Leo Lazich, Fox Mowing & Gardening, State Franchisor NSW, ACT & QLD, joined us for a brief chat at the Sydney Franchising & Business Opportunities Expo, August 2022.

We covered some of the key aspects of the franchise business including the type of people that best suited, where the idea came from, common misconceptions about the brand, as well as what he loves about the business and more…

Fox Mowing & Gardening, franchise Q & A with Leo Lazich, State Franchisor NSW, ACT & QLD.

What is your business?

“Our business is Fox Mowing and Gardening. So we're a gardening based franchise business based in Australia and New Zealand, pretty much in every state except for the Northern Territory at the moment, with almost 300 Foxes between Australia and New Zealand.” 

Where are you located?

“We've got offices in Sydney, Melbourne and our Central Coast Centre in Adelaide and like I said, Fox is located between every state except for the Northern Territory and we're also in NZ.” 

What do you love about the business and what you do?

“What I love about our business is that it's a quick building business and for people that enjoy the outdoors are happy to work hard. It's a good low cost set up business where once again they're working close to home, flexible with their hours, earning great income and I guess having a bit of a lifestyle, you know, around obviously running their business. 

“But once again, quick building good income and low entry points and just seeing guys that are happy to work hard, enjoy the benefits of their own business as opposed to being in the employed world.” 

What do you look for in the right-fit person to be a franchise owner, can you describe them?

“Yeah, definitely someone that enjoys physical work. Okay. Obviously what we do is physical, it's outdoors. It can be quite demanding. But obviously well-spoken, well presented and I guess having a little bit of a background around people. So it's one thing to do the work, but you've got to meet people, okay? You've got to be a people person. 

If you don't like having conversations, meeting new people, and I guess giving them the encouragement and the confidence that you can provide the services for them, that's what we also look for.” 

What’s a common misconception you believe people have about your brand or niche?

“Yeah, definitely. A lot of people think that with a lawn mowing business you're only mowing lawns, okay? 

It can be obviously very broad and have a lot of variety, you know. So we do other things, obviously gardening, gutter cleaning, mulching, soft landscaping, pressure cleaning. 

And with us, because we don't have other divisions, if you're quite handy, outdoors, pool, maintenance, things like that as well, you can obviously offer these services to your clients, 

But I guess in a franchise model, a lot of people think that a franchise takes a large commission or percentage of your income, where with us at the moment, like we've got a fixed daily fee, seven days a week of $25 a day. My average guy turns over $500 to $1000 a day for his five, six, even seven days work. 

And the other thing that my guys can also do is put on multiple trailers and staff. So we've got a couple of guys now that turn over nearly $1,000,000 with us. They still pay us $25 a day. 

So the encouragement is there that if you're happy to work hard, you keep all that extra money. We're not taking obviously any extra money because we're not commission based and we find all the work for you. That's part of our job. 

And that's a big part of any franchise that I think people should look at. It's obviously us providing you high quality leads so that you can run your business and grow with it.” 

What would your advice or guidance be to people looking to get into their own business?

“Anyone looking to get into business, I guess you've got to do your homework. Okay. And I see it a lot of times and I guess, you know, especially when you've got to you've got to experience the industry, okay? You've got to do a trial day or even a trial week.

So it's just it's that important, especially when you're doing something. At the end of the day, if you enjoy something that you do, you're going to succeed at it. It's that simple. If you don't like what you do, you're not going to do well at it. And don't get me wrong, money can be a motivator for that. 

But it's the big thing is that you do your homework well, and especially in a franchise based business, you need to meet whoever who's looking after your franchisor like me. You need to read the terms and conditions. You need to experience the industry. 

But the bigger one is that you need to speak with people that are doing it now. Okay, so you want to speak to people around your area that are obviously maybe from a similar background to you, previous employment, things like that age can be another obviously big thing that you want to look at. Okay, because if you're an older gentleman, for example, but you're coming into a physical industry, you're going to experience, I guess, a set amount of work that you want to do and everyone comes from a bit of a different background. 

So they're the big things that I encourage people to do when they're looking at a business with us so that they're I guess they're going in eyes wide open and educated.”

What is your key focus for the next 12-18 months?

Our focus in the business is to try and occupy unoccupied areas and grow. So at the moment, you know, when we first started our business, we were essentially selling businesses based on the amount of work that we were receiving. 

Now we're on the flip side of that. We receive way more new work than we have guys or that our recruitment allows for. So we're pushing into sort of the four or 500 franchisee mark over the next couple of years.”