Employee to Business Owner Mindset – The Real Franchise Episode 23

Rhiannon
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Real Franchise, a video series designed to deliver real information, real answers, and real insights into franchise. 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 have been tackling all of the big topics completely unscripted, unplanned and unfiltered.

There is no sales, there is no fluff. We just give you information straight up. Today’s topic is an interesting one. It’s all about making the shift from employee mindset to a business owner mindset. Justin. Throughout the last 20 episodes of The Real franchise, this topic has been sprinkled across quite a few of them. And so today we thought, let’s diving because it’s it’s a topic that deserves its own episode.

And so let’s start with the really obvious question. The really obvious place to start. What is when we talk about a business owner mindset. What do we mean by that?

Justin
Well, probably a good place to start is where most of this is coming from, or most of the people that join us. Myself included. When I joined, James was coming from an employee mindset. I think most of us in this country, through our working careers are employees. So, you know, the the company that you work for or the boss, you know, they have a plan, they have a strategy.

They tell you what to do. You turn up in the morning and you got to do x, y, z. You know, you might get a bit more, chance for innovation or feedback. But essentially, you know, you’re on a set of railway tracks and so long as you stay within these railway tracks, anything that happens, not really your issue, so long as you’re putting in the effort and doing the right stuff, everything else is up to the company to sort out, or for the company or the boss or, you know, all those sorts of things.

There’s so much you don’t have to worry about, you know, like a lot of the time, just simple legislation or sorting out payrolls or, you know, all those sorts of common things. For most of us as employees, Brian doesn’t even go there or, you know, whether we’re making profit on a job. We do our job. That’s the bosses.

Hey, know. So to answer your question, what is a business owner mindset? Well, it’s firstly one of the most critical things, I think to success. And that’s probably why it’s been sprinkled through so much of what we talk about. I’d be interested to hear your take on it. But for me, decades ago, I heard someone say this simple saying, and I had it as a sticker that I had in my wallet that I carried around for probably 20 years.

If it’s to be, it’s up to me. And I think that attitude sums up what you need to have as a business owner. If you’re to be successful, because it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, you’re going to call curveballs, you’re going to call, things out of left field, things that you like, and you can’t sit back and go, oh, that’s up to the company.

It’s sold out. That’s someone else’s fault. Well, that’s that’s because of the tough economic climate, right? That those are what I call rationalizations. You know, as a business owner, you can’t afford to just accept that because it’s up to you to make the business successful. No one else is gonna do it, if that makes sense. So yeah, the business honest mindset must be, firstly, I think solution focused.

You know, you’ve got to be, there is always an answer, always a solution. And that’s a business owner mindset.

Rhiannon
Yeah. But, I share pretty much the same view. I would only really add that for me, it is just simply about taking responsibility. And yes, you know, taking responsibility for the outcomes that you want to say in your business when you’re an employee, you rock up to work on a Monday morning and you’ve got a position description, and your role is simply to deliver on that position description.

It’s really straightforward. It’s really simple. It’s written, it’ll be ten points, couple of paragraphs at the bottom. And as long as you’re doing that the world’s great. There’s pay that goes into your bank account every Tuesday or every Wednesday or every fortnight, whatever their cadences. And that’s it. That’s your working life. And I mean, most people in Australia are is are employees.

And so we all come from that employee mindset initially because we all start there. And so we are simply conditioned to understand that as an employee, you show up to work when you’re meant to at a time. That’s a great you do your job and then you go home at the end of each day and as an exchange for that, you get paid.

Business owner is slightly different. You don’t get a position description. Your boss doesn’t give you a position description because you are the boss. I mean, you might want to write your own, but then that’s in line with your saying, if it’s to be, it’s got to be me. So if you want to pay day, you got to write your own.

And then you got to really take responsibility for executing the decisions that are going to take your business where you want to take it, because there ain’t nobody else in the room telling you what to do. There ain’t nobody else in the room solving those problems. There ain’t nobody else in the room coming to help you. When you’re in a sticky situation and you’ve got a bit of a challenge in front of you, it’s you.

It’s all you. So, I mean, we all grow up being employees, so we all grow up having an intrinsic understanding of what it is to show up, do your job, go home, get paid, and then that transition to, hey, hang on a minute, I’m in charge. This is all on my shoulders. This is up to me. I’m the one making the decisions.

I’m the one dealing with the tricky situations and the challenges. That’s a big shift to make and the reason why it’s been sprinkled across so many of our videos so far is because it is either the biggest or the second biggest factor that we find will determine somebody’s success as a business owner. Full stop. If you successfully transition your mindset to one of a business owner, which is I take responsible and this is on me, then you take that solutions focused approach into every day, and then you get outcomes for your efforts.

So that’s why it’s been sprinkled across so many videos because it’s absolutely critical. And the franchises in our network that are successful, every single one of them, without exception, has successfully transitioned and found their own business owner mindset. It’s that critical. It really is that critical.

Justin
And I’d challenge anyone listening because it’s so easy to go yet. Okay, granted just am I get totally get that I understand that, you know, if it was me. Understand on the business side, I’m not a problem. It’s so easy to say. But the problem with, I guess, conditioning or habits, whatever you want to call it, it’s actually really a hard thing to break.

And it’s it’s the little things you don’t even think about. But like, just as you were talking, an example came to mind just this week, one of our business coaches was sharing, that, one of their new starters had a, customer, who was way on the card, and they inherited this job. And so they required the job, and the customer wasn’t happy.

Anyway, like nearly a week later, this business owner has run the business coach and said, oh, can you call that lady and see if you can and sort it out? And it’s like, well, first you waited a week, but, you know, and this was the reason this was an issue really, is this mindset because, well, you were the boss.

You’re sort of out, you know what I mean? I did what I could, you know, like and so as a business coach, then our role and then I guess some of you might be thinking, well, why we it’s all on us. What’s the point of, you know, James or whatever? Because it’s the support and expertise. So, you know, the business coaches role in is to go, okay.

So this is how you handle that situation and the support and what you can say, what you can do. But it’s your business your customer. You need to go back and have that discussion. And then the sooner you have that after that sort of interaction, the more chance you’ve got to keeping the job or whatever. But that whole situation was really an example of what we’re talking about.

It was the employee mindset that was like, I’ll just pass the ball, you know, the boss, I’ll sort it out and and that particular individual would, you know, that wouldn’t have gone on at our they hadn’t competed at all on the business. And, you know, I didn’t realize what was going on in the background in their own psyche, I guess.

Yeah. And it’s it’s a challenge for all of us when we first self employed.

Rhiannon
Yeah, it is, it is. And we don’t expect that somebody flips the switch overnight because it’s not that simple. And, and you have shown already that one of the very important roles of our business coaches in this network is to provide that support in the transition of the mindset. It’s not a switch. We don’t just lick it on, you don’t flick it on.

But our role is to help you to transition out. And there is lots of things that we do to help transition. Mostly it’s coaching through real life scenarios exactly like that one. But, you know, also in our initial training, there is a lot of talk around mindset and the importance of establishing this and a lot of education around the fact that yesterday you might have been an employee, but today you’re a business owner, and that looks really different.

My first lesson in life on the difference between the two, because I’d love to kind of get into some examples just for anybody listening to really make this kind of really practical. But my first, lesson on what is the difference between employee mindset and business owner mindset came when I was about 20 and I was full time in university at the time, but I also was managing a small business in my home town, and it had about 15 staff.

And I’ve shared this story before on previous episodes. But for anybody who’s just kind of dropped in on this one, I’ll share a shortened version of it again for your benefit. And I had been working in this business for two years throughout the end of my high school. And then, overnight, the existing manager just kind of picked up all this stuff and left.

He had had some sort of altercation with the owner of the business who was not present in running the business. The owner had a manager in place, and the then manager just picked up and left overnight. And so, you know, we all woke up the next morning and went to open the business and there was no manager and we were all kind of scrambling around.

So over the next few days, the owner had to figure out what to do, and I had stuck my hand in the air and said, let me have a crack. Like, I’m of 20. I’ve got no idea what I’m doing wrong. Sure, let’s let this 20 year old have a crack. And so my role changed overnight. In an instant.

I went from, you know, serving customers on, on the front till, cooking pies, making sandwiches and making coffee and doing post office stuff. I went from all that front end work to now I had to do rostering, and now I had to make sure all our suppliers were paid, and I had to make sure that our inventory was all fresh and that we were using the correct methods when restocking fridges and, to make sure that all of our, you know, our tail was rung up correctly at the end of the day and all our finances were sorted and our forecasting was on point and our insurances were paid and our phone

bills were paid, and all my staff were happy and workplace health was like. And the list just grew and grew and grew overnight. I went from totally happy go lucky, no responsibility in the world other than making sure that the coffee that was ordered by customer a five minutes ago is delivered to customer right? I went from that to being stuck at the back most of the time, working on making sure that everybody at the front could keep running the business.

And it was really interesting, actually, to see how the rest of the employees in the business, responded to that shift in my role because, I got comments from so many of them like, Ray, you’re no fun anymore. You don’t have a laugh with us and you don’t serve customers anymore. You just sit on your bottom in the chair, out the back, and just look at the computer all day, like you just watching YouTube videos or what.

And I really had to I had to educate our team on, hey guys, my role is changed. I’m still one of you. I’m still fun, but I’ve got to do all the boring stuff at the back that previously I didn’t have a responsibility for. So a really practical example is, you know, if you’re stacking shelves in a supermarket, then that is your job.

If you’re serving coffee, making coffee, that is your job. But if you’re running those businesses, you’re in charge of inventory and you’re in charge of people and resourcing and finances and insurance and workplace place, health and safety, the role is totally different.

Justin
Yep, yep. I hear all the time talking to people who are inquiring about possibly joining, but oh, how hard can it be just buying a job. And it’s like what you just said is exactly the difference. You know, you’re not buying a job, you’re buying one. A great opportunity. Yep. But also it’s a business. So the job is in one sense the easy part.

It’s the physical. Most like our franchises are physically demanding. So that’s sort of it. Yes. But that’s not really the easy part. Doing the actual job. There’s all the other stuff, you know, the liaising with the customer, the quoting, all the systems and processes to make sure you’re profitable, the safety, the, you know, payroll, super all these things which we care about.

That’s what we’re here for, the support. That’s why you join a franchise. But the job that people think of is a little bit I think, yeah. I remember being at a, business networking breakfast. With a whole heap of different businesses in our town. And, one of our business owners, who had a cleaning franchise, stood up in and he said, oh, I’m just a cleaner.

I remember he started the talk introducing himself with saying, I’m just a cleaner. And then afterwards I just said, like, this guy was probably making more money per hour than just about anyone else in the room. He has a great business and he let that. But his mindset was, I’m just a cleaner, not your business owner, because you look after all this other stuff, you know, so important business.

What business owner mindset.

Rhiannon
Yeah, I look at, the breakdown of our initial training and at our, at the initial training stage. So your initial training when you join our network, is that training that you get in the first two weeks to get you get the wheels moving basically it’s split 5050, right? 50% of the time we spend focused on how to run a business, how to be a business owner.

And the other 50% of the time is spent on how to do the job. And then we providing our network really comprehensive, ongoing training for the first 12 weeks, your participant in our accelerated start up program. And then beyond that, we tailor make a, coaching, an ongoing training program for you to help you make your goals as a business owner.

But after that initial training, the split of 5050, it goes well in favor of coaching and training you to be a business owner. We would probably spend maybe 10 to 15% of our time teaching you in an ongoing fashion how to do the job, how to clean, or how to mow the lawn. But actually our coaches then shift and they spend 80 to 85% of their time teaching you how to be a business owner.

And this is our role. Our role is to help you transition that mindset. Because I said before, it’s not a switch. You don’t flick it. We don’t flick it. It’s a transition. And our role is to help you actually make that transition. It starts right back in that initial training, because one of the very first things that we talk to you about in your eight steps initial training is you’re not a cleaner, you’re not a lawn mowing person, you are a business owner.

And those are simply the tasks that you complete as part of your business. And so there’s so much, particularly in that ongoing training that helps you to transition the mindset. So we teach you things like you mentioned before, rationalizations. We teach you the power of recognizing a rationalization. We teach you concepts like comfort zones. We teach you concepts like laws of exchange, but above.

And more important than all of that, we just simply educate you on your responsibilities as a business owner and on the power of taking responsibility, because there is not much that trumps in a business. If you’re looking for success, there’s not much that trumps deciding what success you want. Working with us to make a plan to get there and then taking action yourself.

That’s what makes a successful business owner, and that’s only executed when someone is successfully transitioning to that business owner mindset.

Justin
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Rhiannon
So I think that kind of answer, I mean, the last real question that I wanted to make sure we touched on today was, why is business owner mindset so important? But I think the whole video has really just highlighted why it is it’s the difference between success and failure. If we’re going to be really blunt about it. No, you know, this this series is, is all about just giving information straight up.

I don’t think I can be any more straight up than saying, if you don’t adopt a business owner mindset, failure is on the cards.

Justin
Absolutely. I totally agree. In any business, yes, yes.

Rhiannon
Yeah. Not just ask and and if you’re if you’re listening and you’re not necessarily and you just researching business ownership in general, what we’ve just been talking about, you’re right. It applies in every single business. It’s not just our businesses, and it’s not just a cleaning business or a lawn mowing business. If you want to start a business period, you need to be able to adopt that business owner mindset.

And if you’re going it on your own, you got to figure out what that looks like for yourself. So the value of a network like ours is that actually our training is very much tailored and, designed to help that transition because we understand it’s critical to success.

Justin
Yeah, yeah, that’s good, that’s good. Yeah.

Rhiannon
Perhaps we wrap this episode and leave this one here. Thanks for listening along. If you’ve got any suggestions for topics that you would like us to tackle unscripted, drop them below in the comments. And if you want to be notified every time we upload a new video, click that bell in the top corner after you’ve subscribed to our channel.

And that really supports us and helps us to make more of these so that you can stay informed. Hopefully you’ll join us for the next episode of the Real franchise very soon.

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