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Tom and Terri Rue have reached some major milestones as Molly Maid franchisees who serve the Orange Park and Jacksonville markets in Florida. In March 2013, the couple won the company’s Shining Star Award, a prestigious honor handed out only to the most successful franchisees who represent the Molly Maid brand by demonstrating integrity, honesty, respect and responsibility, success, and teamwork through best business practices.

The award came on the heels of another accomplishment: In 2012, the Rues joined the Molly Maid “Million-Dollar Circle,” for achieving annual revenues of at least $1 million.

It’s no surprise then that they have become mentors within the Molly Maid ranks, coaching other franchisees about how to achieve success in the system. The hurdles they have cleared in their own business have become lessons they pass on to others and much of what they learned can apply to any franchise or business, not just Molly Maid, said Tom Rue, 52.

“Any business has those times throughout growth where you bump into a wall or get into a rut,” Rue said. “I see too many owners today that spend 90 percent of their time on operations and 10 percent of the time dodging bullets and taking a deep breath.”

His advice to business owners: Take 15 percent of your time to study metrics of the business to see where you are in terms of growth, where you want to be, and how you are going to get there.

Study the Metrics

When the Rues first became Molly Maid franchisees in 2004, they would sit down every January to study the metrics of their business. With the growth they have experienced, it has become a quarterly exercise for them. They keep statistics on how many estimates they have provided weekly to potential customers; how many people canceled their service; and how many new customer inquiries they received in a week, among other data.

“If you don’t know the numbers, you don’t know how much revenue you’re doing and what your customer count is and where you’re going,” Rue said. “That’s critical in any business that you run.”

Studying the metrics also allows the company to make adjustments along the way to improve various operational procedures, said Terri Rue, 55.

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