From Franchise to Independent

Written by Acme Mag

Acme: Can you walk us through your decision to leave an international franchise and begin Curtis & Blair?

Jane: I’ll take you back to how I started. Initially, I never wanted to start my own agency, however, I had a business partner who talked me into it and he was aligned with a particular international franchise. It was a good stepping stone for me in a small town because the other agencies were small independents. Quite early on I found a lot of money going out and not many benefits coming in and I knew in my second year that once my 5-year franchise agreement was up that I would be going independent. There’s a lot in franchise fees and I felt I wasn’t getting anything out of it, as for the corporate side of things, I think I’d had 5 area managers in 5 years and they rebranded 3 times while I was with them. Although some of the rebrands were minor, it was all back on the franchisee. We had to pay to have our signage and stationary redone – so there’s a lot of costs involved in that side of things too. I enjoy marketing and I used to get a lot of phone calls saying ‘you can’t do that, it doesn’t comply with our design style guide’ so I  was always getting into a little bit of trouble too! So it’s (Curtis & Blair) something that I had been working on for a long time.

Acme: I can’t believe they redesigned 3 times in such a short period!

Jane: The last rebrand that the international franchise had that wasn’t actually scheduled until this year (2020) but it leaked from America early so they had to rush around and do the rebrand early and very quickly. You’re given a deadline to say ‘you must have your rebrand done by this date or it’s a breach’ so you don’t have a choice, you’ve got to comply with those rebrands and it’s big, you know? I have a lot of signage in the area so it’s a very big expense for me.

Acme: Would you say that leaving something so well recognised was the hardest thing in regards to going independent?

Jane: My fear was that, but it has instead been positively overwhelming. For me, I am a little different because in a small community people know me. I’ve had nothing but congratulations, so we’ve been really really well received. The general feedback has been ‘why didn’t you do this earlier?!’. I have a lot of franchise friends in Sydney and for them, it’s a different story because they’re dealing with international buyers and things like that and in such big cities, they need a brand to stand out.

Acme: What are the marketing benefits of independent agencies?

Jane: Total freedom! (laughs)

The thing with franchises is they are very geared towards their own branding, not agent branding so that was a struggle I had while with my previous agency. I wanted to put faces on signboards and things like that and they were unfortunately declined. I’ve heard they have relaxed those terms now but, they’re the struggles I had. Now we’ve got that freedom.

Acme: Besides those who congratulated you, do you think homeowners who haven’t directly dealt with you in the past view you differently since the switch?

Jane: Possibly, as I mentioned before it’s a very tight and small community which is a benefit that I’ve got. Being well-known here for the past 20 years and now having the marketing freedom I can advertise that as much as I want and pump that out to people. People know that it’s still me  – it’s just a new trading name. To be honest, the beginning of this year has been the busiest beginning I’ve had in 5 years, so yeah!

Acme: Congratulations on that! How important do you consider marketing in your overall plans?

Jane: Real estate sells itself, but I think you’ve got to have those skills to be able to put yourself out there to be successful. It’s almost as if you need to be a marketer and not a real estate agent! I find now that I’ve gone from just selling, selling, selling to pushing marketing. I have to make sure that I have plenty of time to sit down, do marketing and plan what’s next. I’m finding that marketing is taking up more of my time, which I enjoy.

Acme: Do you have any go-to advice for those wanting to leave the franchise model?

Jane: The biggest thing I can say is planning. It takes a long time and I literally spent the last 12 months of my franchise agreement getting the ball rolling. It’s not a 6-week job – to do it and do it well, it’s a good 9-12 month of planning. That’s the secret to it: planning and having everything in place. When the day came, I think it was the 16th of December it was just another workday, because everything just kicked in, kicked over and we were sitting here waiting for the big bang but it was done.