For the first time in the company’s history, Clockwork Home Services Inc. has allowed franchisees to have the opportunity to elect a president for each of the franchise brands. For the One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating brand, Lenny Siers won the presidential election.

“Being able to be president of the brand allows me to help others,” Siers said. “It feels good to be chosen by my peers. I spent 60 hours the first week on the phone and on e-mail doing the president position tasks of helping others and working on a plan of how to grow the brand and make sure every one of our franchisees achieve success.”

Siers, who runs a One Hour franchise out of Niceville, Fla., will be in charge of overseeing 270 franchises.

These newly elected presidents are each serving a two-year term that began in January. Candidates for these positions were nominated from existing successful franchisees of each brand.

Since it is the first time One Hour has had a contractor president, there is a lot of work to be done. Siers is working with the support and management team at Clockwork Home Services to help develop the franchise support system to ensure success by polishing or improving current systems. He is working together with the home office to make a good system even better.

The contractor has a pretty simple litmus test to find out if he will have a successful run as president. “Did our consumers win? Did they see a better product? Did our brand win? Are we out there with a stronger message building our brand? And finally, are our franchisees that have invested in building the brand - the time, the money, the resources - did they win? If all three are in a winning situation, then my time in the presidency is highly successful. If any one of those three lose, or don’t succeed, then I have not done my job,” Siers said.

Clockwork is excited about Siers being president.

“When we looked at the criteria required of a president, it only made sense to elevate a successful franchisee to that post,” explained Jim Abrams, president and CEO of Clockwork.

“Who better to lead the fastest-growing franchises than our most successful business owners? We are extremely excited to have these highly successful individuals share their knowledge, experience, and strategies with all of the franchisees.

“In the end, Clockwork and the franchisees should benefit tremendously from this arrangement,” said Abrams.

PRESIDENTIAL CREDENTIALS

Siers brings a lot of experience to the job. The beginning of his HVAC career started in the Air Force. After seven years learning about the trade in the Air Force, Siers decided to start a business in 1995. The only problem was that although the Air Force taught Siers how to turn a wrench, it did not teach him how to be a business owner.

Siers made the jump to a franchise in June 2005 and ventured into the One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning brand.

“I was looking for one uniform way like we had in the military, where everyone had a common goal and a common purpose,” Siers said. “I hired the right people, got a lot of training, and as a branded business, I started seeing success on the bottom line and the top line.”

After joining One Hour, his business really took off. In 2006, the company did $1.6 million worth of business with a healthy bottom line of 7 percent. In 2007, it did even better and doubled to $3.2 million while having a bottom line of 11 percent.

Siers has some experience helping other contractors. In 2008, he decided to take some time to give back to other One Hour contractors.

“I decided to follow another one of my purposes in life, which is to help others. I decided to move myself down to Sarasota and join the Clockwork team for a full year to help other franchises be successful,” Siers said.

Now, Siers will continue this work - only this time on a little greater scale.

One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating is ranked No. 163 among the nation’s top 500 franchises for 2009, according to Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500®.

Publication date: 05/10/2010