This is a YouTube interview (part 2) with Jarrad and Stacey from The Local Guys describing what they seek in franchise partners and the support they provide. Key points: they prioritise alignment of core values over pure numbers and avoid hard sales; they offer meetings and an "experience day" so candidates can test the role; franchisees get access to a proprietary franchise app (quoting, scheduling, invoicing, ordering, GPS) and a training app; there is an Ideas Submission channel for franchisee feedback; the franchisor invests a large portion of initial fees into equipment/uniforms to set partners up for success; master franchise partners provide local mentoring and support, especially in the first 12 months when the goal is to help partners grow toward a million-dollar business; strong customer-service processes, accountability, and long-term partnership (10–30 year horizon) are emphasised.
Chapters
Obviously you've got to look at all the standard things, you've got to look at the price, you've got to look at the track record. But ultimately from our journey that we've realized is does your core value system align with what the franchisors do? Anytime you're joining a franchise it's going to be a long term strategy, it's a long term plan.
It's not all about the numbers.
So do you align with what the brand's core values are and do you see yourself growing with that brand over the next 10, 20, 30 years? And if you can answer the question of that, then size doesn't really make a difference. That's why we don't put hard sells on. Come in and we'll give you an iPad. If you come in for a meeting. We're here just to get to know each other. We have a coffee together and we just have a genuine chat. And if we get a good vibe from you and you get a good vibe from us, then we go a little bit further. Then we give you an experience day where you can come out and see if this is something that you enjoy doing and you love doing and you can see yourself doing for the next 10 years.
Plus yeah, we want you to experience all facets of the business before you make, before you come in.
And if it's not right for you, fantastic. And if it's not right for us, fantastic, that's fine. To attract like minded people, not trying to put a hard sell on anyone.
Most people that ring us up when we ask them why are you looking to coming over to the local guys, why are you looking into this is I want a better lifestyle and we know we can give that to them.
We don't have to hide anything or put anything, you know, that's behind the curtain or whatever. We just lay it all out. If I was the hard sales guy, you know, I wouldn't be sitting here in my jeans and my T shirt and that's not what we're about. We've got a good idea and we've got passion and drive and we're creating something, something special. We're not even selling anything, we're just being us. And if that's aligned with the people then fantastic. That's great. You don't have to slog it out for 10 years and make all the mistakes that we've made along the line and we've done the hard, we've done the hard yards. If you have to recreate the wheel yourself and do all that sort of stuff, that's fine for some people and some people might really want to do that. But for people that have got a family or, you know, they've got other commitments, they don't want to have to be the marketing person, the salesperson, the IT person, the web developer, all this sort of stuff, they want to be able to come in and go, these guys have perfected it over the last 10 years.
They can come in and start working straight away. They don't have to do the 10 years. They don't have to do the hard yards of growing and learning and making mistakes.
All of our franchise partners will have access to our franchise software and this is where they can do their quoting. They can book in jobs, they can remind customers that they've got a job coming up. They can do all of the scheduling on there. They can even invoice and then it reminds the client and reminds the franchise partner when they're next due as well. They can even order uniforms or order equipment or products that they need all through that app. It's even got turn to turn GPS tracking on there. So when you're going from one job to the next job, you just push the button and it will take you straight there so you don't have to think about any of it.
Having us in your pocket.
Yeah, exactly. We've got Train youn App. They're not sure how to clean a particular thing or whatever. It's going to show them the full breakdown of how to do that on the app.
We've got an icon on there called Ideas Submission. So all the franchisees can jump on there if they have any ideas about processes, systems which will come straight through to us.
We can take action on that as fast as possible. In the past, you know, I've had a lot of ideas. How can we, you know, help change the franchise for the better?
You'd never get an answer back. It falls by the wayside. It doesn't get hurt.
And a lot like a partner, it's just do it how you're told. That was something that was really key to us, to make sure that our franchise partners didn't feel that they had a way to be able to make the business better.
They're the ones that are going to know how to make something faster, be.
On the cutting edge and be in front of our competitors because we're getting that direct feedback from our franchise partners. If we're not tapping into that resource, we're crazy. A lot of franchises will, you know, bring people in and they'll go, here's your one uniform and off you go. You have to go and buy everything else yourself. Don't believe in doing that. We want to set up our franchise partners for success. So we invest a large chunk of the initial investment into their equipment because we'd rather have a better quality franchisee out there than us making more money because. Because we only provided them with one uniform. And everything else said, go get yourself. The most important thing for us is to make sure that the franchise partners set up for success first be the best franchise partner they can be. Then our part on that is secondary.
So we have master franchise partners in each state to give our franchisees local support.
If we were in a different state, we would want to have someone locally that could be there to support us and, you know, mentor us. And especially in those first 12 months, we'll encourage you and support you to grow your business to be a million dollar business. And you'll still pay those initial fees that you were paying at the very beginning. We don't look at trying to get anything ext or anything like that. We can talk to potential franchise partners and say, look, this is what you can achieve. So that's what we get out of it. We're wowing our customers and leaving them super happy. And our franchise partners have great culture and they see themselves there for another 10, 20 years. Then all of the numbers, the fundamentals, everything else will just work itself out. Offering the highest level of customer service is definitely more work. In the beginning stages of developing that system.
We've implemented processes and systems where we can give that highest level of customer service and customer satisfaction. You don't have to invest so much time and effort because we've put those processes into place.
You're not always having to look for new business all the time. Because once you've got yourself booked out, unless you want to grow your business, you can rest on those clients that you've got and then continue to service those. You know, we're still servicing clients now that we've been servicing for over 10 years. It's about creating those wow moments with our clients. And if we can create those, that amazing customer experience, then referrals just naturally come on from that. I mean, everybody out there talks about great customer service and exceeding the customers expectations and all the rest of it, but then we see basic things that aren't being done.
Actions speak louder than words. We train our franchise partners to do.
