Janitorial services don’t seem sexy, but City Wide’s model is attracting amped up interest. Franchisees contract out many services rather than doing all the work themselves, from cutting grass to cleaning gutters to paving asphalt – and the idea is to bring the wide variety of services under “one point of contact,” as the franchisor emphasizes. Franchisees employ sales people to boost revenue rather than service workers to do the jobs.
Jeff Oddo is the second son of founder Frank Oddo, and he runs the operation today. He concentrates on the number 76 – they divided the country into 76 markets with a minimum of a million people. “I just said, a million is a really nice-sized business, and if we can give them exclusive rights for 15 years, then I think we have a great opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives.” he says.
Plus, he thinks a smaller system is better than a far-flung one. “Why 76? I did not want – if you look at the other franchise opportunities, some of them have hundreds and thousands” of franchisees. “Life is too short to spend in court, being sued or suing them,” he said. See the article here.
About the Fast & Serious Formula
Franchise Times worked to create a formula to identify fast-growing franchise systems that also have staying power, as an antidote to multiple other rankings that include too many one-year wonders. Controller Matt Haskin developed a proprietary 10-point formula, including percentage sales growth, percentage unit growth, dollar sales growth and numerical unit growth over the past three years, with more weight given to acceleration in years two and three.
The database for the project is the Franchise Times Top 200 plus 300, our annual ranking published in October of the largest franchise systems by revenue. Haskin identified 324 companies that submitted information all three years for that project, and then selected for analysis 298 with systemwide sales above $40 million, the floor for consideration for Franchise Times Fast and Serious. https://www.franchisetimes.com/March-2014/About-the-Fast-and-Serious-formula/
