Mr electric franchise?

[elecman]

This one shows what happens when you misuse the franchise branding. Once more, this is America but could happen in the UK.


http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-ksd-2_06-cv-02414/pdf/USCOURTS-ksd-2_06-cv-02414-11.pdf


This franchisee setup a website without permission from the franchisor, they used parts of the Mr Electric logo to form their new company logo (following termination from Mr Electric )and used this in marketing for that new company. The franchisee subsequently continued to turn up in a Mr Electric van to do work and continued to use the telephone numbers from his defunct Mr Electric business to grow the new business. As such the Dwyer Group were within their rights to challenge this. The point here is simple if you’re the cheeky chappy type who thinks they can get away with naughty behaviour of this kind, think again! They clearly have the financial resource to challenge a franchisee legally and have proven they will act.


In summary, they know the law and you as an electrician may not know all the ins and outs. Furthermore, you may not have the financial means to challenge them legally if you have your own grievance against them.

 

[Jolec]

I've been contacted of late by Mr Electric. Smooth talking but wasn't sure whether it was dodgy or not but this thread and the links pretty much sum it up. Stay away from Mr Electric.

Some of those American franchises must have been to hell and back with worry. I'll stick to working on my business thank you very much.

 

[elecman]

What to Do When Thinking About Buying A Franchise?

I said that I would add some further guidance on buying a franchise so here are my tips to ensure you research adequately. Failure to do so could put you in a tricky situation. In addition to the 50 questions to ask a franchisor as detailed in this link from the British Franchise Association 50 questions to ask a franchisor - Bfa here are some more detailed approaches for getting the information you need:

1. Check out their website. Obvious one but you need to do some specifics.
a. Go to their contacts page or locations page to find out the contact details for franchisees and to see how many are in operation.
b. In my experience if they have a 0800 number for a franchisee it often means they are not operating. Why would a local business not want to answer the call themselves instead of diverting to a call centre and why would they not want to show a local telephone number, which we all want to call within our mobile minutes.

2. Go to review sites like Yelp, Yell, google places, trust pilot and so on to find out what customers say about the franchise.
a. Look at the reviews carefully, both positive and negative. It’s fairly easy to find fake reviews. In fact, having just done a search on Trust Pilot the franchisee (Jeff Longley) mentioned in this thread put a review on trust pilot himself (very foolish but there you go).
b. Obviously check the details, do they over charge, are their franchises competent? Can you glean information from these posts that is associated with how they may have been trained by the franchisor.
c. Don’t just look at the ratings score, assess the reviews from a credibility point of view because many could be fake.

3. Assess the liquidity and over financial viability of the franchisor. This can be done by assessing websites like duedil, endole and of course companies house. Pay attention to the following:
a. The category of company. Limited or otherwise may affect their credibility and capability to invest. If they are owned by capital partners or a banking organisation, everything maybe too much about the bottom line and not about introducing new initiatives to the benefit of your business.
b. Incorporation Date. How long have they been trading for and from this you can understand how successful they are. If they only have 7 franchises in 3 years like Mr Electric, are they really successful? A point you can raise in face to face meetings with the franchisor.
c. Registered Address. In this example the registered office is a law firm in London. Why? Surely they would transfer the registered office to an appropriate office location where the business operates from? I would question the long term approach of the business in this example.
d. Latest Activity. Look for areas of concern and in this example there have been numerous Director changes. Some have resigned and been reinstated but if there are numerous changes, why is that? It would be fair to assume a degree of instability!
e. Directors. Assess these people in detail and obviously this means checking out their Linked In Page.
i. What experience do these people have and what is their background? One director of Dwyer UK Franchising is involved with Venture Capital & Private Equity. If a venture capitalist is pulling the purse strings, they may have some very specific implications.
ii. What Nationality are they? Not being xenophobic but what will different nationalities bring to the decision making table? I have already said that those from the states do not understand the UK but this company has an all-America board.
f. Financial Figures. Obviously a critical checking point for any franchisor and here are some areas to check:
i. Cash In Bank.
ii. Current Liabilities. A minus figure for Dwyer UK Franchising Currently.
iii. Employees. This shows unreported for Dwyer UK, but why? Would this suggest that there are very few in the UK and many of the support staff are in the USA. Is this a good thing?
iv. Total Assets.
v. Turnover. This shows unreported for Dwyer UK, but why? An obvious indicator that it is not a high number, you would be happy to promote this figure if it was good.
vi. Net worth. In this example the figure is £-583,677, which does look negative but may indicate a period of investment so you need to ask questions about exactly what they are investing in?

4. Ownership. See who owns the company, it may not be the directors as is the case with Dwyer UK. In this example Dwyer UK Franchising is owned by Dwyer Franchising Llc. So what do you do from here:
a. Do a search for Dwyer Franchising Llc on endole, duedil and companies house. In this example nothing will come up as it’s a US company, so you need to look on websites in America for more.
b. Armed with the ownership information, do a search on Google for Dwyer Franchising Llc and obviously link through to various results including new stories, company information websites and more.
c. In this example you will find that the company was sold again in August 2014. Sounds positive when reading the article but what does this mean for UK franchises, will they directly benefit from this?
d. Keep searching and you will start to find court cases associated with the owner. In this example I found a court case regarding Glass Doctor another franchise brand in the Dwyer Group Umbrella. Here is yet another example of the total mess you can find yourself in as a franchisee http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-caed-1_09-cv-01634/pdf/USCOURTS-caed-1_09-cv-01634-1.pdf

5. Franchisor Employee Feedback. There are numerous ways you can find out what people think of the franchisor to dig deeper. Remember they will really have some insight into the credibility of the company but of course be on the lookout for those who are clearly trying to bad mouth a company. Here are some ideas:
a. Contact the franchisor about becoming a franchisee, get some names including the person selling you the franchise and check them out on LinkedIn. How long have they worked there and what reviews have they got on LinkedIn.
b. Any other contacts you can get from the franchisor, check them out.
c. Go to glassdoor.co.uk and type in the company name. This maybe Mr Electric, Dwyer Group or Dwyer UK. Try all 3 and see what people say about working for these organisations. If the responses are negative on the whole, why would you want to buy a franchise with an organisation that treats its employees badly.
d. Search through LinkedIn and try to find people who were or are associated with the company and send them an invite to connect. Also, send them a message about your intention to buy a franchise and see what they say. Try to do this with 5 people to get a decent perspective.

6. Communications with current franchisees. This is of use and you will get some good information on the franchise but be aware it is in their interests to say the franchise is good. They want the brand to nationwide so it looks good for them and they maybe incentivised to say the right thing to you. Try the following:
a. Call them at first to get an initial idea of the franchise, perhaps after your first call with the franchise sales team. Do not tell the franchise sales people you are calling franchises or they will coach the franchise on what to say in more detail beforehand.
b. Do not just call one or two but many of them so you get a varied response but remember they have an interest in saying good things.
c. Email them a bunch of questions associated with what you have been told by franchise sales to check it adds up. Log these emails and use this information to question the franchise sales team when you visit them.
d. Make sure you have questions prepared. So how much do you earn from national accounts, where does your work come from, what type of marketing works, what’s training like and so on.

7. Visit current franchisees. This is very important, you need to see what your business could look like. Do the following:
a. See how the operation works, is it fluid, well organised and do they seem busy?
b. Checkout their accounts systems, crm and other computer software in use.
c. Use of branding, does it look like a franchise or just another small business?
d. What are their employees like, up to scratch or not happy in their job. All indicators of a successful business.

8. The accounts of current franchisees. Obviously a very important area to check but how?
a. You are welcome to ask the franchisor for an example franchise accounts but how accurate this will be is up for debate.
b. You could ask the franchisee for this when you visit them but once more the figure could be inaccurate.
c. The best approach is to do some online searches for each franchisee. Many of these franchises will be limited companies but won’t be a random company name trading as Mr Electric. To find out the company name associated with each franchisee search for the following:
i. Go to the contact page of the franchise or locations page to find all current franchisees.
ii. Choose one and search for a particular franchise on Google. For example Mr Electric Beds or Mr Electric Leicester.
iii. You will be presented with a few search results associated with the franchise. It may take a few clicks or you may find the company name associated with the franchise straight away.
iv. In the case of the “Mr Electric Beds” search you will find out the ltd company name immediately, Jels Electrical Ltd T/As Mr Electric Beds, Bucks, Northants.
v. If you can’t find out the limited franchise company yourself I would go as far as to demand it from the franchisor, this information is absolutely critical to your decision. Don’t just get one company name get at least 5 for better proof.
d. In other examples you could simply go to LinkedIn and the information is there in the title of the directors LinkedIn profile. For example do a search for Mr Electric on LinkedIn and you will start to see owners of franchises.
e. Armed with your company names do exactly the same kind of search that you would have done for the franchisor company. Go to duedil, endole and of course companies house to assess each franchisees company. Check turnover, liabilities, net worth and so on as normal.
f. Go a stage further here as it is your business and livelihood on the line. As such get some full reporting on the franchisee’s companies including a credit check. Why, well because it will indicate how well they are doing obviously but how quickly they are paid and whether the business can be trusted.

9. Previous franchisees. You may think this is hard to find out but not in the internet world! Here are a few ideas:
a. LinkedIn is a great place to start. Obviously do a search for Mr Electric and this will bring up many people who are or have been associated with the franchise. This is very similar to the process of finding employees who used to work for the franchisor.
b. You may not see exact names of people but you will see Mr Electric franchise names. For example Mr Electric Leicester, Mr. Electric Thames Valley etc. Keep going through the pages on LinkedIn to find more, jot down the names of the previous franchisees, perhaps 10 or so.
c. Go to the contact or locations page of the franchise website and try to find these franchises. If they are not listed or they have an 0800 number listed, it means they are not operational and no longer a franchisee.
d. For the franchises that you believe to be no longer operational, go to google and search for those franchise names. Let’s take Mr. Electric Thames Valley, do a search for that business and you will find lots of information not just on the ltd company associated with that franchise but also telephone numbers to call that may be still in operation. Its more than likely that a phone number will be in operation as most of these previous franchises will be electricians continuing their trade away from Mr Electric.
e. Obviously your questioning of these previous franchises should be pragmatic and you should have a list of questions ready.
f. Another approach for finding information from previous franchisees is to go straight to google and search for Mr Electric in your town or city name. For example, a search for Mr Electric London brings up the franchise Mr. Electric London North and West, a franchise not listed on the Mr Electric website. Click through and you have a phone number, which will more than likely get you through to the previous franchisee.
g. Remember that with all of the above you have the internet at your disposal and a plethora of old directory listings to help you get in touch with previous franchisees. No one ever removes these listings, so keep clicking through the Google pages and you just might find invaluable information.

10. Current marketing by the franchisor. This is critical, is the franchisor spending any of those fees you are paying them on marketing the brand? Follow these tips:
a. Request the current marketing spend figure per annum for the benefit of every franchisee. In other words, the fund which all franchisees pay into so money can be spent on marketing to support every franchise.
b. Ask the franchisor to furnish information on all current marketing activities including the website, seo, ppc, pr, events, exhibitions and more. If they fail to provide any information or it is very thin on the ground, you should be careful. A failure to spend money on marketing the brand is indicative of many things including a lack of income from franchisees to pay for it. So, if franchisees are not paying their fees or very little, no marketing is centrally completed, thus the brand does not grow and the legitimacy of the franchise must be bought into question.
c. They must also prove success with their marketing and evidence that it works. So if they have spent money, they need to prove the relevance of this activity towards building your potential franchise.

11. Local Marketing For Your Franchise. This is also very critical and if this does not work or is inaccurate or out of date your business will not work, full stop. The franchisor must provide information on what is in a typical marketing plan for a start-up franchise, the total spend required and the likely results. You should also talk to other franchisees about the level of support in this area. Some franchisors can be very lackadaisical with this part of the business and choose to offer guidance and wishy washy advice instead of specific, itemised solutions. As far as I am concerned this should be a menu of activities to build the business so make sure you pretty much demand it.

12. The Package. You need to know exactly what is included in the package. Here are some items to consider:
a. What software is available to be used and what are the costs. For example crm, accounts, mobile job deployment etc?
b. Support with accounting.
c. Support with marketing.
d. What’s involved with training?
e. How much do you have to spend over and above the franchise fee to get the business operational?
f. How much do you have to spend to grow it to £500K turnover?
g. Bank loans and do they have any favourable relationships with banks for business setup and rates etc.
h. What technical training is available?
i. When do you start paying fees and how do the percentages vary?

13. What’s the failure or closure rate, how many franchises are closing down. You can get an idea about this by speaking to previous franchises and also the number of franchises on the contact or locations page.

14. Wat about Churn. In other words how many are leaving the franchise versus signing up. If they have lots of franchise sales this may indicate they are losing a lot also. So if they say they are bringing on lots of new franchises this maybe because they have lost many not because the network I growing.

15. Mystery shopper. By golly this is useful and you should do it for every franchisee. Once you have a grasp of the franchise and how it should work, its sales approach and processes etc call them posing as a customer to check how they operate, how they deal with calls, different types of business, both domestic and commercial to test the operations. If the franchises are not operating as the franchisor tells them how they should what does that say about the strength of the franchisor. What does it also say about the supposed superior business systems if the franchisee does not do it. So if the franchisee does not do it, why are they franchising instead of running their own business?

16. Owned Units. Some franchises have owned units run by the franchisor and this is entirely sensible so they know their business and can make better improvements with time. Find out the ratio of owned unites to franchised. With Mr Electric all are franchised.

17. When, how and where do you get support after initial training. Telephone, email and inline is good but you need to ensure this support is structured and relevant to your needs. Focus on what you need and make sure they deliver on that training.

18. Break Even. How long will it take? Make sure you get accurate financial projections for the franchise and get this tested and checked by other people in the industry and independent accountants so you know it is viable. Franchises are renowned for flowering up these figures to increase the chances of a franchise sale.

19. Get the franchise agreement/contract in your first meeting so you can assess what you are getting into. Failure to understand this document will cause you challenges and problems you may not have foresaw without assessing it. If you know someone legally qualified or good at spotting dodgy clauses, get them to read it.

20. Use Email. Get as much clarification in writing from the franchise specialist during the sales process. Without fail, you must ensure that everything you communicate with them is in writing. Never accept a clarification verbally in a meeting or on the phone. Ask that they confirm your questions by email and build up a log of written communications by email. Whatever you do save these emails and if after signing the contract you are not happy with proceedings you may just have some evidence in writing to get out of the contract if you need to. Always be prepared for a court case in franchising, you never know what may happen!

21. Employee Training. Does the franchisor offer training for your employees or do you have to pay for all their training?

 

[kezzsmith]

Very insightful to read your posts elecman!
Much to my disapproval my boss had actually signed up to the Mr electric franchise,
and as you have said he has American systems and now has to play by all of the rules, and is finding it very difficult!
and me as a employee have had enough of all the rules call outs etc, to the point where even I am considering cutting my hours and days down with him and starting on my own!
I had advised at the beginning to see a marketing/website consultant.
All I can see he has got from signing up is the website and name, and everything else he has had to build up and bring in the work himself, and I know he is really struggling with time!

not all bad news though, they have brought us quite a lot of work, but that's just from a website that's your first choice on Google! Which any website maker could of done!
Anyone thinking of doing it though, I really wouldn't advise it at all. The operating
systems they use are terrible, and complicated.

 

[elecman]

@kezzsmith

It was you who started this thread and after it popped up on google I had to comment. It is of no surprise to me you are dealing with those American systems. Unfortunately, a big corporate machine like the Dwyer Group does not move fast enough to make it better or change it for the UK. It’s throttled by corporate bureaucracy and all sorts else. Big companies move slow, very slow and small companies need to be agile. Not a very good cocktail, I’m afraid.
In defence of the Dwyer Group I would say he has got more than the website and the name, there will be tricks he will have learnt that you may not have heard of. There are so many details to getting a business to work that they will have helped more than that. However, as I have said in previous posts this is about value and it is not worth £18k!

As regards Google I have just checked and I would assume you are Mr Electric Leicester judging by your location for your account on this forum? If that is right I have just done a search for “Electrician Leicester” and you are right Mr Electric is top of Google in the paid listings. I notice other keywords in use too including “Electrician Markfield”.

A few points on this. Firstly, who is paying for this? If the Dwyer Group is paying for it I can tell you it will not be cheap to keep a google ad in first place. For first place I’m guessing between £3 and £4 per click for “Electrician Leicester”. Remember that £4 is not a guaranteed customer, they may go elsewhere. If the Dwyer Group are paying for it, I would suggest it is their attempt at a get out of jail free card (albeit they will be shelling out money). Why, because it is dead easy to setup and once you know the towns and services, combine them and off you go. Now this may work to get you leads at the start in a decent ish volume but it is indicative of their poor strategic outlook. I can assure they will have setup this franchise and gone, oh dear where are this franchises customers coming from and switched the Google ads on to protect themselves from a contractual headache.
It is also rather strange that Mr Electric has 2 websites in operation Mr. Electric | Electrician | Electricians | Emergency Electrician and Mr. Electric - Save Energy With Us as well as a separate one for selling franchises. A very confusing strategy for me and I’m sure for customers too!

As regards your Google leads, this is possibly good but for the keyword “Electrician Leicester” but there are no optimised results for Mr Electric. By that I mean Google places or the other free listings on the first page of Google. It is these positions that are gold, not the paid positions, which you could argue are lazy and easily achieved. The positions I refer to are those achieved through search engine optimisation so you get there by being very strategic, not just adding your credit card online. There is no sign of Mr Electric Leicester in either Google places or the listings below where you will see Yell, gumtree, free index and so on.

So let’s get back to value here, for £18K this should have been done without fail, a company of the Dwyer Group’s size should have sorted this, end of! Your franchise should be sitting pretty on the first page of google in all 3 places, paid, google places and seo positions!


Before I go on I’ll clarify something you can’t get into those listings quickly, seo takes time or google will drop you off entirely but the Dwyer Group should know this and should prepare for all the keywords prior to selling the franchise. That way they would not find themselves with no option but to spank money on paid listings every time they sell a franchise (however rarely that occurs). This is a prime example of their foresight and lack of strategic thinking. Why, because Google Places and the other seo listings on google are the ones people click on most. If you are even just a little tech savvy you do not click on the ads at the top.


As regards website makers as you call them, you could setup your own but getting what you want out of it is highly skilful otherwise it’s like printing 1000 brochures and putting them on a shelf to gather dust. With these free website builders, it might look pretty but strategically it does nothing else so to get on google like I said takes a little cunning and some insider knowledge not a pants free website builder.

 

[kezzsmith]

Forgive me if I have come across ignorant with a couple of things I had stated.
Yes, the Dwyer group are paying for a certain amount. But then it's onto my boss who has to pay per lead!
Which isn't cheap and I don't know exact figures on that.

As to your two websites point I had said about that, but "it's the system".
And they won't change anything to do with that!

I completely agree with your ads comment, I myself avoid the "Ad" selections.

Don't get me wrong though, he has got axa insurance jobs and various other call out jobs, which seem to be profitable to him.
But even then Mr electric take a big chunk!

Good points about google places and seo though, I will bring those points to him, and see if they will try to get him on there!

BUT. As I had said before they keep saying its "The system." And not really very willing for change! I think that is due to them being an American organisations as you had stated, and they just think it works in the states, it should work in the UK. And well we know it won't.

Forgive any grammar just quickly sent my post from my iPhone!

 

[elecman]

@kezzsmith

No problem, you can’t know everything about the Mr Electric franchise.


I guessed such a scenario was in place for google leads. I smell a rat with that one though, where they sell the lead to the franchisee for more than it cost. I have read on another forum that is what Drain Doctor do, a sister brand of Mr Electric, although they are not owned by Dwyer UK. If they are running that system they are selling the lead to the franchise for £15 but I may be wrong?


As for the 2 websites, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! They say it’s the system as always (laughable, very laughable) but actually I would speculate it is because the mr-electric one is built in a system that is hard to work with and they are contractually bound to keep this website running. The other mrelectric one is built in WordPress (I know how to figure this out by the way), which is far more flexible to use as many small business owners will testify. Your Google ads are pointing to this website, which obviously looks different to the other one.


On both websites there are a multitude of phone numbers in operation. I can understand this if you want to distinguish between seo leads and paid search traffic so you have different numbers. However, on both sites the 0800 number is different, is this because they are dealing with calls at different call centres? Again, very confusing to the customer.


Going further, I would also suggest that the mrelectric one has all the hallmarks of heavy franchisee influence and not much corporate intervention from the Dwyer Group. The Dwyer Group and their corporate machine including so called IT experts would never sanction the use of a WordPress website. They buy into crazy and expensive website systems that are inflexible but meet unnecessary legal requirements, which are always top of the priority list for large corporates. The Dwyer Group were probably not prepared to pay up for necessary work required to get mr-electric to an appropriate standard.


I suggest mrelectric was created because the other website (mr-electric) was not good enough for an appropriate search engine presence and may have significantly hindered the strategic direction of franchisees. As such, the franchisees said we want another site and we need to build it this way according to advice they were given externally and the Dwyer Group was given an ultimatum (either let us franchisees do it this way or we can’t get on the search engines like I said in the previous post). So franchisees had external help and consultancy to develop this site, with no support from the Dwyer Group, so what is they do again (their purposes exactly)?


In all honesty, the mrelectric one shows signs of poor management and was probably built by predominantly the franchisees, so they instigated the work and the Dwyer Group signed off on the branding.


Also, the mrelectric one is loaded with cheeky seo, one being the use of the same customer reviews for every franchisee. They simply change the location to Leicester or Birmingham depending on the url. In fairness, they could be challenged by the advertising standards authority on this. It is clearly a deceptive attempt to lure in new customers with bogus reviews.


So let’s get back to the point again, a lack of strategic foresight by the Dwyer Group. They are a big company and should have the strategic skills to understand how technology is changing and put the strategy in place. Multiple websites are fine if you are in different countries, so a .com in usa and a .co.uk in Britain for example but to have 2 websites in one country that are almost doing the same thing is strategically absurd. Whoever made that decision should be fired, the decision is that poor!
Moving onto the chestnut of national accounts, the axa jobs and others you mention. Somewhat beneficial I agree if they are huge in volume but there are problems and it’s long winding road to explain but here goes.


The margin will be tight, these insurance companies want their pound of flesh and you will find that you can’t make money from these jobs unless you upsell. So you get a call out for say £60 from axa, fix Mrs Jones consumer unit and ideally you want to get some other work like bonding, maybe fit a new consumer unit and so on. However Mrs Jones is an axa customer, not Mr Electric’s so in many instances you will be forbidden from marketing to her for extra work. Instead, you have to go back to axa and request confirmation to do extra works, which may also not be very profitable given the standard rates agreed for national accounts. So no emails, phone calls or letters to Mrs Jones for extra work or you will be band from working with axa. The same can be said for other national accounts where strict processes are in place to ultimately limit your profitability.


Furthermore, these national accounts put you on long payment periods, perhaps longer than 30 days in some instances, which obviously can screw up your cash flow. This is an endemic problem with Mr Electric businesses reliant on national accounts who pay very slowly. These national accounts sound good in principle but you’re always on a tight leash.


So we are back to the same point again, the franchisee is being controlled not just in how they run their business but their cash flow and profitability too. The alternative, as has already been mentioned on this thread is to get the work yourself through your own strategies in a business you run and own which has nothing to do with a franchise. If you work hard enough you will find work that you control and you are free to charge a price which brings about greater profitability. Spend your day on 5 call out insurance jobs worth £300 turnover or find more profitable customers in your area, where you could do 3 jobs and with a turnover of £800.


The insurance jobs also mean crazy callout times too, so you could be called out at 2am for Mrs Jones but the call could easily wait till the morning. The service level agreement will probably dictate that you have to attend to the customer at 2am or axa and other national accounts will warn you for your conduct. Persistent failures could result in the contract being taken away from the franchisee.


As you have already pointed out these contracts force you to attend a customer’s house in the middle of the night and this is clearly no good for your life. Furthermore, given the rates on offer you are probably not appropriately compensated for getting up in the middle of the night. As such, Mr Electric will always struggle to attract good electricians to do this work. I mean, who on earth would want a job like that when they can go elsewhere for far less hassle. On the whole sparks do not want hassle and this type of job will always mean grief from the mrs too!


How does this then impact on reputation? Well, it’s very obvious what happens really, Mr Electric get a bad reputation because they are forced to employ inferior or inexperienced electricians do insurance jobs. They can’t employ quality electricians to do this work because its antisocial hours and poorly paid.


Furthermore, it hinders the growth of the business because the said electrician employed may not be capable of doing more complex commercial work which is more profitable and potentially better for business growth. The franchisee is stuck within a limited framework of potential jobs they can do because the electrician can’t do other work. Furthermore, the franchisee does not have enough capital to invest in employing another more experienced electrician for the complicated work because the profitability is not generated from the insurance work.


It’s a merry go round of issues in fairness, which often result in the franchisee doing more insurance work and working very hard for little return. They get locked into a world of late nights, not seeing their family and more. So reputation gets worse and forums like this and review sites light up with angry customers and other electrical companies who have had to sort out the issues left by Mr Electric.


And so from this long winded explanation you have an understanding of how one thing leads to another and we find ourselves with the consequence of Mr Electric failing to sell franchises for 3 years and no national coverage. A business that cannot get it strategically right to grow nationwide.


For you to obtain this national account work is potentially fortunate for your franchise. Why, well in many areas throughout the UK where Mr Electric are not located other contractors are doing the work. So, if you buy a franchise in Leeds today, all the national account work associated with Mr Electric is probably issued to another contractor and if the local insurance manager for axa is happy with that contractor you do not get any of that work. As such you sign up for the franchise on the premise you will be given national account work and it does not materialise.


I go back once more to my previous points, this all leads back to a lack of foresight, where the Dwyer Group fail to look at the complexities in front of them as regards technological and market changes. They do not react quickly enough and refuse to change as you have said. While this arrogance continues, your business is overtaken by an agile electrical contracting business in your area who changes quickly to meet market demands. So if your franchise does not adapt at the same or faster rate of change as your competitors, your business will fail.


Once final point regarding national accounts. They may not always remain free and by that I mean you may be charged another franchise fee for this work. In the past Mr Electric franchisees received Homeserve work as part of being a franchise and it came through every day as normal. Then the rules changed, Homeserve started selling franchises for this work directly to…. you guessed it Mr Electric franchisees. So on top of the initial Mr Electric franchise fee they had already paid perhaps 2 weeks or 4 years prior they now were forced into paying perhaps £20k for the equivalent 3 Homeserve franchises that were equivalent to the Mr Electric franchise area. These franchises were almost forced to do this because their business relied so much on insurance jobs.


The end result once more is that you are being controlled, the franchise is not run by the franchisee but more by the corporate requirements of the Dwyer Group or other corporate interests by way of the national account clients.


Don’t worry about grammar, it’s the detail that counts!

 

[JMooneyDwyer]

Hi Elecman,

My name’s James Mooney, I’m part of the marketing department for Mr. Electric.

You’ve obviously carried out a thorough investigation into the franchise and raised some valid points in your analysis. However, you do seem to have a few misgivings about the current position of the business and some of our activities.

I’m interested in speaking with you to clarify these points, and also to find your full opinions on the franchise from the outside looking in. If you’re interested in speaking with me further feel free to send me a private message.

Regards,

James Mooney

 

[Marvo]

Welcome to the forum James.

I've given you full member permissions so your future posts won't require manual staff approval, they'll appear immediately. You also now have full use of the personal messaging system. Obviously you have full right to reply to any points raised in the discussion but if you could avoid any blatant advertising/marketing activities it would be appreciated.

 

[elecman]

@JMooneyDwyer


“However, you do seem to have a few misgivings about the current position of the business and some of our activities.”


Perhaps or perhaps not? As such, you need to assess certain points made in this thread and offer clarifications in writing, so people on the forum are appropriately informed.


In short, post in this thread, don’t ask me to private message you where there is no content available for the people of this forum.


I’m sure you would appreciate that this is in the spirit of transparency. Failing to do so is evasive and can only mean your organisation has something to hide.


“I’m interested in speaking with you to clarify these points, and also to find your full opinions on the franchise from the outside looking in.”


Once more, clarify points in this thread, not using private messaging. There is already enough content on this forum regarding such opinions. I will never furnish my full opinions because they will be used to benefit me and not your organisation.


However, I will continue to offer guidance where possible and any other evidence found online, which is of significance to the people of this forum.


Finally though, I am sure you will be able to offer some level of clarity in your responses and won’t use the excuse of intellectual property restrictions.

 

[Darkwood]

@ elecman - to be fair JmooneyDwyer actually posted his contact details (Phone no') on his first post but we advised him against doing so and to request a PM, this stops people spamming and nuisance calling.

I would have thought a one to one talk over the phone could clear up a lot quicker some of the issues raised and any generated questions from the call can be answered immediately, there would be nothing to say you cannot relay onto this thread the responses to your queries.

Depending on response he may choose to post up replies to the points you rasied we will have to wait and see.

Lastly can we just tone it down a little (addressing your last post) - "don't ask me to private message you" can come across a little abrasive and can lead to similar responses we would prefer if you said the same as a request i.e. - "I would prefer not to PM but to keep any responses within the thread for transparency" this way there's less chance of abusive posts which the staff have to deal with. Thankyou :smile5:

 

[elecman]

@darkwood

Firstly, apologies if my tone came across as abrasive, I certainly did not intend that.

However I think you need to understand the context of this thread a little, which is why private messages or phone calls are simply not acceptable.

This is not a technical argument about how to complete a job or which supplies are best, this is about peoples livelihood. Make the wrong move and it’s not just a few years down the toilet but the potential of losing a hell of a lot more too.

So it is essential that any disagreements with my arguments or discussion points are done in this thread. It will not turn into a slanging match but to not give others the full freedom of this information is unacceptable to the principles of a forum. The people who read this forum can make their own balanced decision if the information is within this thread.

When a politician is challenged on Question Time, they have to answer the question there and then. They can’t say to a member of the audience, “Do you mind if we have a little chat about that after the show away from these cameras?”

So if anything of any note was discussed in private messages and then posted here, the accuracy of that information could be bought into question by either party.

As such, it is totally logical to have a full and open discussion in this thread for the benefit of peoples livelihood from both this industry and others thinking of investing in this franchise. This is not a trivial thread and really can’t be seen as such.

Of course, if there are no replies to my points in this thread, one would be wise to assume they are not far from an accurate conclusion.

 

[Darkwood]

I understand fully where your coming from and the passion you have on this subject, I'm merely giving a little nudge to keep the debate from getting personal, it was a minor issue but one that we often see as the catalyst to threads going downhill.

Any member has the freedom to post, reply debate etc within the forum and other members will judge on such actions (or lack of) where applicable but unlike the political TV debate or Jeremy Kyle, members have the freedom to interact however they wish (within the forum rules) and jmooney 'requested' he would be happy to discuss by PM, he is under no obligation to have a spotlight questionaire and he didn't even have to join up to make the offer of responses albiet not to your preferences.

He may have other reasons not to discuss publically the company he is marketing for but I feel you may have missed a good chance at getting some feedback here, its clear from the context of your posts you have a lot of passion on this matter and wish to share your findings with others but try not let your passion overtake your ability to see a presented opportunity, like I said before, you could always post a conclusion thread following any PM discussions.

 

[elecman]

@darkwood


I’m with you on your thoughts, we all have choices. My personal opinion is that a failure to reply leads me to draw conclusions that they do not have appropriate answers. Others are, as you say free to make their own judgements but I shall not be engaging in private messages because I entirely disagree with the principle of them in this example.

 

[Marvo]

I think it would be beneficial for anyone considering a franchise business option if the points that have been raised can be debated openly in the thread and I've given JMooneyDwyer full member permissions to aid his right to reply.

The concerns from the side of the forum are obviously to keep discussions civil and also ensuring the participants are genuine and not pursuing underhanded agendas. From the due diligence I've done and from the info I have available to me I have no reason not to believe everyone is playing above board. If any party feels there is unwarranted bias, libelous claims or deliberate misinformation presented please use the report button and Staff will intervene accordingly if necessary.

That said, the points raised so far are certainly valid ones which would be of concern to potential franchisees and would certainly benefit from some balance by input from the side of the franchiser.