Why did you join Refresh™?

I joined Refresh™ a number of years ago initially wanting to get into property flipping and in Melbourne in my local area it was very difficult to be able to buy, renovate and flip property for a profit. With my research on renovations I discovered the Refresh™ process and then obviously got into where I am now, so it was really probably a better alternative to what I was doing trying to look through the standard buy and flip model. Choose what everyone does whereas with this I get to spend other people's money.

What was your background before joining Refresh™?

Yeah, some of those skills obviously date back. Previously, my grandfather was a builder and my father was a builder too, so it was a natural course that I took, but initially I was in a different industry and that was through a lot of management. Prior to Refresh™, I did a lot of higher level project / process management, so that really benefited when I made the change. Moving into the franchise model where it’s task orientated, and there are processes and systems in place made it easy for me to transfer across and get a great start on my business. 

‍What types of local marketing activities do you do?

Local marketing activities that I do have been focused more around client referrals. We spend a lot of time in preparation for doing construction work and that construction work could take six months and then we have an opportunity to close the project and move on or we can capitalise on what we've done and take professional photographs. We can look at doing so many different things with those photos and the big thing for me is trying to advocate the brand. 

Have you had leads from referrals or repeat customers?

People are more inclined to recommend me after seeing the work that we've done which is a much warmer lead than knocking on someone's door to try and convert someone who's not necessarily in the right pathway. And I think the referral side is there's an element of trust when people refer to someone else so the benefit is that I still treat everyone the same but the benefit is that I probably got a head start over anyone else which works in my favour. I have a lot of repeat business through existing customers and referrals for probably more so family and friends and Sometimes it's always obvious that neighbouring properties people want to see that someone is adding value to their property in the neighbourhood. They want to know what's been. And some neighbourhoods are very friendly and people get along but quite often will be intercepted by neighbours wanting to know what we're doing and that then forms an inquiry because we may only be there at that particular job to do a bathroom. But because we can do That everything someone wants gives us the ability to go and introduce ourselves to them and do further work for me.

How does Control help with your business and manage projects?

Refresh™ Control exactly as it does as it sounds. It controls our projects from lead into the project closure. From the dashboard, we can view the number of projects, probability of that job going forward, and estimated value, so from a business perspective we can forecast quite well. It's a task oriented system that enables us to keep clients in communication. It enables us to have a trail of all of our communication to our clients and probably most importantly it can sort of identify straight away where we might have areas reasons that we can focus on. If we know that we have a look at quite a large project that takes some time to come through we can then focus on the smaller projects to be able to help cash flow as we continue on.

How do customers respond to the Refresh™ process? 

I think it's very transferable to a lot of people in I would say it and also engineering that there is a process that could be very similar to a new home build. We break it down into manageable structural phases that people can control. I think it's very clear cut when we're talking to clients about the steps.  They can see that they are in control at each stage, they can see the transparency of what's required and that means that when they get to the construction stage they're going to be able to control their budget a lot more which is biggest fear for most people is losing control of their budget, but I think the stage process we have eliminates a lot of those issues.

How did you find sub-trade for projects?

While sub trades and my team initially came through my original Builder who had a lot of relationships in the industry and a lot of trade referrals have come since then through working through suppliers and other trades. Most people are very happy to refer,  that they have trust and facing so simply going to a supplier and getting to know picking up business cards going to be an eye groups going to In areas breakfast of trade shows you get to meet a number of people and the benefit is that because of their structure we can curate them to suit the types of jobs that we want to do and if we don't really like them we can also put them aside.

Is there any other advice you’d give to potential franchise owners?

I would think preparation is ensuring that you follow the process. This process has come about in a way that when you defer from the process, it certainly makes it a lot harder and the outcome is never the same. I think initially when you first start is to use relationships as much as possible, and ensure that you're responding to every lead and you're looking at every opportunity while representing the brand as best you can. Make sure that you're building your team, managing expectations on your marketing and you're looking to scale the business into the future.