True Independence or the Illusion of It? | The Real Franchise – Ep 52

Rhiannon Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Real Franchise, a podcast that goes where others simply won’t, and unfiltered view of franchising, business mindset and everything that we stand for when it comes to supporting a community of small business owners. Join me, Rhiannon, the CEO for James Home Services Australia, and Justin, one of our owners, as we unpack it all with no topics off limits today.

Today we’re going deep today. Today we are talking about the underlying motivation of our business model. Now, if if any of our listeners have just automatically switched off because I saw a lot of big words. Hang in there. We’re going to explain what this means. Today, what we’re talking about is what are we really trying to achieve with the businesses in our network?

Today is not about talking about the benefits or about our our model in terms of its operational. You know, we start you like this and we get you to this in our coaching looks like this. So now you know pay structure. Looks like we’ve talked about all of that stuff. We’ve talked about all the operational stuff today. What we’re going into is kind of a deep dive into your mind and my mind and the sorts of things you and I talk about when we get together and we talk about the future of our network and what we’re really trying to build and what we’re trying to create in the business owners in our network.

I’m going to start with a very broad question. Take this where you will. What are your thoughts on this topic?

Justin My thoughts on this topic. It boiled down this is what it’s all about in my role every day. You know, I receive we receive hundreds of inquiries every month. I ring every one of them or me or Bella, rings every one of them and have an initial chat and that initial chat is a deep dive into what is this person looking for?

And are we the right business fit potentially for them? Because the reality is, and we’ll get into this now is many times we’re not. And that’s okay. You know, it’s it’s so if you’re listening to this. Rest assured we’ll work through with you, find out what you’re looking for, and we’ll explain very clearly how our business model works.

And it may or may not be the sort of business that you’re looking for. And so, I mean, I’m hoping today in our discussion we can really get into. Have the motivation, I guess, behind our business model and what we’re seeking to help people achieve as a business owner.

Rhiannon Let’s go straight there. You and I spent so much time talking about this as, essentially as the two individuals that have the most to do with creating our our long term strategy for James Home Services Australia. We spend so much time in the weeds together on this exact topic. What is it that we are trying to build here in this network?

Justin We’re trying to. I loved your intro. I noticed that was slightly different to the normal intros of that. You know, it’s about we’re trying to build a community, of small business, owners I love that, you know, the people who are independent, truly independent, and truly in control of their time truly is setting are in control over their business.

Yeah. And I’d love to dig into what we mean by that over the next few minutes. But I I’d love. And for those of you watching this, a lot of these episodes where you meet some of the team and you’ll hear a common theme when I’m talking or when we’re talking to some of our business owners, is I talked about, yeah, they’re working hard, but they’re in control and totally in control of their the whole world is different, and they never go back to the way it was in the past.

And and the things that we equip people with and the sort of people we’re looking that suit this business, the skills that you learn, the wonderful thing about it is they don’t just apply to this business like we are upskilling and equipping people to run any business. Well, I did an episode last night with Ross and Karen, in Brisbane.

So that will go live or on on the real franchise, I guess, in the next few days. But Ross is one of our lawn and garden guys, and he started in February. He’s doing so. He’s doing awesome. His wife has just finished her master’s in social work and has now. She’s been working in the industry for quite many years, and she’s now taken the leap, having seen what her husband has done and achieved.

She’s now taken the leap and started her own business. And she said last night to me, she said in the recording, so you can watch it.

Rhiannon Yeah.

Justin What’s amazing, Justin is, it’s all the same stuff, the same eight steps. I’m just using the same eight steps. She said, but you know what? The challenges for me, Justin, I asked Ross, like when we’re talking about the market. So how did you set up? She said, I’ve had to set up my own web page. How do you set up that?

And she says, I’m getting sick of it because we’re also guys. Oh, James did that for me. I there’s something I had to do, but. Yeah, but what I love about what we’re trying to achieve, and we’re looking for people who who want to grow and genuinely become business owners that are in control.

Rhiannon Yeah, it really is about that. I think it’s so easy for, you know, franchise networks will have the same catch cry, be your own boss, start your own business will do your marketing, we’ll send you leads and will help you grow. Right? It’s all the same. And we’ve been hearing that same messaging for the last, frankly, three decades in this industry.

Today and this episode, I really want to actually offer a more complex level of discussion on what a franchise really is, and particularly from our perspective, because there are some franchise networks that that that is that is what you get. You know, you get a runway, you get some marketing, you get some leads, you get some support.

Great. We’re so different. We’re so different in our thinking of what we’re trying to build. Would it be fair to say that almost every person who inquires with you, one of their underlying motivations for wanting to be a business owner is gaining independence?

Justin Yes. Yep. Work life balance. I think most people say that. Yeah, that I talk to work life balance. Sorry. Let me clarify that. The people who really studio network say that.

Rhiannon Okay. Perfect. Great segue. It’s like you’ve done this before. So let’s dive into that thing. We genuinely seek to create independent business owners. We do that through a lot of different ways. Let’s start to talk about what does true independence look like and what does what I’m going to call false independence look like. As in you can easily market it as independence.

But really it is a dependance on that franchise network for marketing, for leads, for your work, for your income guarantee, those sorts of things. So in our network, what is true independence look like.

Justin Trend and pendants is being I describe it every day when I’m meeting with new people. It’s the big questions. We’re in a business to earn money. So are you actually in control of that? Right. If you are a true business owner that’s independent, you are in control of what you earn. And you mentioned or touched on leads to me.

It’s a classic, right? So many people I speak to in that initial call just want to know how many leads you’re going to give me. Okay. If you’re relying on a company to feed you, leads, you have no control over your income. Because what happens when I start a new business nearby is all those leads. Then go to the new person, and you’re sitting here starving because you don’t know how to feed yourself.

And we hear that. We see that and you’re not. To me, you’re just a glorified subcontractor. You’re not a true business owner.

Rhiannon Yeah.

Justin And so so you need to be able to be in charge of your income and charge your time. So to answer your question about what makes a real independent business owner.

Rhiannon Yeah. Because it’s a contractor or anybody who’s new to this world of considering business ownership of subcontractors, still owns their own business. A subcontractor has an event, they have their own insurances. But essentially when you work as a subcontractor, a lot of the time you just have, say, 1 or 2 really large clients that you do all of the work for.

And so what we mean when we say you essentially end up as a glorified subcontractor is that there are some franchise networks that do simply send you all of the leads. They send you the work that either send you the leads, or they even go to the extent of they turn the lead into a customer and they send you the job.

And when when you’re in a model where the lead or the job is sent to you, nine times out of ten, you’re paying for that lead directly. Or if it’s the job that’s being sent to you, you’re paying either handsomely for that, or you’re paying a significant percentage of the total job value to that organization because they’ve done all the work, right.

They’ve generated the lead that talk to the customer that provided the quote they’ve locked in the time they’ve done all that liaison work with the customer, and then they just simply telling you to show up at a particular day, date time and do the work under those models. You don’t have control of your schedule, you don’t have control of the income you’re making.

You don’t have control of the customers that you’re servicing or the job that you complete or the locations that you would drive to. You are more or less a subcontractor, which is when your pretty much your boss says, hey, Rhiannon, go here and do this. You say, okay, great, no worries. Will do. And I just also want to pause and say, there’s nothing wrong with wanting that.

This is not this episode is not designed to throw shade at anybody who just listened to me summarize that. And if you listen to that summary of a subcontract sale and in your mind you went, yeah, that’s actually what I want. I just want to show up. I just want to do the work. I’m a worker bee. I’m happy there.

I’m great at doing the job. I don’t want to do that other stuff. That is totally fine. Yeah. And what I will say next is we are not for you. And there are lots of other franchised networks out there who really excel at offering exactly that. Yeah, we offer something very different. So what is our difference? Because we are talking about independence.

So what is it that we do that’s very different to what I just described.

Justin Well, the list is a mile long. We we first teach people how to run a business. You know, we talk about our eight steps. You know, how to feed yourself is the day one. You know how to generate leads for your business. We teach you how to quit your jobs so that you’re setting the price right. The examples you just gave.

I know of a couple of organizations that take a 50% franchise fee because they’ve done all the work, etc..

Rhiannon Yes, that.

Justin We teach you to quote the jobs, you set the price, and then you have a coach working with you, going through your key performance indicators in your business and helping you improve your earnings and looking at ways you can improve. And it’s all about helping you grow. We’ll help you expand, you know, if you want to start putting stuff on right, we’re going to help and equip you.

We have systems and processes for that right from looking at can the business financially afford it? When can I afford it? What where do you need to get your business to so you can afford to do these things? We put you in the driver’s seat, give you all the tools and the information so that you with assistance, if you want, you can make a really value, a really wise commercial decision at every step of the way in your business.

Yeah, that’s what we’re looking for. People who want to come on board, take the tools, the resources, the things that have been developed and independently built their own business to whatever level that looks like for them and their goals and what they want to do in their area with their family.

Rhiannon Yeah. We, you and I often talk about, our philosophy at James and it’s a lot bigger than what people would think. Our philosophy is we want to build a community of skilled business owners. Who can do something incredible with those skills? After James.

Justin Yes.

Rhiannon Name another franchise network whose philosophy is actually about encouraging their business owners to think beyond the journey with that franchise network, right? Oh wait, there isn’t one. But that is really at a really high, high, high level. Sky high level. We believe that if we have so much integrity in our business model about setting people up the right way, giving them the right skills, the right training, the right support, the right runway, that not only will they build successful businesses in our network, which then, of course, our model is set up that when we had successful businesses in our network, we are also sustainable as a broad, as a head office and and

an Australian network. We are sustainable when our businesses are successful. But we think that if we have this belief that actually what we do is about causing even better outcomes after someone is with us, then we think that that thinking will trickle down. You know? And if we think about how do we set people up for life after James, it is about building skills.

It is about creating true independence. It is about teaching someone the ins and outs of cash flow and of balancing budgets and of, the intricacies of customer liaison and growth and development of businesses. And when you take those skills, you can apply them to something else, whatever is next to you after James. Because I think what sits alongside that is, the very real reality for us that we are totally comfortable in confronting, in that people will run their James business store.

510 we have people who have been in our network even in excess of ten years, but at some point we know that just as we came together and began operating as business partners, at some point, we will also separate at some point. At some point, the business owner will say to us, it’s been a blast, thank you, but I’m ready for a new challenge now.

And what we hope is that when that happens, that person can take on their new challenge with the skills we’ve taught them, with the independence and the confidence that we’ve been able to create in them, we’ll bring out in them. That’s our hope. That’s our real goal. And if we get that right, then it works. Our model works because our model is set up that we only are sustainable.

We only afford ourselves the opportunity of sustainability and profitability. When we get good outcomes for our business owners.

Justin Yeah, yeah. So true. And I love like I have dozens and dozens of, friends on Facebook. Friends personally that are ex business owners with Jax that I keep in touch with. And it’s just awesome to see what they’re doing now and how they’ve. It’s been like a stepping stone almost. Yeah. To to the next thing and it’s it’s not a bad thing.

You know like you say it’s it’s reality. You know, I talk to everybody when I go through the information, the initial information session with me that right from day one, I believe people should have in the back of their mind that at some point they’re going to want to move on. Yeah. So right from day one, they should be building their business because it’s an asset.

Build it so that and give yourself time to realize again from that asset. Yeah. Yeah absolutely. And that’s the attitude we’re trying to build. The people that just want leads that just want to be a glorified employee. That’s fine. Like you just said, that’s fine for some people, but that’s not our business model. And so many of my initial phone calls are just working through it with people and going, well, no, actually.

And James, yes, we do a lot of advertising, particularly at the beginning for you, but most of your leads will come through what you do, and that’s a shock for many people in that initial phone call. But that’s reality if you want to be in control of your income. Yeah, yeah. You don’t want to rely on James to feed, you.

Rhiannon Know, you want.

Justin Some tools and be quick so that you can grow your income.

Rhiannon Yeah. I think this discussion is sort of going to bring some clarity to a few things for people listening. And that is, you know, the most common question you would get asked is how much can I earn? And of course, the answer to that is how long is a piece of string? And essentially how are you prepared to work?

And the reason, by the way, the reason that our answer is because we don’t guarantee leads. We don’t guarantee that you will earn a certain amount in our network. We teach you the skills you need, and we do. We market for you. We send you leads. We do all of that. Trust me when I say we don’t guarantee leads.

I mean, we don’t put a number on it. But trust me, we are sending you leads and a lot of them. But, you know, the reason we can’t give a set. Hey, this is what you can expect to earn is that we don’t control you. You assume what you’re prepared to work for. You know, your earnings are reflective of the time that you commit to your marketing, the speed at which you follow up your customers.

That’s a big one. You are in control of your quoting process. And so if you really focus on honing your skills in delivering a successful quoting process, guess what? You can charge more. You can charge more for your time just by being skilled at delivering a quote. And this is something that we teach in our training. And we have such a big focus on this area alone in our ongoing training and our, accelerated start up program, because we know that if we can give you this skills, then what you can quote on an hourly right is essentially limitless.

And that puts you truly in the driver’s seat of this business. You know, we’re not stuck saying to you, you know, we’ll we’ll send you all of the jobs, but, you know, the hourly, right? I mean, I’ve seen I’ve seen advertising. There’s a really big franchised network. And I think they’re sort of moving more to just simply employee engaging people as subcontractors.

Now, but one of the larger networks, and they advertise a set hourly rate. Yes. And that hourly rate is less than half of the average hourly rate that our cleaning business owners are making at the moment. And so, you know, if you’re weighing up your network options, that’s something to consider. So the cost, the real cost of having someone do the work for you, you know, delivering all of the leads, delivering the job straight up to the cost of that.

The real cost of that is that your earnings will be capped to a degree. The opportunity on the other side of the fence is when we focus on building skills, understanding knowledge, and your ability to execute on our system at a high level. When we focus on those types of things, your earning is not capped by anything that we do.

Your earnings are only capped by what happens up here for you, and the amount of time and effort you have available to, commit to the business. That really is a difference.

Justin Yeah. And you get to work with the customers that you want to work with.

Rhiannon Yes.

Justin If you’re at a network or if you’ve want, I have many people say to me, no, no, no, you just give me the jobs, you give me the jobs. It’s like, really? You really want that? Like, because then who knows what you’re going to end up with? You’re going to end up with people you don’t want to work with.

You’re going to end up with some jobs that are not when you want to be working, you know? So many of our business owners want to pick up the kids from school.

Rhiannon Yeah. So they don’t want.

Justin To be a friend to work. Yeah, exactly. I want that’s free my door because I’m a business owner. And I said independent.

Rhiannon Yeah.

Justin You know, it’s it’s it’s all those things that it’s like we said in the last episode, you just need to ask a lot more questions. And to be relevant to this episode, you need us a lot more questions of yours. So yeah, what do you really want in a business? What are you really looking for? Because yes, people will say work life balance and or some or other people will be on the other extreme, like I just said, saying, just give me jobs, I want jobs.

Yeah, but is that what you really want? Yeah. You know, and really find out and put it down on paper. Or if you’re your generation, put it on your phone or whatever, what is paper, show your age, Oh yeah. Yeah. And be very clear of why you’re doing this. Why are you researching? I had a great chat just before this episode, with the guy.

In northern suburbs of Melbourne. That’s been a national sales manager in all sorts of roles, but want to work life balance and a and he’s been looking at all different organizations. And it was just really good to talk to him. And just to get some clarity on what actually are you looking for? Why do you really want a business and so I encourage anyone listening to this really be clear, spend some time in your own world to get that clear first before you go looking and researching, and then look for something that’s going to deliver to you what you’re really looking for.

Rhiannon Exactly. I think that’s one of the real strengths of our information process. And when I say information process for anybody unaware, that’s what we call our process. If you’re interested and you make an inquiry, we have a process we take you through because you can’t make a decision about buying a business in two seconds. So we have a process.

We take you through where we share information. We ask you lots of questions. We learn about you too, and we answer all your questions. But one of the real strengths of our information process is the fact that it is so focused, particularly at the front end, on asking questions of the inquire about what they really want, because everybody sees the, the, the headlines in running your own business, you know, be your own boss, be in control of your time.

But they’re just the headlines. And it’s easy to get caught up in the marketing and the the headlines that companies use. And I think the strength of our process is we really actually we stop and ask you a lot deeper questions beyond, you know, someone says to you just, you know, I just want work life balance. The next question you ask is, well, tell me what that looks like for you.

Yes. Give me an example, of, you know, next week, please. I’m granting you work life balance. You have it for one week. Next week. Tell me what your wake looks like, because we really want to understand at a deeper level than the headline. We want to understand what it is you’re looking for. Because if it is that you are looking for a network that sends you the leads or sends you the job well, or has a much more fancy a fandangled, grab your income guarantee, then we’re going to suggest that you go in that direction, because there’s no point us taking you through our process.

If we already know that you’re not actually looking for what we offer. And I love our process because we are honest with people about, we know so deeply what we actually offer. We know so deeply what our philosophy is and what we’re trying to build, that if we get somebody inquiring and they just want lights, we’re not going to try and sell you our system.

It’s not what you want. It’s not in your best interests. You will end up really unhappy and disappointed in us, and we will end up unhappy and disappointed in you. And that’s not what we’re here for. We want to build a network of people who feel supported and empowered and growing great businesses, however people choose to do that.

So I love our process. I love that we’re honest with people about when we spot that what they want isn’t what we deliver. Because the other thing, I think, is that this is complex. The discussion we’re having now is very complex. We’ve had the benefit of five years, you and I, hashing this out to really nail down what our loss of fee is.

Right? And in 20 minutes, in a conversation, we’re hoping that we can give a little bit of an insight to our audience about what that is. But it’s complex. The conversation we’re having is complex, and I don’t we don’t expect that somebody inquiring with us automatically understands the deep difference between us and somebody else in the market. That’s our role.

That is our role to dissect out of that person what they really want and then point them in the different direction. And I’m I’m sure you’ve done the same. I have recommended our competitors to so many people now.

Justin Yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s probably you think we’ve covered already that one.

Rhiannon Yeah. Do you have any other thoughts on philosophy and differences and what we’re trying to create here in our business owners and or any other closing message for, somebody who’s researching us or others and has stumbled across this and has listened to this point, any other, guidance for them when they’re really kind of thinking about, is this the right seat for me?

Justin I think if whatever, if you genuinely want to have independent. This might sound cliche and everywhere, but the reality is you need to be prepared for a period of time to really work hard. You know, it’s it is a change. You know, the system, our system works. But to do to be the independent business owner that you want to be, if that’s what you’re chasing.

Yeah, it’s and it’s hard work in the beginning. Yeah. The rewards are great but I have sorry. I’m just thinking of a few conversations I’ve had recently where people are like, yeah, I want to give up and I just want to do 2 to 2 days a week, three days a week. And it’s like, well, we’re not the business for you then, because you and I both know how to get an income to build a business to where most people want to go, where they financially, you know, secure, they’re going to have to put in a lot more than 2 or 3 days a week in the beginning.

Yeah.

Rhiannon Very true.

Justin So be prepared to work hard and ask yourself, really spend time asking yourself and being clear on what you’re looking for in a business would be the one two bits of advice.

Rhiannon Yeah. And I think just to wrap up, finally, I think we’re a great option if what you’re looking for is very genuine support that builds your skills, your knowledge and your understanding and your confidence to be an independent business owner. And when you want something that is also going to carry you beyond just that thing, I think we’re also a great option.

If you’re unsure and you’re genuinely just still trying to figure out what this all looks like and why it all up. I think we’re a safe option to make an inquiry too, because our process is so driven by trying to understand what the business owner is looking for, and we are so open to actually pointing you in the right direction, especially when that’s not us.

So I think that if you’re very unsure and you’re not sure where to start and you don’t want to make an inquiry with somebody because you’re worried you’re going to get the sales pitch, I want to make a promise to you that you will not get that with us. You will get honesty and you will get us trying to help.

Just help you understand what it is you’re looking for, and then we will point you in the right direction. If we genuinely feel like our model can help you achieve your goals, we will tell you that and then we will share with you the next steps with us if you want to take those. But if we don’t see this being a great fit for what you’re looking for, we’ll actively realign you and we’ll nudge you really gently and encouragingly in a different direction to try and help you out.

So I think we’re good for somebody who wants skills building. We’re good for somebody. Also. We’re big, but we’re not massive. I think this is such an underrated advantage. We have, you know.

Justin Yeah.

Rhiannon You are known and you are valued in our network. You are not a number. So we’re really great option for somebody looking for support that actually sees you and sees what you need from us. And I think we’re a very good option for, people who want to feel part of something bigger than just themselves. A network that actually seeks to connect you with the business owners around you, multiple members of the head office team.

If you want to feel part of just a great big old family, come over side.

Justin Yes. Very good.

Rhiannon Perfect. Let’s wrap this episode here. If you’ve listened this far, if you are invested, if you haven’t made an inquiry with us and spoken to Justin, go ahead and do it. Go ahead and just have a conversation and just start to explore whether this or something else might help you get where you want to get. And if you really still on the fence, well, you know what?

Hang around. Because I’m sure in the next week we’ll have a couple of new episodes of the Real franchise for you to sink your teeth back into and to continue your research journey. And if that’s your choice, well, we will continue happily to provide you the content to take that option. Take care, and we will see you soon in another episode of The Real Franchise.