"When a franchisee invests their future with Jani-King, they are investing behind a well thought-through system," reflects Director Paul Haworth. "They invest in a proven programme with contractual guarantees to protect the franchise owner as they build their business. Jani-King's sales team secures customer contracts for our franchise owners so that they can focus on making money out of operating the business. Implementing our system - which has tried and tested methods over 35 years globally - provides the key to their success."

What Franchisees have said:

COLIN PAYNE, Norwich & Ipswich
"I was immediately attracted to Jani-King because it is a management concept. Paul Haworth and the head office staff are pretty switched on and I've made some very good friends there now.

"I took over my franchise as a going concern and virtually started from scratch. I took on my first four accounts in March 2004, then six months later added another eight - which was ideal. After the first 12 months the business was bringing in a turnover of £30,000 per month.

"I make sure I am very visible and visit the customer very, very regularly - even if it's just for two or three minutes. The core of Jani-King's systems involves building relationships with customers."

ALAN BARKER, Nottingham & Derby
"I have appointed an Area Manager who is responsible for recruiting, training and dealing with staff, which frees me to focus on customer service. I contact every client every fortnight, and visit once a month. The bigger accounts get a weekly visit, all aiming to build the relationship and keep it strong.

"It is also important to develop relationships with all the customer's staff - after all, someone who is an assistant today could be a manager tomorrow. The relationship with your own staff is very important too, as is positive communication with head office. It's a circle of relationships that need to be joined."

"I am currently restructuring the business to target higher value clients, such as offices and schools, which are tasks that require a five-day working week. Organising staffing is much easier on this basis. It also brings in greater margins. I am currently achieving sales of £20,000 per month and within 12 months I'd like to be at £500,000 worth of annualised turnover."

Sandip Chauhan & Ket Patel, Leicester
"We have only been trading since 2004, but already have an annualised turnover in excess of £500,000. We have been able to grow our business with Jani-King's support.

"What's required is to follow the system - if you build trust and relationships with your customers then demonstrate that you can do a good job and provide value for money to that customer, they are willing to trust you and pay premium prices for additional services. We are developing specialist services with Jani-King, which earn higher margins and bring added value to our clients, and have also expanded our territory. We want to move up to £1 million in two to three years."

Ian Fick, London
"I've been operating my Jani-King franchise for almost six years. My turnover is now close to £2.5 million annually. As you can imagine I'm looking forward to making some fairly decent money.

"My vision is to be the first Jani-King franchise owner to make £1 million profit in a year, and I really believe that can be achieved."

RAY FINCH, Preston
"After a 22-year career in the forces, Jani-King offered an opportunity to meet different people and tackle different challenges. In fact, I can schedule my work so that no two or three days are the same!

"Image is a big thing in this business, and Jani-King's is very professional. Often contract cleaners turn up looking scruffier than the place they're cleaning, while our staff wear uniforms and name badges and arrive in a Mercedes van. We encourage relationships between our employees and clients so that they are happy to talk to each other. We also meet with clients regularly, and a lot of times my wife Karoline will respond to a customer query onsite to ensure the job is done to the customer's satisfaction.

"Jani-King originally guaranteed to get our turnover up to £22,000 per month, and we are now up to £32,000 per month. To put that in perspective, that's an annual turnover of almost £400,000. Beyond that, I've got every confidence in head office that when we want to expand further they'll go out and win new business for me."

Become a 'Janillionaire'
With Jani-King aiming to complete its nationwide network presence with between 40 and 80 additional management franchisees (depending on the size of area invested in), many lucrative opportunities remain available. In fact, after Jani-King's reorganisation of its network to make the business more customer-focused three years ago, 120 territories have been identified where new franchisees could launch.

There are currently over 40 management franchisees operating in the UK, all of whom are aiming to become 'Janillionaires' by developing their businesses toward a target of £1 million in turnover. Historical Janillionaires include Keith and Gill Burgess, whose business reached £1.5 million after Jani-King introduced its Management Franchise programme. "At its peak we were making in excess of £200,000 profit which was a great return on our initial franchise investment of £30,000!" reveals Keith.

Adds Gill: "When we felt the time was right to retire, we accepted an offer on the business for a very substantial sum. While it didn't quite make us millionaires, it wasn't not far off!"

What the Franchisors say: Ian Thomas & Paul Haworth, Directors of Jani-King (GB) Ltd.
"The sales guarantee means that if we fail to offer £264,000 of annualised turnover (subject to the franchise agreement signed by the franchisee) in 18 months, we literally pay franchisees a pro-rata payment on any shortfall.

"For example, if Jani-King should have offered a franchise owner £22,000 of business by a certain month but has been unable to offer them any business, then Jani-King's guarantee is that they will pay the franchisee £2,200 per month. The plan is that once you reach that initial guaranteed £264,000 of annualised turnover, we will help you to move on to the half million mark - and then the magic one million mark.

"Our training is designed for people with no cleaning background, so we are concentrating our franchisee recruitment on finding people with the right attitude and work ethic. Management and customer relationship skills are key here. We have shaped an infrastructure, package and system which corresponds to what people actually want from a management franchise - and what customers want from a commercial cleaning service. We are now on a major drive to complete national franchisee coverage and a large focus is on attracting and selecting the right franchisee applicant."