This is a testimonial-style YouTube interview (uploaded Nov 2, 2022) between Brian, a franchisee, and Georgia, a franchise consultant at The Local Guys. Brian explains why he chose this family-owned franchise over larger chains: personal, immediate support from management (Georgia), lead and client lists from head office, and a $50,000 turnover guarantee for the first year. He also describes the challenge of leaving a 17-year permanent job and his fears about losing steady income, mortgage and bills, and the pressure to succeed. Georgia outlines the franchise consultant role and head office support (leads, business lists) for new partners.
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I was looking into franchises when I wanted to get out of my old job and it showed some of the other companies, it showed the local guys testing tag and all that kind of stuff. A lot of the other franchises, big, big business franchises, like massive ones and I felt a family owned franchise would be a bit more personal to me. I didn't want to answer to someone that I will never probably see like giving Georgia a call and she's sort of used to me ringing up now and going, oh, it's you again. Brian.
Hi, I'm Georgia, I work here at the local guys. I'm the franchise consultant. So any new franchise partners that are looking into purchasing a franchise with us, I'll be their first point of contact and carry them through the process of starting their own business with us.
She's pretty well straight onto whatever problem I've got sorts it for me straight away and then it's just done and I don't have to deal with it anymore. So if you can ring up someone and they get an immediate response back to you, you know it's legit, you know, they're not hiding anything or anything like that. So that attracted me quite a lot to the management team in the local guys that they could just answer questions on the spot and that's, it's always a trust thing with me with people hesitate on answering you, that's shy away. So yeah, that, that's where the trust relationship comes from is that immediacy in answering all questions. If something goes wrong or I don' or I need to ring someone, I've got the team back here that I can ring up, get in touch with, they can guide me through.
Starting a franchise is different to starting your own business from the ground up.
I had a 17 year permanent position with a guaranteed wage every week. That's not there anymore. And that's my biggest fear is not having that regular income. I've still got a mortgage to pay, I've still got bills to pay. Now I've actually got more because I've got a repayment. All of those things come into it and that's my biggest fear. I've got to succeed, I must succeed and I'm going to make myself succeed.
Quite scary for them having almost nothing to start off with. But here at the head office we supply leads for the clients and we also supply a list of businesses for our franchise partners so they can build up their clientele pretty quickly.
Coming on board with the franchise and security was the fact that the local guys did have a $50,000 guarantee for your turnover for that year. So it gives me the confidence that if they're willing to guarantee you $50,000, then they know you're going to get more work than that because they wouldn't be giving it to you for jam. So that sort of helps kick it along and put it into gear.
For me, the effort that you put in is the reward that you're going to get out of the business, essentially, at the end of the day.
