💬 Is a Franchise Just Buying Yourself a Job?” | The Real Franchise Ep63

Rhiannon Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Real Franchise, a podcast that goes where others simply won’t, an 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 HomeServices Australia, and Justin, who is one of our owners as we unpack it all with no topics off limits.

Justin, today we’re talking about something that piqued both of our interest just yesterday. It was a comment on Facebook, and it was somebody had commented on one of the pieces of content that we have floating around out there in Facebook. And it was, in the negative around, this is just buying yourself a job. Why would you bother?

And it piqued both our interest because we thought, really is buying a job such a negative thing. So today we’re going to talk about it. Is buying a franchise a service based franchise, just buying a job. And if it is, is that so bad? So Justin is buying a job a bad thing?

Justin Well, I was thinking about it like when we saw the comment that’s like, well, who if you could earn the same money or better. And not have… you be the boss and you’d be in control. He wouldn’t want to do that. Like, let’s be honest, most of this would. That’s what we want, you know, not to have to report to somebody else.

You report to you and you make the decisions, and you work when the hours you want to work. And if you’re earning the same money or better, why not? Like, yeah, which is sort of a different way that you and I would normally think about it. And I’ll probably dive into that I’m sure in a moment. But yeah, it’s, it’s, is it a bad thing?

I don’t think so.

Rhiannon I don’t think so. But I mean, I’ve been working around business for a very long time now. And it’s always been talked about as a bad thing. And I think the reason that sometimes we talk about buying a job is a bad thing is because when you buy a business and this is what we’re talking about, when you buy a business and people say it’s buying a job, what do they actually mean by that?

Well, what they mean is that you’ve bought a business and people just assume that with business comes lots of money, lots of freedom. Do what you want. Plan your all of the all of the things that we’ve been very good as a society at glorifying about business ownership over the past few decades. The reality is that business ownership is not a walk in the park.

It is hard. There are challenges. You are. It will ask more of you than any job. However, the reward on the other side should be more money. If you’re running a business, there should be more money in it than just working for a boss if you’re doing it right, if you’re scaling, if you’re following systems, all of those things, there should be more freedom and flexibility.

You should have control over your schedule, all of those things. So I think this comment about buying a job comes from where people have bought a business, but then not understood that if you don’t work it like a business, if you buy a business and then just work at like a job, yeah, it’s a job. That’s it. You just bought yourself a job and you thought you were getting freedom and money and flexibility and control and all of those things, but you didn’t work it to get those outcomes.

And so you ended up stuck feeling like this is just another version of a job. Yes. I think that’s where the negative connotation comes from. Right?

Justin Yes.

Rhiannon But I think that our model challenges that completely. And that’s what I really want us to dive into. Because just and you and I know we have built this model so that it is scalable for anybody who wants scale. Yeah. What do I mean by scalable? And what are the sorts of things that we’ve built into our model just as stock standard.

That means that someone, if they want to, could scale one of these businesses in our network so that it’s more than just a job.

Justin Yeah, I think when most of us think scaling, we think bigger. So bigger turnover, bigger profit, bigger than just me. Yeah. So the things that we’ve built into our model right from the outset, like a support system. So having that business coach and all of our business coaches have had businesses with us that have scaled, that have had multiple teams of staff on the right.

They’ve done it before, and they walk through our guys and help them do the same. And I sat in on a two hour session that you ran with that business coach team yesterday, and it was just awesome to listen to, you know, you reviewing the checklists that our coaches use, working with people. And and I think next week you’re catching up with them to go through the plan on how we help people employ staff and the steps to look at the financial things we go through with people before they employ staff.

All of these systems and processes are all about helping our business owners scale if they choose to write. Like we were just saying. And let’s be honest, many of our business owners just want to have a job that they control and control. Yeah, it’s like we have lots of people, as you know, in our network, that number one goal was to be able to drop the kids off at school and pick the kids up, you know, and if they can work that and and what they need to be earning, how great is that for a period of time for a season.

Rhiannon I think it’s really worth is pausing on this point, because what you and I say so often is people that inquire with us who inquire and their goal is build an empire, right? Yeah. And it’s, you know, they’re going to they’re going to go full tilt. We’re going to have staff in 3 to 6 months. We’re going to keep building, keep building.

We’re going to add on services. We’re going to add on territories. And they do indeed want an empire. They want to be able to transition very quickly off of the tools and into a management role. That is a very common, goal that people have when they initially inquire with us.

Justin Yes.

Rhiannon I would say that all of the people that come to us with that goal, maybe 10% execute. And it’s not because the system isn’t facilitating execution, it’s because this these same people have come from those backgrounds which is driven and professional, and we have goals and we work hard and we achieve things, and then we set the next goal.

And it’s it’s a go hard or go home mentality. So they carry that into what they think they want to do with their business. These same people don’t take days off. They don’t have time to spend with friends and family and they kids, they don’t do the school drop off run. They don’t do the pick up run. They don’t go to soccer training on a Thursday in the game on Saturday.

Right. And all of a sudden they come into our network, they start a business, they get a taste of flexibility and they go, man, this is amazing.

Justin You know.

Rhiannon Actually, I don’t want an empire. I want the simpler things in life. Do you think do you share that? Yes. That’s an accurate reflection of us.

Justin I’ll be honest, because, you know, I talk to, well, dozens and dozens of people every single week. And I hear so often what you’re just saying. And I have to be careful because in my mind, I’m sitting there going, yeah, we’ll see. You know, in a not in a judgmental way, but just let’s see what happens, what’s going to play out.

Because so many yeah, we get stuck. I think in a job in a rut and it just becomes a 9 to 5 or many of us wish it was just a 9 to 5. Usually it’s a lot more than that. I just spoke to a lady this morning who trying to get her husband out of his job because, you know, he leaves at six and he’s back home at 7 or 8 at night, every night.

Been doing it for years. Like we get stuck in that rut and yes, then we get a taste of wait a second? I’m earning more than I was earning and I can have every Friday off I can. Yeah, let’s we can have a long weekend every weekend. Look. Oh my goodness. And and people people’s goals shift. It’s not that they’re not achieving the goals.

It’s that they’ve gone. You know what? I’m setting new goals. I’ve got a whole different opportunity that I didn’t know I had. Yeah. And and I guess that’s the beauty of having your own business. You are in control. You have the choice. You can make the choice. Whereas in a job. Yeah. You just got to make those KPIs.

You’ve just got to turn up. You’ve got to do the things you’ve got to do. And in return you get your salary. And you know, we would hope that affects change in most cases, but it’s the cost that comes along with that. And, I guess that’s what today’s about is that you can I it can be a good thing, you know, that you’re.

Yes. You did buy a job, but B, you have the opportunity to also create the empire if you want.

Rhiannon Yeah, absolutely. I think that was an important point to pause on because yeah, so many people come to us with some really big driven ideas on what they want to do. And then and then, you know, we get in and we get 2 to 3 months in and they sort of they’re not sort of heading down the road that we thought that they would be heading down.

And we don’t judge at that point. We actually we actually sit down with our business owners and we say it looks to us like maybe the goals have shifted. So let’s redefine what the goals are and then work, work with you on what your goals are. And I think it’s really important to mention that our model works no matter what size you want your business to be.

Our model works for small businesses. I mean, small caveat if you think that this is a side gig, no business kicks off with a side gig amount of effort being put into it. So remember that this isn’t a side gig. You do need to commit full time to them, but you can commit full time and have a small business.

You can commit full time and and go crazy and have a big business and model works for both. So let’s, change gears in the conversation and talk about big businesses and that scalability. I want to talk for just a little second about, the sort of support that we give to people when they think about employing staff in our network.

Because I’ve had I’ve now had multiple conversations in industry, in the franchising sector, where I’ve been sharing what it is that we do to support our business owners when they want to employ staff and, people who have had first hand experience in other franchise networks, and also execs of other franchise networks, are surprised that we go to the extent that we do.

So I thought that what we did was normal, but maybe it’s not. So I want to take a minute to explain what we do. We have a four stage employing staff process that we take any business owner through who thinks they want to employ staff. It’s a very structured program. It’s delivered closely by the business coach that that business owner is working with.

It’s got four stages to it. We don’t just go in for the kill with, here’s a template for a PD and a and a, you know, a job ad. Best of luck. Well, we actually start right back at the start and we go, what are you wanting to achieve out of employing staff? Because sometimes it is about lots and lots of turnover, lots and lots of profit.

Sometimes it’s about I don’t want to be on the tools anymore, and sometimes it’s actually about I want both of those things, but I don’t want to be in the business. I want to be spending time with friends, family and my kids. Depending on what the goal is. Our support looks different, so it’s really important we start with the actual goal and dissect that.

Then we do a financial analysis and this is most what I say often I saw it, I saw it when I was helping businesses before this role. I see it in this role. Most people get stuck on the fence of I want staff, but I don’t quite have enough work for them yet, so I can’t afford them. So do I work really hard beyond my own capacity so that I can afford staff?

Or do I go out and, spend all my, you know, the cash that I’ve saved up in the business on a affording staff, and then I’ve got to work really hard to build a pipeline of work for them, and people get stuck in the middle of these two options. We actually have a set financial process that we take a business owner through that helps them to objectively analyze where they sit and what the next step is.

If you need a savings plan, we work on that in your business. If it is that your business can already sustain another staff person, we work on that. If it’s some other option or a hybrid of the two, then we work on that. It’s very bespoke. Then we get to what a recruitment process actually looks like, and then we help with what the onboarding and adoption process looks like.

And based on the feedback I’ve I’ve received from our own industry, is that that is something that other networks just don’t do is standard, which I find really interesting.

Justin Yeah, yeah, because I know I see a lot in small business where people go, you know what, I need staff. They go and employ someone. It doesn’t work out. And they go, not doing that doesn’t work. Having staff, I’m not having staff. Yeah. And it’s like, well, wait a second. The entire world operates. Business operates because staffing your business does work.

You know, it might. And this is what we try and minimize those sort of risks. And it also it’s a big education process and doing it at the right time. Like you say financially I think is often the mistake people make. They jump too soon or they wait too long and

Rhiannon Yeah, they don’t have in the meantime while they wait. Yeah, I’ve got another I’m going to throw to you in a second for, your own thoughts on anything else that we do in our network specifically to help businesses scale? But I’ve got another one I want to mention before. Before I give the mic back to you, marketing, we market, but we teach you to market.

And I think this is such a critical thing to talk about when we talk about scalability. Scalability is just systems, right? If you don’t have if you don’t have systems in your business, you don’t have scalability. And if if there’s one thing that we’ve done really well in this network is we have systemized everything we can possibly systemize so that people can scale, and our marketing is one of those things.

We’ve highly systemize the marketing process that a business owner should undertake in their local area, in order to compliment the marketing that we do for the business as well. And because we teach people how to market, because we have this system, it’s so easy in a sense, for a business owner who’s following that marketing system to turn on leads when they need them.

They have the skills, the knowledge, the understanding and the capability to go out and turn on more leads and more work when they need them. So I think that that is, you know, behind sort of employing staff. When you employ staff, you need to have more work for the staff to do. And I think the one thing that we do really well is we’ve systemized and, supported our business owners to actually market their businesses.

So they’re in control of generating work.

Justin Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was in a meeting this week with Marie. She’s near the Gold Coast, as you know, with a cleaning business with us. She employs a fan. She’s got family working in there, but she’s run out of family members. So she was saying this week she’s now employing her first person outside of family. Yeah. And and the question was around this.

Well, what about. And for her it was like, well, no, I just go at market. I just, you know, I just generate you know, I’m always more inquiry and. Yeah. And for her that’s her being able to step out and do more of that side of it. Which and that’s the beauty. Like you say, have a system. If you use a system.

That’s the beauty of a good franchise. It’s got good systems. And you can then use the system to scale your business if that’s what you desire.

Rhiannon Yeah, yeah. Is there anything else for you that comes to mind? If not, I’ve got another thing that I can mention.

Justin Well, you go ahead because there’s hundreds of things that we do that people scale.

Rhiannon There’s so many things, but I’m on a roll. I’ve got another one. And I think this is something that we do that others don’t do, do very well or very thoroughly. We coach mindset, we coach mindset and attitude. And in my opinion, and I’m sure you’re probably quite similar in your thinking, if you can’t switch from employee mindset to business owner mindset, you cannot grow a business.

If you cannot switch between your mindsets, you will always be an employee, no matter whether you’re operating your own business or not. We teach people, we coach people how to switch mindsets to an employee, or up from an employee to a business owner mindset, and it is all about taking responsibility, taking accountability, getting out of bed every morning and saying, this is one of your sayings that I’ve absolutely commandeered.

I love it if it’s to be, it’s up to me.

Justin Yeah.

Rhiannon And there is a lot of nuance to adopting a successful business owner mindset. And one of the things that our business coaches work on, a lot with our business owners is that mindset, is that transition. We’ve got specific, psychological constructs that we actually teach people rationalizations, laws of exchange. It all sounds highfalutin, but it is critical to understand how your attitude and your mindset actually play a role in your business’s success, and whether it’s just a job for you, or whether it is actually a business that you’re in full control of, I would say that your mindset and your attitude trumps all.

Justin Totally agree. Yep yep yep. In the selection process when I’m approving people, it is the number one thing. You know, everything else you can work through in a sense. Well, unless yeah, pretty much anything else can be worked through except for like if you’ve got a criminal record and stuff like that. Sorry, we can’t help but but if you have the right attitude, if you’re teachable, if you’re prepared to work on those things you were just talking about, this is a perfect sort of business for you because you can come in, you’ve got that support, you can be directed in the right manner, and you can grow to the size you want to grow.

Rhiannon Yeah, actually we’ve got the perfect example of that. We’ve got a young woman, a young woman who I think is also a young mum in Brisbane who started about 5 or 6 weeks ago. And I don’t want to mention names because I don’t, I don’t always want to, you know, give out this sort of information and put it to a name because, as you know, anybody can search our website and find business owners, so it wouldn’t take two and two to put together.

However, this woman started about 5 or 6 weeks ago and her business coach said yesterday that she was about two hours away per week from her own physical capacity working in the business.

Justin Yeah, yeah.

Rhiannon And she was already working with the business coach on employing staff. And I just think, how insane is that? She’s only 5 or 6 weeks in, is that right? Is that about right? 5 or 6.

Justin Minutes. She’s not a she’s not a mum. She’s a very young, very young lady. And when I first met her, I just thought she was just because I took it through the information process. And I just thought, she’s just such a lovely young person. Yeah, but she’s just grabbed this, like from day one. She’s just grabbed it. She’s taken all the information and she’s just run.

And yeah, it was so awesome to hear that because I’m thinking I’m going to do one of those interviews that I do for the weekly podcast with her in the next week with side, because being so fresh, so new, and, you know, she had worked really hard in her previous job and financial not being rewarded at all, but had enormous responsibility for someone her age.

And yet and she’s taken and she got that responsibility because of her attitude. Right. She was her employer identified. Well, this person is really great. Here you go. You can run on your own, blah, blah, blah. Well, she’s then taken that and put it into her own business where her efforts now bring her the reward.

Rhiannon Yeah. How amazing. And I love this example, particularly because she’s not done this before. She’s not got business experience. She doesn’t have a marketing background. She isn’t an accountant. She doesn’t understand the numbers, you know, intimately. Before she came to our network, she wasn’t confident in computer systems and I.T and software and business management, and we’ve been able to teach her all of those things.

But it’s her attitude that means she’s grabbed it. She’s taken the uncomfortable on the front foot. Every time when we’ve given her a challenge, she’s gone, okay, let’s do it. And it’s that attitude that we get every single time I see it over and over again in this network. And honestly, I mean, I’ve gotten jobs off of my attitude, the job that I had before this one, I worked as a business and economic development consultant in North Queensland for six years.

And I got that job not because the job was advertised, but because I moved to the location. I looked up business consultants. I loved what this firm did, and I went and I knocked on their door and I said, I know that you don’t have anything advertised, but here I am. This is my skill set, I’m keen, and if you have anything in the future, I’m happy to be a receptionist.

I just want to learn. And I sort of looked at me funny, and then they called me back the next day and they were like, you know what? We like your initiative, come in for an interview, and then the rest is history. They gave me a job where there was no job. They taught me so much about what I knew.

They really did take me under their wing. And still to this day, I catch up with the owner of that company still quite regularly. We became very good friends, and still to this day, he says, you know, I gave you that job because of your attitude.

Justin You know, it’s number one. I know it’s off topic, but I don’t even know where I heard this. But all my life when I’ve been employing people in my different roles and even in this, I use the what I call the “F.A.T.” principle. “F” a person has got to be faithful, you know, if they are, they going to be the person that you can rely on to turn up, “A” available, you know, either available or they always or other things in the way that stop them from being able to step up to what you need them to step up and do.

And “T” are they teachable because if someone is “F.A.T.” and faithful, available, and teachable, you can build and mold and help them achieve success. And it’s the same in these businesses. So we look for “F.A.T.” people.

Rhiannon We do. We do. Do you know what? I actually remember one of our first exchanges. I don’t know if you remember this, but I do it because it’s stuck in my mind. We were sitting in the boardroom of, helping partners, and we were talking about this. This was before we purchased. We were working through the due diligence process, and I had been engaged on, like, this Thursday and this was the Monday, and I had had like four days to learn as much as I possibly could about this network so that I could really take a leadership position in that due diligence process.

And we were meeting on the Monday together with my business partner, and I had to present to you both what my strategy was going to be for the due diligence process. And I remember being in that room for a few hours, and I presented on what we were going to do. And I’ve had all of, you know, a couple of days to put this thing together and, and figure out what I needed to ask.

And I remember your business partner left the room and you just looked at me and you said, are your parents business owners? And I said, no. The primary producers, farmers, they’re business owners, right? Everybody who’s a farmer, primary producer, you’re you’re a business owner. But I said, yeah, that well, they are their primary producers. And you said that makes sense.

And I was like, what do you mean by that? And you were like, it’s attitude. You’ve just got this. No one’s coming to save me yet. Four days to put that together and like, yeah, put that together. You know attitude is key.

Justin Yeah. Yeah absolutely.

Rhiannon All right. We deviated way from topic. Was there anything else that comes to mind for you that we do that maybe others don’t or that you think is really worth highlighting? That really helps our business owners who want to scale to be able to do that.

Justin Yeah, we sort of touched on this, but I want to be a bit more direct. When I thought about this comment yesterday and I thought in context of other networks in this industry, right, and other networks, they obviously have good parts. You know, there’s pluses and minuses for everyone.

What do I think really differentiates us is what we’re talking about today in this second point of scalability, because we really put you in the driver’s seat right in. If you join our network and you want to scale a business, well, like you said, we make you in control of the marketing. You control that. Right? And to scale, to be successful, you have to be in control.

You know, if you’re working under you’re always at risk of because you’re not in control. You’re in control of your pricing. You’re in control of your quoting. Anything you think of in your business, you are in control of. And that can be a scary thing. But that’s why we have this export. All these expert support systems and knowledge to assist you in those things.

But you are the one in the box, right? And I think as you talk about the mindset with that comment about you just buying a job, well, you know, a lot of other networks, when you look at the model, will in a sense, here you are right. They’re just feeding you. You’re relying on them. And then you know, well, you can only scale if they’re going to keep giving you more work.

Like and then what happens if they start somebody else and it’s just and you hear the horror stories. But if you’re going to have a successful business that you would kind of scale and be sustainable in, you have to be in control of every aspect of it.

Rhiannon Yeah, yeah. And I think what we do that is quite different to others and that, you know, this is this is no shade. You know, the other networks that operate in the same sector as us, they have plus points for people looking for what it is they offer. And we have plus points for people looking for what we offer.

We offer bespoke support. We often we offer more control. We offer genuine capacity and skills building so that you are better positioned after our network to go and do something else that’s really meaningful. And, and there are other networks that if you’re listening to this and you’re like, yeah, I don’t want any of that. That sounds way too hot.

I do just want to operate to my own. I be in and have that kind of that feeling of a business, but I just want the lights to be sent to me. Or even better still, I just want the jobs to be sent to me. Already quoted, already booked in. And if that’s what you’re looking for, that’s fantastic.

And there are other networks that do that way better than we do it, because that’s not what we specialize in. And those other networks do that really well. But what we do do really well is offer control, offer support and offer systems that actually allow you to scale. Arguably, there are other networks that are operating more like, you know, you’re an employee or you’re a glorified subcontractor.

Their systems aren’t actually built to enable you to scale. The systems are built just to simply feed you work. And if that’s what you’re looking for, fantastic. The market caters for what you want. But if what you’re looking for is true control, true scalability, bespoke support based on what your goals are, then hello, we’ve designed this for you.

Justin And just so that people aren’t tempted too much to the other model, remember, if you’re just being fed the work and jobs, there’s a cost associated with that. Yeah, because that business has to employ people to get the jobs, to quote the jobs, they set the price. Yeah. So I can guarantee you the average hourly rate in those networks is way lower than what.

And often because you’re in control and yeah, yeah.

Rhiannon And often your fees can be higher too. So I put this, you know, it just it all comes down to really critically assess what it is that you’re looking for. And then make sure that when you’re talking to the different franchise networks, you understand what their model is and how they make money, how how they make money tells you how they’re incentivized.

Do they make money? Just when you buy the business from them in an upfront sale, then does that mean they’re incentivized to support you long term to scale a successful business? Maybe less so. Or are they making money off you only if your business is performing, then as incentives are aligned to long term business success. So that one’s a really important one to assess as well.

Yeah. So there’s so much to think about when people are looking at franchised networks. And I hope that I hope that this podcast, if you are, if you are listening to this because you’re genuinely trying to figure it all out, you know, sort us all out categories as you’ve spent months looking at who’s who in the zoo and trying to place where we sit, I hope the conversations that we have on this podcast are helpful and not a sales pitch.

I hope they’re genuinely helping you to make a more informed decision about what’s best for you.

Justin Yeah, yeah.

Rhiannon Yes, I think that is a natural place to leave this episode. It has been a far ranging conversation today. We’ve covered a few topics. We’ve gone off script a couple of times. I think that’s really good. I think that’s a really healthy thing to do. If you’ve been listening, I hope you’ve gotten value, and I hope that maybe you might join us for another episode of The Real franchise very soon.