Dream Doors Kitchens leads the kitchen facelift industry by offering cost-effective results for customers and ensuring franchisee success through clear systems, dedicated marketing support, and national buying power.

Dave Roberts, general manager, Dream Doors Kitchens Australia, says the brand has set a high bar for kitchen facelift services, which its franchisees project manage.

“Facelifting a kitchen is often more complex than a full replacement,” Dave Roberts explains. “Most kitchen companies avoid the detailed work involved — we specialise in it. In fact, many traditional kitchen businesses refer kitchen facelift projects to our franchisees because we’re the experts in this space.”

“These days, with the cost of living squeeze, people haven’t got as much disposable income. A Dream Doors Kitchens facelift is as good as getting a brand new kitchen – but at a much better price,” he says.

“We have substantial buying power and we’ve established supplier relationships based on our volume. Franchisees order directly and get preferential pricing.

A strong foundation starts with robust training

“It’s a win for everyone. Customers get good prices, franchisees can maintain margins, they buy more so suppliers do well, and Dream Doors enjoys a supplier rebate,” Dave explains.

“A Dream Doors franchisee is like an orchestra conductor, co-ordinating all the moving parts with products and people,” he says.

As most new franchisees are inexperienced, learning the processes that get the project from start to finish is crucial.

New franchisees start with up to 20 days onboarding and training. 

“Our training gives franchisees a good grounding, and we build on this with support from the national business development manager (BDM),” Dave says.

Each franchisee receives a quarterly visit from their business development manager, supported by ongoing training and resources from the IT and support team. This includes regular webinars, updated manuals, blogs, and skill development to ensure franchisees stay competitive and informed.

Streamlined systems deliver franchisees a competitive advantage

A streamlined and integrated system is essential to franchisee success. Dream Doors operates a Salesforce-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. Through this franchisees manage lead management, quoting, scheduling, product ordering and invoicing.

“Our Salesforce system is fully customised to suit our unique business model, with ongoing updates and improvements,” Dave says. “Some changes are driven by our specific needs, while others come from broader enhancements rolled out across the Salesforce franchise network.”

The customised system delivers competitive advantages, enabling franchisees to fill in a quote while talking with a client during a home consultation.

“They can hit send as they walk out the door, and the customer has the quote there and then. It’s a gamechanger,” Dave says.

For franchisees, the streamlined system is well-integrated into their business, linking quotes to scheduling, invoicing and Xero software and finances. It also instantly reports on franchisees’ business, minute-by-minute – their timeliness in contacting customers, their sales leads and conversions.

The Dream Doors head office support team has access to each franchisee’s dashboard, allowing the team to monitor performance in marketing and sales activities, as well as verifying pricing, and ensure margins are maintained accurately.

“We can aggregate the data across our 27 franchisees and 48 territories, and get a good sense of the trends,” Dave says.

Benefitting from marketing support

Franchisees also benefit from Dream Doors’ top of funnel marketing activity which builds brand awareness and feeds into local area marketing.

“We partner with The Marketing Lab, and franchisees can choose to access their services too for their own local area marketing purposes,” he explains.

“We have a bi-annual strategy, based on business’ peaks and troughs and geographical stimulus. So we may target a particular radio campaign in a city or state, to complement website and digital marketing activity.”

Dream Doors also encourages franchisees to ask customers for reviews and referrals, to build their Google and Facebook review profiles. 

“We are proud of the 5-star reviews, it does make a difference in the market,” Dave says.

A team member is dedicated to managing the reviews, and helping franchisees who don’t score a top rating to improve their service.

An authentic relationship is the foundation of franchise support

Whether franchisees need to seek business advice or solve a specific problem, the Dream Doors team is just a phone call away, Dave stresses. 

As GM, he takes a hands-on approach with franchisees, meeting face-to-face with each franchise partner twice a year.

“I will guide them on financials, dive into their business and refer their business performance back to our initial conversations about why they went into business. 

“It’s important to bring everything back to how this will help them achieve their goals. Franchisees have challenges at work, and in their lives, and a personal relationship provides more authentic support,” Dave says. 

“Between me, the IT and BDM support, we’ve got a good handle on franchisees and where they are all at.”

Dream Doors garners invaluable anonymous feedback through an independent annual survey.

Franchisees are at the core of the Dream Doors business

“It’s always heartfelt and to the point. If there are things we can do better, we add them to our strategy, and communicate this. Franchisees are at the core of the business,” he says.

The brand is working to a two-fold growth strategy, always with the franchisee-first approach in mind: bringing on board new franchisees, and growing existing franchisees’ businesses. 

“We created and follow an annual strategy tailored to seasonal trends and regional factors,” Dave says. “For example, we might run a targeted radio campaign in a specific city or state to support our broader website and digital marketing efforts.

“We want our Dream Doors franchisees to have more resilient and profitable businesses, and be happier business owners,” he says.