JANITORIAL FRANCHISE GUIDE

View Comments

• 1st Amendment:

  You've got to understand where Jerry's coming from. He was raised in the segregated South. His grandparents probably could remember slavery. In the South where he/she was raised there were "House slaves" and "Field slaves" The House Slaves lived in the big house and got better food, clothing and treatment and believed themselves to be better than their fieldworker bretheren.

  They thought they were on the same team as their "Masters" (even the terms are the same). They would keep the field slaves in line and even inform on them. Of course their "Master" let them believe that but in reality they were still slaves.

  Jerry is from the tradition of the Field Slave. He defends the Master like he's on their level, but at the end of the day he was just a cog in the corrupt machine that turned slave labor into mini-mansions and Jacuzzis for the "Masters"

• Why do cleaning franchisors hurt people like Mr. Padilha and Mr. Martins. Please read part of the following article that came out in the New York Times.

  What was hapening in 2005 is still hapening today in 2010.

  To read the whole article you can go to the following link.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/national/13franchising.html

  Lawsuits Charge Fraud in Cleaning Business

  By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
  Published: July 13, 2005

  João Padilha had been saving money from his work as a restaurant deliveryman outside Boston when he heard a tantalizing offer to buy a cleaning franchise.

  Marcos Martins, a Brazilian immigrant like Mr. Padilha, was looking to go into business.

  Tri Duc Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant in Portland, Ore., needed a way to make money after Fujitsu closed the factory where he worked.

  All three men put thousands of dollars into cleaning franchises and say they were shortchanged.

  As Mr. Padilha retells it, the top Boston representative of Coverall Cleaning Concepts said he could make $3,000 a month cleaning buildings if he paid $12,880 for a franchise. What is more, Mr. Padilha says he was told he could easily parlay his investment into a large cleaning business.

  So Mr. Padilha paid the money and was assigned two women's health clinics, in Haverhill and Newburyport, Mass.

  He was told it would take two and a half hours a day to clean the clinics, but it took six hours, he said. Coverall also gave him two dialysis clinics, and soon he was cleaning and shuttling among clinics from 5:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. on weekdays, with six more hours on weekends.

  He estimated that he worked 65 hours a week and 280 hours a month. But his receipts show that Coverall, which handled payments, paid him $1,262 a month, less than half what he says he had been promised.

  "I was doing all this work, but the check was for very little money," Mr. Padilha said.

  So he went to the director of Coverall's Boston office to complain.

  "When I came in, they said I had no more work," Mr. Padilha said. "He said the supervisor of one clinic no longer wanted me. They took all my work away in one fell swoop. I asked for my franchise money back, but they said no."

  "It's sad for a man to cry, but I left that room crying," he added.

  Mr. Padilha said he recouped none of his investment and soon learned that Mr. Martins had obtained the franchise to clean the dialysis clinics.

  Mr. Martins said: "I asked why the person who was doing it before had discontinued the work. The field consultant told me the person had gone back to Brazil."

  Mr. Martins put $5,000 down and promised to pay $306 a month for two years to obtain a franchise that he was told would generate $2,000 a month for him. He said he cleaned clinics 72 hours a week, about 300 hours a month, but received just $1,366.

  He, too, was, abruptly terminated at the clinics for reasons he says he never understood.

  A dozen franchisees, including Mr. Padilha and Mr. Martins, are suing Coverall, charging it with fraud, breach of contract and failing to pay the minimum wage. They assert that the company took out improperly large commissions and did not have enough customers to supply franchisees.

• Guest: Your nonsense about the South only shows your arrogance. That's why people don't listen to you and take you seriously. Only one's that do, think like you do, act like you do and eventually all you have done, is proven to the people viewing this Site, is you are an IDIOT!!

• Janiking seems to be ripping of alot of people here in USA and also in the UK. There is a UK blog http://www.able2know.com in that blog you can read some of the Horror stories of how janiking rips-off people. However I liked what someone posted and decided to share it with all of you. Basicaly its about people coming together and taking ACTION!

  http://able2know.org/topic/40641-6

  There was a group called the Cleanup group in 1999. Started by a franchisee, who got in touch with as many other franchisees as possible, from the list provided in due diligence, who then, in turn, contacted all the franchisees they knew and held meetings in Tamworth. Franchisees came from all over the country, also Scotland. They all decided to go collectively to the press. There was a massive campaign by the Daily Mirror's SORTED page by Andrew Penman, even the Times carried the story, he was hated by J.K. J.K. met with the representatives of the Cleanup group, gave the leaders top jobs, changed their ways for a couple of years then went back to normal after riding out the storm.
  Maybe it is time for another Cleanup Group
  There was also a good solicitor called Douglas Jones Mercer at
  I do not know if they still practice but it would be worth a try.
  Good Luck!

  URL: http://able2know.org/topic/40641-6

• To anyone considering a janitorial or commercial cleaning franchise:

  Here’s a money-saving, time-saving tip for anyone considering signing a janitorial franchise agreement:

  Call one of the attorneys who is suing or has sued Jan-Pro or other janitorial franchisors and pay them to review the agreement and advise you. They already know these agreements backwards and forwards, and know all the hidden franchisor tricks and the worst provisions. You’ll only have to pay them to glance over your version of the FDD, and they can spend their time explaining to you what you’re risking by signing.

  Believe me, it will be much cheaper than coming back to them after being swindled and violated by a slick contract that's been refined by the best franchise law firms money can buy.

• SEIU: Still waiting for your sheer brillant mind to tell me and all the viewers on this site: WHATS NEXT!!!!!!!

  You cant answer a simple question, proposed to you by a SIMPLE minded individual as you continue your non-sense bantor... This is thirty thousand plus investors waiting for you to tell them your thoughts about WHATS NEXT!!!!!

  If you don't care, be man enough to admit you dont care. If you don't know, admit you don't know, if you can't think about that because you are attempting to LINE your OWN pockets, then I guess the viewers will decide whether or not to listen to your dribble.....

  Here's a money saving, time saving tip for anyone considering signing a janitorial franchise agreement: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!!!

• "Here’s a money saving, time saving tip for anyone considering signing a janitorial franchise agreement: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!!!"

  Forget Do Your Homework.....just start your own company. Control your own destiny.

• Pete: Bravo!!! Here's a thought process, how about sales, how about admin, how about managment, how about customer relationship building, how about credit, how about all of those things and more. There's a valid reason why people purchase a UNIT FRANCHISE, just because you and I don't need too, doesn't mean others don't.

• If a person can't handle all those other things....can they really own their own business? Come on! That's the whole selling point - Own your company and live your dreams. UNIT FRANCHISE = Employee....plain and simple

  You don't need to throw all your marketing hogwash at ME....microfiber, equipment, buying groups, training, etc.....you work too hard defending your "system".

• Pete: The system works, why do you think "traditional companies" are spending time, money, profit and everything else they are throwing at the "franchise companies". Though "traditional companies" still control nearly 90% of the overall market in the U.S. There shares are much smaller outside of the U.S. and each year for the last 10 years, their market share "lost" to the "franchising companies" is growing.

  Facts are Facts: Why do you think that so many "traditional companies" have started Owner/Operator "off shoots" of their own "traditional businesses". ie... OpenWorks, Varsity and others.