Beall started realizing that the value of her ser-vice was so great to retailers, who told her their sales tripled or quadrupled on days when she vis-ited, that she had no need to pay them for “place-ment.” With this insight in hand, she began to barter for free space at baby expos and trade shows. The event organizer would get more sales, while Clean-BeeBaby would get free marketing to a large group of prospective and targeted customers. She would also trade free cleaning services for mommy blog-ger attention. She observed, “The few times I’ve spent money on marketing, I’ve felt that I’ve not gotten my money’s worth.” In addition to bartering for space, she eradicated what would otherwise be the second largest cost for her company (after labor)—convincing cleaning product manufacturers to sponsor CleanBeeBaby. At different points in time, both BabyGanics and The Honest Company provided free cleaning supplies to Beall; doing so helped them market their own wares.By July 2012, when Beall felt ready to leave the safety net of her “regular” day job, she also began noticing some of the challenges of growth. Among her discoveries: in the same way that her classmates had little passion for baby poop, those cleaning it (and other baby-related “stuff”) weren’t all that passionate either. They also didn’t love having to drive to a different location every day. Good and committed cleaning technicians were challenging to find—and, in the early days, almost impossible to keep on board. Beall spent four months driving her own van, cleaning a seemingly endless supply of seats and strollers, and meeting her customers. At the same time, she tried to build the business beyond its launch location. When Beall started the New York branch, she initially did it without local staff—instead moving there for a summer to build the business herself.In the fall of 2013, after returning to Los Angeles from New York, Beall turned her attention to the development of systems for more effective hiring and retention. She brought on a senior director of opera-tions, a regional manager for Southern California, and two full-time field supervisors. She brought in part-time consultants to serve as CFO and to provide marketing support. She also began to be more pro-active about hiring for fit—working with her senior managers to identify and carefully train a large team of technicians likely to remain with the company.Freed by her senior staff to turn away from the minutiae and focus on higher level strategy, she began exploring her options. As a first step, she started conducting extensive research about if and how CleanBeeBaby might be turned into a fran-chise operation. Beall had long believed that there might be huge upside in franchising; residential cleaning franchisor Merry Maids had 1,432 operating units globally (2014 data), for example, while Molly Maids had 632 (2010 data). When she further factored in the many unsolicited inquiries that she received from prospective franchisees worldwide, her confi-dence increased. She initiated the legal paperwork and process to become a franchisor. On the heels of taking this step, she closed an angel funding round for $500,000 (with an expressed investor interest in a subsequent investment for the same amount).She also began to pursue work with Nordstrom, after a buyer contacted her to see if CleanBeeBaby might partner with them on an in-store promo-tion. They proposed, specifically, a test in which they would pay for a fixed number of cleanings to be offered as free gifts with purchased strollers. In October, the pilot program ran, with great success, in three Southern California branches. Four more events followed in May 2014. On the heels of this second success, Nordstrom asked Beall to scale her efforts to encompass 17 stores in Southern California. They also expressed a desire, over the longer term, to expand the program nationally. In parallel with this, Beall began communicating with Babies “R” Us about other in-store concepts.

Question:

1.Why does it matter that smaller retailers are experiencing much higher sales on days when Beall visits?

2. Why, if CleanBeeBaby’s service is so great, aren’t others doing it?

3.If CleanBeeBaby can’t be replicated easily, then is it a good idea for Beall to pursue a franchise model?

Question

Beall started realizing that the value of her ser-vice was so great to retailers, who told her their sales tripled or quadrupled on days when she vis-ited, that she had no need to pay them for “place-ment.” With this insight in hand, she began to barter for free space at baby expos and trade shows. The event organizer would get more sales, while Clean-BeeBaby would get free marketing to a large group of prospective and targeted customers. She would also trade free cleaning services for mommy blog-ger attention. She observed, “The few times I’ve spent money on marketing, I’ve felt that I’ve not gotten my money’s worth.” In addition to bartering for space, she eradicated what would otherwise be the second largest cost for her company (after labor)—convincing cleaning product manufacturers to sponsor CleanBeeBaby. At different points in time, both BabyGanics and The Honest Company provided free cleaning supplies to Beall; doing so helped them market their own wares.By July 2012, when Beall felt ready to leave the safety net of her “regular” day job, she also began noticing some of the challenges of growth. Among her discoveries: in the same way that her classmates had little passion for baby poop, those cleaning it (and other baby-related “stuff”) weren’t all that passionate either. They also didn’t love having to drive to a different location every day. Good and committed cleaning technicians were challenging to find—and, in the early days, almost impossible to keep on board. Beall spent four months driving her own van, cleaning a seemingly endless supply of seats and strollers, and meeting her customers. At the same time, she tried to build the business beyond its launch location. When Beall started the New York branch, she initially did it without local staff—instead moving there for a summer to build the business herself.In the fall of 2013, after returning to Los Angeles from New York, Beall turned her attention to the development of systems for more effective hiring and retention. She brought on a senior director of opera-tions, a regional manager for Southern California, and two full-time field supervisors. She brought in part-time consultants to serve as CFO and to provide marketing support. She also began to be more pro-active about hiring for fit—working with her senior managers to identify and carefully train a large team of technicians likely to remain with the company.Freed by her senior staff to turn away from the minutiae and focus on higher level strategy, she began exploring her options. As a first step, she started conducting extensive research about if and how CleanBeeBaby might be turned into a fran-chise operation. Beall had long believed that there might be huge upside in franchising; residential cleaning franchisor Merry Maids had 1,432 operating units globally (2014 data), for example, while Molly Maids had 632 (2010 data). When she further factored in the many unsolicited inquiries that she received from prospective franchisees worldwide, her confi-dence increased. She initiated the legal paperwork and process to become a franchisor. On the heels of taking this step, she closed an angel funding round for $500,000 (with an expressed investor interest in a subsequent investment for the same amount).She also began to pursue work with Nordstrom, after a buyer contacted her to see if CleanBeeBaby might partner with them on an in-store promo-tion. They proposed, specifically, a test in which they would pay for a fixed number of cleanings to be offered as free gifts with purchased strollers. In October, the pilot program ran, with great success, in three Southern California branches. Four more events followed in May 2014. On the heels of this second success, Nordstrom asked Beall to scale her efforts to encompass 17 stores in Southern California. They also expressed a desire, over the longer term, to expand the program nationally. In parallel with this, Beall began communicating with Babies “R” Us about other in-store concepts.

Question:

1.Why does it matter that smaller retailers are experiencing much higher sales on days when Beall visits?

2. Why, if CleanBeeBaby’s service is so great, aren’t others doing it?

3.If CleanBeeBaby can’t be replicated easily, then is it a good idea for Beall to pursue a franchise model?

Accepted Answer

SUMMARY-
Entrepreneurs who have created successful businesses are often interested in franchising…