MaidPro announced today that it has claimed seventh place on Forbes magazine’s Best Franchises in America. MaidPro is the only residential cleaning franchise to be recognized on the list of top franchises to own, generated by the leading business publication, Forbes Magazine and Franchise Business Intelligence firm, FRANdata.
Forbes evaluated more than 750 franchise companies with its initial selection criteria of each franchise having 20 or more locations, while also being transparent, consistent and current in its franchise disclosure reporting. A second round of cuts sorted the franchises by their growth (2008–2012 CAGR) and franchise-unit churn rates. “High growth rates may be impressive but they can be misleading,” Forbes notes. “Fast growth can become unsustainable and mask underlying issues. Therefore, as a proxy for sustainable growth and existing franchisee success, we calculated the franchised unit continuity rate between 2008-2012.”
A third round of cuts narrowed the Forbes Best Franchises list down to an exclusive group of just 30 – 10 for each major size category by average initial investment. “To make it into the top ten finalists,” Forbes says, “a brand had to meet additional criteria that focused on performance, transparency and how supportive the respective franchisors are with regard to ‘lender friendliness.’ This measure reviews whether a franchisor has streamlined financing programs through SBA approval documents on the franchise registry and whether a franchise system has been subjected to a third party analysis by having FRANdata conduct a credit risk analysis through a Bank Credit Report.”
To ensure that each of the finalists truly deserve their Top 10 spots and also to determine final positions in the ranking, Forbes subjected each franchise to additional scrutiny relating to lender friendliness and self-sufficiency based on recurring revenue. “Recurring revenue self-sufficiency measures the degree to which a franchisor that supports its franchisees depends on its fees associated with franchised unit growth to cover its corporate overhead. [This] aims to determine whether a company can be self-sufficient without expanding its franchised system size.”
“Of course we are thrilled to be recognized as one of only 30 companies on the Forbes Best Franchises in America list,” says MaidPro CEO Mark Kushinsky. “But we are especially pleased by the financial rigor and unique emphasis in the Forbes methodology on both transparency and sustainable business health derived from publicly reported and industry-standard franchise business data. When people invest in franchise opportunities, they are often placing their life savings and faith with a single franchise company. The Forbes analysis provides great insights into what franchise disclosure statements say (and often don’t say). It’s a great addition to the many tools potential franchise owners can use for making the best investment decisions.”