Meet the Coach: Ian Schubert | The Real Franchise Episode 41

Rhiannon Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Real Franchise, a series designed to deliver real information, real answers, and real insights into franchising. The series is brought to you by James Home Services Australia. I’m the CEO and Ian is one of our dedicated business coaches. Now, if you’ve been hanging around the traps for a while here, Ian will not be a familiar face to you.

We have swapped it up today. We have booted Justin to the side, replaced him temporarily with one of our business coaches because today we are going to go unscripted and unplanned into the world of one of our business coaches. We thought that it would be a lovely ID to actually give anybody listening the opportunity to meet and hear from the sort of people that work alongside the business owners of our network to help them build their businesses.

So and welcome to the real franchise. We are going to start right back at the beginning, which is quite a few years ago for you. How long exactly have you been involved in James and where did it all start for you?

Ian Wow. It takes me right back. We started, Lisa and I, joined James Australia Day 2008 was our as our opening day. We had, back then, we we started as what’s what’s what’s it with regional franchisors and, our training was, was actually two weeks, and it was a grueling two week process. We were at the then head office at Mooloolaba, at in, Queensland.

And we yeah, we had to we had to learn a script for the presentation. Just Justin he would remember that too. And it was, it was a it was a very grueling week. But yeah, we’ve since we’ve been hanging around James. Since since then. Really?

Rhiannon Yeah. So 2008, that is almost 20 years ago. That’s quite an incredible milestone. And, over those years, use of what you have worn almost every hat there is to wear in James. But when you’ve started, what made you make the decision to join James as a regional franchise or at the time.

Ian That’s it was to me, it was the system. I was actually, oddly enough, I was part of another business, at the time, it was a business that was with with some other guys. And I dispatched me to go and find a business system that we could, that we could emulate or look at, and I was, I was basically sent on an industrial espionage mission.

It’s true.

Rhiannon And. Well, yeah.

Ian And, I got a the interesting thing is that that it really clashed with my own ethics along the way, but. But then, we met. I’m trying to remember she was a sales consultant. I can’t remember her name now, but she was very. She came and gave us this presentation at her own home, and we sat and, I was really impressed by the the whole thing, how the system worked and all that sort of stuff.

I realized how little I knew I was an accountant back in the day, and I was but a tax accountant, and I really didn’t have a great deal of experience in business in my on my own right. Had never been in business for myself. So we looked at this and the whole system was really simple and it was really, elegant.

And it just was really, like, laid out so that you didn’t have to be a genius to understand that. But there was a lot you could really get sink your teeth into. And I kind of fell in love with the system then. And the odd thing is, I jumped ship. From where the business that I was a part of and joined James over the course of the next and the following.

So several months, you know, we we actually met the the founder, Robert James, at the time, there was a whole bunch that made me feel like it was a great system. And it was it’s something that’s, well, it’s never been 20 years that it’s it’s had a pretty profound effect on my life.

Rhiannon So the, the place that you worked for must have felt almost a little bit sheepish when you went back to them and said, hey, actually, it totally backfired. I, I have, I have found an appreciation for this system and actually I want to go and work it and make a business of my own out of it.

Ian Yeah. It wasn’t the it wasn’t the expected or hoped for results. Now I didn’t go on. So not only did I not get it, but but I ended up, jumping ship. Yeah. Like I said, the it was look, it was it ended up being an integrity piece. I think I felt, I felt like the, the integrity of that, of the system that I was looking at was actually better than the one that I was in.

And I think at the end, at the end of the day, that was probably the swing, as well as the, the system itself was great. It was, it was the and it’s this look, it’s more or less the same system that we that we use today. It hasn’t changed. I mean, it’s the way we do.

It has changed. So, so much. But effectively what we’re doing is still the same system that that I started, that I started to I learned back in, 2009.

Rhiannon Yeah, it really is, isn’t it? So let’s fast forward. You spent a number of years building a region with your wife and supporting so many business owners. Through that region. You then swapped hats again and became a, service business owner, and you took up a lawn and garden care franchise and operated one of the most successful lawn and garden care franchises in our network for quite some time.

And I’m going to fast forward through that, because I know we’re going to come back to that time and time again in our conversation. But I want to move us to today and what you do today, which is one of our business coaches. Now, for anyone listening who hasn’t really, maybe listened to much from us before in our network, when a business starts with us, we set you up with a business coach and that person is your lifeline.

They are your trainer. They are your, your go to they, your person who can answer almost any question that you have, they are your accountability buddy. They are everything that you might need. They are your business development coach. They will, you know, they will help you with everything from your personal budget all the way through to the technicals of operating your business, our business coaches, our incredible people.

And what we wanted to do in these videos was really give you a window into what their role is and what you might be able to expect from them. And you’ve been a business coach with us now for a couple of years, and you work with a lot of very different business owners in our network. How would you describe the role that you do on a day to day basis?

Ian We’ve summed up a lot of that. It’s looked the key to it is it’s about, for me anyway, it’s about getting to know the people that I work with. It’s about finding out their stories. And what are the what are their key drivers, how they like to what they’re trying to achieve by being in business for themselves?

We it’s through the, through the systems that you’re, you’ve been developing. As well. And and it’s, it’s, it’s led by data. So we can actually with the systems that we have, on board with the Butler system and the other the, the kind of customer management systems we have, access to a great deal of data that we can use to sort of fine, fine tune and pinpoint.

I suppose we can have a look at what’s happening, in our, in our franchisees businesses and we can say, okay, these are areas that we need to have a look at, dive, delve further, more deeply into and say and then but then we we always come back to the why, you know, if something’s not happening, if something’s happening, well, it’s it’s a real it’s an easy one because we can see things are being done.

But when it it’s usually when, when something is maybe not happening so much that’s when we get to go on a bit of an exploration as to as to why it’s not happening, especially if it comes into contradiction with the why they say that they what the things that they want to have happen, in life. So we’re we’re actually trying to, find out what it is that, that is holding them, holding our people back, and the struggles that they’re trying to overcome sometimes they’re, they’re rooted in they’re rooted in fears or, you know, other experiences that they’ve had.

They might be, some logics running around in their head, things that we’ve, that we’ve got to actually challenge at times in them. But it’s always usually it’s, it’s a support and guidance role that, that we, that we try and feature the most. And I think that’s, that’s the part that I, that I get the most out of.

Yeah. As far as that goes.

Rhiannon Yeah. I’m going to come back to the why and I want to talk about that in a little bit more detail in a minute. But first, do you think that the way we support our business owners is different in its approach to the way that generally other networks support their business owners?

Ian To be fair, I don’t actually think about others. Yeah, it’s honest, I, I, I know that our support is rooted in empathy. It’s we care a lot about the people that we work with. And I’ve seen that across the board when we have our head office meetings, the, the level of care, and the patience, the, the effort that we put into helping, the people that we work with that I really I couldn’t give you a comparison.

I haven’t ever bothered looking. It’s not something that I. That I even think about. We’re not we’re not in a race against them. We’re in a race against us. I heard it was on a on a book, an audio book that I had this morning. I heard that particular line, and it really resonated with me. Is that when not racing against other, other organizations, it’s.

We’re here to help our own people, get the best that they want. So I can’t really give you an answer to that in that regard. All I care about is that we do better every day to help our people. And we’re always, look, we’re learning. We’re still learning. I know what I’ve got. I’ve got a lot of learning to do now.

Because the system that we that would now that we are now developing, we’re actually improving as we go every day. And it’s it’s exciting. It’s an exciting time to be in this in our business anyway.

Rhiannon Yeah, it is. And I think that actually there was an answer in that answer, which is that we are absolutely focused on what we do. And, yeah, I think you’re very right. We’re not in a race against others. Others are out there and they’re doing what they do. But we are, in a way, so insular to focusing on improving our own practices almost on the daily that, that what others are doing doesn’t really register too much for us, which is such an advantage for our business owners because we’re genuinely focused entirely on them and their outcomes and how we can improve what we do to support them, rather than us just feeling like

we’re in a race. We the competition. Yeah, yeah, that’s a lovely thing. If a business owner is starting with us, what generally does those first few weeks of engagement with their business coach look like from an onboarding perspective? A lot of people often, you know, when they’re chatting to Justin throughout the information process, they’re concerned that they’re not quite sure when they should register their IP, and they’re not quite sure if they need insurance.

The bigger question for them is, I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what to do. Can you talk us through what you do to support someone in those first few weeks, even before we get to training?

Ian Sure. We start with a we start with a preliminary, even a pre-approval that they meet with the business, the business coach, even before they get a chance to sign on or to begin anything to get any kind of information that’s, you know, pertinent to them actually beginning, beginning their business. However, we have a pre-approval meeting so that we can actually get a feel for how they, they belong and, if, whether they belong or not, whether it’s whether we’re a fit for them, whether they’re a fit for us, it has to be mutual.

The way because of the way that our business is structured, the way we run their model is it runs. Then they have to be comfortable with us. Well, we are also to be comfortable with them because it is a support role that that lasts throughout the course of their business. And it’s something that it works. It far away works the best if they are engaged, if they’re engaged with us, we will offer the support no matter what.

So, from there we have, several meetings pre even prior to them starting, with us. So we, we’re responsible for their initial training as a business coach. But prior to that we will we will meet with them. We’ve got a whole bunch of like there’s a checklist a dedicated checklist of things that we’ve got to get done.

That’s it. It’s not as long as your arm, but it’s good. It’s up there. And if for that though, we, we also, developing a relationship with them along the way, as well. So I was, I had a meeting with, a prospective, franchise owner today. And I said, from here on in, look, put my number in your speed dial support begins now, as far as I’m concerned.

And that’s pretty much the case with with with support is one of the biggest factors of for my business guys. I’ve got to say that I’m a business coach. But but for us for our support is probably I would think it’s probably one of the biggest, power, the one of the power drivers that we have in our business is the support angle.

And it’s part of every. Look, if I think about it, every every member of the head office team has has a support function, even to yourself, right. Because you support us in supporting them. So there’s a whole there’s a whole range array. We’re all right there ready to go for the support. So yeah. The we then start setting things up.

We talk, we help them through, we guide them through setting up emails. We guide them through setting up voicemails. We guide them through setting up, Google accounts and all sorts of stuff so that they can get themselves full marketing with prepping them. We’re answering their questions as they go. Again, it’s a time of, look. It’s a it’s a big it’s a big commitment to make.

It’s, a business. It’s sort of, you know, they talked about a hierarchy of different things that you get in your life. You talk about house and car and all that sort of stuff. And then the interesting thing is about the businesses, the businesses, the thing that helps you get all of those other things. So on those levels of business is one of the it’s one of the biggest things that you’ll ever commit to, because it actually is something that relates to your livelihood, and being able to afford all the other things.

So it’s a really important decision. So that’s why the support begins with from the very from the very first meeting with Justin, and the information that we provide them, we’re trying to give them enough information so that they truly come in with their eyes open as to what will be expected of them to be successful. I mean, they’re going to have to look, they’re gonna have to expect it of themselves, admittedly.

And but we’re here to support them in that, in fulfilling that expectation as well.

Rhiannon Yeah. Yeah, very much. I mentioned earlier that you were prior to joining the head office team as business coach, you were one of our most successful lawn and garden care business owners, do you think that and and actually, what we’re really proud of at the moment is that all of the business coaches in our network have been previous successful business owners in our network.

How do you think that that experience walking the walk, so to speak, how do you think that helps you to be an even stronger business coach? For those business owners? Now?

Ian Yeah, that’s an interesting one. I think I was I was having to think about that earlier. We it’s it it comes on an empathy piece. We we really do have an understanding. Oh, look, I was a boots on the ground. You know, I actually had my own. I’ve pushed a mower and I was a hedger, and I deal with all that sort of stuff.

And I really enjoyed that part of the business. I enjoyed the I thoroughly enjoyed the service side where you got to interact with customers. So, the, the actual, you know, on the tools part of the business. So it was, again, very fulfilling. And I think having that, but also the frustrations of it, I think knowing that some of the things of having developing a business from scratch, it’s all well and good for me to say as a coach that, you know, you need to do, you need to drop so many brochures or you need to go and knock on the door.

You need to go and talk to somebody, or you’ve got to go to a business meeting or a function or whatever it happens to be. We did, and from the very start in our in, in our James businesses region, even as regionals, Lisa and I, we, we never, told franchisees to do things that we wouldn’t do when we told the market their business at a, at a business, at a stall or an event, we were always there with them.

So I think that follows through for the from a coaching aspect is that, I would never tell somebody to do something that I wasn’t willing to do myself, is as part of the business and the and I need to tell them to do things that are in the system because I’m pretty I’m pretty sold on that, too, because I’ve seen all the things that that we do in the system and how they work and why they and I know why they work.

So I think from a business, from a business coaching perspective, the, the capacity to actually share that information in a way that’s real and to say, well, when I did this, this was what happened. It adds, impact definitely adds impact to, some of the things that I’m trying to tell people. And it helps me very much with the why, why they should be doing what I’m saying.

You know, if I’m giving them advice, then it’s it’s generally, it’s genuinely and generally from, I’ve been there and this is what happened when, you know, you’re there, like, I haven’t done everything in the business, but I’ve done a lot.

Rhiannon Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. I think it’s very powerful when you’re working with someone. Yeah, exactly. Still wearing the t shirt. And it’s so powerful when you work with people to be able to be compassionate to the situation they are actually in at the coalface of their business every single day, but also to be able to guide from a position of, hey, I’ve been where you are.

These are the things that I did. These were the outcomes I got. You know, this is information you you’re your own person, your your own business. You can do with that what you will. But that guidance is coming from a place of realness. And I think that there’s an awful lot of value to that.

Ian That works. But that works for successes as well as failures like I’ve done. I’ve done a lot of things that that didn’t work as well. And I can say that, yeah, well, when we tried that, that was the result and that probably wasn’t what we wanted. But so it is it this, this there’s pros and cons to the both.

So you know that’s the education the education of it as you learn sometimes having done is a is a really good teacher going forward.

Rhiannon Yeah I agree I agree. It’s easy to talk about the way that we support people who are doing really well. I actually would like to spend a couple of minutes talking about the way that we support people who aren’t quite getting the outcomes in their business, that they expected, or that they wanted. Do we just leave them out there in the middle of the ocean to fend for themselves?

What is our approach, your approach? When someone just isn’t getting off the ground as quickly as they would have liked?

Ian I think one of the key things that we want to do is find out why are they not? You know, the key is to find out, what part of the we we teach on a system. Okay. The system is, is a set of steps that if you follow in order, in the right order, then they will give you the the highest chance of success as a business owner, especially in a service based business sense, which is what this is.

So if then there are I mean, that is the fact that there’s the system there. If we can find out then what the things are that are holding them back. It’s a very look. It’s empowering for them to even though it might not feel like it. If we can say if something’s not working, then it’s something that I’m either doing wrong or I’m not doing.

And then that then means that you have the the capacity to change that and change your results as a result of that, whether, you know, if it’s if it’s something that’s out of your control, then it’s literally out of your control. You can’t fix it. Right? The fact that we as business coaches, we can actually guide them to a point where we can say, look, if you did this or if you stopped doing this or something of that nature, then you would actually end up, you’ll end up being able to change your result.

Now, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over words and expecting a different result, that sort of thing. So then we can help them change what they’re doing to achieve a different, a different result, a much more, desired result. It’s the other thing is it’s not a, it’s not a disciplinary thing. It’s not a, it’s not meant to be.

You must do this. It’s if you do this, then your likelihood of success is much greater. At the end of the day, the, the people that we work with, they they’re grown ups, and they had the right to, to, to do what they want to do and be accountable for the results as a part of that, as an offshoot.

Sometimes that can be the hardest thing to accept is, is the it’s my own role in the situation, that I think that that that is our job as a business coach is to actually also maybe cushion the shock of that sometimes when it happens, but also then to provide support and guidance in changing what they’re doing so that they can actually achieve that better result, the results that they were hoped for, that they’d started out with, with in mind.

And then we we move towards targets all the time. And that’s, that’s why we do it. All right. That’s what we do. What we do.

Rhiannon Yeah. Yeah. Very true. Do you find your role fulfilling?

Ian It’s the most for me anyway. That’s a no brainer. It’s been I’ve had a working life that that started in the early 80s, late 80s, eight Expo 88 was the I remember that was when I, when I first entered the workforce. And I’d have to say I was probably this many years old when I’d finally really started to get the fulfillment of doing a job where I could see that I really enjoy.

I love working with the people that we work with, from the from the angle of just the involvement, the sheer involvement and being a part of the story, learning, you know, sharing with them as they grow. And that sort of it’s it’s immensely fulfilling in a way that it’s never been before. And I’m just I’m thrilled to be a.

Rhiannon It’s you work some long hours. And as much as there are good elements and fulfilling elements of the role, there are some also some really tough days as well. What gets you out of bed in the morning when you had a tough day the day before? Why do you do this?

Ian Yeah. Look, I think this is a I know there’s got to be a streak of optimism in me that says that. I mean, we’re dealing with we’re dealing with behavior most of the time with coaching. It’s a behavior thing, right? It’s it’s we’re working with people. And look, sometimes when they’re at the run up against it, they’re having big.

We I mean, we deal with comfort zones a lot in as part of our everyday work. And most of the time we’re asking people to do things that make them very uncomfortable actually talking face to face to people and answering phones and talking fast and booking quotes, you know, returning, not talking fast, returning phone calls fast with we’re talking about, quoting face to face.

We’re talking about learning things, and learning on the go sometimes. I mean, even as a lawn and garden guy, there were jobs that you come to where you’re looking there and you’re making a guess it it becomes a get sometimes as the as you’re quoting because, I mean, some of the lawns were terrifying. They were really, really high and thick and all sorts of things.

And every time you even that, you walk through it, you just sometimes you miss. So I’ve got myself lost now, but the, the.

Rhiannon Why you do what you do, that’s.

Ian What I do, what I do, what I do is because.

Rhiannon You get to share in.

Ian The success of it. You get to support them through the difficulty. Look there. It’s it can be tough. I mean, it’s look, especially if you’ve got empathy for the situation and and you know, you you’ve got you feel for them sometimes it’s really it’s hard it when you when people are struggling and you want to go and give them a cuddle or you want to you want to help them.

But in the end you have to actually get to a point where you help them help themselves.

Rhiannon Yeah.

Ian We can’t. At the end of the day, they’re in business for themselves. Our role isn’t to dig them out of the hole. We can we can get down in the hole with them and then help them find the way out. But it’s not for us to dig the hole, to dig them out of the hole. Right. So that it.

But we can actually be there to shine a light if it if it’s that to support them, give them, moral support if they need a bit of that if they, if they’re on the wrong path, it’s to make suggestions to show them where the right path might be. It’s any number of different. I mean, the story, the story changes with each person.

So the struggles that they have will relate to their personality, type it all, relate to their skill levels. It will relate to their attitude. And it’s our job to, find out which one of those things or which combinations of those things, even that it is, and then help them find the solution that will take them where they want to go.

And I think that’s the thing that gets me up and gets me out of bed, like at 4:00 every morning. Sometimes I I’m as I’m walking, as I do my free walk, I have to actually stop and brought down notes and things like that because I this that’s where the ideas come. It’s the inspiration for and I look at them, I’m getting a little bit light in my working life now and I’m catching I’m playing catch up because this, this is really this is really absorbing and it feels very worthwhile from my perspective anyway.

It feels like it is a worthwhile use of a life.

Rhiannon It is, isn’t it? It is incredibly humbling, fulfilling, powerful to be able to watch someone who’s come into our network, maybe not even having thought about running a business before, and who has used the business as a vehicle to get where they really wanted to go in life, you know, whether it’s being able to save that deposit for the first house or even just, you know, making more money than they’ve ever made before as an employee and having a totally different financial position and being able to provide for their family in a way they never thought was possible, or simple things like taking their family on their first interstate holiday.

There’s there’s so many incredible individual stories that come from our network, and it is I sometimes find it a little bit overwhelming in, in the best way possible that what we get to do every single day is get out of bed and help these people create their stories.

Ian Absolutely. It’s like it’s mine. I’ve been it’s the beauty that being involved with something for 18 years, 17, something like that. This is my identity and the the I’ve actually shared in several of those. There are several. There are several, franchisees who started that. Lisa and I started back when we when we started, that have been here and we’ve watched them grow families.

We’ve watched them, have their own, bike moved from, a one bedroom apartment to that with no furniture to. We watched them go from a second day. They moved into a furnished apartment, which would be two bedrooms and much like, like 100% improvement in their in the previous thing, that was where their first child was born.

They then went and bought themselves a, a townhouse. And their second child arrived, they then moved on to buy, a proper house, proper, of their own with yard,you know house and a yard had the proper Australian dream. And that was all through the business. It was they they had no other income that the business financed the whole thing.

And we get to watch that and we, we kind of we almost the, the grandparents, the other the third to the grandparents to the kids. We have great relationships. So watch this is others like that. Here’s the thing that I had thought about today is they talk about, you know, start and start a, a legacy item is starting something that you that you probably never get to see the end of.

Well, where at my own stage, there are people that I’m starting today that I’m not going to see the end of where the story goes. But, you know, I get to share along the way. And and it’s nice to think that that I’ve played some sort of part in wherever their story takes them is to, to be able to share that with them.

That’s, that’s a real for me. That’s that’s the joy of what I’m doing now.

Rhiannon I think that’s the perfect place to leave this episode of The Real Franchise. And thank you for doing what you do. The passion with which you work with our business owners, the dedication that you show them and the absolute care and commitment that you display every single day is incredible. It is a level of its own, and there are so many business owners in our network who I know, incredibly, incredibly grateful for your guidance in their journey.

And I know that we have so many more business owners to come in the future that will also hugely benefit from your skills and your expertise and your care. So thank you for taking half an hour to share a little bit of a window into your world with us, and thank you for being one of our incredible business coaches.

Ian Was it a pleasure?

Rhiannon With that, we’re going to leave this episode of The Real franchise right here. Hopefully you will join us for the next one very soon.