THIS TAKES ME THROUGH MY CLAIMS DIRECT FRANCHISE TO THE START OF MY JOURNEY WITH RAINBOW INTERNATIONAL.

The start of my 20 year association with the Dwyer group from how it almost ended in training to starting to build a decent business. 

After being forced to sell my Highway Glass franchise I was a bit lost as to what I could do next. A company called Rainbow International had visited Highway as they wanted to replicate their success within the insurance industry, in their own field cleaning. I visited them but was not impressed and did not get the feeling they would go for it in the same way as Highway did. After some time off I found Claims Direct who had suddenly burst on the scene as an injury claims company. They were certainly dynamic from start-up to being listed on the Stock Exchange in a couple of years. The idea was we visited people who have suffered an injury and handled their claims gathering all the evidence to send off to a solicitor. If the case was accepted we were paid followed by another amount on completion. It was a very good payment you could easily earn ￡500- a day double that once the cases were settled. Only thing though was I was working by myself and missed the banter of being with a group. Missing the Fat Controller, Cab, Scouse and many other characters. I was nicknamed Wheaty Head as the little bits of hair I had on my head looked like strands of Shredded Wheat. Claims Direct did not last long though as we were selling insurance cover to pay out if the claim did not go through. We were told that this would be recoverable when the case was settled. There were laws going through to make this happen. That was correct and when the law was passed stating you could claim the cost of the insurance it also stated a date. All those prior to that date we had sold policies to were winning their case and getting nothing because they had to pay back the extortionate cost of the insurance. The Sun newspaper and Watchdog had a field day with this. Children being injured winning ￡1500 compensation and paying ￡1400 for the policy. This all led to this new company who were listed on the stock exchange with shares soaring as it was so successful collapsing not far short of overnight. So up to now I had been involved with three franchisees the milkman well just times changed and I got out. Highway Glass a dynamic company that bought it's franchisees out with threats that you either sell or we will not renew your contract, Can't complain too much about that I got a lot of money. Now another dynamic company that was built on a lie if you could have recovered the policy money as promised it would have been a great company. They believed that's what would happen so did their investors etc. 

This left me out of work again with a fast decreasing lump sum of money a wife and 5 children to support. I started the journey again and called a Rainbow Franchisee to see what was going on there. He moaned that he was being given more and more work from the insurance industry. After my success with Highway I thought I would look at them again. I visited and they seemed to be gaining a bit more success in the insurance field. I went to work for the franchisee in Leicester to see what it was like. He had a good established business mainly carpet cleaning but some bigger jobs coming through cleaning up after fires and floods. I took the risk my eldest son Dominc joined me as well and we purchased a Rainbow franchise. 

Training started and I soon upset the apple cart on the first day they showed a film about working on the business rather than in it. I just said I totally agree and maybe we should not be taught how to do the actual job, rather be taught how to promote and run a business. Bob the trainer and all the other starters said stuff like how can you manage people if you don't know how to do the job. I said sorry I want to run a business not clean carpets just like the film said. That got me off to a bad start and it got worse as the training was all about carpet construction and cleaning hardly a mention of fire and flood cleaning. In a converted cupboard next to the training room sat their national account sales manager an old guy who might have been bought out of retirement. Being old is no problem but sitting in that cupboard all day not having any appointments was a problem to me. I was getting more frustrated that it was not what I bought into. They also seemed to resent the fact that 30% of network sales came from the insurance industry. Instead of being proud that they were helping build a base of business for their franchisees they resented it. Another day we were asked to produce a cash flow forecast and business plan. I said to Bob the trainer as you keep stating 30% of network sales come from head office for me to produce a worthwhile plan I would need to know and understand the companies plan going forward. I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel he shouted "don't you bother about our plan just concentrate on what you are going to do". I replied "I know how I intend to start but how the hell do I know if it will work enough to do a meaningful cash flow". "If that bloke gets out of the cupboard and gets some more work in we could easily double triple the amount of work from the insurance industry". 

Next morning I was in front of the head master with the threat of having my franchise terminated. They questioned whether I was serious about this and my attitude. I replied something like you have a franchisee up there in training who would not say boo to a goose, and his young employee is the same. How the hell are those two going to get out there and sell themselves. Then I showed them a list of people that were going to help me from the laundry that would clean all clothes giving me a nice discount french polisher who would restore furniture again giving me a nice discount to the carpet doctor who specialised in repairing damaged carpets. I explained that the insurance market was huge and my turnover went from 13k a month to 100k a month after Highway broke into it. All I see here is an old guy living in a cupboard how do you expect me to feel. Most of the others treat you like an employer telling you your great well I'm not like that I can walk away and start something else I don't care. We decided to carry on and after three weeks we were fully fledged carpet cleaner and fire and flood restoration technicians. I remember driving home in my nice new van thinking what have I done. I've never had a carpet cleaned in my life. This company is so far behind the last two it's ridiculous. 

We started and went round delivering leaflets got a little bit of work a few carpet cleans came in from the insurance industry not much was happening enough to pay Dominic but not much more. The first fire clean up came in. It was a farm house I remember the mum was upset and saying how long will this take. I had no idea never seen the inside of a house after a fire let alone cleaned one. Her son said don't worry mum these are professionals they will sort us out in no time. Inside I was thinking what the F--- am I going to do. With the help of a couple of Dominic's mates who were out of work we started the clean. Vacuumed the walls washed them down but they still looked dirty obviously. I had no idea how far we should go. The way we were going we would have washed all the plaster off the wall. Then I called a decorator and asked him how far I would have to go before he could cover the walls with paint. We had no idea what we were doing but got away with it and learned on the job. I offered to arrange a decorator and our quote was accepted with a nice bit for me. Laundered all the clothes had a French polisher in to restore the furniture. This is what I joined for. We got more and more of that work and kept learning and improving. I paid to attend a proper course outside the franchise for fire and flood restoration. "Do learn improve" Jeffs moto no good reading all about how to do something and not actually doing it because you have a bit more learning a bit more strategy to put in place. Also, no good just doing things without reading and learning how to improve, the two must go hand in hand. The influx of insurance work was not because the man in the cupboard woke up and started selling it started due the fact that a major insurer was looking to re-appoint Chem Dry as their fire and flood restoration company when one of their franchisees killed a client. Something about left a generator running in an occupied house with the fumes killing the policy holder. Chem Dry were not reappointed but Rainbow despite rather than because of their sales team won the contract. Shows it was not just us who lacked training. Soon after that they were bought out by ISS and became a different company. The Rainbow that is still going is far removed from the company I joined. 

I myself was lucky not to burn down a house we were drying after a flood. We had left loads of blowers and dehumidifiers in every room. All on extension leads none of my team knew that we had to unroll the extension leads. Luckily I was on the above fire restoration course and it was mentioned that this was a fire hazard. I went by the house on the way home unrolled the extensions to find the cables had already started melting. Would not have killed anyone as it was an empty house but would have burnt it down. 

I started to grow a decent business still had problems with head office mainly marketing I was good at getting editorial so at first the young lady in marketing thought I was great. I did go too far once we had a call asking if we could remove smells. As we had just purchased some amazing equipment to do just that I said yes. The guy came along to our unit knocked on our door just as I was packing up for Easter. I asked him what the smell was he wanted to remove and he replied that he had a dead body. I straight away said look stop mucking me about it's the Easter break and I want to go home you have not got a dead body in your house. He explained he was from the local funeral parlor and they had a 50 stone dead guy who would not fit in the chiller draw and just laying out on the table. They had no idea what to do with him too big to cremate would not fit in the back of a Hearse. It's Easter and by the time they sorted it out he would be stinking the whole building out. Any way we sent down all the equipment we had along with misters that slowly spayed a masking fragrance. The way my mind works is straight away I thought what great publicity so I contacted the local papers and TV telling them how we helped a local funeral parlor with a 50 stone dead person. Afterwards I thought maybe I should not have done that. Anyway on my return I call the parlor to see if the machines worked and they were very happy. Then he asked if the papers had been in touch. I said no why he replied that someone at the parlor had leaked the story of a a large dead man and they did not know what they was going to with him. I replied that's terrible how about the relations of the man it's just not on. I did learn a lesson that sometimes it's not all about getting the business known. No problem making that type of mistake as long as I learn from it. It all went sour though with marketing when we had a training session and Yellow Pages was bought up now marketing had to approve our advert. For the youngsters at this time the internet had only just taken off and most people did not have computers phones were for making calls on. Adverts in Yellow Pages were sorted alphabetically so if you looked for carpet cleaner you would go through that section and A1 - Aardvark - Able Cleaning etc were on page 1 you can guess where Rainbow was consequently we did not get much work. I suggested doing what others including Chem Dry the biggest carpet cleaning franchise did and to put a tiny A.1.1. prefix which would get us onto page one and masses of work. Common sense to me but no marketing would not ruing our brand by put this tiny little few letters in front of the name. I just could not understand why we could get all this extra work but was being prevented by our own company. A young kid from Uni preventing me gaining work. Marketing were doing what they were taught at Uni which is to market Cola Cola, Next, Marks and Spencer etc. We though were a small franchise and this obsession with the brand was costing us all a lot of work. Not against building a brand but a tiny a1 in front of the logo would hardly notice or harm the brand. I have found this so much with marketing in franchising it actually hinders growth. In all the years I had been a franchisee I can not recall one campaign originating from marketing that produced work.  

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