and cleanliness since COVID-19. "When we were going through the pandemic, we delivered increased volumes of deep cleaning, including fogging services for places that we hadn't previously cleaned. Where premises remained open, they still needed someone to come in and clean."

Furthermore, Minster Cleaning’s customer portfolio covers a diverse range of sectors and this makes the business incredibly resilient to economic downturns.

It is a franchise that offers stability and financial security. "We are celebrating 40 years in business and 30 years in franchising. Minster Cleaning is a business that has a long track record of success and that message of stability and security is a great reassurance to both existing and prospective franchisees."

Most Minster Cleaning franchisees leave the business when they retire. "I have personally dealt with 14 or 15 franchise resales and only one of those was with someone that wasn't retiring. The vast majority of people really don't leave us for any other reason than retirement."

What is Minster Cleaning looking for in new franchisees?

Choosing the right people is key. “We are very selective about who we bring into our business. We are not looking for a specific background but for specific character traits and relentless motivation.”

>> Read also: Minster Cleaning celebrates 40 years