Domestic Angels was founded in 2002, what made you initially start the business and what do you attribute the growth of the company to?
I had returned to work post maternity leave which found me out of the house, and away from my baby, 12 hours per day and sometimes for days on end. The knock on effect to home life, social life or even just seeing my own Mum was overwhelming and unacceptable. I left my ‘career’ and founded Domestic Angels to solve a mate’s need for help at home, the rest, as they say is history. The company has grown, and more specifically evolved, because Domestic Angels is a great product offering domestic clients the service and relationship they seek as well as providing our staff with the dignity they deserve by being employed and looked after, they are our customers too. These points together with the fact that I thoroughly enjoy business, providing solutions and in particular breaking new ground has resulted in a dynamic business energy which demands growth and evolution.
When did you begin franchising the business and why did you decide to take this route?
The Domestic Angels franchise is brand new to the market although we have spent the last 2 years preparing our offering ourselves in-house so that we can be sure that our franchisees enjoy the very best of our processes and that it totally reflects our corporate moral framework rather than paying a consultant to make us fit an associations preferred formula. Deciding to take the franchise route was no small decision, we considered the franchise arena to be full of sharks and didn’t want to join the herd. In true Angels style we realised we could create our offering in our own style reflecting our standards, ethics and spirit to guarantee that our offering is successful just as Domestic Angels already is. It’s still compliant where it needs to be but more importantly our long established formula is not compromised by external preferences.
What do you think are the real perks/benefits in running a Domestic Angels Franchise?
Franchisees will be operating their own business in accordance with our tried and tested processes supported by our specialist management team. Between us we have seen and heard it all before and we expect to work very closely with our franchisees, their success is our success, this is important to us just after happiness.
A large part of the Domestic Angels success is that it is a home based business run on a part time basis and we expect our franchisees to do the same. Being at the school gates is important to us as is helping with homework, we don’t mind an early start to enable focus to family breakfast or odd evening hours to be able to honour daytime commitments to elderly relatives, our franchisees will feel the same about life and enjoy the same flexibility to prioritise to achieve work life balance in the best possible way.
What type of person is most likely to flourish as a Domestic Angels franchisee?
Somebody who excels at customer service, communicating sales and marketing. We’re going to be providing substantial support in all other business disciplines which means franchisees need to either follow procedures specifically or we’ll be doing the work for them ie book keeping. We know we can’t all be brilliant at everything so we want our franchisees to use their energies to focus on their strengths and enjoy growing their own management franchise.
Can you tell us more about the start-up costs, ongoing management fees and training that is provided?
The first few franchisees will enjoy a start-up cost just short of £10K, we know we are new to the game so offering this discount is reasonable to us plus these lucky people will be totally spoilt as we over indulge in making sure they are happy and successful. Once we are underway this cost will be £12,997. Management fees are 10% of profit, so we have a stake in ensuring franchisees are profitable, plus some minimal costs to cover on-going social media, PR, software and bookkeeping. As our figures are based on a real business which has been running for years we are confident that these costs are vital for success and a hindrance.
Once signed up we will get our franchisees underway with preparations at home before attending a 3 day residential course at no additional cost which they will leave armed with a full marketing/PR strategy, full understanding of how to operate our processes within the company intranet, total engagement with our culture and good relationships with all of our experts who are keen to ensure their business adventure is supercharged to success.
Find out more about the Domestic Angels franchise opportunity by visiting: http://www.domestic-angels.com/franchise.html
