Whether customers are searching for a dream location or repairing a beloved childhood home, these four franchises offer services that take the apprehension out of what can be some of the most stressful times in life
By Joelle Kidd
MaxWell Realty Inc.
For customers looking to buy or sell a home, partnering with a known brand with a trustworthy reputation is a go-to. That’s why brokers like Gary Zimmel choose to buy into a MaxWell Realty Inc. franchise.
Zimmel has been in the real estate industry for three decades, including 24 years as a broker. One of the things that drew Zimmel to MaxWell was that the franchise is 100-per-cent Canadian-owned. In fact, “our corporate head office is probably five to 10 miles from my office,” the Edmonton, Alberta-based owner says.
The brand helps realtors deliver quality service and the best possible return for their clients through the use of proprietary tools, says Zimmel. This includes technology that pulls the multiple listing service (MLS) data of a realtor’s listing to build videos and social posts that will give the property better exposure; access to virtual staging tools; and cutting-edge customer relationship management (CRM) software.
MaxWell’s training also makes the brand unique. “This has all been set up to help the realtor do a better job,” explains Zimmel. New franchisees take digital training courses at MaxWell University, which Zimmel likens to “drinking from a firehose.” Then they gain access to MaxWell’s suite of tools to learn more and sharpen their expertise.
Zimmel says his favourite part of being a franchisee with MaxWell is how all the brokers in the system collaborate. “Even though we’re all competitors, we still want to work together,” he says. “If you have more people, you get more done.” He also appreciates the support the corporate office offers to help brokers compete in a challenging industry.
“Whether you’re one day or 15 years in the business, you still need tools. [This industry] has a high attrition rate, but if we have the support from corporate, which we do, we can raise that level.”
Brokers interested in franchising with MaxWell should have relevant experience, a good attitude, and willingness to work as a team, Zimmel says.
“I tell newer brokers, just remember rule number one:if we don’t take care of the clients, somebody else will.”
Learn more about franchising with MaxWell Realty Inc.
New Creations
At New Creations, the concept is simple: repair, restore, renew.
“Instead of replacing damaged items, we restore them to their original quality,” says Henry Truong, a multi-unit franchisee who owns two New Creations locations in the Vancouver, British Columbia area. “This approach saves the customer time and money and lessens the load in landfills.”
Truong, an early addition to the brand’s team, got his start working for a New Creations franchise before buying his own location. This August will mark his 18th year with the brand.
“My journey involved expanding the property aspect of the business,” Truong explains. The brand was originally focused on automotive interior repair, but when its team found business slowing during the 2008 recession, they had an idea: why not bring some of the same tools and processes to work on home repairs? Along with a small group of colleagues, Truong helped develop many new products and repair methods that expanded the number of surfaces New Creations could repair.
“I thought to myself, man, if I can mix my own [paint] colour, why am I so constricted to leather and vinyl and plastics? Why not a hardwood floor?” Truong recalls. He set to work on [repairing] a floor scratch in his own home and was thrilled with the results. “It actually took me four hours for this small scratch,” he says with a laugh. Sixteen years later, he has the process down to an art, and New Creations has expanded into a range of repairs that includes all types of flooring, countertops, leather furniture, and basically any surface a customer brings in.
Clients who are moving or renovating their home now make up a large portion of Truong’s business. His favourite part is working on things that hold sentimental value for the customer and restoring important pieces of their homes to their pristine original states. Seeing the joy on a customer’s face and hearing them say, “Wow, you can repair that?” is irreplaceable, he says.
An ideal New Creations franchisee would be someone who is good with their hands, is a problem-solver, and has the ability to think outside the box, according to Truong. The comprehensive training and continual support offered by the franchisor also means that success in the business is available to anyone who wants to work hard, regardless of their background, he adds.
For Truong, whose family came to Canada as refugees when he was eight, difficulty with the language and a new country limited his educational opportunities. “As someone [for whom] the school system wasn’t really for me, New Creations has been such a blessing. I’m so grateful for it, because it’s given me an opportunity to live my life and feed my family,” he says.
“I just think, you’ll never be out of a job, because everywhere you go there’s a surface that has to be repaired.”
Learn more about franchising with New Creations
Paul Davis Restoration
Though much of his company’s services address post-disaster restoration and involve working with insurance companies to restore homes to their previous glory, Bruce Galts names certain types of residential work as the most emotionally impactful. Specifically, those instances in which his team has the difficult task of rehabilitating a dilapidated home that a loved one may not want to leave.
“In the very least, it’s disruptive [for the client], and at most, traumatic,” explains Galts, owner of Paul Davis Restoration franchise locations in Lethbridge, Alberta, and Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. These tense situations can sometimes be spurred by the need to move older family members into long-term care, or when concerned kin call on his services because of hoarding issues that have made living in the space untenable.
“The business is usually less emotional—the sewer backed up, the water main broke in my store and I need to get open again as fast as possible,” he says. “There’s some emotion there, but it’s more about dealing with the facts.
“I’m pretty impressed with our team. They’re not social workers by background. They come from all walks of life, and they’ve learned to manage those situations pretty well.”
Dealing with sensitive moments is something that Galts has dealt with time and time again over his career. In his previous life as the owner of a homebuilding company (which Galts still sometimes dabbles in, though not as frequently), he and his team had the pleasure of helping customers create their dream homes, though he notes that it still came with its own set of barriers.
Now several years into his Paul Davis ownership journey (which began at the start of the pandemic—unlucky timing at best, Galts jokes), he has continued to see growth, despite the added challenge of straddling two provinces, each with their unique certifications and standards. But Galts has taken every roadblock (sometimes literally) in stride and doesn’t hesitate to espouse the benefits of joining a franchise system like Paul Davis.
“I don’t want anybody to think that to start a restoration business, or any kind of franchise, it’s just ‘throw that the doors open,’” he stresses. “It’s hard, but it’s also rewarding. I’m happy that it’s Paul Davis that I signed a contract with. We’re growing very steady, and quite rapidly.
“[To be successful], the one thing that you need to do is care about the people who work for you, as well as the people who you work for.” Between Galts’ approach to management and his ongoing work in the community, it’s clear that he has that aspect of restoration business ownership down pat.
Learn more about franchising with Paul Davis Restoration
Prep’n Sell
In a competitive housing market, every client wants to put their home’s best foot forward. But to get a home ready for listing, it usually means realtors and prospective home-sellers have to work with multiple contractors in a short time frame to get everything polished and ready.
That’s where Prep’n Sell comes in. “We set everything up in advance, and we have those contractors available—we are basically able to help find a quick solution to what can often be a lengthy problem,” says Ian Rothera, Prep’n Sell franchisee for Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
This idea of efficiency was what drew Rothera to the franchise in the first place. “I’d been looking for a franchise for quite a while, but I hadn’t found anything that really interested me,” he explains. “I have a project management background, and [experience] in construction, so everything that Prep’n Sell does is familiar to me. I thought it was a very simple idea that I hadn’t seen in the market before, which always makes it a good idea.”
Rothera bought his franchise in late 2023 and officially opened for business January 1. His first year has
been busy but rewarding, he says.
“The difference between us and everybody else is, we’ll do everything,” says Rothera. This means painting, drywalling, landscaping—anything the customer needs to get their home ready to sell. “I’ve just had one customer, referred by a realtor, who said, ‘I’m going away for three weeks, and I need everything done by then.’ He came back and he was thrilled with what he saw. To me, that’s what makes it worthwhile.”
Rothera takes pride in finishing everything above and beyond his customers’ expectations. As a new franchisee, his challenges are building a roster of contractors who share this passion and expertise and can be relied upon. “I have a good team, but as I expand, I’ll need more than one team,” he notes. Right now, Rothera runs the Nanaimo franchise and plans to expand to Victoria.
New franchisees with the brand complete comprehensive training and have access to the franchisor to answer any questions as they arise. “One of the good things about this franchise is that they’re open to sharing knowledge,” notes Rothera. “We have forums, so if anybody comes across something that would help others, we share it. I think it’s really important that the franchisee can offer just as much to the franchise as the franchisor can offer to the franchisee.”
Rothera says his advice for prospective franchisees is to be positive. “It’s a proven system,” he says, so “go forward with the expectation that you’re going to be successful and embrace it.”
Learn more about franchising with Prep’n Sell
