Eagle Boys franchisor on the highs and lows of his franchising career

Why did you choose to leave school at the age of 15, and how did you come to start the Eagle Boys Pizza franchise?

I always knew that I wanted to be either a baker or a chef, and neither of these aspirations required much schooling, so when the opportunity arose to apply for a position, I did and I left school to become a baker. I gained a reasonably good knowledge of the retail baking industry through working as a consultant in the food services and flour milling industries, and I also worked for another pizza company for a short period of time.

Originally, I thought that I would start my own business when I was around 27 or 28 years old, but an opportunity came my way when I was 23, which I felt might not be there in another three or four years, so I made what I thought was a premature start in my own pizza business. I managed to scrounge together $12,000 in start-up capital, and luckily I also had my mum to support me; she helped guarantee the leases on the first store. As thanks for her support and the respect that she had for my project, I made her a 50 percent shareholder.

Things just grew from there. I always had the vision that Eagle Boys would expand and become successful, and I foresaw the ability to open up numerous stores throughout regional Australia, but I didn’t spend too much time thinking about that in the early days.

The fast food industry, and the pizza business in particular, has always been highly competitive. What are some of the things that you do to differentiate Eagle Boys from the competition?

The first thing that Eagle Boys did differently was to go into towns where there was little mainstream competition, even though there were independents. By taking a franchise operation into country towns we brought with us a level of marketing that they had never seen before. This was our initial point of difference, which was enough to get attention, but not enough to guarantee success. Over time, what has made us different is our high quality product coupled with excellent franchisees.

We continually strive to find new areas of differentiation. Over the last few years, we have begun a new project, which is our instant service system called Express. We have now introduced drive through services, and smaller models of our stores which can be implemented in airports and sports stadiums. Overall, we are focused on winning ‘the race for space’ – trying to find areas where traditional pizza shops have not yet gone.

At what point did you realise your small pizza business could be franchised and how did you learn to do it?

The main thing that I had to do before determining whether my business could be franchised was to ensure that it was profitable and simple to run. Our business model had basic systems which enabled it to be operated easily, and I felt that it was perfect for a franchise model. Systems are the key to franchising. If you can run your business via a manual, and have everything done in a uniform way throughout every store, then you know that franchising is the next step.

When I began looking at franchising, I quickly realised that I didn’t have the knowledge or skills to make it happen, so I hired a franchise consulting company to help me. If you want to know how to build a franchise, go and speak to someone who has successfully franchised. Take them out to lunch and pick their brain – you can gain a fair amount of knowledge from something as simple as this.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of a franchise model?

I looked carefully at all of the advantages and disadvantages when I was considering whether to franchise or not.

The main advantages of a franchise are that it:

· allows you to grow the business faster, using other people’s capital; and

· it enables you to expand into geographically difficult or regional areas that you may not have been able to manage yourself.

The main disadvantages of a franchise model are:

· that the franchisees may not respect the business and operate it in the way that you expect;

· it can be difficult to rectify or make changes within the business model because you need to retrain all of your franchisees;

· and that franchisees may not do things according to the established system, which means that the processes and product will begin to differ between franchises, which can weaken the brand and may challenge customer expectations.

Have there ever been any times when you wanted to give up?

There have never been times when I wanted to completely give up, but there have been times when I considered selling the business because I was tired. I realised though that this ‘tiredness’ was just an excuse, what I really needed was not to sell the business but to get my balance right and spend a little more time on myself – and after I did that I was fine.

Over the years, I have made many mistakes, which sometimes made me think for a fleeting moment about throwing in the towel, but within a few minutes I’d snap out of it. I think that this is all part of the learning curve.

What are your top tips for becoming a great entrepreneur?

1. Surround yourself with people who will give you unemotional and non-biased feedback.

2. Take plenty of time to write your business plan and research it thoroughly, but know when to stop researching. Don’t procrastinate the start-up of the business as so many people do. Have confidence in yourself.

3. Choose the right people to implement the plan. Even if these people are costly, in the long run you will get value for your money.

4. Have enough capital to go through the highs and lows. Always overestimate your costs.

5. Ensure that your business and business plan have a culture of change and a continuous point of difference.

6. Ensure that you can manage your time and spend a large proportion of it working on the business and staying focused on the big picture.

7. Plan your exit strategy.

Is it true that even today as a multi-millionaire you can still be found in one of your stores taking orders?

Yes, I still work behind the counter as much as I possibly can and because of this we’ve continued to learn and evolve. Listening to customers as well as franchisees is very beneficial. Overall, one of the most enjoyable parts of the business is getting your hands dirty and being at the ‘pointy end’, that’s how my passion for this work grew in the first place. I also think it is important to acknowledge the employees under the Eagle Boy’s brand who do the kind of day-to-day behind the counter work such as washing dishes and taking orders. Without these people, Eagle Boys would not enjoy the success it does today.