Haydar’s Cleaning just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Jim’s Cleaning so 11 years ago fledgling business owner Haydar Hussein decided to capitalise on the strength of the service franchise brand.

The decision has paid off for Haydar who has gone from bank teller by day and cleaner by night to a businessman with a turnover last year of more than $60 million. And after upsizing homes four times in the last decade, the father of four is currently building a dream home.

“I knew I could make more money from the cleaning business than I could working for the bank. But how could I make my business stand out from all the other cleaning businesses? I had no brand. By becoming a ‘Jim’s’ I was able to capitalise on that instant brand recognition and my business was immediately able to expand nationally.”

Franchise ambition

Haydar is very proud to say he is a ‘copy-cat’ businessman.

“It’s simple really. You follow the system and make sure your franchisees follow it even closer. The Jim’s Mowing franchise was such a success, it obviously had excellent business systems in place. My neighbour , Andrew Parke, was the first to set up the Jim’s Antennas division, and I saw him go from a struggling one-man operation to a successful businessman, so when the opportunity came to head-up the Jim’s Cleaning division, I jumped at the chance.”

Both Andrew and Haydar are divisional franchisors, running their mini-empires under the banner of the Jim’s Group. Haydar now has more than 500 Jim’s franchises across categories including pest control, and cleaning: carpet, windows, blinds, and pressure cleaning.

And he has ambition for his division to be the biggest and best known in the group. “There’s no reason why we can’t be bigger than Jim’s Mowing – we feel our services are more in demand – there’s plenty of room for more growth. We just need more franchisees,” he says.

The Jim’s group

The Jim’s Group’s management was restructured last year and in January, Jim Penman announced his intention to publicly list his company by the end of 2012. There are more than 30 divisions under the umbrella Jim’s brand.

• What do you think: do you need to invest in a big brand to make a success of being a franchisee?