Meet the Team: Rupesh & April | The Real Franchise Episode 44

Justin Hello and welcome to the Real franchise. If you’re watching this video. My name is Justin Kelly, the national director of sales and one of the owners of James. And tonight we’re joined by April and Rupesh. And, you guys are some of our newest team members, in the country. So where are you guys based at the moment?

April So we’re based in Geelong, Victoria. Well, Charlemont area, which is a new development. So. That’s right. Yeah. Right. Name out. Right. And Alice.

Justin You’re an hour from Melbourne are you?

Rupesh I yeah I’m a 57 minutes in traffic

Justin Oh. Cool. Didn’t realize you, I’m a North Queenslander is on the other end of the country. So I didn’t realize it was so far out of out of the city.

Rupesh Yeah, yeah, yeah, I found it a bit funny, but I think it’s a good combination between, regional and a little city vibe as well. So if you go to town, like if you go to the main town, it’s like city feels and then within 10 to 15 minutes drive away, it feels like country as well. All of it.

Yeah. It’s a good combination.

Justin Well, before you joined James, what were you guys doing? Because you all you each had different careers. What, what and how did you meet? Actually, I think that’s a pretty cool story.

Rupesh So, before prior to James, I, I’m like, I’m a chef, and I’ve been cooking for 17 years. April’s been a nurse. She’s a nurse. But we used to work in the same restaurant, and April’s started the front, and I met it April there. Then I thought, this girl will should annoy me the rest of my life.

Justin She got a bit more attention than the rest of the staff. Yeah, yeah.

April He asked me on too many coffee dates and I said no too many times. And then I felt bad. So I said, okay, I’ll go on one. Then I went on one and he was very talkative. And so then that’s.

Rupesh the last one was for me. I was like, okay, I’ve tried enough. I’ll give you one more shot. And if it’s not, if it’s not that, well, okay.

Justin She said yes for a good. Yeah. So what would you guys, what made you guys I guess look in the first place to change?

Rupesh To look, I think, you know, one, I really didn’t, want to work, like, my whole life in Australia. And one thing is because I love the industry, but as the as you grow older, I think it’s hard to stand on your feet for more than, like, sometimes you have to stand on your feet for 12 to 16 hours.

And and also with the lifestyle, like when everyone’s have fun of you basically working hard and like your weekends are always like, you have to be there. And then like even sometimes if you’ve got some family issues or even your personal health, like an issue like health problems and stuff, you, it’s very hard to get set goals as well since you are managing this stuff.

It’s you just can’t leave everything. And yeah, so it was kind of like very demanding, work wise and I thought I really needed a change to, to have that balance of life because when, when you’re young, you don’t mind it. But I think as you grow older, you just want to be more stable in life.

And so we started looking for owning a business. And yeah, that’s my this is my like my kind of being in April was the same. I think she wanted a bit of a change, but she was more into like wait and hang on a bit like, we still have time. I’m like, no, there’s a time.

April Yeah, I have to. Nursing jobs going at the same time. So yeah.

Justin you just bought a house didn’t you?

April Mum and then just bought a house. Yeah. So we have things happening, but then I dropped one of my jobs and it’s focusing on another one. And you kept saying it and it sort of sat in my brain. And then we kept thinking about it, and then we kept saying, Should we? Should we not?. It was just a conversation for a long time.

Yeah. And then we went for a walk one day, and then we started talking about it again. And then we were like, let’s just do it. Like, why are we not doing it? Yeah, right. So then that’s sort of how it came about. And then right, I love this, but I also it’s a very hard job sometimes and I’d rather cut back a bit on that.

And then dream on this.

Rupesh Yeah.

Justin Okay. Great. And as it builds see what happens. Yeah. Okay. And so what James what made you pick James.

Rupesh So we were not sure like we wanted to get a business, but we were just not sure what business do we really need. And since like, we, we wanted to like to have, our own cafe. But since the pay, you know, inflation of, like, with the economy and too expensive to own something very like any you like something very, very big, like restaurants or cafes and, and I felt like it’s not the right time as well because, people just don’t, like, have money.

I felt like just to buy a cup of coffee. It’s not normally like, even nowadays, it’s like seven bucks for a small cafe. I mean, it’s more coffee. So we were like, it’s not the right time to buy, cafe. Then what else do we can we do it? Then I started researching. I researched pest control. I researched testing tags.

I researched every single thing thing. And I went to like, so many friends. I like franchise company, like James. There was another one called in, the local guys from Adelaide. And like, I was looking into everything, but somehow I came across James through Facebook and when I like, I saw it. I liked the logo. Right. It’s very eye catching and it the color itself is eye catching.

And then I clicked on it and it says like, there’s a subscription and like a way of owning a business. And I first I thought, you know, how you get things on like Facebook, can you just or should you trust or not? And then I was skeptical about it, but I was like, and then I, I hold it, I saved it, but I did I like I was like, I have to research before I actually do anything in it.

So but it kept coming in every like every couple of days, like I would, I could see it and then I, I started going through YouTube and I started looking around videos like, what is it actually then then I saw things and so many like, I felt like that really suit me because, it was like really easy to get in, my subscription method, which is like, it’s you don’t have to have like this basically, you know, if you want to buy some franchise, you have to put all the money at once.

And, you know, like some people can afford it straight away. And then we, we, we had the house getting built. We had so many things to like the landscaping you have to do. The furniture is move house from another one. There were so many things happening. So we thought, this is the right way of actually if I really want to do it change, then this is the way to make a change.

So I, I was very interested. I asked April, I convinced her, I said, you just need to sit down one time and then listen and then think, what do you say? Because sometimes I might be thinking something else and she will come up and brighten up with another. Oh, this is a different way of looking at it. But when she was so convinced and I was like, yeah, then that’s it.

April Seems like I’m making the decision.

Rupesh That’s right. I feel like, yeah.

Justin I’m.

Rupesh Gonna sit.

Justin So what week are you in there? How many weeks have you been running your business?

April Seven.

Rupesh Seven? Yeah, we are running on week seven. Yeah.

Justin All right. And how’s it going for you? What’s been tough? What’s been good?

Rupesh Well, that of the toughest decision I would say is like, I think for me was to take another leap in my life, right. Like, I always wanted that. But there was something that was holding me back there. There were the. I would say that the fear of fear of getting out of your comfort zone. But I know that that I knew it like the hospitality is not something I want to be.

But I wanted to jump. But it was just something fear that I just couldn’t do it. And the fear of not like because you just do not know what the behind story. I feel like the hype counts. The marketing. There’s so many different sides of it. When you start googling, you’re like, well, you have to be very like precise on every single detail to have a successful business.

We just like, I think the fear was just holding us so much, so much time. And then, you know. Yeah, one day we sat down and we just said, look, April, if we lose what we lose nothing. At least we try. It’s it’s good to have regret after, like, after trying, then having a regret but never trying, you know.

Right.

Justin Exactly. Yeah. That’s that’s a good state. Yeah.

Rupesh Yeah. So I just said we’ll do it. At least we’ll say to ourselves, we did it. And it didn’t work. It didn’t work anymore.

Justin But it’s work. And are you glad now that you’ve made the jump, now that you’ve made the jump, are you glad or you’re still very unsure or what? How do you feel about your decision now?

Rupesh We’re very glad and I think this is what we wanted to, isn’t it? That’s right.

April Yeah. Like as soon as we because I think the thing was get about the most is what if like we go through everything that the training and then we don’t get any customers. Like we were also scared of, like, what if we just don’t get customers. But I think from the moment we finish our training, like, even before we actually, like, went live, we started getting customers readily.

Yeah. And also we as much like if the bigger you want your business, the more effort you have to put into going, right? We can’t just sit down and do nothing like we have to actually put effort in. So I think the more effort that you really put in, it could get really big. I think.

Rupesh Yeah, hundred percent. And I really I think I made the best decision because the freedom that you have in your mind, you just it’s, it’s insanely good because I just don’t feel like getting, you know, being back in the shoot or working for someone else, you would be like, oh, I’ve got to work tomorrow. And then you thinking about it again.

Then like dread, right? Like you really dread to go to work. But now I can manage, like, if I want to, like, get up early, take the girls for a walk and then do everything. And I want to start around 930 at 10:00. And then I have that freedom of, you know, starting 10:00. And then if I want to finish, like if there’s a football match or if I want to go for dinner or for a good lunch, then I can just be like, okay, I can manage this schedule.

That was that’s just like owning your own life. Back to back again. So I love, I love, I love that feeling. And then plus like some days I some weeks I would be like, you know what, one week I’ll take a little rest and the next week I’ll do a lot of work. Then it just you can just balance it it out.

So I, I’m loving I’m loving the journey actually. Yeah.

Justin Good. Here’s a question for both of you. I guess so. You 1st April. So in hindsight, because everyone has this fear. Right. And the big question is could I do it myself? So for you guys, do you think you could have been where you are now if you had just done it yourself, you know, got it done.

April and Rupesh’s cleaning business.

April No. No way. Because I, we always had that stress of not knowing what happens behind the thing. Like even when we wanted a cafe. Like we know how to work the job. Know what happens in the background. Okay. So with like all the tech stuff or marketing or everything like I think if we didn’t do the franchise way, like I don’t think we would have done very well.

Rupesh No, no, I don’t think at all, to be honest, because I think it’s like having it’s like you have got a book, you read it, but if you’ve got a mentor, then you know what the meaning of the book isn’t it like for me in franchise like that, if I have to start, I know I’ve got the book, but I read it and I can just translate the way I want to, but it might be a very different right?

Like it might be very different meaning. So franchise method actually gives me some more confident to go and speak to someone rather than me starting, because I wouldn’t know nothing about it, but. And I would have learned like a really hard way as you know. But with the franchise method, I know exactly what to say. I know exactly what how to how to do the job.

There’s always, like, help behind anything with the bookkeeping, marketing, even talking to people. If someone is not giving you pay, then you know exactly how to follow it up. So this is like it’s a great like it’s having a dad basically.

April That you can just.

Rupesh Yeah. What?

Justin Yeah. You know.

Rupesh It’s basically like.

Justin That. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well I, I did have some other questions, but you’ve actually answered the most like in that, like a lot of people that I talked to who are looking at joining, you know, worried about the marketing, you know, are they going to get jobs, the training, and you’ve sort of addressed all those sort of things that you came out of there and had, you know, I remember you telling me, I think yesterday when we were talking, that the first week or two, you were just overwhelmed with the jobs that were coming through and that sort of thing, which is great.

You know, that’s obviously. Well, sometimes it’s not everyone’s experience. But, you know, I think for credit, you know, credit to you guys as well. You’ve followed the what we call the system you’ve got out there. You’ve done what you need to do. And the results are you’re seeing coming through now. So, I guess now that you’ve been in it, was that seven weeks?

Yeah. What would be some advice, any words of wisdom that you’ve learned that you or lessons you’ve learned, that you might want to share to someone who would be watching this, thinking of possibly joining James or making the leap. You.

April Know, I, I, do you think that I think about the times where I was considering not doing it and I think, imagine if I actually didn’t do it, I would be sad if we didn’t have what we know because we’re having fun with it, and especially like the customers that we get to meet and even working together.

And there’s some people wouldn’t do it by themselves, but just the interactions you get with people as well. And I just feel I feel like it’s, we have pride that we have like, done this together and started this thing. And yeah, I just I’m happy that we said yes.

Rupesh Yeah, yeah. For me, I also, I also think, like if anyone wants to join, I think there’s always like a lot of confusion comes in your mind and, but you know, like, I think you just need to sit back and just don’t even think about it and just do it because, the there’s always like, a fear in your mind, but that holds you back.

And if you know that you are a hard worker, I think you deserve more. Like you deserve more in your life. And you should have control over that. So I think having, having like joining, joining a like James, I don’t think they will regret the reason is like there is like support from day one till forever. So even if you get stuck in between the jobs and like, you know, I just thought of customer day one this like God how much I would then the straightaway a business course is like with they will they will help you out and I just, I just think it they, they shouldn’t even hold back.

They, they do do your research, but I think it’s bit like, you know, they it’s much better for answer. Yeah.

Justin Well that’s awesome. Well thank you so much for taking time out tonight to have a chat and yeah, it’s so good to say after going through the process with you, you get to that information journey. And once people start I don’t get to see very often. And it’s great to see how well you go.