Green Acres and Hire a Hubby winners at Franchise Awards

Green Acres and Hire a Hubby winners at Westpac New Zealand Franchise Awards 2014/2015

Franchise siblings Green Acres and Hire a Hubby both won at the Westpac New Zealand Franchise Awards 2014/2015. Green Acres once again collected the category award for best home and lifestyle services franchise system while Dave and Shelley Coley, from Hire a Hubby Kapiti, took out the category award for best home and lifestyle services franchisee. Both also won the home services sub-category award.

Winning is a habit. Twenty years ago Green Acres was named home services franchise system of the year in the first-ever New Zealand Franchise Awards. And the company hasn’t looked back since: this is the 13th time that the company and its franchisees have carried off an award (they won last year as well).

With over 600 franchisees across a wide assortment of services, Green Acres has consistently introduced improvements and innovations to keep its business ahead of the pack. According to the judges, “Green Acres is a very mature franchise showing clear evidence of ongoing innovation capitalising on the benefits of technology. As a market leader, they’re well aware of changes to the industry and competitiveness, both for franchisees and customers, and continually adapt their approaches to respond to that. They have comprehensive processes and their size has enabled them to invest effectively in supporting the franchise system.’

Hire a Hubby is also a serial winner: it’s the fourth time that the company and its franchisees have been called up to accept an award. Dave and Shelley Coley won theirs for the franchise they’ve been operating since 2002 covering the Kapiti Coast, from Paekakariki to Otaki. Initially it was a one man business operated by Dave, a former bank manager. In 2011 he and Shelley decided to see how good they could be. Dave stopped working with tools and devoted himself to managing the company while Shelley, a media company manager, handled the marketing. Working together they build their operation into a full time maintenance company that now employs three full-time experienced tradespeople. Last year Shelley quit her job and now works full time on the business. She attributes their success to a great team of committed people and a strong community focus: they operate a community give-back policy and do charitable work at no charge.

“Hire a Hubby Kapiti have effectively taken a one-man operation and turned it into a successful small business,’ said the judges. “They’ve combined systematic approaches with strong staff recruitment to achieve some excellent financial and customer results in a short time. Their focus on knowledge of their market and maintaining good relationships has led to very impressive levels of around 75 percent repeat business.”

It’s not the first time Dave and Shelley have enjoyed national recognition. They have been the Hire a Hubby Franchisee of the Year three times in a row.

“These awards serve as a valuable benchmark for the franchise sector and for individual franchise businesses,” said Logan Sears, CEO of Green Acres and Hire a Hubby. “Over the last 20 years the criteria for entry and success have become more stringent. Each year the competition gets tougher.

“We’re delighted to win these awards because they represent an extremely thorough review of our business and systems, benchmarking us and our top performing franchisees against internationally recognised criteria. We never take them for granted. We work to improve our overall operational performance and the skills and professionalism of our franchisees.”

The Westpac New Zealand Franchise Awards criteria are some of the most demanding in the world. They are administered by the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation and are independently evaluated and judged under the internationally-recognised Baldrige criteria for business excellence. Entry is restricted to Franchise Association of New Zealand (FANZ) members only

The Westpac New Zealand Franchise Awards 2014 were presented at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Auckland, on 15th November before an audience of more than 230 members of FANZ and their guests.

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