Glass Replacement Franchise Opportunity With Cloudy 2 Clear

Hi All,

The disappointing lead figures from the May bank holiday weeks were swiftly swept aside by the fact that many of you cottoned on to the use of advertorials this month. Coupled with the Express ad and Text Message the 3rd week of June showed the highest amount of leads since the 3rd week of April (a record week for the group) and these have been easily translated into orders and sales across the group in July. Also, despite the drop off at the end of May the group as a whole posted yet another record month in June both in terms of leads and total sales. More importantly, sales per Franchisee showed an impressive 22% growth on June 2009 at £8893.39 and with average leads finishing at 78.39 per Franchisee (an increase of 8.75% on 2009) it really shows the strides we are taking.

To give those of you who didn’t run an advertorial in June to give you an idea of the effect this can have Ken in Coventry invested in an advertorial in 3 papers in the 3rd week of June – a not inconsiderable gamble. This paid off handsomely with over 50 leads in the last 10 days of the month, completely transforming his prospects for July. I’ll say no more to those of you who haven’t tried it yet.

Individually it is no coincidence therefore that you see Phil in Bolton heading the leader board in sales for June (well done Phil!) as he has been running the same advertorial, once a month, since April and that Billy from Milton Keynes tops the orders chart as he has been doing the same thing since the middle of May. Indeed, Billy’s problem in July has been getting everything fitted due to a lack of time - not a bad problem to have! According to July's figures so far Trev is in danger of becoming ‘Always The Bridesmaid’ which is great!

It wouldn’t, of course, be a monthly report without me banging on about keeping your costs as low as possible. Remember, the season lasts until the end of November so for those of you who are struggling to get your jobs fitted please, please, please be aware of how many skilled fitters there are out there who will take part time work. As Andy in Barnsley will testify a free ad at the local Job Centre pays dividends. We are now getting to the point for many of you where you are having to look at staff as an option and we are actively looking at ways to help you cover yourselves legally at the least cost. Graham in Belfast is very painfully aware of how staff can take you for a few (thousand) quid if you are not careful and all he did was move to the front of the house after telling the bloke not to climb the ladder…. You can guess the rest. As you will see at the next meeting we have plans in place to help those of you who are knocking on the door of requiring staff (and those of you who already have them) so that you are completely covered from an Employment Law and Health & Safety point of view.

Speaking of the next meeting we are currently finalizing a venue and agenda and I will be back to you next week. Tuesday 10th August is favourite at the minute, if anyone is going away or has any objection to that date could you please let me know by Friday otherwise we will book the venue and if you are unable to attend then, I’m afraid, it will be you who loses out. We have a very big agenda for the day which includes how we plan to help you in terms of both running your business more efficiently for the greatest profit and also how we can help you generate more leads at a group level.

In light of the success of the placement of our advertorials and our normal adverts I would also like to pay tribute to Antony, Hugh and Caroline from the Lift Agency. Taking over from the mess that was left behind from the last couple of months with Red Media was never going to be easy and Hugh & Caroline in particular have worked very hard to get the bookings right and check the papers for you after your orders are placed to make sure they are in the right place.

Then to follow this up and get compensation where required is no mean feat. The implementation of that many advertorials in a week with the brain dead paper reps was a massive task and to be honest they have done a brilliant job to keep the papers mess ups to a minimum (Ken’s smiley face appeared in Bedford and Chesterfield!) and then immediately get on to the paper so that the proper advertorial is, at least, run the week after at no cost to those affected is a top class service which is easily taken for granted. If you have never had to deal with the papers direct you really have no idea of how horrendous it can be. We have big plans for our partnership with Lift, more of which later. To put it another way, thanks to your prompt MSF payments the once a month Express ad will soon be seen as the minimum.

I will have reports back for you on July (obviously) next week (promise!). In the meantime I would like, on the old boys behalf, to extend our warmest welcome to Andy Croft from Barnsley, Clive Selman from North Manchester, Paul Spiller from Gloucester and Andy Kerridge from Ipswich (all 4 of whom have recently started trading) and also Tim Law from Cambridge and Craig Russell from Glasgow South who will be starting next month. I’m sure those of you who have been around for a while can think back to those horrendously nervous early days and will be on hand to help in any way if required as John Kendall has been for Andy, Brian has been for Paul and Phil has been for Clive and Andy."

Thanks,

Martin