Ralph B Sizemore Wins Franchisee Year Award

Everybody is always looking for an edge. How
do you earn more money? How do you become more successful? How do you achieve
that elusive work-life balance?

You’d do well to ask Ralph Sizemore.

Sizemore, a master franchisor at Stratus Building Solutions, covering South
Carolina and parts of North Carolina, including Asheville, won the Franchisee
of the Year award at the 2019 Franchisee of the Year Awards, held during the
Franchise
Action Network Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The awards
recognize extraordinary franchise owner-operators who are International Franchise
Association members. 

We caught up with Sizemore shortly after he won the Franchisee of
the Year award. He was spending some time with his family for a few days at
Hilton Head, South Carolina (achieving some work-life balance), and was nice
enough to chat with us about his work with Stratus Building Solutions, the
nation’s leading green commercial cleaning franchise, and what he is doing
right that led to this recognition.

How Sizemore came to work with
Stratus.

Sizemore grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, went to
college at the University of Kentucky and got his masters at The Ohio State
University. He majored in engineering and did engineering “for the bulk of my
first career.” But after 25 years in the corporate world, the company he
worked for was bought out, and there were several downsizings. Sizemore was
able to extract himself with a severance package and decided that he would
switch gears and become a Stratus master franchisor.

“I liked the business model,” he says. “I liked that it was
environmentally conscious. The green
cleaning aspect was important to me, and the support structure that
the company had in place seemed to be really good.”

He started with nothing.

That is, Sizemore bought the right to sell franchises to other
people, with the idea that he would offer them the support they need to grow
their businesses, just as any good master franchisor does. But of course,
when you start off doing that, you don’t have any franchisees to oversee. In
2008, when Sizemore became a master Stratus Building Solutions franchisor, he
had zero territories he was overseeing.

Now he has 63.

A typical day for Sizemore.

Sizemore says that he has eight employees, including himself and
his wife, Derrie, who focuses on the marketing and accounting parts of the
business. On an average day in the commercial cleaning service business,
Sizemore covers a lot of ground. “We’re dealing with a lot of our clients’
customers, doing the billing and collecting in our office, and handling
customer service,” Sizemore says.

So what’s the secret to his
success?

Actually, it’s more of a formula. Sizemore says that he thinks his
commercial cleaning business has seen a lot of growth over the years because
he stays hungry. By hunger, we’re obviously talking
ambition and drive, versus the kind where you go to a drive-thru. After
buying into the franchise in 2008, he got to work right away; however, in the
last two years, he has seen the most growth. He frequently finds prospective
franchise owners through referrals (which, of course, helps when you’ve been
in business a while), and every day, he wakes up, energized and ready to
build his janitorial services franchising business. And he is interested in
building it. And that seems to have helped, according to
Sizemore.

“I haven’t gotten complacent, I haven’t taken my eye off the ball
and God has blessed my business,” Sizemore says.

He has followed the Stratus franchise system.
“I’ve utilized the support Stratus has given me, and their support is
working,” he says. Sizemore believes that that’s a big reason his master
franchise has seen so much growth. He follows the blueprint Stratus gives him
— and he is happy to work with the corporate office.

“I’m not afraid to ask for help, and when they offer help, I take
it,” Sizemore says. And he adds that Stratus Building Solutions’ corporate
office has been growing along with his. “They’ve increased their staff almost
every year. They’re really intent on seeing that we succeed, and I take
advantage of that help,” he says.

Meanwhile, Sizemore makes sure that the franchise owners he sells
to know that they can always rely on him. “The ones who are successful follow
our service protocols and those who take the training,” he says.

He is honest. Hey, it can’t hurt. Sizemore
says that when he works with prospective franchisees, he doesn’t sugarcoat
anything. He doesn’t make it sound like buying a franchise is an easy
endeavor requiring no hard work.

“Sometimes when companies try to sell franchises, they’ll give out
unrealistic growth projections,” Sizemore says. “We tend to say, ‘This is a
business. You’ve got to do your part as well.’”

That’s probably helped — he gets good, driven
people in as franchisees, and that helps the green commercial cleaning
business grow.

Who is a Stratus Building Solutions franchise right
for?

Sizemore says that it’s perfect for people who
don’t want to work for someone else.

“If you really want to be your own boss, this
is the business for you,” he says, of Stratus
Building Solutions. “The hours are very flexible, and it’s a
home-based business. You’ve got a lot of independence but a strong support
system at the same time, to help you succeed.”