Franchising the good the bad and the crooked my life as a franchisee Part 1
JEFF THE MILKMAN
Before my first franchise, I left school at 15 had about 40 jobs everything from a telegram boy in central London, a trainee surveyor, Managing a betting shop, Various Milkrounds the list goes on and on.
As they say now day’s. Back in the day, I was a milkman as then it was a pretty well-paid job and kept a roof over my growing family's head. Got to admit though I was the worst type of employee I did the job for a wage. I loved doing the job but hated the after effects of getting up early always feeling tired. Potential new customers would come up to me and say Ernie we were all called Ernie back then. I have just moved into the village could you start serving me. To this, I would reply that I would love to but can not as I already have more customers than the union allows. If I took on more all the other milkmen in the depot would be under pressure to compete but the Co-Op man Chris is looking for new customers. Load of old tosh not even sure we had a union but why would I want to serve yet another customer. Another drive to walk up every day and call back on Friday for the money. I did have some fun as a milkman though. I wrote off 2 milk floats and can confirm that my next book confessions of a milkman would have some spicey moments. Only stories other milkman have told me I hasten to add, there were some real characters. One story I will always remember mainly because I think it is a strange thing to say when somebody dies. One of the milkmen asked a customer how their husband Ken was doing and she said she had lost him. The milkman replied have you looked under the bed. She complained to the depot about him and the depot manager was sympathetic but also saw the funny side of it. I have to admit now if anyone says to me they have lost someone my face says sympathy my mind though is somewhere else. I did have a customer come up to me one Sunday morning asking for some eggs and a loaf. She started saying her husband is away and she was feeling naughty did I want to come in. I panicked shoved the goods into her arms jumped on the float and sped off well as fast as you can in an electric milk float.
At this time in the 1980s, we used to have something called snow in the winters. The first estate I delivered to was often missed as the snow was too deep to attempt driving into the estate. Funny enough Chris the enthusiastic Co-Op milkman never had the same problem. That’s the type of employee I was. Although in my time as a milkman I devastated 3 rounds they were all amalgamated with other rounds I was never disciplined. Looking back even when I started I could not drive and was just paid to go and help other milkmen this was the late 70s. I failed my first test in a milk float at the end the examiner said to me if could explain what I did wrong on the reverse turn I will pass you. I said well I kept an equal distance from and never hit the kerb I have no idea. I was kept on though and 6 months later at the start of my next test, the examiner told me why I failed. He said In all his years I was the first person to fail for driving on the wrong side of the road. Ohh I said I felt there was something wrong of course that’s what it was, I just did not care.
This all changed though when they decided to franchise the rounds off. Now I always wanted to be self-employed but had no skills money or the confidence to do anything about it. I did not take the round I was doing as it was in a village a 40-minute drive from our depot. Also being in a village the houses were more spread out. Someone else panicked and took the round. When I asked him why he said he was a relief milkman just covered holidays and did not want to end up with a bad round that nobody else wanted. I thought well you have signed up for a round with well over an hour a day wasted in traveling good luck. For a while, I took his job as a relief milkman covering sickness and holidays. Milkman are a breed apart even in the worst weather they seldom went sick they had a responsibility to their customers no doubt you will be thinking pity other industries don’t have the same trait. Then a milkman retired his round was pretty small and compact delivering to terraced houses. I took the franchise over as he was always one of the first to finish more than any financial thinking behind my decision. After a while and being competitive I became jealous of the milkmen who had the bigger rounds and were obviously making more money. Then my whole thinking changed I would do anything to get extra customers. If a house was sold, my customer or not I would find out when they are moving and make sure I approached the new householder. I would stop in shops on the round I did not serve and get friendly with the owner so if he was let down, I would take the custom. I used any trick I could to get new customers and grew the round substantially. Only problem was though that I was starting earlier and earlier working harder and harder. I ended up with 2 states of mind either working or worn out. In the end it was too much for me and supermarkets were opening in the area so I could only see a decline in the business. I found a job elsewhere that offered training to be an engineer and sold the round back to the dairy. I remember walking out of the factory at the end of the first week what a great feeling I finished no new book to write up, no accounts to do, no counting out the money to pay in after work on Monday. Don’t care who has paid and who has not I always wanted to be self-employed done it never going back.
A few lessons I took with me from the milk round days were the reason a Dale Farm milkman would sell more than a Co-Op milkman was not that the Co-Op only took on people that were not interested in selling or anything. It was the leadership and management of the companies. Dale Farm were far more interested in getting their staff to sell whereas the Co-Op did not have that drive. I do not believe in good or bad staff only good or bad leaders. Another thing which I ignored later on in my business life is that there is a time to sell and seeing the supermarkets attacking the market with their cheap milk made my decision correct. Even if the real reason was that I wanted more from life than working and sleeping.
After a few years of working in the factory, I must admit I was starting to get bored and hit a spell that changed my life. We had three boys my wife had just given birth to twin daughters my mother in law had a heart attack and died, our car was stolen and set on fire to top it all I was made redundant. Type of period you do not forget. There I was 39 years old - 5 children with no skills no car a mortgage and redundant.
I said to my wife I might as well look for a franchise as the 20k inheritance will just disappear we have nothing to lose. Thinking back that was a hell of an amount of trust she showed in me all her inheritance gambled on me making a go of it in the franchising world.
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