Most of what you are reading here is bias. You have to understand that anyone in business would love to have no competitors at all. But the reality is we don’t. So when a large franchise moves into our service area, naturally there is some fear. Regardless of the reputation of the franchise everyone in business pretty much knows or learns about a franchise business model. Because of this they understand that the owner will have a lot of say in how his/her business is run. This is the #1 factor if a business is a success or not. If the owner is skilled and moves the business slightly off the franchise model, they can blow up. Or it can go the other way around. I know a guy who bought a Moto-Photo back in the day, he was a marketing Guru and was fully retired at 38 years old, 5 years after opening the shop. He did not stick to the franchise model 100%. He did a lot on his own. And fact of the matter is, this industry is 99% based on price. There are many who will bark about quality, service etc. Heck I bark about it also. But the potential customer who has never had their windows serviced is 1st and foremost going to view price as their top 3 deciding factors. Who can really blame them? As a homeowner I have been ripped off by 1 or 2 contractors and now price is a major point for me when dealing with anyone working on my home. Fish is mainly a store front business model and that in itself is a low ballers game. If it’s not fish than it’s someone else. Problem with fish is they show up looking like pros an offering a low price, so of course other window cleaning companies get scared. They don’t worry so much about the price at first. They worry about the quality. Because they know in the back of their minds, if the company provides a quality service word will get out. Once that happens the lower priced company has just taking a price point for an area and killed it. Thus taking money out of another company’s pocket and they have to make it up or go out of business. IE Wal-mart vs mom and pop. If you dont know what you are doing in this business I would recommend you stay and read. You will quickly find out that this industry is one of the few low cost start ups that anyone can get into. As your business grows you are going to want to pull out a minimum of 10% of advertising every year off your gross. So as stated here already you will have to pay that to the franchise. But why pay it to them if you are going to have to do it anyway? I have never seen a fish ad in my town or county. So I can’t say if the 10% is worth it. But I honestly think that if you buy a franchise and then get deep into this industry you are going to look back and see the mistake of all the money you had spent. I’m willing to bet there are a few window cleaning companies in NC who would be more then happy to take your money and hold your hand in getting things rolling. I’m sure it would not be as much as Fish would take yearly, that’s for sure.
“Say what you will about National Socialism, Dude. At least it’s an ethos.”
Thad,
What is an ethos?
Better still Thaddeus…Please rephrase your point so us kindergartners can better understand it !
LimitedDange
You Know Fish is just competition and competition is competition whether they be Fish, bucket hounds or Advanced cleaners.
Like Jug-Man said price is a big issues with new bids and present accounts…Keeping your bidding pencil sharp, and being able to work effectively and qualitiestic is also a true way to keep those jobs in-spite of others coming in low.
Fish showed up in our area but they’re no different then any other company, some companies are real good others mediocre and others Slop Artist, high priced, middle priced and low priced !
I think in the final analyst it’s the account who will determine the winner, and so we better have all our ducks in a row when presenting ourselves, when we price and when we do the job, 1st time and every time !
When we get the job we better provide good and respectful service and produce quality work and not just be a bumpkins !
Dr.Dange-Ster
I have seen a lot of work that people that work for Fish have done. I was not impressed. Would you want a guy coming to work on your furnace just because he had enough money to purchase a heating and cooling bussiness?
Didn’t we have a convo along these lines just the other day? lol
I was taking this thread as a conversation about the viability of their model for "you"
Obviously, it’s viable, but is it for you and at what cost?
This discussion didn’t strike me as fear of Fish, lowest prices being a deathnell to other local businesses or anything like that.
My point is, as others have stated, if you’ll make it in business anyway, you don’t need to have 10% of your gross taken and pay upfront fees and live in a “restricted box” (marketing creatively, services creativity, just a few zip codes) and not own anything that you’ve built when you “sell” (get fired, don’t renew your contract for another 10 years, etc, and you can’t sell to anyone, Fish Corp has their finger in the pie too and has to approve the buyer, ugh, big brother in the way at every turn, lol).
Others will find “community” within the Fish corporate culture. It’s an individual choice. We are not franchisees because we ALREADY started our own businesses, so yep, we’re all pretty biased for sure, lol!
As far as fear, my local one has been here for 8-9 years, (which I am interested to see if he’ll resign for another 10 year contract soon) and like any other business have their niche: storefronts and commercial.
At least they are consistent and you know where they are on the game board, simpler to work around them, they don’t move, and I wouldn’t want that space on the local gameboard anyway.
Do they do residential in your area? Do you have crossover estimates, jobs etc that you keep running into each other?
Bingo, sink your self in marketing and marketing creativity, figure out who your are for, figure out your niche, figure out what problems you solve they dont and market the heck out of your self. That’s an antidote for ANY business vs ANY competition the way I see it.
What I got out of this post is:
if you want to start your own business, work for a franchisee for awhile to learn all you didn’t know, but don’t own one, start your own
Side point:
If they paid better (all local franchises) maybe folks would stick around. What if they paid the BEST?
Here is more marketing opportunity for everyone
This is why they dont have a clear and concise top of mind reputation nationwide like McDonalds
It’s all muddled by a mix-match of good/not so good franchises
again, corporate is limited in what they can explicitly dictate to franchisees
Perhaps if they had started and perfected more company run locations run by outright employees, or if all locations were such, they would be head and shoulders above in a McDonald’s way
instead they chose the independent franchisee model
leaves lots and lots of marketing opportunities for the majority of all non-fish window cleaning co’s out there.
haha, well I didn’t mean for it to happen that way, but it just ended up like that. I could not find a job so I took this window cleaning gig knowing I was getting the hell out of there ASAP. Now here I am 4 years later happy with the eventual outcome. What a long strange trip it’s been.
BTW no way in the world would I want to own a Fish franchise. I may be disagreeable and even play devils advocate from time to time but I sincerely appreciate the educational opportunites and shared experiences of everyone here. And I do appreciate the time I had to view this business from the Fish angle. It has only made me better and hopefully wiser although that is debatable.
newviewc,
What conclusions have you drawn from this thread?
I don’t consider Fish a threat. They’re more of a nuisance - Similiar to dog crap in a customers yard.
Justin,
You’re thinking of a big dog, right?
Mike do they even come down your way? If they do is it the Pierce’s or does a different person have the cape and your area.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I agree
I will take back the fools part because I can’t judge anyone based on the business they choose to purchase, Fish just ain’t for me
it actually speaks volumes about corp HQ’s offerings, strategies, training, future planning, etc, etc for their franchisees, if franchisees in many parts of the nation just keep ending up at the same end point: using lowest prices to get work
It also can reveal yet again, what business HQ is really in, or what is really making their money (hint: it’s not paving the way thru the brush for the franchisees to have a strong, solid, value added brand that customers are clamoring for nationwide)
It’s actually striking me as more of like a Subway operation (where a Dateline not too long ago revealed most franchisees are up their eyeballs in debt for leases, equipment (that Subway will lease to them (what business are they really in?), dictate who they can buy food supplies from (Subway subsidiaries (what business are they really in?)) and BARELY make 30k a year in personal income for the franchisee!!! SO most franchisees own several stores and work 24/7 in one way or another.
yick
Jay
Matt is definitely in my market. He is a fierce competitor. I’ve been very lucky so far.
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