Rachel Ray’s story is one of resilience, faith, and entrepreneurial spirit. From transforming her cleaning business into a multi-million-pound enterprise to selling it for seven figures, her journey offers valuable insights for business owners. Now helping others achieve their ambitions without losing their soul, Rachel’s path from accountant to successful entrepreneur showcases what’s possible with vision and determination.
The interview took place at Smiley Happy People – Altrincham HQ’s networking event for inspirational business owners.
Formative Years: From Privilege to Perspective
Rachel’s childhood took an unexpected turn when her parents divorced. “I grew up in the Wirral and went to a private school,” she explains. “But when my parents split up when I was about 13, we moved into a flat. It wasn’t a grotty flat, but it was a single mum with me and my sister.”
This transition proved eye-opening rather than traumatic. “It showed me that status and homes and money is not what it’s about. It’s about family life, and we all laugh. My mum was amazing, and we had a great time. It probably just made me realize all of the other stuff is quite superficial, isn’t it? It’s who you are and your family and your beliefs and the connection that counts more than anything.”
Rachel witnessed firsthand the entrepreneurial struggles that would later inform her own business journey. “My mum worked hard because she was a single mum, so she tried different businesses, some of which failed. I remember her crying because her partner in a printing business had ripped her off. I was about 16, so I saw the highs and lows.”
Finding Faith Among Atheists
Despite growing up in a non-religious household, Rachel felt a spiritual curiosity from an early age. “When I was little, I always just used to look at the stars and think, well, there must be more to life. I was obviously a deep thinker – I’m talking like when I was seven – but I guess you have a bit more of a child-like openness.”
This spiritual search led to a pivotal moment at age 12. “One of my friends at school was a Christian, and she was telling me about Jesus. I was sitting in my bedroom, and I thought, ‘if you’re real, God, come in. I want to know. I want to have peace.’ And it just happened for me. I really felt quite a sense that God was with me.”
Her family’s reaction was skeptical. “My family weren’t into that at all, so they just gave me stick. I remember saying to my Nana when I was about 14, ‘every morning, I’m going to get up and read a Bible verse and pray.’ She was like, ‘let’s see how long that lasts.’ So I quite often think, ’40 years!'”
This daily practice has remained central to Rachel’s life. “First thing in the morning with my cup of tea, I just spend time with God, pray, write in my journal, and that has just been foundational to me. It helps me keep peaceful, grateful and focussed.”
Forgoing University for the ‘Real World’
While many of her peers followed the expected path to university, Rachel had different ideas. “I just questioned things. I thought, ‘well, why would I want to go and, in my perception then, waste three years at uni floating around? I want to get on with the real world. I want to move to London. I want to earn money.'”
Her decision was partly a reaction against the expectations of her grammar school. “You know that mindset of ‘everyone needs to be a lawyer or everybody needs to be a doctor or everybody needs to be an engineer’ – for some reason, they wanted us all to be engineers. I didn’t even know what an engineer was, but I just didn’t want to be pushed.”
Instead, she chose a practical path. “Somebody I knew talked about training as an accountant. I just remember thinking, ‘well, that’s practical. I’m good at maths. Okay, I’ll train as an accountant.’ So I moved to London and worked for a company and trained.”
An Unusual Introduction to Accounting
Rachel’s first job offered an unexpected education. “I’m literally like 18, moving to London, and I get this first job as a trainee accountant on Marylebone Road. I’m excited to get the tube and get off at Baker Street and feel all grown up.”
After a couple of years, Rachel moved to one of the big London accounting firms, “probably the biggest accounting firm in the world,” but soon discovered corporate life wasn’t for her. “I just don’t like that corporate life and the marble floors and the pretension. I remember one of the bosses saying, ‘I looked at my swimming pool last night and my house, and I reminded myself that I’d got this because I was so f**king intelligent.’ I didn’t want to stay around in a place that looked down on others.”
Business Consultancy and Valuable Lessons
Moving into business consultancy with a company that had great ethics, provided Rachel with principles that would serve her well. One key concept was “Start with the end in mind,” from Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits” book.
“We brainstormed – what’s your exit strategy? What’s this business look like when it’s done? Where are you going with this business? As a trainee consultant, you just learn the process. So that’s what we did, and obviously it stuck with me for when I then started my own business.”
Another transformative principle came from her Australian employers: “Blame a process, not a person.”
“What I loved about it is it really helped people become innovative, and it prevented blame culture. When there’s a mistake and everyone’s like, ‘blame them,’ and pointing fingers… but with ‘blame a process, not a person,’ everybody would go, ‘Oh, well, this went wrong, but let’s be really forensic about it. Let’s retrace our steps. What went wrong in the process?'”
The result was more creativity and teamwork. “We’d put it right and fix it, come up with innovative ideas, and we definitely had much more of a team spirit because there was no blame culture. We knew we weren’t going to get shot down in flames.”
Meeting Rob and Starting a Family
During this period, Rachel met her husband Rob, whom she describes as a “cockney geezer,” though they met in an unexpected place. “Funny enough, I actually met him in church. He backpacked around the world for 12 years, which I think is a bit extreme – 80 countries. But he’d become a Christian and came along to this class that I was running, we hit it off and continue to have a laugh 25 years later.”
Their relationship led to marriage and eventually two daughters, now 20 and 22. “I started our Bright and Beautiful business here in Altrincham when they were two and four.”
Bright and Beautiful: From Concept to Success
Rachel’s entry into her own business came through her husband’s property maintenance company. “Rob had a property maintenance business – gardening and refurbs and all that sort of stuff around Altrincham. Then one of his clients said, ‘Would you do cleaning services?'”
Her approach was to create the service she herself would want. “I just imagined the service that I would love. I wanted my home organized and cleaned from head to toe, and I wanted the beds made like a hotel and staged and organized and my laundry done.”
From the beginning, Rachel thought like a business owner and developing a team. “When the client said yes, immediately I’m thinking, ‘I need to employ housekeepers. I need to develop the system.'”
The business grew, expanding beyond Altrincham. “The demand was growing. We would win new clients, and they started to be in Macclesfield, out into Cheshire and Wilmslow and into Manchester.”
Ethical Business in a Challenging Time
When Rachel started Bright and Beautiful, she and Rob were facing significant financial pressure. “We ended up accumulating debts, and it was a really scary time. Anyone that’s been in significant debt knows it’s probably one of the hardest things to go through because of the anxiety. We’d just bought a home. Our girls were little. Could we pay the mortgage? That weight and even the shame and anxiety were really overwhelming.”
Rather than just cutting costs, Rachel chose growth. “I knew the only way was up. I wasn’t just going to count the pennies and try to minimize our debts. I was like, ‘well, we’ve got to grow something to pay off our debts and thrive” I could see that Bright and Beautiful was working on a mini level. I’d done the numbers. I could see a certain amount of marketing produced a certain amount of income.So I chose to keep on reinvesting for growth”
A key differentiator was ethical employment. “I was passionate about employing people ethically because the cleaning industry is notoriously exploitative. Workers don’t really get their rights. They’re often in agencies where they’re very isolated and lonely. For us, we were like, ‘it’s a team of three. They’re trained professionally. There’s uniforms. They’re together. There’s rapport. We transport them. All the employment rights are done properly.'”
The Franchise Decision
Geographic expansion soon created challenges. “The limiting factor became travel time. How far can you travel and be cost efficient? So at that point, I’m thinking, ‘Okay, we’re limited by geography.'”
Franchising became the solution, though it required investment. “I went to the British Franchise Association because I’m thinking, ‘what’s best practice?’ I was introduced to a woman who had a franchise consultancy up in the Northeast, and she worked with me to develop the model.”
Marketing as the Engine of Growth
Rachel attributes much of her success to strategic marketing. “Marketing and PR are an essential part of a business. I always think it’s the engine room of your business. I think you have to have a strategic marketing plan with lots of components.”
Beyond functional benefits, she focused on emotional storytelling. “People connect with the story and the authentic purpose. On the surface, what can you say about a cleaning business? Doesn’t seem very exciting, does it? But I knew that it was transformative for my clients.”
A survey revealed that “90% of household chores are done by women, even when both partners work full time,” highlighting a pain point that her service addressed. “It’s busy families, isn’t it? Both partners work. It’s a cause of bickering. It’s a cause of friction. Part of it was coming home to an orderly home and being able to spend time with your kids and family in an amicable way.”
Managing Growth and People
As Bright & Beautiful expanded to 55 franchises and over 500 employees, people management became crucial. “For a lot of people, the limiting factor in growing businesses is fear of either employing your first person or fear of expanding your team. You’ve got so much legislation and expectations as an employer.”
Rachel’s approach combined compliance with motivation. “You’ve got to have the legal compliance of doing things ethically and some of those legal processes, such as grievance procedures – actually can help you manage people if they are done well. But I think you’ve really got to work on the motivations. Why do people want that job? What does it do for them?”
For franchisees, selecting the right ones became critical. “I had to be very clear on who they were, what was the avatar? Initially, I was just excited that people want to buy my concept, but I soon realized that hard work meant very different things to different people.”
This led to a highly selective recruitment process. “Eventually we were getting about 100 leads a month, going through a refinement recruitment process and only taking on two franchises out of that 100.”
Competing on Value, Not Price
When asked how she dealt with competing against lower-priced competitors, Rachel emphasized her value proposition. “You’ve got to focus on value for the client. Even when people care about ethical stuff, it doesn’t mean they want to pay loads more for less service.”
Security was one differentiator. “Strict security – who are you going to give your keys to, to come in your home when you’re out? We had layers of security, whereas a sole trader – cash in hand lady, Jill with her bucket, nice as she is, who knows what she does with the keys?”
Efficiency was another advantage. “We had a carefully planned process to follow with a team of three, so that they did more in a working hour than Jill, who might be having a cup of tea and a chat..”
The Seven-Figure Exit
Eight years after founding Bright & Beautiful, Rachel sold the business for a seven-figure sum. “I think I felt that I’d done as much as I possibly could in the cleaning sector, and there was nothing else I could do to make the brand better or improve it. I just wanted a new challenge.”
The sale process took about a year, with the hardest part being secrecy. “You can’t tell your team or your clients or anybody. Because I’m an open person with an open team spirit, it felt difficult.”
The company was acquired by a large American franchise group. “We sold to a big American company called Neighborly that owns quite a number of different franchise groups. We had to do almost six months of due diligence. It’s almost like everything I’d ever thought for the previous 10 years or ever written down on paper, they wanted to know.”
Life After Sale and New Beginnings
After selling the business, Rachel took time for family and travel. “The girls were like mid-teens, and someone had once said to me, ‘your kids leave home sooner than you think, so spend as much time with them as you can.’ We did a lot of world travel – China and Japan and Hawaii- lots of trips to different countries.”
She also pursued further education. “I did a post-graduate master’s in leadership, which was really interesting – ethical business strategy, psychology of emotion and wellbeing, and that whole holistic thing of how to have a good mindset in business, how to grow a business without it affecting your health negatively.”
This led to her current venture, Chromia Collective. “I really want to help other businesses grow, whether they’re small start-up solopreneurs or well-established businesses that are planning for the long-term exit.”
Chromia Collective: Helping Others Succeed
With her daughters now grown up, Rachel has focused on developing Chromia Collective. “We run business-building events, some for smaller businesses, where there’s some business value, a business topic, and interaction to help businesses grow and collaborate. We also provide strategic consulting to more established businesses who are looking to scale, build value or exit, of course with a particular niche of helping franchisors grow their networks, building the culture as well as profits.”
Her work centres on balancing ambition with wellbeing. “I love helping people find their authentic purpose, like what makes your business uniquely you, but also helping people separate themselves from their business.”
This separation is crucial for both business value and personal wellbeing. “When we talk about exit and value, there’s an element where you have to gradually go, ‘Okay, what would this business look like if I wasn’t in it? How can I structure it so that it’s beyond me?’ For a lot of business owners, that’s quite difficult to do, but I help them go on that journey.”
Rachel’s philosophy is holistic. “Body, mind, soul, spirit – we’re not one-dimensional, are we? I think that’s when burnout happens to people. One of the things I love is to help business owners structure so it’s not all dependent on them, they’re not wearing themselves down. Looking after your health and wellbeing needs time and resources, doesn’t it? So, structuring your business properly supports that.”
From a teenage girl who chose her own path, to a successful entrepreneur helping others build sustainable businesses, Rachel Ray’s journey exemplifies how faith, determination, and ethical principles can create both prosperity and purpose.
To connect with Rachel Ray connect with Rachel Ray on LinkedIn here
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelrayuk/
With over 90 attendees, Smiley Happy People continues to be a standout networking event in Altrincham, bringing together inspiring speakers like Rachel who share their real-world insights and practical advice. A big thank you to Rachel for her engaging talk, and to all the attendees who make these events so impactful!
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