If you’ve contemplated joining a franchise in the past and decided the timing wasn’t right, or if this is a completely new idea for your company, it’s important to know what is new for each franchise going into 2017.
Pat Hyland, vice president of franchise development for The Grounds Guys, says the company currently has a number of franchisees that are familiar with the commercial landscape market, but may not know how to bid jobs correctly, and profitably, when it comes to the residential side. So the company is rolling out a residential services initiative since, as he says, “A lot of our franchisees may not even cut grass.”
The initiative packages residential services together so crews are doing more than just mowing lawns when they visit customers’ homes, making the job more profitable and worth the contractor’s time.
Lawn Doctor has started adding Yard Armour services, which provide mosquito and tick control.
“With all the media talking about Zika and those kinds of things, our Yard Armour business is up almost 100 percent,” says Jason Barclay, vice president of franchise development. Lawn Doctor started offering the service in 2014 but this year it’s resulting in a bigger revenue stream.
Spring-Green Lawn Care is seeing an increase of the same. “Recently we’ve introduced mosquito treatments for franchise owners,” says Jack Burris of Spring-Green Lawn Care. “I think it will become an additional service that our existing franchise owners can offer.”
The Décor Group has expanded its services to franchisees as well, but their growth comes from the 2015 acquisition of Barcana, which sells high-end Christmas trees, as well as other outdoor holiday pieces. This acquisition allows franchisees to provide more decorating opportunities to clients.
“What it’s done is opened a lot of doors for our franchisees to add a specialty look to their displays,” says President Brandon Stephens. “It’s been a big deal for us. We’ve been doing their domestic distribution and then last year we acquired the company.”
Not all franchisees are the same, something U.S. Lawns is recognizing with new training programs this year.
“We’ve provided a road map that educates you on implementing the right things based on the size of your business,” says Brandon Moxam, director of brand development for U.S. Lawns.
Weed Man is also looking at training programs and how to best utilize them to benefit franchisees.
“With technology evolving, you can sit someone down and show them videos and training that they can do at home or come to the office,” says Jennifer Lemcke, chief operating officer of Weed Man USA.
“If you look at a technician, we had five days of training,” Lemcke says. “That’s a lot of time for a technical manager to spend with one person.”
The new program allows training to stay consistent without taking time away from managers who need to focus on their own jobs and tasks.
