As one of our newest franchise owners, Alex Ho opened his PuroClean office in September 2019. Since then, he’s been keeping himself and his team busy in the restoration business. As part of our efforts to highlight our franchise owners, we recently conducted an interview with Alex. Check out what he had to say on the skills he brought to the table, what he’s learned, where he sees growth opportunities, and how he’s being supported.
1. On day 1, how confident did you feel about your decision to own a PuroClean?
Alex: When I signed back in September, it was a very transparent sales process that allows us to listen to franchise owners talk authentically and ask them questions. When I did sign, through those calls I was able to answer any questions I had – I was feeling extremely confident.
2. How confident did you feel after training?
Alex: After training, I still felt very confident – there were still a lot of unknowns and questions about what I would actually experience in the field. I knew that I had an entire network of people from our regional director, executive team and franchise owners to guide me.
3. How confident do you feel now?
Alex: Five months into the business, right now I am still confident – it’s a different kind of feeling where it’s more like excitement and there’s a million things to do. Everything is more tangible because I earned jobs and completed them. I have a team of five employees – I have a marketer, a technician – I am doing sales and marketing and building the brand,
4. What skills did you feel you had going into business ownership?
Alex: I had the ability to communicate well with customers from previous businesses. As a millennial, I have an understanding of how things work and how they are now for consumers, I am good at creating operations and being efficient. Given my finance background, I know what to look for in order to achieve benchmarks and goals for my company.
5. What skills do you think you have room to improve?
Alex: Definitely the technical skills in the business. Learning how to do remediation in the home or business is an area I need to constantly expand my understanding of.
6. Do you think you will improve those skills by being a part of our franchise?
Alex: I have the ability to communicate within the network of franchise owners to help me learn things along the way.
7. What are you doing each day to market your business?
Alex: I’ve been joining networking groups, meeting property managers and insurance companies to build up my database. I think the lunch and learns are the key to any meeting that I lockdown. I do a lot of continuing education classes and it allows us to meet a lot of people in a big crowd.
8. Why is it important to you that you help your community during their time of need?
Alex: For me, I grew up in West Bloomfield, I am fully invested in this area – it’s my home and I want to be known as a good local business owner that cares about his community. I want to be remembered as an honest company that gives back.
9. What plans do you have for building your team? Business growth? Do you feel your goals are reachable? Why?
Alex: I believe that my goals are achievable – I have seen the victories that I’ve accomplished but I realized I still need to have a team that is organized. I’m putting in the legwork to make sure the business is well known so that people know who to call.
10. What value has your Regional Director brought you in getting started in your business?
Alex: Craig has been invaluable – he is always reachable – he always a text or phone call away. He’s been able to connect me with a lot of the local franchise owners to make our local network work well together.
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If you are looking for more information about this opportunity, read more about Why PuroClean.