The Ovenu franchisee story

Richard and Melissa Ramsay have an Ovenu cleaning franchise in West Brisbane and have been looking into ways of expanding their market share.

"In our business it is important to promote public awareness that our service exists. One really effective way is to leaflet drop. We have tried using junk mail distributers but these are never as effective as actually doing it yourself. Richard purchased a second hand postie moped to speed up leaflet drops and he can whizz around in a fraction of the time. This has proven to be a very cost effective way of promoting."

Melissa recently contacted the Channel 9 weekly early evening show Extra (with a viewing audience of 200,000) which features a cooking segment and offered to clean the oven. Within two days Richard was showcasing the oven cleaning process to the camera, and a delighted customer, and is looking forward to seeing it aired on TV.

Oven cleaning appears to be a recession proof business, says Toby Bowes, master franchisee for Queensland. In the UK which is feeling the economic slowdown more than most, the Ovenu home services franchise group recorded its highest November figures ever last year he reports.