EP #23 - How Brendon Keeps Active with a Test & Tag Franchise

All right, Brendan, welcome. Thanks for jumping on with us. Did you want to start with telling us who you are and what you do at the local guys? Sure.

So I'm Brendan and I am from New Zealand, and with the local guys as a test and tag technician. And we've been going now around about. I think we're in about our eighth month. Yeah, it'd be about seven or eight months now that we've been going with, with the test and tag.

Wonderful. All right, great. So, yeah. And you've got a little bit of a franchising background, don't you?

I do. I have dabbled before. Prior to joining the local guys, I did have another business. I had a master franchise in commercial cleaning. And so that's really the experience that I had. But we were there for about seven years. And in addition, I had sort of explored other franchise options, including in the hospitality arena. So, you know, I certainly have an understanding of franchising. Yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah.

Cause you're a former chef, aren't you?

I am indeed, yes. That's my other hat that I wear. Or more for over 42 years.

Wow.

Quite a illustrious career in the hospitality business as a chef, and something I really enjoyed, actually. Not that I don't enjoy test and tag, but certainly the passion sits with food.

Did you meet Gordon Ramsay at one point?

I did indeed, yes. So I met him on a couple of occasions and did some work for him more than with him. So, again, through. Through my years as a chef, I had the opportunity to meet a number of the industry leaders, including Gordon, along with Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, who else? There were numerous people which was largely through when they were promoting books. So they'd come out to New Zealand, promote their books, and somehow our hotel was the hotel to stay at, so we ended up doing functions with them as far as part of their book promotions and things like that. In addition to that, I also sort of met a number of them through some of the places that I worked. So I was obviously working in different countries at different times as well.

Yeah. So you chewed out by him, did you? You didn't get the old idiot sandwich?

I didn't, actually. I didn't actually. Quite a. Quite a different personality to what maybe you see on tv.

Oh, really?

Yeah. He was very accommodating as such. So, I mean, the media were all there and they wanted to interview him, so they do the various things and they thought it would be great for him to have some pictures of him. So they said, oh, can you come in the kitchen and make and do some photos for us. And he said, well, yes, I can, but we're not going in the kitchen until you find the chef and ask his permission. So they had to find me, track me down. I was okay with that.

I'm guessing he said yes.

He asked me to be included.

Yeah.

Well, again, it sort of just showed you that he was sort of courteous and respectful. I mean, he was certainly, you know, and I guess that flows through into everything that maybe we talk around tonight. You know, he was. He's ambitious guy and he's quite, he knows what he wants and he's quite exacting and, and, you know, that's what service is about, you know, the whole service industry. But the experiences I had with him and others were always respectful. So, yeah, absolutely, you know, beautiful. It's a great, great opportunity.

Okay, great. Okay. So going from that and then obviously over to the master franchise in the cleaning industry, my understanding is you had, Was it around 50 franchisees that were underneath yourself. So that's quite, quite deep into the franchising world. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about that and your experience in that side of things?

Yeah, absolutely. We, after sort of, you know, I guess the hospitality industry catching up with us and, you know, getting maybe a little later in years and not, not necessarily wanting to carry on doing the hours and dealing with the stuff that you had to deal with. So my wife and I were looking at different opportunities as to what we're going to do. Do we open our own business? Which always sort of was attractive because we liked the idea of working for ourselves, being our own boss. I think also from a food perspective, it was about then having, you know, to express your own ideas, but on investigation, having a look at all those things, the amount of capital that was required, required to do something half decent, and then the risk and everything that came with that, we said, well, maybe we need to look outside the box. And we looked at franchises and the food thing. But again, I felt pretty restricted by that and not, you know, sort of. It just didn't seem to make sense when I felt that I had the experience to put myself under a franchise model. So we said, oh, we'll think outside the square as such. And then saw an opportunity for a commercial cleaning master franchise in New Zealand. And it was probably the largest area in New Zealand as, as far as this company went. And so, yeah, we inherited or we took it on and we had a number of franchisees. We grew that up to 50 and a pretty good base of customer base and how we approached it. We, we sort of thought cleaning. Well, cleaning to me then was kind of cleaning. I didn't think it was, it was particularly difficult. But I like the idea of it. It was a service orientated business and that's what I knew that I was relatively good at or had skills with. And as far as dealing with the franchisees go, it was, you know, I managed large teams of people and staff through my career. Again, just sort of seemed to fit taking on these franchisees. What I liked about that was that they being franchisees, they sort of having ownership of their own business meant that there was some sort of self motivation there. And then it was really my job to coach them, to coach them and help them to improve or to meet their goals as much as anything else. And so that's what appealed to me about that. And that's what we did. And we got into that for seven years and we did prior to, just prior to Covid.

So good timing, good timing. Tell me in that. So you obviously saw a lot of different types of personality types, a lot of different franchise partners and successful ones and a lot of the ones in the media middle and then unsuccessful ones. What was the key difference between the really successful ones and the ones that weren't?

That's a really good question. And it was an observation that I, that I made relatively early. And I think that carries through to a lot of these service based franchise models. And the key thing is, is to understand that they are business owners and not employees. So a lot of the franchisees that we had were coming from, you know, they were professional people. So we had, you know, accountants, we had finance people, we had doctors, we had nurses, we had teachers, a whole myriad of people, a lot of them immigrants. And they wanted extra work. So in particular with the cleaning model, they wanted work outside of their regular hours to get ahead, whether that be to buy a home, educate their kids, whatever it was. And the ones that were successful were the ones that realized that it was their business and took that approach as against the others who had trouble trying to leave the employee mentality behind, you know, at five o' clock or whatever, when they left their other jobs, switch off the employee thinking and move into that business ownership type thinking. So that, that, that was, you know, those were the key things.

I think so. I mean, sorry, please. Okay, so then you go ahead. Obviously you, yeah, knew a lot about franchising through, going through that experience. Seven years, it's a decent amount of time. Lots of different, you know, people Coming in and being in there for a while and exiting exits and all the rest of it. So why then from there? Because and I believe that that franchise there are a percentage based model. Why did you look to sort of move on from there? And why the test and tag industry? I guess.

Yeah, good question again. So I think you know, whether you, whether you're in Australia or New Zealand at the moment, I think you know, post Covid, we're still all experiencing various economical fallouts from that. The service, service industry is no different in particular with the cleaning. And so, you know, you, you were met with those challenges when you know it's not. Not an issue or what have you because that's what we all deal with and that's part of business. Certainly I had a master franchise but I was still very much under a franchisor. And I think again the key difference between franchise models is also the franchisor and their value systems and how they approach business. And so yeah, what we were experiencing was not a lot of support. It was really almost quite destructive. So we chose to change. We felt that there were better business models out there with different values and that's when we sold and we chose to look at something else.

Yeah.

It just so happens that I was thinking, what do we do next? I had, I haven't won lotto so had to look at something else and you know, so what was it? And funny enough I saw one of the local guys trucks driving around.

Yep.

And so it caught my interest because I happened to be looking at businesses so I think I did do. So I went online or had a look. I can't remember how it came but eventually looked into your website, saw it was about test and tag and I did find that quite attractive. Reason being was because after managing the teams and everything else, I was looking for something with maybe a little more independence, if you like. When I say independence, you know, you don't necessarily require staff, you work on your own. If I get it wrong, I've only got answer to me. And yeah, that's what the thing with test and tag too is that it's, it's very straightforward, it's not subjective. Like a lot of the other stuff that I've done, whether it be cooking, does it. There's too much salt, not enough salt cleaning, you know, it's. Yeah, let's not even go there.

Yeah.

And so with the test and tag, you know, one of the attractive things was that it was just didn't have that.

Yeah.

That margin of subsidiary.

Not. Yeah.

And yeah. Hey, look, I don't mind saying I'm. Well, next year, after Christmas, I'm coming up 63. And so, yeah, I'm happy to do something that doesn't require as much stress.

Yep. Yeah, No, I couldn't. I couldn't agree more. And I think, you know, back to my days as being on the stickers, as a. I got reminded once from a Sparky. I told him I was on the tools, and he goes, mate, you're not on the tools, you're on the stickers. So. Okay, all right, fine. Fair enough. Fair play.

I'm okay being a sticky.

Yeah, yeah, I'll be a sticky toe. And, yeah, no, it was. It was the same thing. I agree. Like, it's definitely not. I think the big thing on that is it's preventative maintenance. It's not that something's broken down at 3am and we expect you to be out there at 3:15am to fix it, because the bridge is gone and everything's melting and you have to fix it now. And everyone's panicking in high stress. Ours is. They understand that it's a box that they have to tick. They need it to be compliant. They want to make sure. Yes. That the staff and the visitors are safe. But it's not that something's on fire right now. It's preventative, which I love, because that allows for flexibility. Allows flexibility in your schedule if you want to go away for a week or whatever. Client's very happy to go, as long as it gets done in the month that's due. You know, there's a bit of a wiggle room in the standard, you know, a couple of weeks each side so you can move things around and fit your lifestyle in there. Which I think is. Is fantastic. Not too much weekend work, I'm sure you probably found that. Yep. Which is good.

Everything you just said hits the nail on the head, and that's what I have been experiencing and that's what I enjoy. There isn't really any weekend work, however, you know, I've got a big job on at the moment and I would like to get it finished so I don't have to go and do the weekend. But I've offered and said, hey, look, it might be easier if it's okay with them, that I go in on a Saturday morning when the staff aren't there and then I can knock out.

Yeah.

Then a bit more speed.

Yes. Which works out well for you because you're not explaining to every person every five seconds.

Yeah. Make sure you Save everything.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I know myself and Stacy would do the same thing. You know, we didn't. Same thing as you're saying, we didn't have to work weekends, but quite often we could go out and work a Saturday morning, just like you're saying, and make good money because no one's there. So you've got full reign of the place and you can test everything much, much faster than asking people to shut down every five seconds and tripping over people and all the rest of it. So it worked out better financially for us. And, and then we could go off and have some lunch and you know, have a good day. So yeah, it's. But it's more of an optional thing, which is nice.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah.

So you have that choice.

And then as far as like converting the customers over, because I was having a look at your scorecard, which is, which is, I mean you've got a fantastic conversion rate, which is amazing. You know, you're sitting at over 70% conversion rate, which is excellent, which is really, really high. I think typically, I think our average is 65%. 60 to 65% is the average. So being at 70% is, is, is fantastic. How have you found on that side? Because that's the thing with test and tag is, Test and tag's amazing in the fact of it's repeat work. If, especially if someone like yourself is friendly, cordial. I'm sure all of your customers love you. I've seen really good reviews on your scorecard already. But it, but you've got to build that client base up because it's commercial only. So repeat wise, it's great. There's that you can get some big jobs. It sounds like you're on a big job at the moment, which is great. But you've got to, you've got to fill that client base up. I was having this conversation with one of our suppliers that came in for a, for a podcast last month and we were saying that very, very sticky clients, which is great. You'll probably be servicing the same clients you've got this year in 10 years time, which is amazing because you can build a business off of that. But it's, it's making sure it's good. You've got to get that pipeline built up because you're only visiting them once a year quite often, sometimes once, six months, but generally once, once a year. Have you found that process?

Yeah, really good. And that's, that's probably one of the things that I do excel at. So that's where I Think my hospitality background stands out. So we've, you know, I mean all I've ever done my whole life is a customer, the customer, the customer service and generally at a five star standard. And I really enjoy that. I love beating people's expectations or blowing them away, you know, and often as we can all probably allude to through the years, we, we experience various trades people or we see stuff or even we go out for dinner and you know, the service is questionable and you kind of think, you know, it's not hard. And so I love that aspect of it. So I'm really finding that I have to put my money where my mouth is. You know, I used to teach everybody about service and tell them what my expectations were. Now I'm the one doing it, so I have to do that. I think it's easy. I meet some wonderful people and it's really just simply about as your manual says, if a lead comes through, just jump on it. Not hard to do. Quick phone call and straight away you're pleasant. You explain what is happening or what the process is and 9 times out of 10 they just love that. And it's like, yep, and if the price is right, well, why not? We're ready to go. So conversion is pretty simple, I think. I think that's probably one of the easiest parts of the role.

Yep.

I like to.

What I'd like to see with yours because I think your conversion rate is, is very high as I said. And, and that does not surprise me. We've gotten to know each other when I was over in training and over in New Zealand and that. So that, that doesn't surprise me whatsoever. I know you're a bit of a fan favorite here in the support center, so for a Kiwi, that does not surprise me one bit. Yeah, one thing I would love to see you work on more. Maybe something we could discuss, discuss a little bit is your atv. So your average transaction value. I'd love for us to be able to work out how we can get that about a bit higher. I know conversion rate wise, as I said, you're, you're right up there. ATV average transaction value, the jobs, the amount that you make per job is on the lower end. I would love to see. Typically we sort of see around the $450 mark on that side of things. Where, where do you go with pricing? Because I would almost. I was running some a B scenarios before this call on Chat and.

Sorry, sorry Jared. We had a little bit of buffering there. So I missed the, I missed the beginning of that question.

Sorry. Yeah. So with your conversion rate it's at, it's at 70, over 70%. With the average transaction value it's, it's lower than our 450. What I would love to almost see is, I would almost like to see. I was doing some A B testing on chat before this call and, and doing some scenario differences and if we could actually reduce your conversion rate but in the meantime increase your atv I think it would actually give you a lot more turnover long term. So like that normally says to me, pricing. It normally says that you could probably up your pricing a bit. Yeah. And I think that you could afford the drop off on the conversion rate. Let's say that you lost 5 to 10% off of your conversion rate. With that higher ATV it would cover it. And then I think the amount that I saw on there, you'd still make it an extra like 23%, 24% than what you're making now. But you do less work for it if that makes sense.

Yeah. And I mean that's an interesting conversation. So I have been having a look at that and some thought you may or may not be aware but as we are still a small team in New Zealand so of course we've got Namish in Auckland doing it as well. So Namish and I often have a, we kind of every four to six weeks have a catch up over coffee and we sort of discuss some of those things. So I think. Cause I, you know again I bring it, I bring this from my hospitality days which you know, sort of average spend menu engineering. So which one is, which one has got the higher yield on and all those kind of things. So I have been having a look at that. The first thing is is that the conversion rate is. I'm glad that it is where it is. Yeah, I want, I want 100% but that's probably not going to happen.

You don't want 100%. You don't want 100%. If you're 100%, I hate you don't want 100. Yeah, I know, I know. But there's some customers that you actually want. You don't want. You don't. Because if, if you're getting a hundred percent that means that then you're, you know it's going to be something, something you're compromising something you have to be and they're gonna go well I wanna, at like once in a tag or I wanna at whatever crazy rate and you're gonna be servicing those ones. So what you, you want to find that sweet spot, that catch point where it's like too, too high is sometimes, I know it sounds, it like could be amazing. It sounds like it's amazing. I want it all, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you're offsetting it with price, and I'm assuming that like, I don't know if that's the case, it might not be the case. It might just be a really high conversion rate because some people have that. But if you are saying, no, no, no, I'll reduce my price to increase that conversion rate, there's two ways you can play it. You can play it that way as well. You could say, I just want to win absolutely everything because I just want to fill my book up. I just want to have myself as busy as possible. And then when I get to year two, year three, whatever, then I can go to all of my clients, which typically they're probably playing under anyway, and I can just say, hey, we're just going to increase that price a little bit and then everyone kind of goes up. You'll lose a couple. But, but, but you can go from there. So you could play it that way or you could go, no, actually 55% is exactly where I want to be and I don't want to be higher than that or lower than that. Unless it's like if it's only price, it's that factor if you're just high because you're super quick at getting to them and a very likable guy. And I think that's probably a factor on there as well, is that that's boosting you up because of your personality type. So there's probably about a 5% amount there.

That's very nice of you to say.

So this is true.

Yeah, actually I, I've not really, I've not negotiated with anybody on pricing.

Okay.

And I've gone, I've gone in with the pricing that you've laid out for us.

Yep. Yeah, I checked some and it looked like it was in line with our pricing, which I thought was interesting because I was waiting to see some massive, massive discounting. And there wasn't that.

No. And funny enough. So coming back to your question, as far as the ATV goes, I actually think that some of that is from where we sometimes get, you know, there might be a run on minimum call out jobs.

Yep.

So I usually jump on those. I quite like those because sometimes it might only be 1, 2, 3, half a dozen items. So for me that's relatively good money. But it lowers your atv.

It does no that's right. And they. And those ones as well can form into the amount of times we've had. Oh, it's a minimum charge, but it's a massive company. And now all of a sudden this job was a minimum charge, but it's turned into. Now we're doing the whole company. Sure.

Yeah. So. So I think the ATV to some degree is because of those minimum charge ones. I jump on. ATV is certainly going to go up this month. I did also, just for purposes of interest, using, using our current scale, I went and quoted a job and the client shook his head and went, no, no, no, no, no. So I thought, oh my gosh, am I too high?

Am I?

And I'd gone in actually slightly higher than what the scale was for the number of tags. And when he said no, no. I thought, okay then, yeah. All right. So thank goodness I'd given myself a little bit of room because I'd gone in slightly higher.

Yep.

He'd gone to.

And you visit him.

Yeah.

Quote, in person.

Yeah, I did.

Great.

First conversation was on the phone, then I went and visited them.

Yeah, great. You can get that feedback straight away. And a lot of the time if that's email or whatever, he might go, no, no, no. And then that's the end of it. But you got to feel that reaction straight away and adjust.

Yeah. But the reason he was saying no was because he had been dealing with one of the competitors who, who was charging nearly double. So he said, he said, no, no, no, that's too low. We're happy to pay more.

I've had that happen before. So I'm like, yeah.

So we were, we were able to negotiate a higher rate. Okay.

As well.

So I think what, So I think.

Don'T tell me the rate, but how many, how many items was it? Don't tell me the rate, but how many items.

We're probably upwards of 1800.

Good job.

Yeah. Christmas bonus.

Yeah, absolutely fantastic.

So I think that it's, you know, that's quite interesting. But what I have found with this particular client is again, just that relationship. So where I have been, I did go and visit them.

Yep.

Again, he said that he let other companies, if they. And where they, you know, he might say, well it might be better if you come and have a look because it's a big job, $25 call out fee, you know, and I'm like, well, why would you do that? I think really around relationship and just talking them through, you know, can I. How do you do your tags? What do they look like? So I've sent all that information. In fact, I think, I think going forward, one of the suggestions that came back was if we do have a client that's got a bigger job, is that part of the pre. Or that securing the job sub is if we can get a photo built into a form of such where we show an example of the report, an example of the tags, so they can see exactly what we're going to be putting on it.

Yeah, great idea.

That was their suggestion and I think that would be helpful. I've actually had that from a couple of clients.

Okay.

Just to make sure that's an easy.

Fix because we do do that for our, our national clients. So we could easily just have that on our system and, you know, we could have that available for download. That's an easy fix. We've got. I think we've got it already. We just, Just have to share that. That's. I like that. Thanks for that. We'll nick. So I'll nick that one.

Yeah. So again, coming back to what we talked about, I think in one of the questions, you know, one of the discussions I. We actually had between Namish and myself would be going into the new year or early next year where we're both sort of up around 12 months or more, is then to start having a little look at that pricing.

Yeah, yeah, I would. And then I would add 12 months. Yeah.

Because I think if we talk about revenue and how business is going, I'm. I'm not disappointed, but I think I'm now of the understanding that, you know, you've really got to look at the first eight months, maybe 12 months that we're actually having to build the business and set things in place. And I think, I think the second 12 months is where we will start to see an income as such, a hundred percent.

And that's what I always say to people when I used to do calls and stuff like that, is that the first year is a build year. What tends to happen is in year two, you'll have all of your clients from year one plus.

Plus the new ones. Yeah. And then you can start playing with your atv.

Yeah. And your rate and all the rest of it. And then you get into year three and year three is when it really gets exciting because you've got all your clients from year one, all your clients from year two, and then all you knew all your new stuff. So I always say to people, you like one, you get in and you go, I've earned good money per day, but I just don't have enough of those days together. I might only have one to two days a week but I'm earning good money on those days. Then when you get into year two you go okay cool. Now I'm sitting there and I'm make. I'm doing some days it's only two days. Most days. Most. Sorry, most. Some day. Some weeks it's only two days. Most weeks it's three days. And occasionally I'm doing four days. And then when you get into the third year you just flat out like it's, it's generally sometimes I'll get some four, four days but for the most part it's five days and that's when it just really takes off. And I've had franchise partners come back to me after they've hit that and they go, you weren't kidding. Like I just ticked over the year three and it's just like. And I think that's the thing with test and tag. It's a high atv. It's a, it's effort in versus return out is quite high. So, so that's why we have a lower drop off rate with franchise partners and stuff like that because people go, I can see the opportunity here. This is good. It's just now making sure that I've got enough days in my week fueled out. I like what I'm doing, it's not stressful and all the rest of it for the days that I'm out there, I'm earning good money, not spending a lot, but I need more of those days in a row. That's the trick. Yeah. When you're going to quoting on your jobs, do you quote mostly online, do you quote in person or do you split it up? Big jobs versus little jobs.

What I tend to do at the moment, as soon as we get a lead through I'm calling them again, reading what the information is that has come through and then just sort of building around that. If it's look how much is it for test and tag for whatever amount of items I'll say okay, well that's a minimum call out job. So we will do this for you at this price and I will send you a formal quote when I get back into the office. So I'll always call first and then sort of follow up with an email and then a automated quote out of kick serve. So I'm always making sure that there is a personal contact there, not just the well they've made an inquiry so flip them a kick serve quote. So I'm always following up with those Things now, depending on the.

My job. Yeah, yeah, depending on the job, then.

Whether I'm going out to meet them personally. So the bigger jobs. In fact, I think Harby was with us in Auckland when I had secured to do a hotel.

Hotel. Yep, yep.

So now, again, because it was the first time I'd ever done it, I wasn't quite sure what, you know, how that's going to play out. So I just kindly said to the client, I said, do you mind coming if I come in on the premise or for them, it's really about I'm going in to put them at ease, whereas I'm also going into gain insight for myself and then to explain a plan to them. So I said, all right, I'm going to arrive on this day and then we move through these rooms so that we're not interrupting your guests, we'll do it like this and so on and so forth. And they, I think, really appreciate just that amount of. Well, it's building. It's building that trust so they know I'm coming in, this is what's going to happen.

Yeah.

And what have you. So I say, all right, you know, in this particular case, obviously a hotel is quite difficult because you've got rooms that are occupied and so you can't go into those rooms. So you've got to make actually three or four visits over the course of doing the test and tag as rooms become available. So I kind of expected that again, having a hotel background and so again, it's just working through with the client to make sure that that happens without, you know, that puts them at ease and is not interfering with their guests. Yeah.

Yep. My suggestion on that one, how I would play it and it's just a. Just an option, it's just a tool in your tool belt if, if you choose to use it is. I would have a number and I would say if it's above X amount of tags, I always go for a site to quote in person and if it's under X amount of tags, minimum charge, jobs or whatever. Hey. Yep, this is the rate, no problems. I can book it in for whenever. And then like the one you're working on, for example, I would generally down tools and I would head out there as soon as possible because you could continue on working on a job and clients don't mind if you leave. Like, you know what it's like you go out into a site or whatever, depending on the job or maybe it's like, I'm just finishing up, I can be there in an hour or whatever. But as you know, like this, you, you run the numbers on the job that you're doing currently. And I, I can roughly work out in my head what it's going to be. But we're talking thousands of dollars in this job. It would be, you know, that they're going to put the quote out probably to at least three businesses. Probably, maybe not, but a lot of businesses have to put it out to at least three businesses. If you're out there. And let's just call it a. Let's call it a $5,000 job just for fun, you know, and if you can get out there and be in person, it's a lot more difficult to say no to the person who's made the effort to go out there and actually do it. They're probably going to make a one, make a decision quickly. But if you can say, yep, no worries, thanks for that. I see that's come through. I'm actually in the area. Even if you're not in the area, you can down tools or I'm going to be in the area in a couple of hours, I can actually pop out and visit you if that's all right. And I can give you a quote then and there. And then if you've got that dialed in, you can talk it all through. Yep, no worries. It looks like we can do it at this rate. I do. I'm pretty busy, but I do have some time available to start next week. I think it would even increase your conversion rate. And even if your conversion rate stays the same, it'll increase your conversion rate on the $5,000 plus jobs, which are the ones that obviously the real, the real important ones. And then on the back of that, what I would say is you're nearly on the back of the job now. You're at the tail end of it. I would say you want more clients like that one, obviously, so you really want to hit those big three Rs. So repeats, referrals, and reviews. Now obviously I know that you're going to hit them up for repeats. So they'll go into your calendar and you'll notify them probably 11 months out that they're due in a month and then get that booked in for the repeat. But you know what it's like. You work in the, in the hotel game, you know, a lot of other people that work in the hotel game, you tend to have crazy hours that you work and crazy hours that you relax and stuff like that. And, you know, people in the same game, you know, there's people in the hotel down the street and the other ones and all the rest of it. So you really, like, want to have a spiel at the end of the job where you can just say, hey, you know, I love working with customers like yourselves. Is that possibility if you can introduce me or do you have any contacts that, in the similar top role to you that I can reach out to and provide a quote to? Not spamming them, I just want to provide some pricing. You know, imagine if you could turn. Even if it's just one extra job, one extra hotel that comes out of this one, if this is a hotel or whatever, I've hotel before. And then, and then you do the same thing for the next one and the same thing for the next one, the same thing for the, the next one. And before you know it, you know, you've stacked up three or four jobs out of the original job, certainly.

And that's what we've done, that's what we've done with, with the ones I've done so far is again, yeah, just sort of saying. Because most of them are chain, you know, or the hotels in particular are chain. So I'm like, well, if any of your other sister hotels around the area are looking for similar service, these, you know, here's, here's our card. Or if you can give me a contact, I can get directly in touch.

With them and see whether or not I would ask for the contact. Because they're all busy and they'll just go, yep, yep, cool, thanks. And it sits on their desk. But if you, if you just say like, and again, I know that they'll, they love you, they're going to really like you. Hey, do you mind? Did you have any other one, any other people in the, in the network that's run managing another hotel? Do you have any of that information? Do you reckon they would mind if I sent them out a quote? Could I grab their information off of you? Would that be too much to ask? Or, you know, am I, am I stretching our friendship? You know, you get that little sound bite in there and, and then all of a sudden you're in the driver's seat, not them, because you don't want them to be in the driver's seat because they're just busy doing their stuff. And then all of a sudden you've got social proof because you can call them up and say, hey, I just finished the job with David. And David said he, he didn't mind, he didn't think he mind too much. If I Contacted you and provide some pricing. Do you mind if I come out and quote on. Quote on your work? Yeah, yeah. So it takes a couple of sound bites and some. Some habits in there, and then all of a sudden it just blows it out.

Yeah, yeah, I absolutely, totally agree.

Okay, wonderful. Oh, I want to thank you, Brendan, so much for jumping onto us. I've really enjoyed, and I knew everyone would really enjoy hearing your background in the service industry, your franchising background, your whole hospitality background, and then how your journey's been and. And how the growth continues to go. So, yeah, no, I'm really excited to see you tick over into year two, which I think is March. Is it March or April, something?

March. April, yes. Yeah.

Yep, yep. Yeah. And then I think, yeah, what you'll see is you just keep tracking those scorecards. You'll have year on year in your scorecard there. So if you have to, that's when it gets exciting as well, because you can see, what did I make in March last year? And then what am I making in March this year? And then you can see that trend line is continuing to go up, as I'm seeing it is with, you know, your ATV conversion rate, your monthly revenue. It's all trending in, up and to the right, which is what we want to see. And then I think you keep doing that into year two, and then it just keeps compounding on top of each other, and then you go from there. So I think just keep going the way you're going because it's all tracking. Right? And I think. Yeah, thank you. I'm excited to watch the business grow.

Yeah, no, likewise. You know, I appreciate your time. I turned down Joe Rogan podcast tonight to come on with the local guys.

Yeah, I'm honored. We got no worries. Thanks so much, Brendan. Appreciate your time.

No worries, you too. Thank you very much.

Cheers, mate.