Commercial Cleaning Franchise Opportunity With Jani-King

Jani-King UK and Ireland

Sandip Chauham and Ketan Patel reach the magic £1 million

Entrepreneurs in the making

Two young men from Leicester, Sandip Chauham and Ketan Patel, became close "beer buddies" while attending Nottingham Trent University, having a fantastic time together hitting the bars and clubs. But after they graduated and started full time employment, Sandip and Ket realised they needed to change their priorities. This led to a burning desire to become successful businessmen.

When a family wedding in the USA introduced them to the concept of franchising (Ket's brother invested in a Subway franchise and was achieving great success), they decided to research possible franchise opportunities in the UK.

After six months of detailed research, Armadip (an initial partner), Sandip and Ket were attracted to the Jani King concept because it offered guaranteed turnover and uncapped potential business growth. Following an initial enquiry, the entrepreneurs were further impressed with the Jani King business model and the 10% margin realignment offered to franchisees. Consequently, their confidence in the Jani King system quickly grew.

After a number of meetings with Jani King’s Paul Haworth, the trio examined all the potential challenges they might face, such as “Will we make this franchise into a successful business?” After considering various business scenarios and tactics, the trio were confident that, with hard work, they could make the franchise a success.

Whatever it takes

On 7th July 2004, Armadip, Sandip and Ket invested in a Jani King cleaning franchise, naming their new business: “ASK Consultants Ltd”. Following the initial training course, Armadip, Ket and Sandip worked through a fairly slow start with a few transfers of accounts from other franchisees. They also decided to grow the business by selling themselves and carrying out specialist jobs such as “strip and seal” of wooden floors. ASK Consultants Ltd received ongoing support from Jani King’s training manager, enabling the franchise to convert work demos into contracts.

“Whatever challenge a new franchisee is faced with, there is always someone at Jani King to turn to for advice and guidance,” Ket explains.

The hands-on experience gave ASK Consultants Ltd a valuable insight into their customers’ expectations. Further new business followed. Ket recalls “After cleaning a pub in Leicester, the landlady mentioned her flat needed decorating. Of course, we jumped at the chance for the extra work and before we knew it, we were tiling her bathroom and painting the lounge - I don’t remember this being in our business plan!!”

Within four months, they received a major breakthrough when Jani King offered ASK Consultants the opportunity to service accounts for retailer Superdrug. By March 2005, the franchise still in its initial stage of growth, was turning over approximately £6,000 per month. Ket and Sandip then jumped at the opportunity for additional cleaning contracts in the Coventry area and within one month their turnover had grown to £22,000.

Building the foundations to a fortune

Although Armadip had to exit the business due to personal reasons, Ket and Sandip remained focused on their franchise and followed the implementation plan provided by Jani King to steadily grow their business and achieve success. However, they would be the first to admit that when difficult situations arise – as they do in any business – the support received from the Jani King HQ has been like a ‘parental tough-love’. Sandip says: “As a franchisee, if your attitude is not right, you are in danger of damaging the brand for other franchisees. Therefore, we recognise that it is in the interests of everyone that the head-office team gets involved to help resolve any problems."

The sweet smell of success

In November 2005, an opportunity to clean an Odeon cinema in Sheffield became available, resulting in a further increase in turnover to £34,000 per month. Six months later, Ket and Sandip hit their first milestone of £500,000 turnover, achieved within just two years of trading. Their growth has been a mixture of working proactively to generate new business, supplemented by contracts received centrally from the Jani King (GB) salesforce.

Ket and Sandip have put their business success down to the simple Jani King philosophy that ‘seeing is believing’. Sandip says: “You need to ensure that the customer sees that they are receiving a service which provides good value and good quality.”

Sandip and Ket are the proud owners of a large Jani King franchise region which includes Leicester, Warwick, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich, Leeds, Doncaster and Sheffield. Splitting the region between them, Ket and Sandip work to ensure a high quality service is provided for all clients. With Ket having formerly worked in Customer Relations, and Sandip a former accountant; they have an ideal combination of skills for a successful business partnership.

Both Ket and Sandip both have the support of their friends and family and are active members of the local communities in which they operate. They also have a strong relationship with the Jani King head office team. When asked what advice they would give to a prospective franchisee, the partners say: “Learn as much as you can from the Jani King training programmes, get into good habits and work as hard as you can from day one.”

In January 2007, Ket and Sandip collected two new BMW convertibles as self recognition of their hard work, although Ket is somewhat disappointed he couldn’t obtain insurance for the M3 Sports model!

The first million

Sandip and Ket are now proud that their customer portfolio consists of leading retailers and leisure groups including Odeon, Tenpin, River Island, Esporta, Superdrug and HMV. In total, ASK Consultants have 84 customers and, when recently taking over an additional “Next” account, their annual turnover reached the magic one million pounds!

Ket comments: “Now that we have reached the £1 million mark, the £2 million mark is our next goal and we aim to reach this a little quicker now that we have our structure in place. We plan to maintain the level of growth with all the challenges involved. We hope to continue our success and grow our business indefinitely!!”