My criteria for buying a franchise was an established brand and a service or product that I could sell to everybody. I visited franchise exhibitions and looked through The Franchise Magazine and Swisher stood out for me. Everybody has a washroom that needs cleaning and the Swisher service is not a big ticket item to sell, yet at the same time once you've sold it you keep earning revenue on a weekly basis which allows you to build and build.

First and foremost, Swisher are very professional and very protective of what they do. At our meetings they were just as keen to make sure I was OK for them as I was to make sure the franchise was OK for me. I bought the Swansea franchise from its previous owner in March and took the initial training in April. It prepared me for the business very well and the sales training was top notch, which for a growing business is the most important thing. In fact, my salesman is now one of the top performers in the network, which is down to myself and the Swisher sales team.

I went live with the business at the end of April. Taking over an existing business gave me a foothold - instead of having no revenue I had about 25 customers on my patch. I'm now up to 55 customers which is on plan for the business. Our average value per customer is quite high and in the last three months we've started to fly.

Since I started I have realised how important it is to employ the right staff. The reason why my business is doing well is because I've got such a good sales guy, who is switched on and motivated, and a Service Manager, who is very skilled and good with customer relations. My business has signed £84,000 worth of annual contracts with customers, which should be up to £100,000 by October and £150,000 by the end of the financial year. Further down the line I'm looking at achieving £400,000 to £450,000 by the end of year three.