Maid Brigade of Manchester – A Franchisee Success Story

Franchise Wire:

Making the decision to start a new business was easy for Mel and Brenda Burkey of Maid Brigade of Manchester in Ellington, Connecticut. Mel was a butcher by trade and Brenda an accountant. Mel found that in his present job, he was missing out on quality personal time and wanted to make a change. They thought it over, knew it was a good time to make a move financially, and made the decision to give it a try.

“We wanted to find a business that required nominal nights as well as weekends off,� Mel explained. “And we wanted something with repeat business. We also knew we didn’t want to go out and reinvent the wheel. We wanted to go the established route where someone would teach us how to do it. Because of that, we knew franchising was for us.�

After some Internet research, talking to business owners and help from a franchise consultant, the Burkeys realized that the maid business was for them. “We considered a number of different opportunities from carpet sales to house painting and even healthcare and computer repair. But, none of those had everything we were looking for. Then we looked at the maid business and saw it had everything we were looking for—repeat business and no nights or weekends,� Mel continued. “In the maid business, you get the repeat sale because if you do a nice job one week, the customer is going to invite you back in two weeks to do it again.�

The Burkeys looked at Maid Brigade and another maid service franchise, but found that the other was just too expensive. They especially liked the way Maid Brigade had territories available via zip code. Mel explained, “If you find you are doing a lot of business in one area, you can buy that zip code and add it to you existing territory. And Maid Brigade had lots of nice people to work with.