The Real Franchise – Ep20 – Quick Fire Questions

Rhiannon
Hello and welcome back to The Real Franchise, a video series designed to deliver really information, real answers and real insights into franchising. This series is brought to you by James Home Services Australia. I’m the CEO and Justin is one of our owners and our head of new businesses. Together in this series, we tackle all of the big topics unscripted, unplanned and unfiltered.

No sales and no fluff. We just give you the information straight up. Today’s topic is kind of not a topic. It’s actually a quickfire 20 questions. A few months ago, Inside Business Franchise Magazine released a list of 20 questions that you should ask your franchise. Or if you’re making inquiry about joining their network. Now, in true James fashion, we don’t gatekeeping information.

So instead of putting the onus on you to ask us the questions, we thought, hey, why don’t we just ask the questions and record it and make the information publicly available so that you can find it if you’re looking for it and if you’re interested. So to that end, I have the list of 20 questions on my site.

Justin, if it’s okay with you, let’s just dive straight in.

Justin
Let’s go because I haven’t even read them all, so this will be good.

Rhiannon
Okay. We’re going to get some very unscripted answers today. And we certainly deliver in this series on what we say we’re going to do. Timely answer. All right. Question number one. How long was the business operating before it became a franchised network?

Justin
That’s a great question. So it’s been a long time ago because we’ve been a franchise for over 30 years. So a guy called Robert James, started the franchise. Hence James Home services. And he started by actually trying to build a second stream of income through cleaning cars. And so he was literally door knocking that business area in, Calandra, on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland and picking up, you know, doctors and whatever cleaning, detailing their cars on site.

And we’re starting to get a little business going. One of the customers that he picked up was a guy called Greg Gardner. You might have heard of GJ Gardner Homes. And, so they’re, you know, a worldwide franchise building franchise now. And Greg Gardner said to Robert, because Robert was a bit of a young guy back then and said, you’ve got something good here.

How about we create a franchise? And Greg Gardner put it up? I think it was $20,000 to start the franchise in 1993, and it sort of grew from there. From cleaning cars as a car cleaning franchise. And now by far our biggest franchise, as you know, is is cleaning. So we do cleaning and lawn and garden care services, particularly around two big ones.

So that’s where it came from.

Rhiannon
Yeah, it’s actually kind of rare these days to find a company that has been operating, consecutive for more than 30 years in this country. And, it’s kind of a big deal. You know, the sustainability factor there is, is significant. I think it’s lovely for us to be able to say we’ve got all of that history. Yep.

All righty. Question two how experienced is the franchise our team. I think what that means is head office and especially the people that, responsible for supporting the franchises.

Justin
So we as have a unique business model, all of our franchisees. And I think there’s a lot of question I have a business coach working with them. All of our business coaches currently have over ten years of experience in the franchising industry, particularly in working with these sorts of businesses. So you’ve got a wealth of experience that will be supporting you if you join a network.

Myself, I was a franchisee myself. I joined my wife and I joined James in 2010 after going through the same sort of information process. So we’ve been with the network for 15 years. Yourself, you’ve got years and years of experience in marketing and business management and all those sorts of things. I think Joe, who runs a call center, has been with James now for over eight years.

I don’t know, news.

Rhiannon
Yeah, it would be that. Yeah. So we’re thrilled that she’s been working in customer service. Essentially her entire career, that there isn’t anything customer service that Joe doesn’t know. Yeah.

Justin
Yeah yeah. So we do not need.

Rhiannon
115 years experience our bookkeeping. An accountant. She’s got 15 years experience. I’ve got ten years experience in senior management. And I’ve got previous experience in business management as well as small business service based management as well. So even though this is my first CEO position, I certainly have earned my stripes in the throughout my career and worked in a variety of different roles that have given me a lot of different experiences across the different operational verticals.

So, it’s it’s interesting to consider that the CEO mate may well be the least experienced in the network in terms of actual length of tenure and position. But, you know, I think that brings a nice, fresh perspective and a lot of different discipline. But overall, we, we offer up a pretty impressive team, actually. I pinch myself often thinking it’s pretty fortunate that we have such a powerful head office team.

There’s no one. There’s no one in training. There’s no one junior. There’s no one. Yeah. There’s there’s no one with less than ten years of experience in what their current role is, which which is impressive. We are a small but mighty team, that’s for sure.

Justin
And one of the things I’m very proud of is we bought the national business one half years ago. Yep. And, we haven’t lost any stuff. We’ve, we’ve got, we’ve grown and stuff, but yep, we’ve got the same individuals, you know, and I think that’s extremely rare in any organization these days. You know, we have people that love their roles, that throw their heart and soul into supporting our franchises.

Rhiannon
Yeah. For a company to have zero turnover in staff is practically unheard of across a full four and a half year period. I, I don’t know, another company that can boast that same, position. So yeah, I’m, I’m really proud of that because there’s that old saying, you don’t leave your job, you leave you boss. And I think that means that, you know, the leadership and where we’re taking the company.

I think it demonstrates the collegiality in how we lead. And, you know, the it’s a it’s a nod to a horizontal structure. You know, and and just how well we work together and how much mutual respect there is throughout the team. So that’s something I’m really proud of actually. All right. Third question. What is your financial investment in the business.

Just and this is definitely a you question being our head of new businesses.

Justin
Well I thought this this could be answered in two ways because under the subscription model we actually invest in the franchisees business. So yeah, in the beginning, if you join us under a subscription, we have a much larger financial investment in your business than you do. You know, in a sense, we’ve put up the dollars to help you get started.

So, we have a very, very motivated to see you succeed. And in that manner, I don’t think I can’t think of any other franchise that has that sort of model. But I think where the question’s going is me personally as a franchise or what financial investment do I have?

Rhiannon
No. Well, I think actually the question is like, what does it cost to get in as a franchisee? I think, yeah, I think this is a question for the franchisees asking. And I think that, the purposes what is the franchisee you got to put on the table?

Justin
So under subscription, a thousand plus GST.

Rhiannon
Yeah, simple. And if you, if you would like to buy your business upfront, that’s an option with us and our interior cleaning and lawn and garden care models. 26,000 plus GST. And that’s entirely your choice as to which way you go. I mean, for obvious reasons, we have most of our new franchisees joining under the subscription model, but as you mentioned before, actually what that means is we invest in you.

We spend over $10,000 in the first three months. You’re in our network getting your business started and providing you with the equipment and the marketing collateral that you need. So we are highly motivated to make sure that you succeed as a business, because if you don’t, then, we’re the ones with the cash on the line. It’s a very unique position that there’s no other network in the country that I’m aware of that has flipped the tables.

And instead of asking for that upfront contribution, has said, do you know what we’ve got? This will cover the upfront, and then let’s just work together so that you can build a really successful, sustainable business. And then we both win. Yes. Yeah. Alrighty. Next question. Who owns the intellectual property.

Justin
We do to end time services?

Rhiannon
We do. We’ve worked so hard to build it. We do. And I guess really I might just explain for anybody listening intellectual property. What is it in a real practical sense, intellect property is our system how we build your business. It’s our brand, how we look, how we present to the marketplace. It’s our computer systems. It’s all the stuff that isn’t physically touchable as an asset.

Like a couch is an asset. A mirror is an asset. It’s a physically touchable thing. But what our assets are in, James, is the system that we train you in. And it’s our IP is our system, it’s our resources. It’s how we coach you. It’s how we follow guidelines to help you develop your business and all of that.

We’ve developed over the company’s 30 year history, and we retain ownership of it. And in very simple terms, what a franchise agreement does is it permits you to use our system, our brand, our teachings, our training and our coaching in order for you to operate a business using all of those things.

Justin
All right. Yep, yep.

Rhiannon
Okay. Next question. When was the last brand refresh?

Justin
I’ll let you answer that one because that’s right. And you will.

Rhiannon
Well that is my space. Two things I’m passionate about marketing and law and I did both at uni and marketing. It speaks to the creative side of my brain and law speaks to the practical, pragmatic, logical side of my brain. We refreshed our brand throughout 2020 and 2021, and we have undergone continuous improvements and refinements to how we’re presenting ourselves to the market ever since.

I think what this question is asking is, because a risk in a lot of franchise networks is that you join and then the franchise or six months later says, guys, total brand overhaul, right? And your shopfront, your vehicle, your collateral, everything about your business. You’ve got three months to make sure that you’ve replaced every bit of branding to be the new branding.

So I think what this question is saying, ask your or if there’s a risk that they’re going to pull that stunt on you. Yeah. You know network. No there’s no we refreshed our logo and our look in our field three years ago. We are really comfortable that it is still reflects a very professional representation to the market.

We’re not going to refresh our logo at any time in the near future. We will always continue to update the resources that you use, the marketing collateral that you use. But we’re not going to swoop in and just make a demand that you update things willy nilly. That’s not how we operate. Yeah. All right. The next question, what actually is, is a good one for you.

And I think really it’s going to speak to our lawn and garden care business model. What peaks and troughs are there in the business. Yeah.

Justin
So lawn and garden of is that’s one of the challenges particularly for people in their first year is it is a seasonal business. You know, mainly revolving in Australia around our rain and warmth. So, you know, for the southern states, you know, it’s as soon as it starts to warm up, things obviously get busier. So for example, you and I agreed we won’t start a Wollongong business in, in most of Australia between my and August.

Right. So if someone inquires then we’ll go through the process. But we’ll have a start date probably September so that they starting in spring and can have that full spring summer period to build up the customer base and then to put in place the thing we call it. And then the training, we train our people in banking jobs for winter.

Yeah, right. So they’ll they’ll then go into their first winter, and minimize that decrease. Cleaning. I often get that question is there seasonality in, in cleaning business. And and quite honestly and I’ve had, you know, three cleaning businesses myself and James. No. It does get busy before Christmas. You know, you’ll get a lot of people, you regulars, like, hey, I need a spring clean.

I’ve got family coming this day. Can you get the so you get a lot of that pre-Christmas. But really it’s just consistent. Nice to get customers a weekly or fortnightly and you’re there consistently all year round.

Rhiannon
Yeah we do say and, and if I talk kind of national figures because that’s kind of what I, what I look at and I look for observing trends. And at a national level for our cleaning businesses, there’s a natural lull between Christmas and New Year. However, I believe that’s reflective of our business owners choosing to take time out of that business and spend it with their families during that holiday period, rather than a decrease in demand.

Because what I say throughout end of January, February and March is actually our busiest periods in terms of inquiry and then services completed for our interior cleaning. And and whilst it’s an increase, it’s really only a marginal one. And it’s not to say that there’s seasonality, it’s just to say that there seems to be a natural slight increase in inquiry in those first three months of the year, and I always just kind of put that down to people start new jobs in the new year.

And then I think, you know what? I’ve taken a step up in my job. I can now afford a cleaner or my job has taken a step up in the demands it has on me. So I need a cleaner for my own sanity. I don’t have time anymore. People start New Year’s resolutions. I’m going to keep my house tidy or I’m going to give myself time back in the week.

So we kind of just fall into that, I think. Can we say a natural slight increase?

Justin
Yeah, yeah. All right.

Rhiannon
Next question. Are there financing arrangements. And I think this is specifically asking from the franchisees perspective.

Justin
From a franchisees perspective I guess absolutely. Our subscription model, I think is could be classed as a way of financing your business. And I think it’s a much less risky because, because I often have people say to me always on a subscription just to line that, and it’s like, no, because you can cancel a subscription anytime, you know, if you take out a loan for, you know, let’s say it’s 26,600 for the cost of one of our, franchises.

You take a loan out for that. If you cancel, you know you’ve got the loan, you’ve still got to pay the full amount under the subscription model. You know, you can cancel the subscription itself any time, and you’ll just have to pay at least a total of two years, you know, so it’s not a loan. But it is a financing arrangement, I guess you could say.

Would you agree?

Rhiannon
Yeah, you could term it as that. I guess it would be a lot of people that do simply say it is that to two things I think are important is it’s not there’s no loan agreement in place. There is the subscription is covered off under our franchise agreement, but it’s not a separate loan agreement. And then the thing is that there’s not an interest.

Yes. Element that’s payable. It’s just a weekly fate. So, yeah, I think those two things kind of separate it from your typical loan. There’s no loan agreement and there’s no interest payments. But if we look at it and we’re kind of honest about it and yeah, it is just another way to get someone into a business, that’s another way to get an opportunity to access business ownership.

And so yeah, it is kind of a financing agreement. It’s just not really atypical of a loan.

Justin
Yeah, yeah. And we do have, businesses that we work with that for leasing. You know, we get some of the guys that want to upgrade and get a bigger lawn and garden trailer. Well, we have an organization that provides leasing finance on those sorts of things. So yeah, that’s there’s that available as well. But that’s not so much us doing it anymore.

Rhiannon
Yeah, yeah. Next question. I might take this one because it’s kind of a simple one. Are there any owned units in the chain? No there aren’t. We don’t own or operate any of the businesses in our network. We just simply our model just simply does it. Have that as part of our strategy? Our purpose is very much to give individual families in this country the opportunity to own and operate their own business.

And that’s our purpose, and we’re focused on that. So you’re never competing against a business that way. Own and operate. They don’t exist. We don’t own and operate any businesses in our network. They’re all independent business owners. Yeah. How many franchisees renew their agreements? Do you want to take that one?

Justin
Yes. Because so I, my wife and I first joined Giants as regional franchise owners. So over 15 years now we’ve had a lot of people in know agreement, most and most common agreements a five year term. So we’ve had many, I would say in our region about half renew over time. And then of the remaining half most.

So, you know, prior to the, renewal coming up, you know, particularly in North Queensland with the heat I find a lot of long ago is after 4 or 5 years, I like Justin, but my body, it can take another wet season, you know, and put their business up, sell their business and move on. Yeah. Occasionally people don’t renew and move on, which, I’ll be honest, I can never understand.

Like from my own self. You put your heart and soul into a business. You built an asset. I simply don’t understand. People walking away, you know? And it’s it’s it’s almost like buying a house and then just walking away from it, like, wouldn’t you put it on the market? And so and yes, you might in for a find a buyer instantly.

That’s the other thing for people to keep in mind. You need to be realistic. You know, you could have someone just rang up straight away, but it might take 6 or 12 months. In fact, we just took out a couple that just sold their business. We’re talking about the dinner last night. That just sold a lawn business with us.

And yeah, they advertised for about 12 months and a great couple of just bought it, just finished the training and taken over.

Rhiannon
Yeah.

Justin
Sorry. That’s probably a long answer to a simple question.

Rhiannon
Not not I think more information is great. I think if we’re just giving two word answers, we’re not necessary, being full and completing the information that we’re giving, maybe another one for you, who will be the main point of contact for me as a franchisee?

Justin
Okay, every franchisee in our network has their own business coach dedicated to them. So there’s four points of contact. Nine point first call is your business coach. You’ll also have someone deliver a practical training and you’ll develop a relationship with that individual. You can contact them at any time. You’ve got Joe at the call center. You’ve got the other head office team.

You know, that you can contact people like yourself, myself. And then you’ve got the franchise network around you as well. But your main point of contact, your business coach.

Rhiannon
Yeah. And your business coach is critical in the success of your business because if you’re coming in, particularly without a lot of experience in running a business, or frankly, if you’re coming in with no experience, any business coach, they are the door to all of the information and the training and the support and the intelligence that you need in order to actually run a successful business in our network.

So your business coach is a lifeline. Your business coach will, you know, they’ll be your biggest cheerleader. And then they’ll also be the one to, help you to understand where you can make improvements and tweaks to what you’re doing as well. So, you know, it’s a really constructive relationship. And, they really do make an enormous amount of difference.

And we say that those franchisees that really engage wholeheartedly with their business coach, they get so much out of that relationship and they ultimately end up being being more successful than someone who disengages from their business coach. You know, that work? Definitely.

Justin
Yeah.

Rhiannon
All right. How do franchisees and the franchise or connect with each other in the network? I think that’s another you question.

Justin
Yeah. So as a franchise or myself, I personally work everybody through the information process to joining. So I get to know I can honestly say I know every single franchisee in a network because I’ve walked the journey with through with them. So, you know, our franchisees, I hope all feel comfortable. They can call me at any time.

But yeah, we will have spent if you’re looking at joining James, we’ll spend 8 to 10 hours at least together before you join. And then through that joining a training process, it’s it’s almost like a passing on to the business coach, from myself to the business coach, that transition happens. So then you’re working with your business coach as you were just alluding to?

Rhiannon
Yeah. You know, and also, we you know, you mentioned before that they have a practical trainer. Every franchisee has a practical trainer. So that’s the person that actually trains you physically. And how to do the work either in cleaning or your own jobs. That person becomes just an absolute wealth of knowledge to you. And we hear often that our friend and your franchisees really lean on that connection over the first 3 to 4 months, particularly of their business.

Because if you’ve got questions about, hey, what what product do I use on this particular stain here? Or I’ve got, you know, an oven that’s just being a little bit stubborn. What you know, what do I do here? Then they go first for a call often for those sorts of things. So there’s a good relationship between your practical trainer and yourself.

A really practical one. In terms of connecting with other franchisees in the network, you’ve probably connected with a few. On the way through our information process, we do a what we call a zoom around where you actually get introduced to 3 or 4 other current franchisees in our network, in your service, and you can connect with them at any time you give them their contact details, you can reach out to them.

You can ask more questions you can get on the phone. We also have a closed Facebook group that all our franchisees are part of. And, and, and that’s often a really great place for you to connect to other franchisees as well. So there’s there’s no limit to the ways that you can connect. We don’t get keep everybody’s information from each other.

Also you can go online on our website and you can find franchisees that any you and you can find the contact details and you can reach out to them and catch up for a coffee or catch up over the phone. You, given all of the information and it really is up to you just how much you connect with the other franchisees in the network.

Yeah. All right. I’d love to take this next one because it’s a big question. How do you help underperforming franchisees? I’m going to start right back at ground zero. I’m going to start like before you’re even a franchisee in our network. We go through a thorough assessment process to identify whether you are the right fit. You have a good attitude and the right level of willingness that we need for somebody in our network.

And we really try and make an assessment before we approve you, that you are someone who carries the characteristics of a successful business owner in our network. That’s the first thing we do to help underperforming franchisees is we actually try not to have underperforming franchisees. Then we have what’s called an onboarding process. And you alluded to this before, Justin, where it’s not that you handballs somebody over to the business coach.

It’s actually a very highly managed transition process. It’s like passing the baby. You don’t get just dumped by Justin once you’ve signed your franchise agreement, it’s a very thoroughly sought out process because my pet peeve is when, you know, I’ve gone through an on an information process or a sales process with a company, and then I literally just hand ball me to an account manager, and I feel like they just don’t care about me.

And we go to the other extreme to make you feel like we we genuinely do care because we do. So we go through a transition process to your business coach again to try and set you up for success. Then you are inducted into a 12 week accelerated startup program. We have a set coaching and training plan. We have targets for you to hit.

We do not allow you to move to the next week before. We have committed to all of the things and covered all of the content that we needed to with you in that week. Our focus is to keep you focused, keep you on track, keep you level with your pace, going through the onboarding process as well. Then we have a plethora of resources that we use as coaches internally to help us help you.

So there are lots of resources that help us to determine what your specific breakeven point is. There are resources to help us make sure that we’re helping you to achieve that through practical strategies that address your own weaknesses, and identify and leverage your own strengths. There is so much we do to make sure that we actually don’t ever get to the point of having an underperforming franchisee.

If we do have an underperforming franchisee, it’s identified early. We know by week 3 or 4 whether you’re underperforming or not, and by week 3 or 4, we are identifying that with you. We are diving in and we are locating the areas of concern, and we are coming up with a strategy to help you manage those. We implement a really straightforward action plan for you to follow, and then we work alongside you, and we help in any way we physically can to keep you on track and for your business to see progress.

So I’ve just spent several minutes explaining what our frontward facing activities are, because I think that’s more important than what we do. When you are underperforming, that’s important. We have a system, we have a procedure, and we follow it with you. And the goal obviously is to get you back on track. But actually the ultimate goal is that you don’t get there in the first place.

And we have a really important role to play in making sure that you don’t. So I think most franchisees would just rate that question and they would say, oh, well, when you’re underperforming, we do it and say, but I really wanted to give an answer that says, we do all the things. Before you get to that point, we have all the systems and processes in place to try and avoid that position.

Justin
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Rhiannon
All right. This one’s going to be a quick one. How often will I need to refurbish the store or update equipment? And do you want to take that one?

Justin
Well, we don’t operate stores, so most of our guys work out of a vehicle. So, you know, obviously you’ve got to maintain your vehicle and keep it looking good and that sort of stuff. Yeah. But yes, this updating equipment when your equipment breaks, I know in my own cleaning business, the only piece of equipment that had that sort of thing happened would be the vacuum cleaners.

That generally lasted about three years. And then it was just a motor that needed replacing, which was just a plug in, plug out thing. So yeah. Yeah. Next to nothing.

Rhiannon
Yeah. I think this question is really, aimed at those franchise that are like retail establishments that have a store, frankly, because what can happen is in the franchise agreement, if the franchisor says, hey, we’re doing a brand refresh and therefore, you know, I mean, sort of over the last decade, we’ve seen McDonald’s stores completely refresh, ending, completely refresh and overhaul the look of their stores.

And that’s a cost that is covered by the franchisee. And I think this question is really saying, hey, what extra financial costs could the franchise XL surprise you with? And in our case, it’s not you know, you’re responsible for your vehicle, you’re responsible for maintaining equipment, but there are no other like, surprises we can launch on you guys.

Yeah, yeah. Is there a call center for leads and how are they disbursed? You want to take that one?

Justin
Absolutely, yes. There is a call center. One of the things I love about the network, that was where you advertise your mobile number every way is for me personally, I don’t like being at full center. If I know someone’s local and he’s a number. So a lot of calls will be directed to your mobile. But if someone calls a call center, part of our Butler system that we spend all that money on, you and your business coach will work out what we call a privileged area.

You also have a protected area. So any calls from within that you, as the franchisee will report, receive a text message and an email instantly with all the customer’s details and what they’re looking for, if they’ve given us details.

Rhiannon
Oh, as it happens instantaneously or via technology, it’s a beautiful thing. Two points that I think are important. You’re a lady in your area will never be sent to anybody other than you. You are never competing against another franchisee in our network for that work. We are unique in that way. There are other networks that do not, do not give you that territory privilege.

We do. So if you are talking to multiple franchisees, please ask them that question and make sure you’re comfortable with what the answer is. In our network, your territory is exclusive to you. There is no one else in our network that will ever be sent that customer’s information. It’s just you. And the second thing, we don’t charge for those late.

Justin
That’s the sort we don’t.

Rhiannon
We, you know, you pay franchise phase. We we’re smart enough to incorporate what it costs us to generate leads into your franchise phase. We don’t throw an extra charge on you for that. We don’t think that that’s fair and reasonable. That’s not how we operate. Yeah. Yeah, I think those are two important points to remember when we’re talking about lights.

Yeah. How much control will I have over any ordering and choice of supplier do you want to take.

Justin
That was a really good question. Yeah. One of the strengths of a franchise. You just mentioned McDonald’s. You know, if you want a Big Mac, you know what it’s going to be like whether you order one in Brisbane or Melbourne. There’s that consistency where they should be if they chose it. So for example, where that question is relative to James, all of our businesses around Australia use the same chemicals, okay.

And we’ve managed to negotiate the same price anywhere in Australia. So they charge a flat delivery. I think it’s a dollar, a dollar a kilo or a dollar per liter. So everybody in giants is using the same chemicals. You cannot just go in to Woolies and buy Windex to clean a window. Right. We have great chemicals. By and large, they’re environmentally friendly.

All of that is they they great products. I’ve used them myself for many years. And their cleaning businesses, we still have them at home to even using at home. They’re really good. So to answer that question, you need to use the supplies that James designates. Yeah. All the best stationery comes from the one supplier. All of our uniforms come from another supplier.

Chemicals come from one supplier. There’s consistency. If we find a great product that you think could be useful for James across the network, there’s a process to put that phone so that we can check, you know, to make sure for liability and all sorts of other reasons, that it’s suitable, and the other thing on that point I’ll touch on too, is we not get any kickbacks from any suppliers on any of the products, you know, so there’s purely the products that we say these are the ones to use because we think they’re the best that they and the suppliers give the best support.

Okay. If chemical supplier is, you know, they’re a smaller company, but they support if you have any questions. They brilliant. They go above and beyond every time.

Rhiannon
Yeah. That’s a really important point about us not getting kickbacks because that that can be, another way that franchisors earn revenue in their business is that they control the sale of products to the franchisee, and they that the products are branded their brand. So they are receiving all the proceeds, which means they’re controlling the cost, which means they’re controlling the profit margins, which means that they’re passing that cost on to you as a business, and they are receiving the proceeds from that is another way to boost their bottom line.

And there’s nothing wrong with operating us. That model we choose not to. We choose instead just simply to go out to an open market, select the most competitive supplier so that for whatever we need a broker or a relationship with that company, and then hook the franchisees in our network to that company. Uniform provider is is wonderful.

They have an online portal. You just go online, you order whatever you want from our own little portal. Everything’s branded, everything’s in there. You can’t go wrong. It makes it so easy. As you mentioned, the support from our chemical provider is second to none. Their support is incredible. We have franchisees all the time that, if they’re not quite sure how to deal with a particular stain somewhere, they’ll ring our chemical provider and say, hey, what’s the best product and strategy to use on this?

And he is always available there. So helpful. So there’s absolute perks to your franchise or doing the work to hook you up with great suppliers. And in our network we don’t look to receive any kickback from that. We do it because we think that that’s the best way to help our franchisees run great businesses.

Justin
Exactly. Yeah.

Rhiannon
Will I get any help with staff recruitment and training?

Justin
Absolutely. Do you want to answer that?

Rhiannon
Yeah. Happy to actually, we have we have a whole training menu around assisting our franchisees to grow their business through staff. And very recently, that training manual had a whole evolution and overhaul into a full stage process that we that our business coaches are fully trained and competent in taking. Any franchisee who wants to add staff to their teams through that four stage process.

And the process isn’t just, oh, you want staff, great, let’s go advertise and hope for the best. The process is okay, you want staff all right. Let’s actually do some upfront planning around business growth and development. What are your objectives? Why are you looking for staff? Let’s get the picture straight. Then we do financial assessment. Can you afford staff right now if you can’t right now, what targets do you need to meet in the next 3 to 6 months to be able to afford staff?

Therefore, what growth activities do you need to do in that time? We give you a plan, then we dive into a recruitment process and then we dive into managing an onboarding of that new person process. So, I’m really proud of this new procedure that we’ve got. It’s just, you know, it’s just you put one foot forward in front, you know, just one foot after the other.

It’s just we walk you through a very simple process that makes a lot of sense, and we give you full support in that. We we tell you everything you need to know about how to pay your staff. We give you access to our bookkeeper and accountant in-house. So, you know, to help set up your accounting software for staff training.

In that software for staff. We just try and make it as easy as possible because we’ve got, we have a lot of businesses in our network who are on the fence. Well, I want staff because I want growth in my business, but I don’t know that I know enough about how to employ staff. And so we’ve developed we’ve really evolved our training manual, significantly in the last couple of months.

And in fact, one of our internal goals for 2025 is actually for any of our franchisees who are looking to employ staff, we really want to actually step them through this new four stage process. And really make some strides toward having more staff in more of our businesses, in our network, because the demand from our franchisees for that support is there.

Yep yep yep. All righty. We are down to a couple more questions. What minimum orders or benchmarks do I have to make? I.e. does the French as or stipulate targets that the franchisee must meet?

Justin
Well, that’s a good question. We.

Rhiannon
Don’t we really don’t we? You know, the only target is a target driven by the franchisee. And that target is initially in the first few months. What is your breakeven point? And then after that, what is your ideal weekly revenue? Those targets are not set by us. We don’t have a blanket target. Every franchise business in our network needs to earn eggs.

Every franchise business in our network over two years old needs to employ X number of staff. We don’t have those targets. What we do is work alongside the franchisee to determine, on a very individual basis, what their own business targets are, and then we bespoke build out an action plan and a growth plan to get them toward those targets.

There are franchise networks who have targets for franchisees to meet, and I think that’s what that question is pointing to. Do you guys have targets that you place on the businesses in your network? And we don’t we we think it’s far healthier to be driven by what the franchisees targets. Rather than by us putting a blanket over everyone.

Justin
Yeah. That’s good.

Rhiannon
Is there an optimum time to open a business? Do you wanna take that one?

Justin
Yes. So I’ll speak about are two main ones. So cleaning one of the the only time that I would say not to open, one of the things we’ve learned is you don’t want to be starting just before Christmas, right? Because you go through your training. And we’ve had this happen in the early days where you come out of training, you’re all excited.

It’s a week or two before Christmas, and you’re out there to build your customers, and no one wants to talk to you because they’re either on holidays or they’re winding down or whatever. So we won’t start a business in those two weeks before Christie. Other than that, for a cleaning business all year round is perfect. One God business.

The same applies for that Christmas, a couple of weeks before. And then, as I mentioned earlier, we won’t start someone sort of between May and August. In most states of Australia, just because of that winter factor, that it’s much harder to build through winter because people aren’t looking generally for those sort of services. So we start people in spring.

Rhiannon
Yeah. Effect. If the grass isn’t growing, then people aren’t ringing you to come mow it for them. It’s very, we’ll say, probably an idea to start time to start businesses in the new year, because before I mentioned that the national trend is a slight increase in inquiries throughout that end of Jan, Feb, March, April period. So we do find that businesses that start at the beginning of the year, they benefit from that slight uptick.

Yeah.

Justin
Yeah.

Rhiannon
Question 19 of 20 where almost there. Who finds the site? Very simple. No one. There is no site for a mobile business in our network. So there’s no premises required. So no one finds a site because we don’t need one. And just.

Justin
Sorry, I will add to that every business that has what we call a protected area. Yeah. So that would be the only relevance for us is a particular and that we it together. Yep. Our recommendation is it’s always at Rand. We live from a Google from a marketing perspective.

Rhiannon
Yeah absolutely. Final question, definitely a just in question. What are the criteria you use to select franchises?

Justin
I recommend watching the, the what do you call podcast that we just did. We just did an episode, sorry, the episode that we just recorded, because we answered this particular question. I have about an hour. Yeah. So the main thing we look for is willingness. Willingness to learn doesn’t matter. We talk in this podcast in the episode about skill level.

Doesn’t matter if you have low skills, that that’s not a stress because we help there. It’s that willingness. You got to be willing to learn to take on board, help to follow systems, to be prepared to grow, to be prepared to get out of your comfort zone. Because when you start a business, you’re going to be uncomfortable. Some of the other criteria you’re going to have basic financial, some basic savings behind yourself.

And I guess it’s only $1,000 under a subscription to start. But you need to be able to support yourselves if the business has a slow start and there’s going to be a couple of weeks of training where you’re not earning income, you got to be able to support yourself. And those are the main things that we look for.

Rhiannon
Yeah, and there’s another video that anybody really interested in selection criteria can, check out as well. It’s called the 2% Club. And I believe it was episode one. And it is that of everybody who inquires, only 2% end up joining our network. And that video specifically talks about who is most likely to be successful and what are the selection criteria that we’re looking for.

So that’s a really informative episode to check out if you’re interested as well. Yeah, yeah, that brings an end to the 20 questions. I hope that’s been really helpful for anybody watching. If you if you’re still watching, congratulations on making it this far. You’re obviously, you know, really interested in in learning more about it and networking.

If that’s the case, I would encourage you to watch as many of these episodes as you feel is helpful. Our blog is also jam packed full of really informative articles. We try to only put blog posts up that are actually valuable that, you know, we don’t. We don’t put stuff up for the sake of just putting up a post.

We try and make it really rich in information and we try and make it really honest information. If you’ve got any topics that you ever want us to discuss, throw out in the comments. Justin, did you have anything else to add? We covered. Gosh, we’ve covered ground in this video.

Justin
And if you have any specific questions, as always, feel free to pick up the phone, send me an email, whatever book is and we can catch up one on one. That’s what I do with people. Because it’s a very open, as you can see, transparent process. We just walk people through.

Rhiannon
Yep. That’s it. Well, let’s leave this episode here and thanks everybody again for listening, and we hope that you’ll join us very soon in another episode of The Real Franchise.