In this blog post, we'll give you five reasons on why you should choose STRONGHOLD FLOORS over any floor coatings franchises in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia for your garage floor coatings.
Franchises can be a great thing. We've all had the hamburgers and subs from popular chains. But, franchises in the service industries can create problems for the homeowner. Below, we've detailed five of those issues.
1. We know the downfalls of being a garage floor coatings franchise – we used to be one of them!
Dave (now retired) and I used to own PremierGarage franchises in Pennsylvania and Maryland. We saw the issues firsthand with trying to situate ourselves with the franchise network's approach to garage floor coatings. The operational staff of nearly every one of the garage franchises are always trying to wear different hats - coatings "experts", cabinet "experts", organization "experts" - and they all lack the focus and expertise in any specific area of the business.2. We have more experience than any garage makeover franchise in Maryland, Pennsylvania, or Virginia!
Some of the supposed "garage experts" are so new that our most junior staff has more experience than the franchise’s “senior” garage coatings staff. Some of the closet franchises who feature garage coatings are pushing hard to sell franchises around the country. We are seeing these franchises pop up all around central Pennsylvania, northern Virginia and greater Maryland.
So, if you hire them, you are getting a garage coating applied by people who either went to the 1-2 weeks of training or, worse yet, were trained by the managers who have only those 1 -2 weeks of corporate training under their belt. Corporate training also often takes place in California or Arizona, where conditions are more stable year round. Their training, therefore, does not include how to deal with summer’s heat & humidity, winter’s cold floors, or grinding open the harder concrete that exists in this area.
3. We did the floor coatings for some of these franchises!
In Maryland and Virginia, we performed the floor coatings installations for two of the garage floor franchises in those states. These two franchises decided to concentrate on the garage (and closet) organization sides of their business and leave the floor coatings to us. They realized that their inexperience with coatings would only get them into trouble when trying to do the garage floors themselves. Unfortunately for these franchises, one went out of business, and the other is now trying to do coatings on their own (after utilizing our services for over 3 years!)
4. Our experience and training is broader than a garage makeover franchise!
We didn’t just get some quick, corporate training and then become coating experts. We have experience with thousands of garage floors, millions of square feet of commercial floor coatings, and training/experience with dozens of major polymer coatings manufacturers.
Our selection of our prime coatings vendors is based upon over a decade of testing, industry insight, and systems performance. We are not blindly using the newest, greatest thing sold to a corporate figurehead who knows nothing about polymer coating systems.
5. We are not limited to the coatings system picked by a franchisor who knows nothing of the mid-Atlantic region!
We live here. We work here. We coat here. So we picked our coating systems to perform HERE!
Back in 2005, while we were still a garage coatings franchise, we were told to switch to a new chemical system by our corporate franchisor. The hoopla that surrounded this switch was enormous. We all went to Phoenix to see this great new system applied and it worked great..
THEN… we came back to our July humidity. And this new system failed repeatedly for every franchisee in higher humidity environments. No one on the franchisor side could see beyond the lab and testing in Phoenix. It took years to get it right and caused a LOT of upset customers (not to mention the upset franchisees).
That same franchisor made the same mistakes around 2009. They ignored the advice & guidance of their Franchise Advisory Council and their own internal coatings managers. They picked a vendor based upon the special deal and expected marketing uplift. This mistake continued a downslide in franchises and was one of the major factors for us terminating our franchise contract.
ADD UP THE REASONS – THEN ASK QUESTIONS
Be careful when you are looking for a garage floor coatings company. Ask:
1) How many years has THEIR business installed its own coatings?
2) How much experience does their staff have with the coatings system they are using?
3) How many garage floors have they coated? How many square feet?
4) Do they have experience with applying their garage floor coating system in the high humidity & heat of the summer or the deep cold of the winter?
5) Is garage floor coating their main company activity?
FYI – here is our answers to the above questions as of March 2015:
1) We have been installing garage floor coatings since August, 2004.
2) Our senior staff has been here since 2004 – 2007.
3) We have coated over 6,000 garage floors. That’s over 4.5 million square feet of coatings applied in garages.
4) We have special versions of our chemicals and special processes that allow us to coat year round. Our fleet of box trucks is setup to assist with the extreme weather conditions.
5) Garage floor coatings make up the bulk of the coatings we apply. We only install concrete floor coatings. We don’t install garage cabinets, wall organizers, or closet organization systems.
Why do you think several franchises of California Closets and Closet Factory in the mid-Atlantic region partner with us to install complete the floors in their garage makeovers? Request a free quote today!
#EnjoyYourGarage #StrongestNameInCoatings
Mike Mincemoyer is the President of Stronghold Floors. As a former PremierGarage franchise owner and former head of the Franchise Advisory Council on Garage Floor Coatings, he has personal insights into the pros and cons of being a franchise owner.