Before putting any money into a franchise, you should investigate everything completely. We’ve prepared a list of questions you should be asking, and should get satisfactory answers to before investing.

1. Has your attorney studied the franchise contract, discussed it completely with

you, and do you both approve it without reservations?

2. Does the franchise require you to take any steps which are either illegal or even

border on illegal, or are otherwise questionable or unwise in your state, county

or city?

3. Does the franchise give you an exclusive territory for the length of the franchise

period, or can the franchisor sell a second or third franchise in your territory?

4. Is this franchisor connected in any way with any other franchise company

handling similar products or services?

5. If you answered yes to the above question, what is your protection against the

second franchising company?

6. Under what circumstances can you end the franchise contract, and at what

costs to you?

7. If you sell your franchise, will you be compensated for your goodwill or will it

be lost to you?

8. How many years has the firm offering you the franchise been in operation?

9. Does the company offering you this franchise have a reputation for honesty and

fair dealing among its franchisees?

10. Has the franchisor shown you any certified figures indicating exact net prof its

of one or more of its members, and have you personally checked the figures

with these people?

11. Will the franchisor assist you with: a) A management training program; b) An

employee training program; c) A public relations and advertising program;

d) Capital; e) Credit; f) Merchandising ideas?

12. If needed, will the franchisor assist you in finding a suitable location?

13. Is the franchising firm adequately financed so that it can carry out its stated

plans?

14. Does the franchisor have experienced management, trained in-depth?

15. Exactly what can the franchisor do for you that you cannot do for yourself?

16. Has the franchisor investigated you carefully enough to assure itself that you

can successfully operate at a profit to both of you?

17. Does your state have a law regulating the sale of franchises, and has the

franchisor complied with that law to your satisfaction?

18. How much equity capital will you need to purchase the franchise and operate

it until your income equals your expenses?

If you can get the answers to each of these questions, and those answers satisfy you, then you’re probably thinking about buying a pretty good franchise deal. However, if you’re in doubt about any of these points, be sure to check it out and know the answers for certain before you invest or sign anything.

Buying a franchise can give you a measure of security, and in some cases, sure-fire profits. Business surveys show that fewer than 20 percent of all new franchised businesses fail. This is in comparison to a 60 to 80 percent failure rate for all new businesses started in this country each year.

Information regarding specific franchising ideas can be found in the franchising directories, which are generally available at the local library. Often there will be a notice posted in franchise outlets themselves.

If you can afford the entry into this business, statistics are on your side. You are now armed with some CAUTION and STOP and GO signs!ou

cannot do for yourself?

Assuming that the space occupied by your title, masthead and listing of rates for advertisers interested in placing an ad with you is two inches deep, this leaves you about 24 inches of advertising space to sell on the front side. Figuring a cost of $50 for 1,000 copies of such an ad sheet, printed both sides, and a third-class bulk-rate postage of $110, this means that your 24 inches of ad space will have to be sold at a rate of $6.25 each in

order to break even. This means: You h ave to sell all of the ad space on the front of your ad sheet at $6.25 Per ad - and then expect to make your profits from the sale of the back side of your ad sheet. Actually, it would be feasible to charge $7.00 per inch for the space on the front side, and carry your own full page ad on the back side. At any rate, don’t box yourself into a loss situation where you can’t afford to place your own ads in your ad sheet.

You get ads by making up an advertising solicitation sales letter and sending it out to as many mail order dealers as you can find. You can also run ads in other people’s publications, inviting the readers to check with you regarding placement of an ad in your publication. And of course, you’ll be wanting to work out some exchange advertising deals (whereby another publisher runs your ad in his publication, and you run his in exchange). From the experience of many, many publishers, this can be one of the most effective ways of getting your ads run, at low/no cost, and it is recognized to be successful in the field of Mail Order.

You probably won’t be able to fill up all of your available ad space with paid ads until you’re well established - but no problem - first you fill your ad space with paid ads, and then you fill in the empty space with ads of your own. Some beginning advertisers fill a part of their empty space with complimentary ads for other mail order operators, send them a copy of the issue in which the complimentary ad appears, and invite them to continue the ad on a “paid” basis from there. Many of them will appreciate the favor and send you a check or money order to continue running the ad.

If you undertake the publication of an ad sheet, be sure to consider the possibilities of sending out 100 to 1,000 copies of your ad sheet to other mail order operators to rubber stamp their names/addresses as co-publishers and mail out for you. Thus, if you had 50 other mail order operators sending out 100 copies each of your ad sheet, you’d be talking about a circulation of 5,000 copies plus the number of copies you mail out. If you can get this kind of program going, you’ll quickly build your reputation as well as your circulation, and at the bottom line, your profits.

Some ad sheet publishers, once they’ve established themselves and are putting out an impressive publication, set up distributor networks. Generally, they run ads calling for distributor/dealers and asking for a $5 to $10 registration fee. In reply to the registration application, they send out a letter explaining that each distributor can buy at half price, so many copies of each issue of the ad sheet, rubber stamp their name on each copy, and send them out as their own. In return, the distributors usually get 50% of the incoming advertising orders, a half-price ad for themselves, and an opportunity to sell subscriptions.

The bottom line relative to becoming a successful ad sheet publisher has to do with keeping your production costs -printing and mailing - as low as possible, while putting out a quality product that other people in the mail order business will want to advertise in - while at the same time using it as a advertising/selling vehicle for your own products.

My advice is that almost everyone involved in mail order selling should have some sort of ad sheet - if for no other reason than as a means to an end - an advertising vehicle for your own products, an extra income from advertising revenues , and as an exchange media with which to gain greater exposure for your own products in other people’s publications. Once you’ve got an ad sheet, or any kind of publication set up and being seen by other mail order operators, you’ll quickly gain stature and a certain amount of prestige.

As with any business, your ultimate success depends on your own feasibility studies, and your sharp-pencil planning completed before you order your first issue printed. Think about it, weigh the pro’s & con’s, then go with your decision.

This is a cleaning service generally associated with women; however, men are finding that they can organize, start, and operate very profitable home and apartment cleaning businesses just as well as women. It’s an ideal business for any truly ambitious person wanting a business of his or her own, especially for those who must begin with limited funds. Actually, you can start this business right in your own neighborhood, using your own equipment, and begin making a profit from the first day.

Many enterprising homemakers are already doing this kind of work on a small scale as an extra income producing endeavor. There’s a growing need for this service. Organizing your efforts into a business producing $50,000 to $100,00 a year is quite possible, and you can get started for $100 or so, always using your profits to expand and in crease your business.

Absolutely no experience is required. Everyone knows how to dust the furniture, vacuum carpets, make the beds and carry out the trash. But you must ask yourself if making a house clean and bright is important and uplifting work. If you look on it as degrading or as drudgery,  don’t involve yourself in this business.

Starting from scratch, you’ll need a telephone and an appointment book. You also need an advertising flyer, such as the following:

HOME OR APARTMENT CLEANING

We do the work - You relax and take it easy.

You get the best job in town, at rates you can

afford. Your satisfaction is always guaranteed!

For more details,

Call Sue: 123-4567 - ABC Cleaning Services!

You can either type this notice out or write it in long-hand with a pen. Either way, it’s going to be your first advertising endeavor, and bring in that first customer for you. And of course this can be tranfered to an online operation,  for your local market or with ambition somewhere else, by contracting and local out-sourcing.   

It would be a good idea to visit your stationery store to pick up a pad of “fade out” graph paper, a couple of sets of transfer (rub-on) letters, a gluestick, and if they have one, a Klip Art book.

Take these materials home and clear off your kitchen table. Take a sheet of graph paper, and temporarily tape the corners down on the table. Then take a pencil and a ruler, and mark a rectangle five inches wide by six inches long along the lines of the graph paper. This will be the overall size of your flyer when it’s finished.

Look for a Klip Art piece depicting a harried housewife engrossed with either cleaning tools or in the act of running a vacuum cleaner, or some other household chore. Cut this piece out, and with your gluestick paste it in the upper left-hand corner of your rectangle. Then take your transfer letters and make the headline: HOME OR CLEANING. Next, type out the body of the message on ordinary white typing paper. Be sure to use a relatively new ribbon, preferably a black carbon ribbon, and upper case letters. Cut this strip out, and paste it onto the graph paper, centered just below your headline. Then use some transfer letters that are about twice as large as your typewriter type, and paste up the action part of your message: For details, call Sue: 123-4567. Cut out a couple of border flourishes from your Klip Art book, paste them under your action line, and you’re ready to take it to the printer.

In essence, you have a professional advertising “billboard.” You can check around in your area, especially with the advertising classes at your local colleges, but generally they’ll do no better than you can do on your own, using the instructions we’ve just given you, and they’ll charge you $50 to $100.

Once you have this advertising flyer completed, take it to a nearby quick print shop and have about 200 copies printed. You should be able to get two copies on a standard 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, and running 100 sheets of paper through the press is going to cost well under $10. For just a few cents more, have the printer cut them in half with his machine cutter, so you will have 200 copies of the advertising flyer.

Now take these flyers, along with a box of thumbtacks, and put them up on all the free bulletin boards you can find - grocery stores, laundromats, beauty salons, office building lounges, cafeterias, post offices, and wherever else such announcements are allowed.

When a prospective customer calls, have your appointment book and a pencil handy. Be friendly and enthusiastic. Explain what you do - everything from changing the beds to vacuuming, dusting and polishing the furniture and cleaning the bathroom to the

dishes and the laundry. Or, everything except the dishes and the laundry - whatever you have decided on as your policy. When they ask how much you charge, simply tell them six to ten dollars an hour, but for a firm cost quote, you’ll need to see the home and

make a detailed estimate for them. Then without much of a pause, ask if 4:30 this afternoon would be convenient for them, or if 5:30 would be better. You must pointedly ask if you can come to make your cost proposal at a certain time, or the decision may be

put off, and you may come up with a “no sale.”

Just as soon as you have an agreement on the time to make you cost proposal and marked it in your appointment book, ask for name, address and telephone number.

Jot this information down on a 3 by 5 card, along with the date and the notation: Prospective Customer. Then you file this card in a permanent card file. Save these cards, because there are literally hundreds of ways to turn this prospect file into real cash, once you’ve accumulated a sizeable number of names, addresses and phone numbers.

When you go to see your prospect in person, always be on time. A couple of minutes early won’t hurt you, but a few minutes late will definitely be detrimental to your closing the sale. Always be well groomed. Dress as a successful business owner. Be confident and sure of yourself; be knowledgeable about what you can do as well as understanding of the prospect’s needs and wants. Do not smoke, even if invited by the prospect, and never accept a drink - even coffee - until after you have a signed contract in your briefcase.

Actually, once you’ve made the sale, the best thing is to shake hands with your new customer, thank him, and leave. A little small talk after the sale is appropriate, but becoming too friendly is not. You create an impression, and preserve it, by maintaining a business-like relation ship.

When you go to make your cost estimate, take along a ruled tablet such as those used by elementary school students, carbon paper, a calculator and your appointment book. Some people find it easier to work with a clipboard and ordinary blank paper with

carbon. Later on, you may want to have general checklists printed up for each room in the house, with blank lines or space for special instructions.

Whatever you use, it’s important to appear methodical, thorough and professional, while leading the prospect through the specifics he or she wants you to take care of: “Now, you want the carpet vacuumed and all the furniture dusted and those two end

tables, the coffee table and the piano polished as well, I assume?”

Simply identify the specific room at the top of the sheet of paper, then lead your prospect through the cleaning steps of each room, covering everything in it. Your implications of putting everything in “ready for company” shape will cause the customer to

forget about the cost, and hire you to do a complete job. Always have a carbon paper under each piece of paper you’re writing on, and always look around each room one more time before leaving it; then ask the prospect if he or she can think of any special instructions you should note for that room.

Finally, when you’ve gone through each room in the house with the prospect, come back to the kitchen and sit down at the table. Take out your calculator and add up the time you estimate each job in each room will take to complete. Total the time for each room.

Be liberal, thinking that if you can do the carpet job in 15 minutes, it will usually take the ordinary person 30 minutes. Convert the total minutes for each room into hours and tenths of hours per room. Add the totals for each room to arrive at your total hours to clean the entire house.

Talk with your customer briefly, wondering how she can ever find the time to get everything done at home, especially when holding down a full-time job. A little bit of small talk, a quick mental evaluation of the customer’s ability to pay, plus your knowledge that you can get everything done in four hours, instead of the six hours it would take most people, and you summarize by saying:

“Well, Mrs. Johnson, you’ve certainly got enough routine cleaning work to keep you busy all day every day of the week! I certainly don’t know how you do it, but any way, we’ll take this whole problem off your shoulders, save you time, and actually give

you time to relax. We can do it on a regular basis, every other week for $120 per month, or the one single time for $75.

“I can well imagine how tired you are when you get home from work. If you’re at all like me there are times when, faced with all this housework, you want to run away someplace and hide. Now, we’ll take care of everything for you - keep the house spic and

span, ready for company, allow you to forget about housecleaning chores, and for a lot less than it’s costing you now in time, work, and worry. And we guarantee that our work will more than satisfy you. So, would you like to try our cleaning service one time for $75 or do you want to save $15 a call and let us take over all these chores for you on a regular basis?”

Here you begin finding a place in your appointment book, and tell her: “Actually, I have an opening at 8:30 on Tuesday morning. We could come in every other Tuesday at 8:30, clean the whole house and have it done before you get home from work.”

The customer agrees that 8:30 on Tuesdays will be fine. Then you ask her if she prefers to be billed with the completion of each house cleaning session or on a regular monthly basis. Point out to her that by engaging you on a monthly basis , she picks up

a free house cleaning every three months.

Now that you have your first customer, you want to fill in every day of the week, each week of every month with regular jobs. Once you have one week of each month filled with regular jobs, it will be time for you to expand.

Expansion means growth, involving people working for you, more jobs to sell, and greater profits. Don’t let it frighten you, for you have gained experience by starting gradually. After all - your aim in starting a business of your own was to make money,

wasn’t it? And expanding means more helpers so you don’t have to work your self to death!

You can operate this business quite successfully from the comfort of your home, permanently, if you choose to. All you’ll ever need is a telephone, a desk, and a file cabinet.

So, just as soon as you possibly can, recruit and hire other people to do the work for you. The first people you hire should be people to handle the cleaning work. The best plan is to hire people to work in teams of two or three - two for jobs not including dishwashing and laundry - three for those that do.

You can start these people at minimum wage or a bit above, and train them to complete every job assignment in two hours or less. Just as soon as you’ve hired and trained a couple of people as a cleaning team, you should outfit them in a kind of uniform with your company name on the back of their blouses or shirts. A good idea also would be to have magnetic signs made for your company and services. Place these signs on the sides of the cars your people use for transportation to each job, and later on, the sides

of your company van or pick-up trucks.

Each team should have an appointed team leader responsible for the quality and over all completeness of each job assigned to that team. The team might operate thus: One person cleans the bathroom, makes the beds, and carries out the laundry , while the

other person dusts and polishes the furniture and does the vacuuming. On jobs where you do the laundry and the dishes, the third person can pick up the laundry and get that started, and then do the dishes and clean the kitchen. By operating in this manner, your work will be more efficient and the complete job will take a lot less time. However, it is important that each person you hire understand that the success of the business depends on the “crew” doing as many complete jobs as they can handle each day - not on how much they get paid per hour working for you.

Your team leaders will check with you each afternoon for the next day’s work assignments and gather the team together, complete with cleaning equipment and material, on the next day. Your team leader should be supplied with a stack of “hand-out” advertising flyers to pass around the neighborhood or within the apartment building before leaving each job site. A good supply of business cards wouldn’t be a bad idea for them either, in order to advertise your services to others they come in contact with. The

only other form of advertising you should go with would be a display ad in the yellow pages of your telephone directory.

Design on paper a system of clean-up operation that can generally be applied to any situation, then drill your teams on speeding up their activities to make the system work even better. Just as firemen practice and practice, you should drill your people as a team in their cleaning activities.

Probably the biggest time-waster in this business will be in the travel from job to job. For this reason, it’s important to spread advertising circulars to the neighboring homes when you’re doing a job, or to the apartments on the same floor when you’re in

an apartment building. As the organizer, and person assigning teams to jobs, it will behoove you to locate, line up, and assign jobs as close together as possible. Keep up efforts to cut the time it takes for your crews to travel from one job to the next. Work at lining up jobs all in one block, or in one apartment building.

Your equipment needs will really be minimal: Cleaning and polishing rags, mops, a couple of plastic buckets, and furniture polishes. Most people will have the necessary cleaning materials, including vacuum cleaner, soaps and cleansers. But it wouldn’t hurt to have these items available just in case you get a job in a home or an apartment without these tools. As your business grows, you’ll be able to purchase all your needs at huge discounts, and these are the sources of supply to cultivate as you grow.

One of the most important aspects of this business is asking for, and allowing your customers to refer other prospects to you. All of this happens, of course, as a result of your giving fast, dependable service. You might even set up a promotional notice on the back of your business card (to be left as each job is completed) offering five dollars off their next cleaning bill when they refer you to a new prospect.

This is definitely a high profit business, requiring only an investment of time and organization on your part to get started. With a low investment, little or no over head requirement, and no experience needed, this is an ideal business opportunity with a growth curve that accelerates at an unprecedented rate. Think about it. If it appeals to you, set up your own plan of operations and go for it! The profit potential for an owner of this type of business is outstanding!.

or watching TV - but if you score big with your extra income project, you will have all the time you want for doing whatever you want to do.

The first thing to do is to sit down with pencil and paper and list your daily schedule. What time do you wake up? Then step-by-step, list everything you do each day. Most people will find that they have about three hours each day that can be utilized in a more constructive or efficient manner. As we’ve noted above, you may have to give up the time you waste in your local pub or a few television programs you watch, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Efficient time management boils down to planning what you’re going to do, and then doing it without backtracking. Start by making a list of the things you want to do tomorrow, each evening before you go to bed. Schedule your trips to the store or wher

ever to coincide with the other things you have to do, and with your trips to or from work. Organize your trips to take care of as many things as possible while you’re out of the house. Take stock of the time you spend standing around shooting the breeze - especially the time you spend on the telephone - and eliminate all that isn’t necessary.

Whatever chores you have to do at home, set aside a specific time to do them, and a specific amount of time to devote to them. For instance, just one hour a day devoted to yard work would probably make your property the envy of all your neighbors. Don’t try to do a week’s work in one big flurry. Whether it’s painting your house, fixing leaky faucets, or mowing your lawn and trimming your shrubs, do a part of it, or one particular job each day, and you’ll be amazed at your progress.

Take care of all your mail the day you receive it. Don’t let those bills and letters pile up on you. If you’re unable to pay a bill immediately, file it in a special place that’s visible, and note on the envelope the date you intend to pay it. Answer your letters the same day you get them.

The important thing is to think of time as your most valuable asset, because it is. So organize! Decide what you have to do, and what you want to do. From there, it’s just a matter of arranging priorities.

Once you start listing and planning what you want to do, and then carry out your plans, you’ll find plenty of “extra time” for handling virtually any kind of home-based income-producing project. People in general may not like routines or schedules, but without some sort of plan as to what is supposed to be done, the world would be mired in mass confusion

Laws, ordinances and regulations are for the purpose of guiding people. We live according to an accepted plan or way of life, and the better we can organize ourselves, the more productive and happy we become.

The secret of all financially successful people is simply that they are organized and do not waste time. Think about it. Review your own activities, and then see if you can’t find a couple of extra hours in each day for more constructive accomplishments.

When you begin planning, and then when you really become involved in an extra in come-producing endeavor, you should work it exactly as you have organized your regular day-to-day activities - on a time-efficient basis. Do what has to be done immediately. Don’t try to get done in an hour something that’s realistically going to take a week. Plan out on paper what you have to do - what you want to do - and when you are going to do

it. Then get right on each project without procrastination.

Finally, and above all else, when you’re organizing your time and your business, be sure to set aside some time for relaxation. Be sure to schedule time when you and your spouse can be together. You must not involve yourself in anything to an extent that you

exclude other people - particularly your loved ones - from your life.

Taking stock of the time you waste each day, and from there, reorganizing your activities is what it’s all about. It’s a matter of becoming more efficient in the use of your time. It’s really easy to do, and you will not only accomplish a lot more, you will also find greater fulfillment in your life.r time schedules.

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