When Not to Start a Business | The Real Franchise – Ep56

Rhiannon Welcome back to another episode of The Real Franchise, a podcast that goes where others simply won’t, and 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 Home Services, and Justin, one of our owners, as we unpack it all with no topics off limits.

Justin, it is, the 29th of January, 2026 and we are recording our first episode for the year. You and I have both had some, an interesting start to 20, 26, let’s just say on the, you know, the life side of things, you’ve had some structural upheaval. You’ve moved. There’s been a I mean, anybody who’s moved knows that there is just so much stress and pressure that goes with moving.

I wanted to start on a different note for us. Any lessons in the last 4 to 6 weeks of your life that might actually offer some value to anyone listening about change?

Justin One of the lessons through it and and we were just discussing, I think possibly in the coming weeks, you might share on it through it. My our people, you were going through life threatening situations in Victoria with you, in your family and property and stuff like that. And that sort of helped keep things in perspective. You know, whilst it might have been a bit stressful for me, you know, shifting houses, looking for houses, trying to sell a house, it, it, you know, all the things that go on here.

You were struggling, you know, like in the forefront of all of that. But that’s another topic for another day. But that helps. I think, through upheaval, keeping ourselves grounded. And and we’re here to talk, you know, about business. And, you know, I think particularly today we’re going to talk about where not to start a business and those sorts of things.

And for me, the the lesson is and we’ll dive into this in this discussion. But if you’re in business, it’s got to be the forefront of mind. You know, like in my role, in James, I walk through the information part of the journey. I’m sort of the front end of the business, meeting people who are looking and people inquire.

So particularly at the start of the year, a lot of people are thinking, hey, I don’t want to go back to my job. I’m looking for change. You know, they scrolling through Facebook and stuff like that. And they find our advertising they inquire, and I have to be professional prompt. And so yes, lots is going on in the background, but it’s the business that allows that generates the income.

And, you know, to be able to live and to do these things. So that falls apart. Nothing else works. And I think the big message learning for me that I want to share to everyone is if you’re in your own business, if you considering business, the business has to stay front of mind. I think when we see people struggle, if in our business, in any business is when the world comes to the front, if that makes sense, the challenges and and concerns and stuff.

So anyway, that’s my big takeaway. But through it all, you’ve got to keep being professional, running a good business. We call it delivering gold Medal service uninterrupted. And so you have a business head on and you have a personal hat on and business that has to be front of mind.

Rhiannon Yeah, it’s an important message. And it’s not to say that the personal hat can’t be worn, shouldn’t be worn isn’t also equally important, but it is to say that if you allow that to overtake, what the business’s core business is, then that’s when you will find yourself struggling even more. Yeah, that’s an interesting lesson. It’s a very pertinent one, and it fades perfectly into our topic today.

Indeed, what we’re going to talk about is when you shouldn’t start a business, how a Justin that two people who sit as leadership in a franchise network are actually talking about when you shouldn’t start a business. But is everybody I mean, for anybody listening who’s been listening a little while, you know, the game now we talk about all the stuff that should actually be talked about.

This podcast is not a sales pitch. It’s not just a promo for James Home Services. It is designed to actually just help people make an informed decision about whether business ownership is right for them or not, and just taking away all of the hype and all of the fluff and all of the pretty pictures in the sales pitch and the PowerPoint presentations and talking about the real topics and that, I mean, we’re starting on starting the new year on a very strong note, because we’re talking about when not to start a business.

And I think that your your lesson is the perfect segue to our first discussion point, because I think for me, that. You should never start a business if your ability to commit to that business isn’t a 110% great. And I want to use an analogy to explain what that means in a more practical sense, and this is an analogy that I’ve borrowed from a work colleague who has borrowed it from a podcast he was listening to last week.

And it’s a beautiful one. Right. And so here it is. Imagine that you walk into a burger store, it’s lunchtime, you’re hungry. You look at the menu, you pick a burger. Pretty low commitment, right? Like you want to pick something you’re going to enjoy. But if you don’t enjoy, it doesn’t matter. It was one meal out of literally thousands of meals you will eat in your life.

You decide that you’re going to buy a new car. We’ve just taken an enormous big leap up on the level of commitment. You need to have to that decision. You need to do your research. You need to be in a financial position to be able to afford it. You need to have a secure job so that if you’re going to get a loan, you can continue to make those repayments.

You’ve got to consider the safety, the car, the size of the car, how fast you want the car to go, all of those things. Right. There’s a lot more that goes into that decision. It’s a bigger commitment. You know, then we think think about things like choosing a career, choosing a job, leaving a job, making that decision is hard.

Partnerships with people, that’s hard. Big decisions. And, you know, arguably will chart the course of your life, things like buying a house. Enormous decision, probably single handedly. The biggest financial decision anybody makes. Right. And as I have introduced each of those examples, we have moved up the hierarchy in level of commitment that you must have to that decision you’re making about what sits right at the top of all of that, if you ever choose to do it, is starting a business because the difference between starting a business and buying a house, buying a car, buying a burger, all of those things, is that it’s the business that gives you the financial wherewithal

to make the other decisions happen.

Justin Yes.

Rhiannon So the business sits on top. And so using that analogy to move back to our point, if if you’re thinking about starting a business, you shouldn’t unless you’re prepared to have that decision and your commitment to that business sitting right on top of everything else in your life at that moment.

Justin Yeah. Yes. And it’s a big call, walking people through this process. Every single person I talk to says. I’m keen on committed. I can do this with very genuine intent. Yeah, but I think, in fact, when I went through this process over 15 years ago, looking at the times business, the person who walked me through that process, he was very confronting.

He said to me, and I’ve never forgotten. He called me naive. He said, Justin, you’re very naive. And I that really shocked me. And and I must admit, and it was a good thing because it made me go, well, what do you mean by that? You know, he used to call that his million dollar question. What do you mean by that?

And so he challenged my thought and got me to start to dig deeper. And what I really committed. Did I really have the financial resources? Could I, you know, and it got me looking deeper into because I think whatever business we’re looking at, whatever job we’re looking at upfront or if it’s still operating successfully upfront, it will always look right.

Yeah, whatever it is. But I think the most important questions we need to look inside first. So this one here, I think this is what I think talking about first because I we both agree. I’d say it’s the number one thing. Can you genuinely put in the commitment and the passion. Yeah. And I was just thinking one of the tasks I did last year was create, a matrix.

And, and so we have, but between us over the last 4 or 5 years, we’ve started so many people, particularly with our subscription model, we’ve seen what makes people really successful and what doesn’t. And so part of my role is, as you know, approving people to start a business. And when we’re looking at these sort of things, you know, what are people committed to and, and what are the distractions?

And, you know, I’d love to dig a bit deeper. So number one, for us, I think we agree is that passion but genuine commitment, understanding the cost, the pain, you know, yes, I’ve been moving house but I can’t just take a week off like, not now, you know. And I’m one of the owners of the company. You know, it’s just you’ve got to you’ve got to turn up.

You’ve got to have stuff happens in life. You know, you went through some enormous family upheaval and challenges in the last two weeks. But every night you were still checking in on your computer, you were still doing stuff because I think we both really get this concept. And if you’re going to be successful in your own business, you kind of have to pay the price.

Rhiannon Yeah.

Actually, that’s the perfect segue to what I think is, you know, where you wanting to go and what you wanting to dive in more deeper, which is, one of the things that you really notice a lot when people first make an inquiry with you.

One of the things we both notice is that we get a large volume of inquiry, but in that is a lot of people who just haven’t really done their research at all.

Justin Right.

Rhiannon Yeah, yeah. Do you want to share sort of what your observations are and, and then sort of the point that we’re making here is, is really around the importance of doing your research and understanding what you’re about to jump into.

Justin Yes. I think I would say more than half of the people that inquire to us, it’s like a knee jerk. It’s like, oh, that looks interesting. That looks cool. Yeah. You know, I hate my boss. Or it’s been a tough week at work. Yeah, like I work for myself. Bang and submit an inquiry and then. Oh, well, someone calls them.

Oh, no, I’m talking to someone and and I think that’s not, you know, we’re talking about today. We’re not to start a business that’s we’re not to start a business. Yeah.

Rhiannon Yeah.

Justin A business is a big decision. Like you just said. Yes. Buying a house is a massive decision. But it’s your business. It’s your income source that delivers you that house. And so in a very real sense, I think buying a business is more significant than buying a house. And so you should be doing your research and there’s so much I think we can talk to.

And I know you’re doing a, TikTok channel just to give that a plug on these sort of things, you know, there’s so much I could talk about, about when you are doing your research, if you’re looking at joining a franchise, you know, they’ve got to be transparent. They got to be giving you letting you talk to real people.

And, you know, might be one of our next episodes. We do talk about, you know what, how to choose the right sort of franchise, because you need to get that information, and that information needs to also be at a relevant time. Yeah. You know, we were speaking to a guy yesterday who just wanted all the facts and numbers.

Now, how much profit a month a week could he make? Like all good questions, but that’s irrelevant until you know what your costs are and how you know how the businesses run and work that generate that.

Rhiannon Yeah. So when does it meet his objectives? You know, what’s what’s he actually looking for? Yeah,

So I actually was filming a, TikTok video yesterday, and one of the points that I was making was that it’s so easy to get, it’s so easy to see the advertising and think it sounds so great.

Right? Because the advertising sometimes will focus on lifestyle. But what we also need to remember is the foundations. So, you know, advertising will focus on freedom and flexibility and being your own boss. Remember that those are all outcomes.

Justin Yes.

Rhiannon And that it’s the foundations that are actually really important to understand. So the foundations of actually building a successful business are hard work and commitment and persistence and diligence and doing your homework and making sure that the business model suits you and what you want to get out of it, making sure that you’ve got time available for the commitment.

Making sure that the skill sets that you’ve got are going to be able to be massaged to be a business owner in that area, you’ve got to actually be, particularly when you’re looking at a franchise network, you’ve got to be sure that the foundations of their network are going to carry a successful business for you. So their systems are great, their processes are great.

They can evidence any claims about revenue. They can evidence any claims about support. Support that sounds vague or generic probably doesn’t exist in the way that you’re thinking. So all of those things come into play when you see an ad for anything that you’re thinking about purchasing, right. And it’s really easy, you know, in advertising, we’ve got all of 0.01 of a second to grab someone’s attention.

So we talk about the outcomes because those are the things that people are interested in knowing. What can I get from this product or service, etc.. So advertising naturally talks about outcomes. What you want to make sure is that when you do inquire, you have either done research or you have an appetite to learn about those foundations. It’s totally fine to inquire if you’re right at the beginning and you just want to start to find out a little bit about franchising or starting a business, or, you know, whether this might be for you or not, it we’re not saying don’t make an inquiry unless you’re well researched.

What we are saying is make an inquiry with your eyes open and make an inquiry knowing that the process that we will take you on. I can’t speak for others, but the process that we will take you on is an information journey. And in that information journey, what we’re going to share with you, we are going to talk about outcomes, but we’re also going to build your understanding of the foundations that we’ve built as a network that will carry you to those outcomes.

And that’s the important part. You shouldn’t start a business if you don’t have an appetite to understand the foundations.

Justin Yes, yes. So true, so true.

Rhiannon Yeah. I think I think there’s something else that’s a real stand out for you and I that way observe quite a lot. And it really comes down to, priorities and basically what else is happening in that person’s world.

Justin So, yes.

Rhiannon What you want to have learned in the last six years of helping people start businesses in this country is you shouldn’t start a business if your world, if your life has too many other significant competing priorities. Do you want to throw some practical light on what I mean by that?

Justin Yeah, absolutely. And it’s very this point is very closely linked to the first point about it being front of mind, but it being because it is it to particularly start a business, it’s 150%. If it’s got it, it’s probably going to be the toughest thing you’ve ever done. You know, we’re here to support we’ve got the systems, processes, marketing, all of that.

So it’s a heck of a lot easier starting with us, in my biased opinion. Right. But we have the results to prove that, so some of the practical to answer your questions, you know. We don’t have lots of, young mums join us, you know, that are looking after kids, family, whatever. Because that for all the right reasons, the kids, the family, the household are the number one priority, right.

And when you put in that in context of what we’re saying, the business needs to be the number one priority. There’s obviously going to be conflict because, you know, you’re building regular customers and your customers are expecting you now, but the kids have all gone down sick, and you’ve got to be at home to look after the kids or take them to a specialist appointments or, and, and there’s just this conflict that makes it extremely difficult.

You might be caring for your elderly parents full time, and you’ve got to be there, and you’ve got to be running them around between, you know, and be on call. And once again, this conflict.

Rhiannon I think that’s a really interesting point to put in there just quickly. And it’s sort of a caveat to say that these situations can work if you have an incredible network of support around you. Yes, that’s where we say it work really well. But also that network actually takes out that conflict you’re referring to because where you have a clash, you know, business space kids business, they parents business very health.

You’ve got a network that can help you carry what’s happening in your personal life. It’s when you don’t have a network and when you’ve got those conflicting major things happening in your world that that conflict happens. And inevitably what we’ve observed is that naturally and very understandably, the kids are the priority. The parents are the priority. The health is the priority.

It should be your life is more important and those things are more important. Yeah, than a business. Yeah. But the point we’re making is that if you’ve got these big things happening in your world, take some time to genuinely consider whether you can add another big priority onto your plate, because it just might not be the right time.

Justin Yeah, yeah. And this podcast we’re talking about when not to start a business.

Rhiannon Yeah.

Justin Right. My in any business, if someone’s talking to me about starting a coffee shop or if they were asking my advice and that was going on in their world, I would say, is now really the right time to start this? This might be the right thing for you, but is it the right time? And I find with all these personal things which are with life happens right.

So business might be right for you, but is it the right time? And, you know, I think it’s it’s working at the right season in life for you. And that’s through the process. So many people that I walk this journey through, we go on a great look, maybe come back in 12 months, maybe it’s, you know, these and we work.

I work with a plan on people have some people I meet with every month. It might start with this in 12 months time. You know, there’s things going on in their personal circumstances that they’re getting into the right places so that they’ve got every chance of success because what I observe is if people run out and start any business when they’ve got these other things going on, it really putting a big hurdle, an extra hurdle in front of themselves to success.

And so much of what you and I do, I think with our business model and our processes, is to remove as many hurdles as possible for people to success. I think I should really see that as a key part of our roles in the journey we take people through, to remove hurdles, to give people the best chance of success.

Yeah. And and so that’s why we’re doing this video. You know, we’re not just at the other little one that just came to mind. That sort of comes into priorities. So many people that I think look to start a business with that I’m speaking to don’t have any basic financial resources. You know, that’s a whole nother big topic.

But, you know, if you kind of start any business, remember, if you’re in a job now and you’re relying on that pay packet to meet your bills each week when you stop your job, well, the pay packet stops. Do you have anything to keep you going for X number of weeks or months or whatever that particular business, when you sit down and do your homework and research and resources and, you know, cash flows and business plans, make sure you’ve got.

So I guess in light of this, we’re not to start a business. If you don’t have any basic financial resources, might not be the right time, because that’s been another hurdle you’re putting in front of yourself.

Rhiannon Yeah. That’s right. Yeah, I think that’s a really beautiful analogy. What we’re trying to do is remove hurdles and, you know, this episode might seem a little bit counterintuitive to a lot of people listening. You know, with the leadership of a franchise network in Australia, very well known, long standing in the home services sector, you would think that the owner and the CEO would be absolutely just standing on the top of the cliff screaming, everybody should start a business with us.

But actually, you know, we want people to start a business with us when they’re committed, when they have the time, when they have the inclination, when they have the passion, when it fits into their life, when they’ve done their homework and they’re really sure they’re ready for this and when they’re financially secure. And if you’re in that position and you’ve ticked all of the boxes and you think that this is something that might get you where you want to go in life, then we would love to chat.

If you’re not sure about what these boxes mean or what they look like for you, please still inquire. Because our job is actually not to convince you to start a business. Our job is to help you make a better informed decision about whether it is right or not, and indeed, whether we are right, or whether maybe another network might be better suited to you.

We’ve got a whole nother episode on, you know, the different business models of networks and when we work and when we don’t work, and we’re very open with people that we don’t suit everybody. So I think, I think that’s a natural place to leave this episode. But I think actually you’ve just inspired another idea for another episode down the track, which is how much money do you need?

Because you’ve touched on an absolutely critical point there. You need to have some money behind you, and we should talk openly about how much you need and what we actually look for, and also the tools and resources that we have in place to help us help people understand whether they’ve got enough or not. You know, this is not just sort of Blind Freddy leading the way, saying, you’ve got enough and you don’t have enough.

We’ve actually got a really strict process around how we look at that. So it could actually be helpful to share that in a future episode.

Justin That’s great. Yes. Great. Yeah.

Rhiannon Perfect. Well, let’s leave this episode right here. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of The Real Franchise.