Interview with The Local Guys Cleaning Franchise Partners

Before the cleaning industry, Kelly and I had a retail tile business where we'd sell retail tiles and also wholesale. It was seven days a week and, you know, doing up to 50 to 60 hours a week.

My career started in the hairdressing industry so I did that for about 13 years. Really enjoyed that. But we had a family business as well, the tiling. In the tiling industry we just decided that I'd join that, help with the admin side of things. We were starting to grow our family then.

We had that for approximately 20 years. We just felt the demands of a retail industry, costs associated with that. Even just the book work became too much for us with that work life balance.

So I was in the banking and finance industry for nearly 14 years. When I first went into the banking it was great, I had great fun and learnt a lot but over time it did wear me down. It was super 60 hour weeks, working weekends, a lot of stress around settlement dates. So it sort of got to the point I sort of had the. I just needed to do something else. I needed to get out of banking and I wasn't sure what to do but I just knew I had to do something else. Mum and dad were always on their own business and it was a case of well, why don't I look at my own business and work for myself rather than for someone else.

So after selling the tile business, Kelly and I basically had six months off to decide where we wanted to go with our future careers. To be quite honest, we didn't know what we wanted to do, did we, going forward. You know, I even applied to join the police force. I just knew I didn't really want to work for someone. I wanted my own business again, basically didn't know anything about the cleaning business. I was just after a business opportunity at that time.

You know, seeing how much you guys have increased the business and how busy you were, that there was opportunity to even expand even further. So that was the opportunity when I jumped onto Wooded.

So I do about 10% of cleaning now on the job, on the tools, the rest of it sort of where I wanted to move towards the admin working from home.

I don't think I do any cleaning at the moment anymore.

Yeah, yeah.

I think my roles definitely changed over the years there, sort of done that.

But again, you know, we did have to learn the ropes, know what we're doing. So it does take time, it has.

Taken time to work up to that. Yeah, I guess when we first started we were all on the tools, so to speak. But you're Right. That was just learning building our foundation about how to do the business.

But we just thought the best way to grow is then to put on staff so then you can train the staff. And the more staff you've got, the more hours they're working, the more basically end of the day, more money you're making.

Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah. So our business from, from then, over the years has definitely changed. Now where we've gone being on the tools to more on the management side of things. I guess the beauty of the industry, it's so diverse. So our clients are very diverse. We can deal with clients in the residential space looking for residential cleans, for end of lease cleans, to real estates, to commercial customers, to builders.

So across the board we even clean an airport hangar twice a week.

Being able to diversify the work though is probably what makes it so successful.

Exactly.

I guess across the board there's so many different clients that we deal with because we always find that we're dealing with different people. So it's always interesting out in the jobs. But it also safeguards us as well that there's so many different income streams coming through for the business.

Hasn't been overnight and has it has taken a number of years. You know, the cleaning industry can be a dime a dozen. You know, people turning up in a beat up car with a mop and bucket and pretend they're cleaners. So the big difference is us is our, the training that we've had, our brand and our professional setup and then word of mouth, word of mouth, you know, as I tell the staff as well, we're only as good as our last job, but it does take time. You've got to create trust within the industry with clients, you know, you want to make sure their job's done correctly.

In this industry you never know what can come of that. For example, one of our biggest clients that we have now is it all came from a simple carpet clean. From that I think we average between 50 to 60 jobs a week with that one provider.

Now I don't think I've seen the manager there for three years, but they just know it gets done weekly.

They know us, they know we do a good job.

That weekly contract cleaning is key to keeping that regular income coming through. Definitely, definitely fitter. You do get fitter, you know, but, but that physical exercise I think is good for you, you know, but then also you've got the business side of things, you know, so again running your own business, you know, and a little.

Bit of sense of control about your life and about you, especially your work life. I guess working for someone, you do have a. I guess you have to answer to someone. I guess working for your. You do have that flexibility but you are your own boss which is great. So it just gives you that sense that when you're going out and working and working a hard day that you're making a better life for yourself and for your family.

So we have four children now and just pretty much the thing that appealed to me about the cleaning was the work life balance, being able to. If I did not work, Shane could look after the kids. We could just balance it much better.

Obviously you do have days where it can be a little bit more stressful than others but compared to our background previously in that retail environment, it is so much better than what we're doing.

Now being a service based business as well. We don't have the major overhead costs that you would sometimes find the retail environment like major rent expenses, etc. So that's obviously one less worry that overall it's a better work life back balance. A lot of our jobs are in the morning and they'll take us up to mid afternoon. So for me and for Shane and Kelly we can spend more time with children, with the family at home where we couldn't have done that. Well, I know I couldn't have done that in the past. And we're not sacrificing the income because we're still earning great money while we're at work. Oh yeah. I remember actually when I told my colleagues, colleagues at the bank that I was leaving the banking and going into a cleaning business. I got a lot of weird looks actually with a lot of people asking me why am I doing going into a cleaning business. And I think the surprising thing is that a lot of people don't really know how profitable the business is or how big the industry is. I think sometimes they see a cleaning business and they don't realize the potential there.

So and now Damien sees them now and they. They're probably 10 years look 10 years older than they did.

You know, I've seen businesses with 12, 13, 14% profit margins which at the time I thought were really good. The cleaning industry can be north of 60%. So what that means to me is the money that we are earning is actually going to us. It's not going out to other expenses or fixed costs.

I just remember within that first job I think we did a bond clean in two days and I was thinking we just made $1,000 in two days and that's sort of our stepping stone going forward.

It's come to the point now where it's actually the business is supporting two families. When we did want to expand our business, we were looking at different ways how we could do that. Whether it was we go more out with marketing or look at other different options. We spent thousands.

I think we spent $10,000 in, in about under 12 months. And we didn't get anywhere basically on.

Google Ads or for our website franchising. I guess we all sort of came across something we thought that was a great idea. But there's always people saying, oh, do you really want to go down the franchising path because you're paying for other people and you have to pay out the fee. But to be honest, I don't think our business would have got where it is today without the local guys because the, the systems that they bought to us and the processes they brought to us and the, the brand that they brought to us, we would never have been able to achieve on our own. So I don't look at it as a, an added cost but really it was a, it allow us, it allowed our business to get to a point that I don't think we would have been able to achieve on our own.

And you can start earning from day one.

Yeah.

Which was the big plus.

I think we got back our original investment within the first year. Now that we're years into the system, we're only getting bigger and bigger. We're getting leads through constantly because the guys at head office, they've invested into our business by making sure that our website is top of the page. So when people are wanting cleaning, they're coming to us because they see our website. Going into business, there's so much you need to know and especially when you're starting out your business. It's, it is a fear of the unknown. There's so many different things from getting your products right to doing the work to get to doing marketing, sales calls, etc. So when you're out on your own, it's all up to you. Joining a franchise system helps mitigate some of those risks that you're joining a proven brand, a national brand and systems are already in place to make you successful.

It's not just the physical cleaning of it, it's the whole package.

Support network.

Yeah.

We did look at a number of franchises in the country. What stood out from the local guys? It had the same values that we were looking for. We're a family orientated business. We've Got kids dealing with the guys, especially at head office is that they're family orientated as well. And we just felt that they invested in our business, they want us to succeed, which sometimes we didn't always get with other franchises that we were dealing with. We were feel. Just felt like we were just another number and whether we exceeded or not didn't really determine. I guess I wouldn't make much of a difference for them. For the local guys they really were invested in our business and our growth and they got to know us on a personal level but also on a business level and where we wanted to, I guess where we wanted to go further with our business and from that the values that we have and what's important to us really lined up and.

You just see they're a company that's on the. On its way up.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, they're really growing fast, you know, so. And we just want to be part of that journey. For me the onboarding was quite, was really quite enjoyable to be quite honest. It was, it was seamless, wasn't it? You know, nice friendly team to deal with.

Quite.

Right from the start the guys were, I guess we had a thousand questions that we always asked and the guys in her office were always willing to talk to us. We had a number of meetings before we decided to take the first step in joining the local guys. So I think we probably had a good handful of meetings with different questions. We'd always forget to ask a question and we'd ring up the next day.

Or didn't matter how many times we'd ring. It didn't worry him, you know, so yeah, any questions we wanted that'd be answered.

The training was in depth. They went through everything from, from the systems to the branding to the brand.

Standards, learning the software. Software just knew from day one as.

A professional, I remember we got back on, we started under the brand on a Monday. We had leads within our first week. I think by the Wednesday or Thursday.

We were doing our first job.

Yeah, yeah, we had jobs already booked in so that's. And which was true. The guys were true to the word. They mentioned that we will get leaves.

In straight away again, which is that support you would get from joining a franchise group, you know, independent. It'd take you a long time to get to, to those sort of leads that were coming through.

Yeah, yeah. Now that we've been with local guys for, for three years now, we're actually finding to the point where we're struggling keeping up with work, aren't we?

We are, we're, we're at that crossroad now. We're going to have to, you know, put more staff on just to keep up with the work.

Well, I was literally just looking at our calendar. I think we're booked here for the next six weeks without even any new inquiries just coming through. So that is, and that's all the advantages of, of why we, you know, one of the benefits of why we wanted to join the local guys because we wanted to take our business to the next level, which the local guys have certainly done that at the end of the day they work, they're working their own business. So a strong work ethic is paramount. You don't have to have all the experience and expertise but willing to work within a team because we are, even though you run your own business, we are a team in the local guys. So we want people out there upholding the brand, the image because it's all our business effectively. So we want people doing the right thing. But at the end of the day it's about, I think having a strong work ethic is majority of what a person needs because everything else.

Yeah, it can be taught. Exactly.

No, I don't believe you necessarily need qualifications or experience because again you're joining the proven system already in place so that the franchise system will teach you, that they'll teach you through from systems from, and help you in business. We actually encourage people to come out and spend a day with us or even just an hour with us just to come and have a look at what we do because I think that that does add values. Once they actually see our business and see what we do, it really allows them to understand the whole process of the business and if it's right for them. So it's there for sure. They're always welcome to come out with us.

It's basically a two week training program where you'll learn the ins and outs of the cleaning industry, different types of cleaning, all the admin side of things, everything is there ready for you to go after two weeks. So from day one you can get, get on the tools, start earning money and you've got that backup ready to go.

And that's the biggest thing that I found is after that two weeks training process when we were back home we were ready to go from day one. From day one there's always support no matter where you are. I can always pick up phone and talk to the guys in head office about just from system issues to product knowledge, the guys are always proactive. We always have Six weekly meetings where we get together as a, as a whole franchise system across the country. Which is great because we can also talk to other people in the franchise. So it doesn't just make you feel like you are alone, you feel like you're part of a bigger, bigger network. And the guys are very proactive. We're always getting calls at least once a month, just checking in how we are, how if we have any issues, what we've got planned for the next month, work wise. So the guys again are invested in our business. And another tool that I use quite regularly is our online training system that we have, which we can either access on the computer or on. I generally do it on a job site just over my phone and that provides everything I need to know from system background to if I'm on jobs with regards to different chemicals and what I can use on different surfaces. It really covers everything. Generally the way that works is we have a discovery call and that's where we really just get a little bit of information about the potential franchise partner looking at the business. We will then go through little bit about the industry, about the local guys, just to give I guess the potential franchise partner some background information from there. We always encourage them to go out with a franchise partner on for an experience day just so they can have a look at the business, look at the jobs that we do and really just get a feel for the whole business. We generally then move forward to contracts and paperwork. Once we sort of get all that signed, it's we ensure that the franchise partner is set up for success. So generally the way that works is two weeks training, that is a week online with head office. Head office will go through all the background information from systems invoicing, everything from that point of view and then from there it's getting the franchise partner in our business for a week where they can experience different day to day work. So, and we will go through the process of different types of cleaning, but also how we sort of operate the business. So the whole idea about that is making sure that the franchise partner's got a clear foundation so when they're back home they can hit the ground running from day one.