A Golden Opportunity (page 3)
From a part time home business to a Million Pound franchise
We introduced strategies to legally
avoid paying unnecessary taxes (premature payment of VAT, saving on PAYE and
NI liability on the cleaners) saving a fortune over other agencies and
making us highly price competitive.
Each improvement increased our profits. We continue to refine the business
every year!
Our History - how correct pricing increased income from a £50,000 annual
turnover to over £100,000 annual PROFIT
Q: How large is the demand for this service?
A: "The thing that sold me on SelClene was that I could relate immediately to the basic tenet of the service. You are offering a product that most people would like but are not sure how to acquire. Most people acquire a cleaner through 'word of mouth'. I realised any company tapping in to this market with an easy way of acquiring the service should have a large number of potential clients" -
Ref: Ian Robertson (SelClene Ayr, Scotland).
In early 1996 I went to a meeting of the Marketing Guild. There were 200
people there. The Speaker opened by asking how much demand there was for
our service. How successful were we at converting Enquiries into Sales?
"How many of you have more than 1:5 of your sales enquiries go ahead?
- Stand up please."
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.
The Speaker paused and as if full of admiration, exclaimed, "Well
Done! You are clearly very special sales people. Congratulations! You are
a tribute to the sales and marketing profession...." I glowed. I
looked around at the others still standing. They glowed. I swelled with
happy, smug pride. They swelled too. The Speaker paused. A silence
descended on the room. Nothing moved.
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.
Achievable Wealth
Your Income - how you can gross £92,040 on just 200 clients and achieve this in your first franchise term.
Q: Is it profitable?
A: Everyone will tell you their business is profitable! When examining
potential businesses, you need to ask what is defined as 'profit'. Most
businesses make the mistake of counting the owner's wages as 'profit'.
This isn't correct.
In SelClene we allocate gross turnover into fixed percentages. 30% of
turnover is set aside for wages INCLUDING your own personal wage for the
work you do as owner of the business. A SEPARATE 30% is set aside as
profit, distinct from what you pay yourself in wages.
SelClene has been trading 14 years. We are STILL learning! We are still
improving our business. Did you know that only 4% of business start-ups
survive ten years? SelClene just gets stronger as we keep on improving the
business, the quality of our service and increasing profits.
200 clients represents a realistic, profitable SelClene agency. Our own
Maida Vale agency has 1300 clients and many of our franchisees have over
300 clients within - some achieved this within two years of starting full
time trading.
200 clients at current recommended rates will gross you £92,000. Of this
30% comprises your own personal wage and staff wages / call centre fees,
and a further 30% is your business' profit. The remaining 40% goes into
Marketing, office expenses, franchise fees, overheads - and includes an
allowance of 10% for unexpected contingencies.
This means you can take home £27,600 on just 200 clients. At 300 clients
you should make £41,400. At 400 clients, £55,200. It is a numbers game.
* A word of caution though; it takes TIME and INVESTMENT up front, to
generate your initial 200 clients. In the growth phase from 0-200 you will
not make much profit because you are building up your income stream.
* The faster you grow, the more you consume the income on growth, the less
up-front profit you have, but the greater long-term profit you secure into
the following year.
* The slower you grow, the quicker you will make up-front returns but the
smaller your longer term profit will be.
* You have to sacrifice every penny of income in the first year to grow
your business. It is in the second and each subsequent year that you truly
enjoy the rewards.
* You do not want to go into this business under-funded.
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. So now let's get down to business! Did you know....
....only 1:6,000 business people become millionaires....
That's pretty long odds, considering how little a million is these days.
Fifty or a hundred years ago a million meant something. Now with property
prices the way they are, even a million or two is not that much.
Do you REALLY fancy such long odds?
Would you like to improve your chances?
Well, if I can show you how to become a millionaire in ten years, would
you be interested?
Possibly.
If I could show you how to be a millionaire in five years or less, would
you be MORE interested?
How about a year and a half?
If the answer is yes then you're wasting your time reading this . You're bound to fall for one
get-rich-quick business opportunity after another and forever lose money.
Unless you change your attitude, adopt some healthy cynicism, this
franchise and what I have to introduce to you, is not for you.
As for all the get-rich-quick schemes around, none will be right for you.
Why? because if your sole motivation for doing something, for running a business or
subscribing to a business opportunity, is to make money, then you've lost
before you started.
So let me clarify:
* You need to be doing something you like doing, the incidental effect of
which, if done better, eventually makes you pleasantly well-off.
Don't get involved in ventures for which you have no natural aptitude and
which you won't like doing, which you are only doing to make money.
Pictures of our headquarters at Craig-y-Nos Castle
This means
you must ENJOY what you do, whether it works well or not, to make the
journey on the way to that first million, a fun experience in its own
right. Life is too short to be doing anything you do not LIKE doing.
Have you really thought about what YOU want?
As long as you enjoy your day, every set-back does not damage you
personally or demoralise you, because you ENJOY doing whatever you do.
