Northern California ecomaids Franchisee Celebrates A Year Open with Many Great Successes

Home cleaning franchise ecomaids is rapidly growing, reaching the triple-digit territory marker earlier this year. A major part of this fast scaling effort is the 40 units the brand signed on last year. Rami Richards, Northern California franchisee that operates two territories in the East Bay, is one of those new owners that has catapulted ecomaids to over 100 locations.

Richards has enjoyed a number of successes throughout his year in business serving the communities of Lamorinda-North Oakland-Berkeley. They hit the benchmark of scheduling over 100 recurring customers in February, and Richards has also been growing his team internally through some reputable connections at Business Network International (BNI). That has allowed him to double his monthly sales within the last few months. And in his eighth month of operation, he was recognized as ecomaid’s number one grossing revenue franchisee.

Richards grew up in the area, and started out his career doing corporate event planning for investment banks, then worked in advertising sales and digital media at Pandora and Pinterest. As he got older, he longed for independence and to do something meaningful that serves the community.

“I started to explore buying a business in my local community. I had a friend who got into a garage door franchise on the East Coast, who told me a little bit about what the franchising experience was and connected me to a franchise consultant,” said Richards.

The consultant spoke with Richards about his values and goals, and showed him four brands in different industries. Among the options was a healthcare staffing company, a fitness concept and ecomaids. Richards ultimately decided on the home cleaning franchise because the company provides an essential service.

“I thought, ‘Everyone in my community uses a cleaning service. Can we make it better? Can we bring it into the 21st century? Can we modernize it? Can we leverage technology? Can we engage and build a community around what we're trying to do here?,’” Richards said.

Richards also said he appreciates the environmental focus that ecomaids takes, and thought it would be a great fit for the progressive areas of the East Bay.

“I knew that in the Bay Area, an affluent marketplace with a lot of educated people that care about environmentally friendly products, this service would be appreciated. I just knew that the market would support the brand,” said Richards.

Sharon Cupach, senior director of franchise development for ecomaids, said, “There really isn’t anybody out there where their entire message is eco-friendly. We’re entirely science based, so that’s a differentiator. We don’t clean like prior generations or our unsophisticated competition; we do everything based on science, and everything is sustainable, recyclable or reusable. So our message really rings to where society is looking today. It’s no longer a consideration; it’s an expectation to find eco-friendly solutions, and we do that at a very fair market price.”

And as the numbers show, that has been the case. Richards is excited about the future, and has goals to one day run a business that brings in millions in revenue. To do that, he envisions having about ten different teams that can operate independently, and ideally a hub office. But first, he wants to ensure his first two territories are solid.

“There's certainly other territories that might be interesting to expand into at some point, but right now, I'm just focused on trying to grow the business and stabilize it as best I can,” Richards said.

The total investment necessary to open an ecomaids franchise ranges from $110,990-$136,379. For more information on franchising opportunities with ecomaids, visit https://ecomaidsfranchise.com/.