V.I.P. Home Services
the franchise that’s WORKING FOR FAMILIES

Colin Mason had been a skilled general hand and commercial diver at the Port of Lyttelton for 19 years, ‘But it was no life,’ he says. ‘I was tired of shift work and 2am starts. I was with friends one day and one of them suggested that since I was good at gardening, why didn’t I try that for a change? So back in 2004 we went to a franchise expo in Christchurch and found out about V.I.P.’

V.I.P. Home Services offers two types of franchises: outdoors, which covers lawnmowing and gardening, and indoors, which includes home cleaning, offices and window cleaning. Justine Mason, Colin’s wife, has her own career facilitating early childhood development, but is a huge fan of the V.I.P. system. ‘I liked everything about V.I.P. over the other franchise options we saw. With V.I.P, you have autonomy – you are your own boss, you run your own business and you price your own jobs. And, as we have found over the last seven years, the franchise also provides absolutely first class support from Estelle and John Logan (V.I.P’s national franchisors for New Zealand) and their team.’

The franchise suited their lifestyle, too. ‘My job requires me to travel and attend a lot of evening meetings,’ explains Justine. ‘I simply couldn’t do it if Colin didn’t have the flexibility that V.I.P. offers. If I’m away then he can drop our son at school and be at home for him later.’

Colin operates mostly in the Christchurch suburb of Hornby – a mixed residential and industrial area, which offers considerable variety in the working day. ‘Colin maintains a ride-on mower as he has a lot of business customers and some lifestyle blocks too,’ explains Justine, ‘but he also has a lot of elderly clients. I think for some of them his visit is the highlight of their week, and he still has lunch every Friday with one couple.’

‘I do my best to look after all my clients,’ Colin agrees. ‘Look after the people and the business will grow.’ And Colin and Justine have certainly applied that approach. ‘Colin has done such a good job that not only do we make money out of mowing lawns – we also get additional revenue from selling business back to the franchise,’ Justine says proudly. ‘That’s another great strength of the V.I.P. system – you can make a nice capital gain by on-selling additional work for new franchisees to handle.

‘After nearly seven years with V.I.P, we can say it is a system that actually works for you. Everything within it has been developed for a good reason and if you follow it, you will be successful.’

Paid Training & Guaranteed Income

Magda and Anton Botha brought their family to New Zealand from South Africa for their children’s sake. ‘We have three under 14,’ explains Magda, ‘and we wanted them to grow up in safety. It was sad leaving so many friends behind, but our children’s future was more important.’

Magda had her own hair and beauty salon in South Africa but was ‘open to possibilities here,’ she explains. ‘We know how much time running your own business can take and when we got talking to some V.I.P. cleaning franchisees nearby, we realised it would offer us the flexibility to bring up our family properly. We are from an Afrikaans-speaking area and the children have been plunged into an English school so being able to start at eight and get home by three for them, is a bonus – I can help them with homework and do the cooking,’ she laughs.

The Botha family settled on the Kapiti coast, where they service a range of areas with the support of Wellington master franchisees Rodney and Sandra Foote. V.I.P provides a guaranteed income for the first few months, which means new franchisees can feel confident from the start, although Magda admits it was still quite scary at first. ‘But the V.I.P. training is very good and my husband did it with me, which means we can do weekend work together sometimes though he has a full-time job in Wellington. I have doubled my clients from 20 to over 40 now and you meet a real range of people. V.I.P. works very well for us – it ticks all the boxes in terms of both family time and money. Attitude is the important thing: yes, it’s hard work but there is no time to be grumpy and it’s great to look back each week and see what you have accomplished. I can see myself carrying on with it for a long time.’

V.I.P. has opportunities available throughout the country with investments ranging from $15,000 to $25,000 +gst and equipment, depending on the level of income you wish to start at. Estelle Logan says that Magda’s initial fears are perfectly normal. ‘Everyone worries about not having a salary when they first start working for themselves, but the V.I.P franchise is there to support you during that time. We pay you during the comprehensive four week training period, then guarantee your income during your establishment period.

‘If you fancy sharing the type of success that the Botha and Mason families enjoy, we can help you get there. Call us today and find out how.’ 

This advertorial is taken from Franchise New Zealand magazine Volume 20 Issue 4 

Contact details for V.I.P. Home Services

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