Meet Ray Pillar, Million Dollar Mentor

by Elizabeth Denham

About Ray

Million Dollar Mentor Ray Pillar is President and Owner Molly Maid of Aurora-Naperville. After years in the high-tech industry, he and his wife made a shift to business ownership and invested in a Molly Maid franchise. After 18 years and several expansions, his business is one of the largest in the Molly Maid family employing 48 hard-working employees. Ray is now semi-retired from the business and enjoys traveling and being part of the Pillars of Franchising Million Dollar Mentor Program and the live stream show.

About Ray’s Career

In the early part of the 2000s, Ray found that the high-tech industry in which he had been employed all his life, was in constant change. Working for a landline telephone equipment manufacturer at a time when the world was moving to cellular technology put the writing on the wall. At age 55, he was laid off. He decided it was too early to retire and even if he wanted to, he did not have enough money in the bank. His decision? To take his father’s advice and invest everything he had in a business. Understanding that statistically, 80 percent of all business start-ups fail, he knew the odds were better when starting in a franchise - an 80 percent chance of success! Deciding to stay away from high tech and food, Ray and his wife invested their savings in the well-known and well-respected franchise, Molly Maid. In the first five years, they invested most of the revenue back into the company, including expanding with two other territories. At that point, the business grew as much as 25 percent some years. Within eight years, they reached the million-dollar level in revenue, and 18 years later, his son and daughter-in-law run the day-to-day operations.

Ray’s Mentorship

Ray started his company with the end in mind and put great managers in place. In the beginning, he worked 60 hours or more each week. Today, he works approximately six per week.

“I rarely get called because I have given authority to my staff to handle nearly everything that needs to be done,” Ray said. “The time I put into the company now, I really enjoy.”

Ray looks forward to passing along the business lessons he has learned along the way.

“President Ronald Reagan said, ‘Trust but verify.’ If someone wants to start living the life of their dreams, they need to learn to work hard now and plan for that time when they can step back from their business,” he said. “I have successfully done that and can help someone onto that path. Don’t let people say, ‘You can’t do that,’ because if YOU think you can you CAN.”