A young Queensland-based franchise, HydroKleen, plans to double in size by next year and has South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria in its sights after signing up 13 new franchisees in as many months.

This three year old man-in-a-van air conditioner cleaning business has already extended its footprint interstate with franchises in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

The cleaning concept was developed by Dean Gebert who saw an opportunity to systemise a speedy, easy way to service and clean split air conditioners. John Sanders partnered with Gebert in 2009 to form HydroKleen Australia.

By 30 June 2011, the company had 11 franchisees with 34 employees, and Sanders’ partner Sharon Jurd had bought Gebert ‘s 50 percent share holding and directorship.

Jurd has both business and franchisee experience, a Diploma in Franchising, and with Sanders also operates the Gold Coast HydroKleen franchise.

According to Jurd, expansion of the brand has come through strategy and the implementation of the right systems.

“Now that they’re in place and have been proven to work, we can build on them to further our franchise base significantly,” she said.

“We’ve proven in the past that we can expand our business rapidly, and even though we’re still a relatively young company, I strongly believe we can continue on this trajectory to have a total of 25 or 26 franchises by this time next year.”

HydroKleen has developed its own technologies and environmentally-friendly cleaning products.

“This has given us a real point of difference against other service providers, and now we take a lot of pride in being able to tell our customers that our products and processes are developed in-house in order to provide them with the best results.”

The company is also committed to corporate social responsibility, Jurd added.

“Both John and I have been personally active within charities and community groups, and it’s an ethos that we wanted to extend to our business,” she said.

“I’m always in contact with our staff throughout the company, and there’s a real sense of teamwork that permeates through everything they do.

“It’s the reason I’m as confident as I am that we can double in size by next year.”