Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue I, 2012 | Page 28

MEGA

“My passion has been seeing our people grow and develop as
people, buy houses, and raise kids. It’s motivational
to see the impact we’ve had on so many people.”
“Des” Rice, and created Turf Holdings
Inc. to do business in the U.S.
Today Mongeon-the-franchisee has
47 Weed Man units in Canada, and
Mongeon-the-franchisor has 257 Weed
Man units in 35 U.S. states. That $5,000
line of credit balance is history: his total
system sales top $100 million, with close
to half coming from U.S. interests.
CEO Mongeon, who works closely
with his daughter and Turf Holdings
COO Jennifer Lemcke, attributes his suc-

cess—both as a franchisee and a franchisor—to detailed, culture-based business
plans, somewhat “maniacal” measuring
and monitoring of “everything,” ongoing training, and an extremely talented
management team. Stringent environmental and marketing laws present constant challenges to his industry, he says,
but there’s plenty of room to grow, especially in the U.S.
The family man and avid golfer who
spends seven months of the year in Can-

ada and five in Florida, has simple but
profound advice for aspiring franchisees.
“You’ll spend a lot of money buying a
franchise and getting equipped. When
you start, you’ll find that even though
you’ve been trained, everything is new
and you have a lot of doubts. My best
advice is to keep with the system and
be tenacious. In the end, it’s not the
smartest guy who’ll be successful—it’s
the one who’s a bulldog in executing
the system.”

BOTTOM LINE
Annual revenue: Total system sales are $100 million-plus, with close to 50
percent of that in the U.S.

so we know what our contact and closing rates are. We use that, and it’s pretty
accurate in terms of where we’ll be at the end of the year.

2012 goals: In Canada, we’re budgeting for between 10 and 13 percent;
in the U.S., our franchisees are doing their budgets and we’re budgeting for
between 15 and 20 percent growth.

Where do you find capital for expansion? After 1993, all our acquisitions have been made using banks and cash flow. In the past four years, we’ve
used only cash flow.

Growth meter: How do you measure your growth? In Canada, we
measure through the top line. In the U.S., we measure by total system sales,
number of customers, and number of new units added.

Is capital getting easier to access? Not for our franchisees, who have
experienced serious difficulties in accessing capital. We’ve provided our franchisees with business plans and helped prepare them to go to the banks. We’ve
also started a program in which we self-finance part of the startup costs of
franchisees.

Vision meter: Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years?
In Canada, we want to maintain double-digit growth and better target our
marketing programs to homeowners. We’re also considering other concepts.
If we don’t do anything, we’ll have a hard time meeting our goals, but it’s
important to choose the right concept. In the U.S., our vision is to establish a
national brand across the country. We’re still localized, but in the next 5 to 10
years, we’ll be there. Our goal is to be in every state and every major market,
to maintain organic growth of 15 percent, and to double our units in the next
10 years.
How has the most recent economic cycle affected you, your employees, your customers? It hasn’t.
Are you experiencing economic growth/recovery in your market? We continue to show solid growth, and I sense that the consumer is
more at ease. We knock on millions of doors and phone millions of people
every year, so we have a good sense of what’s going on. I think a lot of it is attitude. If you feel you’re going to have a bad year, you’re going to have a bad
year. We’ve taken a different approach.
What did you change or do differently in this economy that you
plan to continue? Nothing.
How do you forecast for your business in this economy? When
we sit down with our business plan, our historical data is already in the plan,

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Multi-Unit Franchisee Is s ue I, 2012

Have you used private equity, local banks, national banks,
other institutions? Before 1993 we used family, friends, and colleagues.
Since 1993, it’s been all banks or cash flow.
What kind of exit strategy do you have in place? I’m not sure
about that yet, but we have such an exceptional management team, including
my daughter Jennifer, that I could retire tomorrow and have minimal impact on
the business. However, we’re happy and still have lots of room to grow, especially in the U.S., so I’m not really thinking about that right now.
What are you doing to take care of your employees? The biggest
thing we can do for our employees is to continue to grow and create opportunities for them. We also pay our employees really well.
How are you handling rising employee costs (payroll, healthcare, etc.)? In Canada, of course, healthcare is not an issue. In the U.S., it’s
a different story. Generally, our payroll has been covered by price increases.
How do you reward/recognize top-performing employees?
In our company, we like to have our employees motivated, so a portion of
everybody’s salary is geared to bonus and commission. We have a matrix that
determines allocation of these benefits.