Meet Chris Fisher – Founder and CEO of Shine Window Care
How It Started: The Shine Origin Story
Chris Fisher’s Dad was an entrepreneur and ran his own business. Around the age of 12, Chris began to help his Dad, by washing windows. He never imagined that today he’d be the founder of Shine Window Care and offer franchise opportunities in the booming home and commercial services industry to others around the nation!
After helping clean windows in his childhood, Chris continued to capitalize on something he excelled in by working as a part-time window cleaner in college. Chris’ passion for the window cleaning industry grew through working with friends and building meaningful customer relationships. With this in mind, Chris started his own window cleaning business after graduating from college, and the rest was history.
Sharing the Light: Chris’s Decision to Create the Shine Franchise
Chris wanted to create more opportunities for his team members. After reading E-Myth by Michael Gerber, he knew that the systems and organization that franchises implement could take his business to the next level. The benefits were immediately apparent, and Chris thought, “Wow, we have a business that could be duplicated and grow throughout the country using the franchise model.” Shine now has over 50 locations across the US and continues to grow.
Shine Window Care offers services, including window cleaning, holiday lighting, landscape lighting, power washing, and gutter cleaning that homeowners and building managers schedule annually. Your business will grow knowing you can count on repeat and multi-service customers instead of continually needing to seek new ones.
Chris Cultivates an Employee Culture
Anyone who has met Chris knows how much he cares about the people around him. He’s a beacon of light accessible to everybody he comes in contact with. It’s no surprise that the culture of Shine follows in his footsteps. Chris describes culture as, “How a group of people behaves with each other and with their community. In a word, we care. We care for each other and our communities. Shine feels that if we collectively focus on caring, our lights will ‘Shine Bright’. We will build great businesses and we will create a little brighter world.”
One of Chris’ favorite memories is an excellent example of how a company’s culture and values can connect with the community they serve. “There was a woman in her 70’s that stopped by one of our locations and explained how she was experiencing some difficulties in her life and had chosen the word ‘Shine’ to live by for the next year. So, she wanted to take a picture next to one of Shine’s bright red trucks and share it on her Christmas Card with her friends. She was going to choose to Shine.”
Going Beyond the Business: Arrows + Hope
While adopting their beautiful little girl from Ethiopia, Chris and his wife Michelle’s hearts hurt for the poverty and hopelessness they saw, and they knew then that they wanted to help. As a result, they moved to Africa, living in Uganda from 2012 to 2015. Here they were able to offer their support by assisting in business development and orphan care.
When Chris and Michelle left Uganda to move back to the States, they created a ministry named Arrows + Hope focused on restoring hope to orphan children and empowering their caregivers to send them to school. When asked about Arrows + Hope Chris said, “We believe kids are given to us by God to steward and raise with values so that they one day can be like an arrow, shot into the world to impact it for good, sharing their hope with others. Through education, healthcare, business development, love, and discipleship we are seeing those desperate eyes of the hopeless turn into bright shining eyes of joy, filled with hope.”
Today, Arrows + Hope continues to spread the word about the opportunity to sponsor children through our Shine Family and business partnerships. They also take teams of child sponsors to visit the kids they support and experience Uganda firsthand.
What’s Next for Shine?
Chris’ hope for the future is that Shine continues to partner with extraordinary people who desire to share the positive and high-quality services Shine offers in their communities across the country. The current expansion goal is to partner with over 100 franchisees that are committed to sharing their Shine in their local community. Shine has over 150 markets still available and offers a protected geographic region.
Does the idea of being your own boss and building a purpose-filled business that will positively impact your family and your community excite you? Get in contact with a Shine Franchise team member to learn more about what it takes to start your own Shine!
