This is a YouTube vlog by Mike Andes (with Joe and Zach) documenting travel and on-the-ground logistics while visiting Melbourne, Australia to observe Jim's Mowing franchise operations. Early segments cover travel hiccups (hotel booking mistake, rental-car concerns) and a drone crash/repair by Zach; the main purpose is Mike shadowing Jim's Mowing's franchisee training and systems over a week to learn about their solo-operator model and call-center/fee structures. The video is informal and first-person, mixing candid travel footage with business-focused observations.
Chapters
I got to my hotel only to realize that I booked yesterday. Got mixed up with the whole days. They don't even have a booking for me. I can't stay here. Might literally just jog a mile and a half mile down to Holiday Inn. First night. Good stuff.
SAT connection in Honolulu, so they're calling my name.
Better keep running.
I simply don't understand the logic of owning a black suitcase. 90% of them are black, and people have to check every single one.
Hey, guys, Zach from the media team of the Vlog takeover. I'm actually heading down to Federal Way, which is about two hours away from our headquarters, because I messed up bad.
It's gonna be a slow ride down the Federal Way. If you guys think that we've been short on drone videos recently, it's because I crashed the drone while on a job with Steven.
Love the clip.
Oh, no.
Here it is. As you can see over here, I broke the arm. Not looking too hot. And these propellers are pretty messed up.
We made it. Now we're in Australia. That is the final destination.
All right, drone drop off was a success. I got some food and just drove down random roads until I found the ocean. But pretty sick here. All right, I've been down here since 10:30, and now it's 12 o'. Clock. The guy said that they would call me back, but I have not heard from them, so it's time to give them a call and see what's going on with this drone.
Okay, so I got in. It's like 12 midnight, and I'm supposed to be staying at this hotel, but their reception, or front lobby isn't open all the time. And sure enough, I booked yesterday's time because I literally showed up at midnight. And so I booked yesterday's date. They don't even have a booking for me. I can't stay here. And now I've got to figure out how to get an Uber right now. And no one's picking up the Uber, so might literally just jog a mile and a half mile down to Holiday Inn and first night.
Good stuff.
So why am I in Melbourne, Australia? Well, let me get it walking. And I'm just gonna keep trying to get an Uber as I walk, and.
I'll explain once I get there why I'm in Melbourne, Australia. Let me first say, just on my Uber ride over here, I think I made a mistake, and that is that I have a rental car for the next week. I don't think I want to drive. I was freaked out just driving. It's on the other side of the road and meeting a rental car. I don't know if that's the smartest thing.
Gentlemen can help you.
Hey, Joe, I'm just calling about a drone I dropped off just to see if I couldn't get update on it.
Looks like it's still processing. Did you just drop it off today? This morning or something?
Yeah, yeah, I just dropped off this morning.
Yeah, we haven't gotten to it yet, man.
Okay, no worries.
And all that stuff. So.
Sounds good. Are you guys going to get to that today or should I? Is there a good, like, day to.
Two days, you know what I mean? All right, man. Thank you.
Yep, thanks. Have a good one. Dang. All right, so we waited two hours. Luckily we found this cool beach spot, but looks like they're going to have to mail it to us because I am not hanging out here for more than one day.
Okay, so why am I in Australia? Well, you might remember about a year ago, I interviewed Jim Penman, who's the founder of Jim's Mowing in Australia. And on the show afterwards, he said, hey, if you ever want to come over, feel free to come check us out and, you know, pretend like you're a franchisee for the day, for the week, and do franchisee training now, at the time, because of COVID I couldn't come over. And literally last month, they removed all the COVID restrictions in terms of vaccination testing everything from Australia. And it's been over two years that, like, no one could get in. Even my mom, who's actually born in Australia, hasn't been able to be here the past few years because of COVID restrictions. Literally this week, I'm having the opportunity to basically pretend like I'm a franchisee at Jim's Mowing. They've done this now over 2000 times. Most of Jim's Mowing's franchisees are solo operators. They don't have a big business, and a lot of that has to do with that. In Australia, it's pretty common to have no employees and just be a solo operator because of the economics, the politics of having employees. And so it's very expensive to have employees here. So they've tried in the US Before. They tried a model in Texas, I think, like 20, 30 locations with Jim's Mowing and just didn't work. I asked Jim why, and he just thought it's really just because the entrepreneurial spirit inside of America and the US wants to grow and expand and keep making their. Their businesses bigger. Whereas James Mowing isn't really built for that and didn't really just take it. Didn't really take off. They closed it down. So they don't really see me as a threat in terms of Augusta Lawn Care. I don't really have plans to come down to Australia anytime soon either. And even if I did, we're much larger. We're trying to build, you know, scaling larger companies. They're focused on much more of the solo operators. I forget exactly what his number was, but I think like 70 to 90% of their franchisees have one or less employees. Don't quote me on that, But I'm going to be here this entire week. Going to have a great opportunity to see how it's done. See their command center or call center that they have, they do a little bit differently, their fee structures differently, done differently. But I really want to learn. There is no online course for me to go and how to start a franchise, how to run a successful franchise, how to. Like, there's no online course for that. So by me taking this opportunity for this past, this whole week, honestly, I'm super busy. I didn't really have the time to do this, but it was one of those things you have to make time for because there's not going to be any other opportunity like this. There's maybe five or ten franchisees in the lawn care landscaping industry that are, have, you know, are even worth talking about. And there's really. There's less than a thousand franchises in the world that are actually successful and really profitable and have over a few hundred locations. And so there's thousands of franchises, but most of them have 4, 5, 10 locations and they fizzle out and die. It's very, very hard to get TRAPP and then be able to get to profitability around 100, 200 locations and scale beyond that. And so I think it's something around 1 or 2% actually get above 500 locations to actually start franchising. So for coming at that 2,000 times, I think I have something to learn and I think this will be a great week. Sorry for my words being somewhat jumbled. I haven't slept for 26 hours. So gonna try to get some sleep, get up early, get my rental car and get over to the conference center. They actually have an entire campus. Like they have kind of a hotel that they kind of use and all their training facilities. It's super cool. Kind of the beginnings of trying to build with the headquarters to make the training experience better for the franchisees. I'm gonna try to get some sleep.
