Nice Guys Finish First

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Finding the people to actually wash the floors and scrub the toilets is the hardest part of running any cleaning service. In the four years since he bought his first two franchises, Edgar has tried newspaper ads, door hangers, even bounties. But nothing has worked as well as visiting the church offices in blue-collar, ethnic Pittsburgh.

They're ideal housecleaners, Edgar says, "solid neighborhood people. Their kids are grown or growing, and they're attracted to flexible work." They're punctual and eager to earn a little extra for the family. For most, keeping a house immaculate has been a point of personal pride for years.

"They're a key part of the business, and we treat them as such," he says. Salaries start at almost $1 per hour more than minimum wage, with regular reviews and increases at 6 and 12 months. He offers his managers health insurance and has just developed a paid-vacation plan -- costs, he says, that pay off in quality. "These women would rather lose an arm than a customer."

That pays off in numbers. In 1989 Edgar's combined volume from his four units will pass the $1-million mark, five times the national average for housecleaning-service franchises. He has topped The Maids' sales charts for all 200 units for the past two years and is a profit leader as well.

"Harry combines superb business skills with entrepreneurial fire," says Dan Bishop, president of The Maids International Inc., who recently named Edgar's operation Franchise of the Year. But Edgar wasn't the only one honored from his units. Patricia Osborne of his downtown office was named Manager of the Year, and he nominated three of his employees for Maid of the Year, all three for the second time.

Edgar had been a corporate man. Starting in 1960 with the New York City-based Lerner Stores Corp., he'd risen to senior vice-president, responsible for 102 units in a nine-state area, when the corporate ownership changed and at 51 he had to find a new career. Not with a corporation -- he didn't want to have to move out of Pittsburgh. And not in retailing -- "I never wanted to have to worry about inventory again." Instead, he looked at service franchises he could run himself, choosing housecleaning for the growth potential. He planned on multiple units from the start, "something commensurate with my experience." Opening the first two on October 1, 1985, he committed himself to "running it like a big business, not a mom-and-pop."

Edgar was careful. With his children grown and his wife working, they could live on her salary, without taking anything out of the business for the 18 months it would take to get in the black. Then he got lucky. As the first national maid service franchisee in Pittsburgh, he got a long write-up in The Pittsburgh Press. "The day the story hit the paper the phones started ringing," he remembers. "I never looked back."

To keep the phones ringing, he modified the franchisor's marketing plan, advertising for first-time users through newspaper inserts, not direct mail. "Then we blitzed the city, 250,000 homes four times a year for two years." Today The Maids franchisees across the country use newspaper inserts, and Edgar serves as chairman of the executive advertising and advisory council.

It took 18 months to reach the black, as expected; then Edgar felt free to expand. He now has four stores and a fifth planned.

LAWN DOCTOR
Fairfax, Va.

Operators: Robert DeKraft, 53; Michael Lancaster, 39

Number of units: 2

Projected 1989 sales: $1.1 million

Profit margin: 20% after owner's draw

Customer retention rate: 80%

According to Russell Frith, president of Lawn Doctor Inc., what's most impressive about the success of partners Robert DeKraft and Michael Lancaster is that their growth came in Fairfax County, Va. The Beltway is, Frith says, "one of the most -- if not the most -- competitive lawn-care markets in the nation." Keeping customers takes more than just making their grass look greener; there's also the problem of transient professionals, the customer posted to an FBI office in Denver or sent back to California after a change in administration.

That doesn't seem to have slowed DeKraft and Lancaster, though. Two former technicians who bought their boss's franchise in 1975, they boast an annual renewal rate of 80%, one of the highest in the Lawn Doctor system. With more than $1 million in sales and a 20% margin after the owners' draw, they're among the system leaders in volume and profitability, winners of back-to-back awards for image and professional standards and, most recently, named The Best of the Best at the annual convention.

"This can be a tricky business," DeKraft admits. Although they apply product -- fertilizer, sprays, and seed -- the business is really based on the great intangible, customer satisfaction. Equally important, treating the lawn and servicing the customer both depend on the technicians who visit each house five or six times a year.

Theirs is still a personal business; DeKraft and Lancaster stay in touch with as many of their 4,000 customers as they can and train and supervise the technicians. They've added a two-stage curriculum, starting with four hours in a classroom set up in the office to review lawn-care-diagnosis and -treatment techniques, then moving out in the field, pairing a new hire with a veteran for the first two months on the job.

"It's still tough to keep people," DeKraft says. "Salaries are low, although we pay in the top of the market; the average guy stays in the job one and a half to two years."

To convince the best to stay longer, the pair has developed their own motivational plan, improving customer service in the process. Technicians can use equipment on weekends to seed lawns, earning a percentage on both the cost of the seed and the cost of the job. "Now, they've got an incentive to do jobs on a Saturday or a Sunday," DeKraft says. "We used to have trouble getting them to do it on time and a half."

-- Curtis Hartman

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