Boost helps Lancs cleaning firm to double sales

A contract cleaning entrepreneur has almost doubled his company’s turnover in two years, thanks in large part to Boost’s growth mentoring programme.

Graham Coulston-Herrmann, who owns Preston-based Rosemary Glen, along with subsidiaries Enviro Group and Dublcheck, has seen annual sales rise from £250,000 to £480,000.

Graham established his business in 2012 as a contract cleaning enterprise and later took on additional specialist cleaning work.

In 2015 Graham began trading under the Enviro Group brand, cleaning kitchen extraction systems, ventilation hygiene equipment and carrying out kitchen deep cleaning. The group currently employs 55 staff.

Boost is Lancashire’s Business Growth Hub and is led by the Lancashire LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership) and Lancashire County Council, and supported by funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The programme involved Community and Business Partners matching Graham with seasoned business mentor Carl Bradshaw.

Graham said: “I received a lot of very good advice from Carl that enabled us to better structure the business and drive growth. I have no doubt that his advice was a significant factor in us getting to where we are today.”

Graham added: “The support allowed me to look objectively at the business, which has allowed us to grow and create more jobs. At the same time, we were able to dispose of the less profitable parts of the business and concentrate on the more successful areas. I looked forward to my regular meetings with Carl as I always came away feeling energised and with new ideas to put into action.”

Carl said: “Our role as mentors is to help business owners take some of the emotion out of decision making. Quite often an area of someone’s business will take off rapidly and so the path to growth may look very different to what was intended when it first started.

“This was certainly the case with Graham’s business where there was greater potential for growth in the more specialist parts of the contract cleaning industry.

“The work we did together allowed Graham to make more informed decisions at these forks in the road and this has led to more new contracts and jobs for his business.”