Metro Rod continues impressive growth

Metro Rod has reflected back on a solid performance from its franchisees over the last year and how better autonomy has helped them grow.

Metro Rod’s parent group, Franchise Brands, has been reflecting on the successful start the franchise has had to 2019.

In an interview with Proactive Investors, chairman Stephen Hemsley revealed that the drainage franchise’s network has greatly benefitted from the Vision 2023 strategy that it implemented just over a year ago.

He explained that, when Franchise Brands acquired ownership of the Metro Rod network in 2017, many of the franchisees behaved as though they were subcontractors working for a company, rather than valued franchise partners. Hemsley realised that something needed to change and revealed how Franchise Brands reacted to the old way of doing things within Metro Rod.

“We said ‘no, that’s not the way we run a franchise at Franchise Brands.’ We’ll give you all the tools you need to make it happen, but you’ve got to get out there and make [your business] happen.”

By empowering franchisees to have more responsibility over the day-to-day running of their franchised operations, Metro Rod has seen a “step-change in growth” across its franchisee network. There was a 15 percent increase in system sales across the first half of 2019, with franchisees growing locally acquired sales (vs centrally assigned jobs) by an incredible 19 percent. This shows that the ambitious Vision 2023 strategy to empower all franchisees is already doing the trick.

Hemsley also explained that work to automate business systems, like accountancy, invoicing, sales leads and tasking engineers, has ensured that each franchisee can concentrate on winning new business instead of tedious manual admin tasks. Marketing has also become a much bigger focus for the business, with a re-brand seeing the business turning bright green, as it seeks to make itself more prominent in the drainage industry. It has also begun advertising in prominent B2B publications to become better known amongst its commercial customers. Hemsley playfully added:

“Now, when we tender for significant contracts, people have at least heard of us – it’s quite helpful!”