The Real Franchise – Ep12 – Building a six figure business

Watch the full episode of The Real Franchise Episode 12 – here

Justin Hello and welcome to the real franchise again. this is a video series designed to deliver real information, real answers, and real insights into franchising. this series is brought to you by James Home Services Australia. I’m Justin Kelly, one of the owners of the company, and I also am in charge of sort of walking people like yourself, possibly through an information process, to find out more about possibly joining our team.

And together in this series, we’re going to tackle all the big topics unscripted, unplanned and unfiltered. So there’s no sales and no fluff. We’re just going to give you information straight up. And today’s topic is an interesting one. we’re going to talk about how to build a six figure business. And today I’m joined by Neil Littlewood, one of our franchisees, who has a six figure business and has been with us for some time.

So welcome, Neil. I guess firstly, to open just to give people a bit of background, would you mind introducing yourself and where you are and the sort of business that you’re running?

Neil Sure. Thank you. yeah. My name’s Neil. I’m in business with my partner, Sarah. so it’s a family business. We have an interior cleaning business in the ponds, which is in north west Sydney. we’ve been in operations, almost going on three years now. and, yeah, it was one of the best decisions we ever made.

Justin Awesome. So when you started, I guess you would have had some goals when you were looking at a business. What what what was it that made you look at having your own business? And what made you choose? James?

Neil I think it was more around, I guess, our personal goals. so we both Sarah and I came from hospitality. We’re not. We’re not, we weren’t scared of working hard. but we’re obviously working hard to other people, and. Yeah. that less than 2% pay rise at the end of the year was, not not always fantastic.

so, look, we, during Covid gave us the perfect opportunity. to to have a look, and see what we could do for ourselves. so we we did a lot of research. we researched different companies as well. but I think in terms of, particularly the interior cleaning, I think it was a skill that look what we could be taught.

but it was, I think, something that aligned with our personal goals. We could see, the scope for growth, as long as long as we put our heads together. and, I think it was just, it, Well, getting on to the point of, Why, James, I think it was a company that kind of aligned with exactly what we wanted, in terms of growth, in terms of, I think what we felt from the company, from the off.

It wasn’t just about money, in terms of just getting us through the door and sign us up and then kick us off and kick us in the ass and off we go. Yeah. It it the, I guess the main points were it was around the support. It was around the training. and it felt comfortable. so yeah, we sat in a few meetings, with different companies.

and yeah, it was the most comfortable that we’ve ever run.

Justin And today, I guess we’re talking about how to build a six figure income. Was that one of your goals when you decided to do this? Yeah. Look,

Neil Like I just touched on, I think our personal goals, we had our personal goals where we wanted to be, and I guess, by extension. So what we do in terms of work needs to needs to fit in with that. So, I think as well I’m a fairly competitive person, so I don’t like to stand still.

I’m not the kind of person that would, say, all right, that’s enough. we’re kind of happy to, to kind of coast along. so, yeah. And fitting in with this kind of business, like I said, the scope to be able to grow is essentially limitless. So we can take it as far as we want. So yeah, look, I guess while not, looking at it in that way, it needed to, along with our personal goals and just that that’s a that’s what we wanted to be.

Justin Yeah. So obviously, I mean, we built a quite a successful and large business where you are. Did it happen by planning or were you just lucky in the area you chose?

Neil Look, I suppose luck can be. Well, I mean, it certainly can play a role. there’s gonna be a, unexpected opportunities. there’s going to be challenges. but I think if you’re putting yourself in the right area, and the right frame of mind, then you can take, advantage of those opportunities. So that comes that part comes down to planning

So if you if you’re doing all of the right things, you’re setting yourself goals. You know, where you want to be. then you’re in the right, right frame of mind. And you’re not going to miss these opportunities that might fall into your lap by luck. but yeah, I think, yeah, it’s a bit of both.

Justin Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. Yeah. And we say often because we’ve started so many businesses lately, you can just happen to be Johnny on the spot if, when a real estate agent is looking for a new cleaner or a NDIS, looking for someone because they got a few new participants and things like that, but then you need that process, like you’re saying to, to convert that into a.

Yeah, well that’s it.

Neil I mean, if you’re not prepared for it, then you might have to say no to that, big opportunity. yes. you’ve got to have you’ve got to have the right steps in place beforehand.

Justin Yeah. I guess for yourself. So what we’re talking about a six building, a six figure income business. So you know, that sort of a couple of grain a week plus for you guys. How long did it take you to sort of build your turn over to sort of that consistently.

Neil Look in terms of from where we started, it probably only took about three months, to, to get to that level where our monthly turnover, was that to actually expand of that across the year? that would make a six figure business. the look, we did have a little bit of a plateau, after that. And there’s been plateaus throughout.

there’s there’s been a few challenges and we we had to kind of step back a little bit. But look from the, from the also probably only took about three months, to get up there. Yeah. So yeah, probably, fairly quickly, you know, in relation to other things. Yeah.

Justin Actually there are more. So, yeah. You did have a big setback, didn’t you, fairly early on in your business with an injury to yourself?

Neil Yes.

Justin Outside of work from memory. Was that right?

Neil No, no, it was with work. It was. Yeah. I just all I did was, I went and picked up some stock, and I went and visited a customer. and then. Yeah, came home and slipped getting out of basically getting out of the year, broke my ankle in three places. So I was I was bedridden since three months.

and then obviously rehab after that. So, yeah, big, big, big challenge. and yeah, it’s, it’s those times when you, you figure out you’ve got to do anything and everything you can do to get going. So,

Justin So how did you keep the business growing? Because we were just talking about I was going to ask you, you know, what do you the growth consistent or did you have setbacks? You had this massive setback. How did you keep things on the road when you were in bed?

Neil Look, I, I basically managed, I guess, that the admin part, from from bed. Sarah, my partner, she kept the business running. And I guess what we did was we focused on, I mean, we were fairly new business, but we did already have a fairly good bank of regular customers. So we we focused on that. Initially, we had to make sure that we kept those, because it’s always easier to keep them than get new ones.

Yeah. so we we focused on that immediately. then it was around trying to get staff and the support network for Sarah. so my dad came and helped, we, we’d, we’d started the process of trying to hire staff. Anyway, this kind of expedited it a bit. so, yeah, we got some staff on board.

look, in all truth, they weren’t fantastic. But it was. It was the support. Sarah needed right then and then. So, for that months. Yes, we took a hit. I think we took about a 50% hit from where we’d been tracking, yeah, but we kept all those customers. some of those customers we still have today, they understood exactly what we were doing.

yeah. And then for the next month after that, we bounced back bigger than what we had, the month previous to the injury. So. And then we kept on going from there. Yeah.

Justin So as I guess the business owner of having a large cleaning business, what’s your sort of average day? Looks like?

Neil look, I think, well, I mean, if you want me to go through it, I guess I start really early. I get up at around 430. it was, me to if I, if I don’t have an early job, and there’s a couple of days throughout the week. I do have, some commercial work.

Yeah. And that’s a me time. yeah. Sit down, I relax. I have, a good coffee. and then I kind of get my head around what the day’s going to bring. And if I need to do any prep or anything like that, then it’s time to get the kids to school. which is an hour of stress.

after that. Look, I’m very hands on in the business. I work, I work the jobs. so, I mean, I’m in the vehicle, working whatever jobs that we have on, during that day that takes me through 2 or 3, afternoons is basically for more admin. So, quotes, I admin setting up for the next day, communicating with clients.

cleaning any of my equipment, basically just getting ready. for the next day, after that, again, it’s family time. So they pick up the kids from after school care, dinner, get them ready for bed. get them ready for bed, homework. When it’s when it’s, that’s probably the most stressful part of the day.

and look, weekends or weekends is family time, where we’re strict around making sure that we have family time. We don’t work on weekends. so I might do the odd thing here or there, particularly around my calendar, but generally weekends is is life time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin So I guess you, you you work you full on. Are you finding that balance with family, like, is it working well with family, particularly given the industry you came from? you know, in hospitality that’s a challenge.

Neil Yeah. Look, that that was exactly what I was just about to like, considering what we had previously. I had next to. No family time whatsoever. So, And God knows, for how long? Probably since I started when I was 18, 19, working in hospitality. I yeah, I don’t know how many birthdays I missed, like vacations, things like that because I just had to work and, you know, hospitality is got I’ve got to be there for those key periods because they’re the busy periods.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah. Coming from that and again, this all went into that part of initial research when we were looking for a business that aligned with what we wanted to do. Yeah, we can set our own hours. We we can grow as fast or slow as we wanted. you know, it turned out to be pretty quick, but we, we, we could still control exactly when and where we needed to be.

yeah. We, Sarah aunt, She’s 93. She lives with us when we look after her. she’s a bit of dementia. So, once, once a month or twice a month. We’ve got to take her to doctor’s appointments. So we’re able to free up that time. to do that as well. and it looks like for kids that they’ve got a million things going on.

It’s it’s not school, it’s sport, it’s performances. It’s, anything and everything. So, these days, we don’t miss any of those.

Justin Yeah, yeah. It’s awesome because that when you compete, you’re in control of your calendar. And.

Neil Yeah, One hundred percent

Justin Yeah. You know, so you just said you’re very hands on in the business doing a lot of the job. So what role do the staff play for you?

Neil look, obviously we, you know that. I mean, they’re the coalface, so they they’re an extension of us. so they they’re they’re doing the jobs. They’re, they’re looking after our customers. they’re liaising with the customers as well. so we want that kind of friendly face to be extended across the business. look, outside of that, look, in terms of running the business, we haven’t reached that kind of level yet.

but, yeah, look, they, we wouldn’t be where we are right now without the staff. Yeah, because that there’s there’s a ceiling to, where we can reach by ourselves. yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Much needed part of the business.

Justin So I guess for you, what has looking back in hindsight, what’s been your biggest challenge in building a six figure big business?

Neil look, to us, to us, I mean, we’ve had probably, a few challenges. I think to, to, to a certain extent, self-doubt. but that’s, that’s a big challenge. Yeah. so I feel that there are times monthly that I’ll probably go through and, we make the right decisions and things like that. So that’s that.

That’s a massive challenge. probably the one where we are right now is around my team. Human resources. Yeah. so finding staff, keeping staff training, managing them, you’re not going to be able to grow, unless you’re on top of that. yes. There’s like I said, there’s a there’s there’s a ceiling to working by yourself.

then there’s a ceiling to working with a partner. and as your team grows, eventually you reach that ceiling and then you’ve got to push on again. So, yeah, in essence, that growth is, a challenge. Yeah. It’s, Yeah, it’s, you’ve got to constantly review your plans and how you’re going to take those next steps.

Justin Yeah, yeah. So have you had any like, major roadblocks to your growth?

Neil well the injury so one. so, so yeah, I think, so there was that, but look, I think,

Yeah. Look at the, I think in terms of,

At times we’ve, like, it’s been I again, I, I talk back, to, HR and the team and that so that, as we’ve gone along that day, that’s kind of where we, we’ve kind of hit walls. you know, so it’s, whether it was with, like I said, with that injury we brought on staff.

Like I said, they weren’t fantastic. so there was there had to be a natural end, to that period. and then you go through periods of not having staff. So again, you’ve if your business has to plateau. yeah. So that’s you, you, you’re at capacity. You cannot take on any more work. But, at the moment, thankfully, we’ve got some fantastic staff and, you know, when we’re planning on pushing forward.

Justin Yeah, it’s one of my, I guess, philosophies or beliefs. I think in any business, if you’ve got a good fan, the good stuff is your foundation. Doesn’t matter what your business, you can make it, you know, a great business if you’ve got great, a great team. And, yeah. So true. So for you, I guess in your what’s been your biggest lesson that you’ve learned if, if, if for people that are listening, thinking about what are some of the things I’ll need to learn for you, what’s been the biggest one?

Neil it would look it was probably a lesson that was taught to me, not in this, but it’s that this business has kind of brought it home. And that’s being resilient. yeah. So, a long time ago, I was told that. Look, times will get tough, and this is just working for other people. times will get tough, and you’ll feel like you’re snowed under.

that’s the time where you’ve got to fight. Yeah.

Justin But it’s actually.

Neil Having your own business. And how much it means to be successful. that brings that home tenfold. because you have to be you have to fight through those tough periods. and there are going to be tough periods and, there’s no doubt about that. So, being resilient and knowing that you can get through whatever it is, and for the most part, you’re going to be stronger afterwards because you’re going to, well, hopefully learned some lessons.

Justin Yeah, yeah. So true. And yeah, it’s so much about attitude. So if we had a recipe, if we were at James and said, this is putting together a recipe of how to build a six figure business for you, what would be some of the ingredients that make up that recipe?

Neil probably number one, he’s having a clean vision and purpose. you have to know why you’re doing it. so, so for me, that’s family and building the build, building our own business. like I said, times will get tough. You get. You need to know why you’re doing it. so, that could make you refocus.

focus on customers. is is another one. they’re the reason why you’re there. if you don’t have customers, if you got any jobs. so. Yeah. Look, meeting their needs, building strong relationships. if we didn’t have those strong relationships when I had that injury. What I have what I’ve had any customers at all.

so, we were able to lean on those during those tough times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, as I just said before, resilience. I’m always kind of in together resilience, adaptability and work ethic. yeah. You’ve got to fight your way through things. your, your work ethic. You’ve got to you’ve got to be able to work hard.

It’s, you’ve got to get your head around it. It’s going to be hard work. You’re doing it for yourselves. regardless of whether or not you’ve got staff, you’ve got to be able to put in the effort as well.

Justin That’s right.

Neil So I’m and the last one is support network. it’s whether or not you’ve got yourself a mentor or I lean on my partner a lot, or with James themselves. it’s important to know that you’re not alone. you can ask questions. when you go through those periods of self-doubt. if you don’t know something, if you don’t know how to get through something, you need to be able to ask questions.

If you’re in business by yourself that’s supported, that you don’t have a lot of support network. Yeah. Yes. it’s it’s it’s okay. That’s that’s that’s that’s that’s the egg. That’s the part that binds it all together. Will support. Yes. Yeah.

Justin Well, most people that join us and probably most people listening to this have probably never had business management experience. So to build a business like yours, do you have to have had previous management experience like can’t actually learn these skills?

Neil I think absolutely. You can learn it. you’ve got you you have to be open to learning. You have to be, open to kind of letting down any walls that you might have. because, there’s, there’s invaluable lessons. I mean, if you’re if you’re not used to running a business, it’s it’s important to take it from people that, have been there before.

so leaning on that support network. Yeah. and. Yeah, look, I think it’s you go back to the adaptability, resilience and work ethic. I think if you if you can nail those three things, you can pick up the rest. You can learn and you can learn along the way. it doesn’t have to be a sprint, right?

It can be faster. As slow as you want. Yes, you can, you can take those steps, as slow as you need to. but yeah, it can be taught. I think as long as you’ve got those, those parts to you, get back.

Justin Yeah. So true on. We’ve, just in the last couple of weeks started someone who’s, like, had no previous computer experience. And, you know, that was one of our concerns because obviously, you know, an entire business system is online and things like that. And, but the is key elements, those attitudes that you’re just talking about, he just has them resoundingly.

And it’s just been awesome to watch the last three weeks. Like, our business coach had to spend a lot more time supporting him, helping him. And he’s doing a great job learning the systems and the invoicing and quoting and all that. But he’s calendar is in like week three, and his calendar is already filling up with regular customers because he’s just he’s just pushing through that comfort zone.

And, yeah, he’ll have a great business, I have no doubt within a very short space of time.

Neil So that’s it. And look, I mean, we’re a customer service business. he he has the important part. yeah. So the rest of the rest can come. Absolutely. Yep.

Justin Yep. Well, that’s probably, I think covers the key things about, it’s for people who want to know how to build a six figure income. so I guess. Thanks so much, Neil, for joining, today, because I know you have a busy, busy business. Busy life. so I really appreciate that time is set aside. And for those of you watching, and subscribing, please, if you’d like to hear more topics or different topics, just comment in the comment section below.

And yeah, we could possibly do an episode on those things, but I hope you enjoyed and got a lot out of this session. And if we can help you further in any way, feel free to reach out and we’ll, contact you and just walk you through the same sort of process that Neil was talking about earlier that he went through with his wife, Sarah.

So I will partner Sarah. So thanks again, Neil, and, look forward to catching up again soon.