The SelClene Story
(page 3)
From a part time home business to a Million Pound franchise
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I stood up and so did 50 others. "Okay, Now how many of you have a greater than 1:4 sales to enquiry rate? - Remain standing. Everyone else please sit down." I remained standing. Speaker: "How many of you have a 1:3 or better success rate on converting enquiries to sale? Everyone else please sit down."
Still I remained standing. Now there were just four of us in a room of 200 left standing. We looked at each other, feeling a little over-awed at our own marketing brilliance. What an impressive, select group we were! We awaited the Speaker's inevitable praise. My own conversion rate in the agency was (then) 1:2. - i.e. of every two enquiries from prospective clients that I received, one would go ahead.
And then, with a thunderous crash, the Speaker shattered our illusions. "But you are all guilty of one thing." "What's that?" we asked, stunned.
"You are all Guilty of GROSSLY UNDER-CHARGING!"
Suddenly the light dawned! For over eight years I'd been running a successful home business. I took the demand for granted. I knew 1:2 enquiries would go ahead and I thought this was excellent. Now I saw the greatest error I had made was in the PRICING. Everything else worked fine; I just wasn't realising the agency's immense profit potential.
As a result of the changes we implemented in 1996, SelClene won the Marketing Guild Company of the Year Award.
Our turnover quickly rose from £50,000 a year to £300,000. Our profits jumped to over £100,000 a year - double what we were making in turnover just three years before.
This growth has continued. As of 2001 we were generating turnover of over £50,000 a month in our own Maida Vale agency and over £20,000 a month in profits. That is still the case now. This would have been unimaginable back in 1995.
In the Maida Vale agency I employ six staff and solely on trading as a cleaning agency, and before diverting some of the profits into other expenditures to better manage my tax affairs, I made £240,000 profit on a turnover slightly in excess of £560,000 in the financial year 2000/2001. This is exceptional however. It is unlikely you would be able to emulate this unless you worked very long hours and lived in a very sound territory.
200 clients and a gross turnover of £92k a year is an achievable level of wealth.
The kitchen at 112 Portnall Rd, Maida Vale, London W9, where the agency in Maida Vale was started and where cleaners are still interviewed and trained to this day. It doubles as a lodgers' dining area and lounge in the evening.
