How Chem-Dry Carpet Cleaning Franchise Is Reaching Out To Growth Markets

We?ve ID?d nine cities with the most capacity for Chem-Dry business ? and we?re looking for entrepreneurs

Providence, R.I., home to 1.6 million people ? but no Chem-Dry franchise owners. (Marianne Lee, The Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau)

We?re reaching out to metropolitan areas that just don?t have enough Chem-Dry locations or, worse, don?t have them at all.

We already have about 2,300 U.S. locations, part of our 3,500-unit worldwide system. We?re by far the world?s largest carpet cleaning company, and we hold the largest individual carpet cleaning market share. But we still have holes in our coverage, and some fresh market data from the business information firm Dun & Bradstreet is helping us identify where they are.

Two metropolitan areas have only two Chem-Dry franchise owners each:

• Columbus, Ohio. Population: 1.9 million. Market size: $22 million.
• Oklahoma City, Ok. Population: 1.3 million. Market size: $5.1 million.

Two areas have one each:

• Baton Rouge, La. Population: 808,000. Market size: $4 million.
• Jackson, Miss. Population: 545,000. Market size: $5 million.

The remaining markets have no Chem-Dry locations:

• Providence, R.I. Population: 1.6 million. Market size: $12 million.
• Springfield, Mass. Population: 693,000. Market size: $5 million.
• Corpus Christi, Texas. Population: 431,000. Market size: $4 million.
• Huntsville, Ala. Population: 425,000. Market size: $5 million.
• Kalamazoo, Mich. Population: 328,000. Market size: $4 million.

As you can see, the markets are scattered throughout the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast, areas we?re targeting for expansion. For 35 years, we?ve kept our corporate headquarters in Logan, Utah, and established a solid franchise base out West. But we opened a regional headquarters in Nashville over the summer to help boost our presence in the rest of the country, and more and more franchise candidates east of the Rockies are contacting us.

It?s important to us because, even though we hold the largest individual market share, our main competition comes from independent surface cleaners who lack the equipment, professional technicians and established system we have. We?re confident that franchise owners in these key areas would quickly set themselves apart from their competition.?

Bill Knight, our vice president of franchise development, at our new regional headquarters in Nashville.

The value is one of the franchise industry?s best, and the opportunity is tremendous. The American carpet cleaning industry is enormous and growing at about a five percent annual rate. It?s swelled from $1.8 billion gross revenue in 1988 to $3.7 billion in 2011, with revenues expected to reach $4.4 billion by 2015. Carpet makes up 47 percent of all floor coverings in the United States, and the company has sought to diversify the surfaces it cleans along with the evolving market.

We?ve developed our territory structure to achieve market penetration but not saturation, allowing multiple franchises in a metro area on a ratio of one per 60,000 people. There?s clearly plenty of room for us to grow.

If you?re living in one of our target areas and considering business ownership, take a look at Chem-Dry, one of the lowest-cost, highest-return franchise opportunities out there. A franchise owner can open a Chem-Dry location for as little as $9,995 down, as affordable as a franchise gets, and we have in-house financing available, too.

Intrigued? Just fill out the information form on our site and download the free franchise report that has details about our value proposition, earnings potential, people, history, products and more.