Callum Cruickshank is our Regional Director for Aberdeen West and Co-Regional Director for Edinburgh. He’s 25 and not your average Millennial. He owns two Tidy Green Clean franchises, both acquired since March 2020. Tidy Green Clean Aberdeen West launched 6 April 2020, days after the UK was placed in lockdown. Tidy Green Clean Edinburgh, in partnership with another TGC franchisee, launched May 2021. Callum is smart, ambitious and driven, not just by success but by the values that first attracted him to Tidy Green Clean itself, a people-centred business taking active care of the environment and community in which he lives and works. We decided to tell his story so far…
Tidy Green Clean is the leading environmentally friendly commercial cleaning franchised business with headquarters in Aberdeen and seven franchisees, founded in 2016 by Andrew Alleway and David Moncur.
We are a focused national franchise cleaning operation for blue chip organisations, providing its franchisee Regional Directors with the knowledge, training and support to be successful business owners, a unique business model unique within the facilities management industry. It achieved IS0 9001; 14001; and 45001 in under three years and a place in the top UK franchises, the EF100 for 2020 and 2021. Rooted in green practices and technologies, the business focuses on understanding both customers and employees, and how to be successful without that being at the expense of other people or the planet. It’s the first certified Negative Carbon business in Aberdeen and TGC also has the Achilles UVDB Silver accreditation and are members of the Living Wage Foundation and the BFA.
Callum bought Tidy Green Clean Aberdeen West in the third week of the UK lockdown. You can read his blog about that experience here. He used the quieter first few months to speak to clients who were easier to approach because they were working at home and he built his CRM and finalised his business plan to be in good shape to move forward when things opened up properly and forged good relationships with potential customers. Callum recognises the value of softer skills – empathy, listening, thinking – rather than just focusing on sales patter that turns people off.
Working with TGCHQ’s Business Development team, he found clients open to changing cleaning services, committed to improving their workplace hygiene, and who believe in green values. He is also passionate about the tech solutions that TGC has brought into the cleaning industry, including i-Mops, backpack vacuum cleaners, and environmentally friendly sanitisers and cleaning solutions. Finally he is committed, like TGCHQ, to being a Living Wage accredited employer, and most of his staff are working 30 hours a week, something highly unusual in the cleaning industry.
Clients have responded positively to Callum’s TGC offering and his proactive approach; within this context of the pandemic, it’s been phenomenal to welcome so many new clients and many appreciated that TGC decided to suspend all invoices for clients if they were closed.
The true value of Callum’s cleaning staff is hard to put into words. Many customers have valued TGC Aberdeen West’s approach to the cleanliness of their premises and it’s brought into sharp focus whether their existing provider is doing a satisfactory job. He used the furlough scheme to good effect and has made no employee redundant. He believes his cleaning operatives are outstanding, in terms of both attitude and productivity. In Edinburgh, he has appointed Keith Armstrong as Regional Manager to run day-to-day operations in the business there, understanding customers want a senior person present for any issues that occur.
His biggest risk so far has been investing in a branded Crew Van to transport his cleaning operatives to customers together to help reduce his overall carbon footprint.
Callum works closely with TGC’s outsourced marketing team, initiating new TGC Factsheets for different cleaning areas, which other franchisees are able to adapt for their own use.
He has won key accounts with leading Oil & Gas and construction firms in his region and has recently won the largest cleaning contract in the whole of TGC. It’s a multi-site contract with a team of 13, using lots of technical and innovative solutions to help the client become more effective, environmentally friendly, with robot vacuums being considered to help service this contract.
Callum is building a growing business that creates jobs and opportunities for his local community. He’s passionate about improving life for his team and believes we’ve all got to make changes to help with the environment, which could make a massive difference to the world.
He runs a people-focused business and wants to put something back, supporting a number of local charities in his region and in partnership with other TGC franchisee colleagues.
Callum aspires to run multiple businesses at a high level with opportunities to grow further with other business ventures and idea. Even from a young age, where he sold things to friends at school, he wanted personal success but also success for everyone that works with him in his businesses. He anticipates that some of his cleaners, particularly in Edinburgh, may become local franchisees as a way of developing their own careers through his business. He has been inspired by his dad who is self-employed, and some great bosses, and he wants to offer the same inspiration to his teams.
Callum says,
“Starting a business in the pandemic, I probably wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been a TGC franchise with all their day-to-day support helping with workload and on a personal level. We had daily Zooms to keep us all motivated. As a TGC franchisee, you’re part of a team with your own freedom, so you can bounce ideas off everyone and do your own thing too. The strong relationships we enjoy are a massive thing. I’m delighted to be a TGC franchisee – anyone looking at becoming a franchisee would be foolish not to give them serious consideration.”
