Oven Cleaning Franchise - Training - Business - AGA

Oven Cleaning Franchise Opportunity

 Hello ny name is Graham Rogers and welcome to my oven cleaning business blog. I have been writing this blog for four years and as of February 2012 this blog has had over 70,000 page views. I have written about most of my experiences and frustrations with regards to my oven cleaning business. We have grown from just me in the van to now having five vans. I still regularly clean ovens and AGA cookers.

Since October 2010 we have been selling franchises and so now this blog includes franchisee training and experiences too. Also there is also an emphasis on AGA cookers in this blog as I've had one in my house for 15 years, love them,  and it was really the main reason I started this business back in late 2003 early 2004. So why don't you join us?

Graham Rogers December 2011

 

FOUR STEPS TO YOUR OVEN CLEANING BUSINESS WITH OVENGLEAMERS:

STEP ONE: CLICK this link and read the post oven cleaning franchise 

STEP TWO:  Click HERE and Submit your name and email to get my FREE  Oven Cleaning Franchise Start Up Guide 

- You will be sent an email to your inbox - please confirm this link.

STEP THREE: Click HERE to Get the OvenGleamers oven cleaning franchise prospectus. 

- You will be sent an email to your inbox - please confirm this link.

STEP FOUR: Give me, Graham Rogers, or my wife Catherine, a ring in the office. We will then send you a detailed map showing an example of your terriorty in your area, and the current real returns and projected return our pilot franchise is getting in Berkshire. Have a look at what we are offering and then and make an appointment to come to our office meet us, see our system, see if it is right for YOU. Bring your wife, husband or partner along so they can check us out too.

Ring us NOW on 01275 370571.

 

STOP PRESS:

2011 has been a great year for us. We now have five franchisees and as we sold three of these in 3 days we are the fastest growing oven cleaning franchise in the UK. We are putting things in place to really make our business opportunity the ultimate van based franchise. All franchisees are doing well with plenty of business and progressive growth.

So for 2012 why not get on board with us? Get in contact with us on 01275 370571

 

Related articles

• Oven Cleaning Scary Movie 1 (ovencleaning.wordpress.com)
• OvenCleaning.TV New Video Showing New Dip Tank For New Franchisee (ovencleaning.wordpress.com)

AGA Door Enamel Chip Repair

An AGA door  I repaired last year for a customer. We accidentally chipped the door whilst cleaning - the first and hopefully the last time it will ever happen. If you are an AGA cleaner don't stack the two doors from the third and four ovens on top of each other when you are cleaning - as the operative who did this did - as just the fall of two inches to the floor can chip the AGA door. I now train everyone to take each door off one at a time, clean it,  and then put it back on after the door is cleaned to avoid any risk of damage. As the cream enamel colour of an AGA has thousands of variations according to our local AGA re-enameller (who quoted me £350 to just get the colour matched and of course the re-enamelling would have been on top of this)  I got paint colour matched to the door and did the repair myself. The paint cost me £15 and there was also the time to get a replacement door (loaned to me by a local AGA spares supplier)  to put on the AGA whilst I had the door for repair, the time it took me to do the repair, and the time to take the doors back.  As the door was the bottom door on the four oven AGA then the temperature it reached wouldn't be high and the repair would be sustainable.

 Three pictures before repair, back on AGA cooker, and after painting - they are in the wrong order:

.

Related articles

• Cleaning the enamel lids of an AGA Cooker (ovencleaning.wordpress.com)

Oven Cleaning Van Gets Attention

Image via Wikipedia

We were talking the other week about the vans and how people react to them. When I started I got my first van sign written but eighteen months later we got another van and then another three and because there wasn't much time between getting them all we didn't get them all sign written. Then we got the second van sign written and we put on it a picture that I have used in a lot of local marketing campaigns: a picture of an oven gleam fairy. She has a wand, a shiny oven and she is wearing sun glasses. It really looks the business though today we don't use it so much. We thought this was going to look great on the van. But sadly it didn't and still doesn't. Yes we still have the van with the fairy on and now it is pretty faded. I have been meaning to get it changed but the van it is on is our oldest van now and I think well if I spend £200 on it how long will the van last? The other vans weren't sign written for what seemed like an age but when we got them all sign written it really made a difference in the number of calls we got from people seeing the van. Really we should have got it done sooner.

So the reactions we get are in traffic jams at the traffic lights people get out of their car knock on the window and say "Have you got a leaflet mate?". Or they get out of the car and using their phone take a picture of the van so they've got the number on the phone that way. All seems odd to me as why don't they just remember or write down the name of the company? With a plan van though we wouldn't get any of it. So a sign written van wins every time.

Bristol Oven Cleaning Company Out of Business that used Living Social

Image via Wikipedia

I wrote about our experiences of Living Social a few months ago and indicated that I thought it was madness for a new oven cleaning company to use this service as they would end up with lots of jobs that made them no money.  A new oven cleaning company in Bristol did just that and sold 300 oven cleans which meant they would have been booked up to the end of March 2012 if they could do 4 oven cleans a day. The amount of money they would have got after VAT and Living Social's bit was taken off would have been approx £7 a clean. So we worked out that they would be doing four ovens a day for £28 a day. Which was madness as no one man band would have been able to substain their business.

Here is my original post: http://www.theovencleaningbusiness.co.uk/2011/11/groupon-and-living-social-oven-cleaning-deals.html

Anyway yesterday someone came into our office and asked us how much our oven cleaning prices were as they had bought a Living Social deal and they had just got an email from Living Social, with a refund, saying the oven cleaning company had gone out of business. She had phoned the company but the mail box was full and the website had been taken down.

So the company had gone out of business. I not sure what Living Social do in these circumstances. I presume they give all the unused voucher holders a refund and then chase the company for the outstanding amount.

So was it the Living Social deal that but them out of business?  Well no it wasn't. And it could have been something else entirely different I'm just guessing.  But it was a new company owner thinking that this was a good way to get business without really thinking it through. My guess is a lot of the voucher holders didn't phone up to make a booking until maybe a couple of weeks ago and the company would have then been getting overwhelmed with phones call every day to book in the cheap oven cleans. By this time they had spent the money they got from Living Social as part of their deal months ago.

For us there might have been an out clause. They could have extended the Living Social deal. I think Living Social allows you to  extend the deal fixed date to accommodate the voucher redemptions if this sort of thing happens. The voucher jobs could have then been spread over another six months or even until the end of the year. This would have kept them in business.

 

 

 

Oven Cleaning Franchise Loans from Lloyds TSB

Image via Wikipedia

In the past few weeks a couple of our potential franchisees have seeked advice from Lloyds TSB to see whether they would give a loan towards the cost of starting a franchise with OvenGleamers. Intially the response from the Franchise Team at Lloyds TSB was one of a negative nature, they said "sorry we have never heard of them".

As Lloyds TSB have been my company's (The Oven Gleam Team Ltd) bank, since incorporation back in March 1996 this was a bit puzzling, so we contacted the right people and spoke to the main man and Lloyds TSB have told us that they were very impressed with our business, our paperwork including franchise agreeement, think that our business model is a viable one and will offer loans to people interested in an OvenGleamers franchise, which is very encouraging and welcomed.  

So we also recommend Lloyds TSB as the bank to bank with to anyone looking to be a franchisee with us.

 

 

 

Oven Cleaners Lewes

I have been working on our new franchisees videos today and here is the first one of Jason. Jason Luck is our new franchisee who is your local oven cleaners lewes , Eastbourne and surrounding areas of East Sussex.

 

Cleaning the enamel lids of an AGA Cooker

Here is a video of me cleaning a AGA cooker with enamel lids. So you see me scraping off the grease from the lids and then the final result. This AGA came up looking the business because it was a renovated one and therefore the enamel on it was pretty good. More than often the lids come up looking clean but the enamel is damaged as a lot of people with this sort of AGA, either the standard AGA (one of the earlier ones) or the Classic AGA (a new one that looks like the old one) use the lids to rest their trays and kettles on. We use our 30Amp AGA cooker like this too and it has chrome lids but we use Chef Pads to protect the lid tops.

The AGA in this video is  the one that I have previously posted about and it belonged to the author Dick King-Smith who wrote the story Babe about the pig. So this is the reason I have tried to give the video a cinematic look. 

Cleaning stain off AGA door

Here is a four.oven AGA I cleaned last week. Alan had to go to a funeral so I did his afternoon job an AGA in Shepton Mallet. The AGA was in a barn conversion and was relatively straight forward. There was a stain just above the main oven door caused by smoke etc coming out of the main oven when cooking. The lady hadnt been using the fan as sometimes is needed on an electric AGA. The stain came off okay though on the door it was more difficult to get off. Sometimes these stains are just too difficult to get off. Anyway the end result was a gleaming AGA.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Oven cleaning South Manchester

Today me and Catherine are.standing outside John Lewis in Cheadle Hulme with Peter Richardson our franchisee doing the second day of his business launch. We did the first day last November. Well we are all wrapped up well it's a cold crisp day. Interest has been good with a couple of bookings and lots of leaflets given out. So if you are looking for an oven cleaner in cheadle hulme give Peter a ring on 0161 850 8899.

Sick Oven Cleaner

Image via Wikipedia

This month has been quieter than previous years and we have had to work very hard in the office to get the jobs booked in. It has just been a case of making contact with old clients and asking them if they would like to benefit from the special offers we have had on. So in all we have booked all four of our guys up every day for the month which has been an achievement. I have been in the office in the afternoons and have been out on a few days to clean AGAs and to cover when the guys have been sick.

This morning I was due to be working in the office but at 0715 we got a call from one of our oven cleaners to say that he had been sick in the night and couldn't work today. As all the guys were booked up it meant I had to go and do his jobs which was four double ovens at different locations including a bit of a drive to Frome in the late afternoon. So straight away I plugged the van in and then I then went to the office and printed off the jobs and then preped by van for the day. So I left home at 0820 to get to my first job on time at 0900, I had a few problems  finding the place as the sat nav took me up the road a bit, but still got there on time. The oven was standard double oven and was quite dirty, the lady said they had never cleaned it and it was eight years old. I had a bit of problem cleaning it as I couldn't get the main door off, the locking mechanism wasn't working properly. Whilst doing the job I plugged my van in, it was easy as it was a farm yard, to get my tank up to temperature. The job went well and the lady was very happy. I then drove across Bristol to the second job which was in a rental. The tenants had just moved in and the oven was very bad. It was a bit of hard labour to get it clean as it was minging and it took me over two hours to do the oven and the ceramic hob. But it came up very well. During this job my wife texted me to tell me that the last job in Frome had been moved to next week so that was a relief. I drove back across Bristol to clean the last double oven and this time it was a relatively easy job, an older NEFF double oven where the door was a bit tricky to take apart but other than that it was fine. Then back to the office to clean the van out and top up my water tank. I booked a few jobs in for next week and then that was end of the day.

Related articles

• Groupon and Living Social Oven Cleaning Deals Bristol (theovencleaningbusiness.co.uk)
• Is Your Oven Sick? (thesmartcookiecook.com)
• Cleaned AGA enamel lids (theovencleaningbusiness.co.uk)

OvenGleam and OvenGleamers Review of 2011

Image via Wikipedia

2011 was a fabulous year for us although we had to work the hardest we've ever had to work  in the office to get the guys all fully booked up. We had a few very quiet days but this made us change some things we do. So we did some things differently and worked out some new ways to market our business and get the jobs booked in, and it worked really well!

So we went to five guys working for us in May. We then had our best quarter ever in our history with a huge quarterly turnover, though we didn't like the VAT bill! And the newest guy left and we were back to four plus me which we are staying at for the forseeable future. So I ended up doing lots of AGA cleans.

We changed the way we take payments. We now only take payment by card in advance. The reason we changed this was we were becoming increasing concerned about the potential risk our guys were taking carrying around the takings they were getting. Also the cheque guarantee card was withdrawn in July and because of this we could see the demise of the cheque so thought it would be a good idea to pre empt this and take card payments only immediately. Also on two occassions in two days we'd turned up at jobs and the customer had said "sorry not today"! So as both were big jobs we lost the money.

With OvenGleamers things took off and we sold another four franchise areas - and we have three more sold in the first couple of weeks in January 2012. We now have got our van fit process right, the oven cleaning dip tank spec right (they are now built by our own manufacturer to my spec so they aren't obtained elsewhere), the business launch right and everything has come together very well.

We changed the ovengleam.com site again, now with the OvenGleamers logo and with a search box so people can search on postcodes to find out if we cover their area. The franchisees also get theeir own sites and videos.

Also our social media went wild. This blog went through the 60,000 page views barrier. My videos on Youtube had just under 20,000 views.

The OvenGleam van of the year 2012 winner for OvenGleam was Nigel and the employee of the year 2011 was Matt.

 

Related articles

• Oven Gleamers Franchise Update (theovencleaningbusiness.co.uk)
• Ove cleaning business launch Cheadle South Mancheter (theovencleaningbusiness.co.uk)
• Oven Cleaning Franchise Opportunity (theovencleaningbusiness.co.uk)
• 'No return' for cheque guarantee (bbc.co.uk)
• Groupon and Living Social Oven Cleaning Deals Bristol (theovencleaningbusiness.co.uk)

Babe AGA Clean

Before Christmas I cleaned the AGA that belonged to Dick King-Smith the author of the book Babe about the talking pig. You've probably seen the film. The house wasn't like the farm house in the film, apparantly this house belonged to a friend of Dick's and was a farm house down the road, but was a modest cottage with a rather nice garden and a small pig statute. It wasn't Babe but was wild hog statue but I remember reading an article on Dick and it said in that that he actually called this pig Babe.

The AGA was a standard AGA with enamel tops but looked, after I taken off all the muck, like a new one so it was obviously a reconditioned AGA. Dick died a year ago and his relatives were cleaning up the house as they wanted to get it ready to sell. Anyway when I had finished the AGA looked fabulous.