Diary of a Franchise with Neel Parekh

When you pay for someone else's experiences you can move farther and faster than you would have on your own, allowing you to leapfrog the competition. In this episode, Neel shares a few of the key practices he's gotten through business coaching (see more here ), including: - The need to delegate, automate, and systematize (he sets aside time every day to do all three) - Why proactive planning help...

During a break from the Conquer Summit Neel took a few moments to share some tactics he plans to implement to push his sales up at the MaidThis location in California this year. One of the pain points driving this change is an increased cost of labor, which Neel had not kept a close eye on. In the episode he discusses: - The difference between recurring customers and re-occurring customers (and wh...

In this episode Neel and Johnny talk about the different hires you need to make as you grow your remote local business. They discuss: - the first hire you make and what areas they need to help with - how roles have to change as you move past $100k to $500k in annual revenue: people need to be more specialized - why the biz owner should be a marketing strategist, not a marketing executor You'll als...

On this episode, Neel sits down with Weh'yee Barkon of Internally , a firm that helps connect organizations with talented people in Africa. Neel and Weh'yee discuss: - the lack of opportunities available to well-educated, multi-lingual workers in Africa - the consumer education necessary to overcome the bad "brand image" of the continent - the absolute bargains to be had for workers (a full-time 4...

In this episode Neel and Johnny share three books that they enjoyed reading in 2022. — They both show love for Alex Hormozi's $100M Offers , which they've mentioned multiple times on the pod this year. — Johnny mentions his tendency to reread books, one of which is Scaling Up . — Neel mentioned Prisoners of Geography , a book that's helped him see the world a bit differently on his travels. You'll...

Neel recently moved a lot of stuff into Notion. One of those things was an ongoing list he keeps of business ideas. In this episode he shares a few of them and why he thinks they might be good bets, including: — Drone window cleaning — Full service mancave setup — Snowbird homewatch services — Hoarder/crime scene/meth house cleanup (seriously!) Believe it or not, there's even a real estate play in...

In this episode Neel and Johnny discuss in detail what it's been like for Johnny to scale Home Services Academy. They chat about: — The importance of marketing and sales being in sync, particularly in the early days of the business. — How appointment setters can help drive a greater show rate for prospecting calls (Johnny also shares his pay rate). — How Johnny and his team learned by doing when i...

Some years ago Neel met Itamar Marani , a former Israeli Special Forces soldier, who in the course of conversations shared risk analysis and mitigation tactics he had been taught.  This includes looking at the magnitude, immediacy, and probability of an event happening, as well as mitigating tactics that can be used to deal with that event, like: — distance — barriers — deterrence — coun...

It's a bit of a switch up this week, as I get interviewed by Chase Warrington of the About Abroad pod. For those who get my newsletter or listen to the pod regularly, this episode will be a great summary of the last few months and what I do at MaidThis Franchise, but also serves as a great conversation between Chase and me, covering: — Some of the most important lessons travel can give you. — Sust...

In this episode Neel shares his experience of hiring and working with dozens of remote team members since 2013. He shares: — Which platforms you can use to find remote talent (Upwork, Dynamite Jobs, We Work Remotely) — What countries he's had great experiences with (South Africa, Honduras) — Which countries have talent "on sale" because of inflation (Venezuela, Argentina) — Why all great hires sta...

In this episode Neel and Johnny answer the question: "Should everyone go into entrepreneurship?" (Short answer: No.) Entrepreneurship has been so glamorized lately that it's made to seem that everyone can and should be an entrepreneur. Neel and Johnny offer some thoughts on why that's a bad idea: People with low risk tolerance won't do well — every day involves some kind of risk in entrepreneurshi...

In this episode Neel sits down with Jon Matzner to talk about his journey to small business ownership and eventually a type of franchising Jon calls "affiliating." Jon bought a garage upgrade business and grew it really quickly but when he looked at the franchising landscape he didn't like what he saw and didn't want to create a scenario where franchisees had to come to him with "may I" requests a...

In the experimental episode (literally recorded on the road), Neil discusses the differences between being a business builder and a business investor. Neel has long tried to do both, but has recently realized that means he's only doing half as well in each field. He thinks it makes more sense for him to pick one and make the other more passive. Since it's rare to find someone who can excel in both...

In this episode, Neel gives reviews of software he has used to run his remote local businesses in a more automated fashion. Neel starts by breaking down software into core vs. spoke. Core software includes companies like Launch27, BookingKoala, ZenMaid, Jobber, and Housecall Pro. Neel shares what he likes and doesn't like about them and also reminds listeners to consider whether they want a more i...

In this episode Neel and Johnny tackle the question of how entrepreneurs feel about what their business does. While Johnny delves into the idea of what your goals/endgame are and how that can create different answers at different times in your entrepreneurial journey, Neel unapologetically says that you do not have to like what your business does, as long as you don't hate it (people who don't lik...

In this episode Neel and Johnny welcome Sergio Silesky and Chris Munn to discuss different ways to deploy cash. Sergio is a business partner of Johnny and is in "cash stack" mode so all the income they are earning is getting reinvested into the business. Chris has often used his active income to invest in more passive businesses like real estate or already-running businesses doing between $1-5M in...

In this episode Neel and Johnny discuss the business of gurus and how they've both changed their attitude on them over time. Johnny was formerly a hater until he himself became a "guru" by sharing information in free and paid form. As for Neel, he used to be anti-guru too, until he learned to simply "respect the funnel" and see that these guys did work really hard, even if their style wasn't for e...

In this episode Neel and Johnny give four proven tactics that they have used to drive hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales for their respective cleaning businesses. Those tactics are: Local Facebook Groups (Johnny explains his method of guerrilla marketing in these groups) Cold Email (Neel highlights the template for this underrated way to get new clients) Giveaways (Johnny harnesses the soci...

In this episode Neel and Johnny discuss the benefits of a $50,000+ mastermind that Johnny and his business partner joined. Originally Johnny had hired this company to help with sales and in classic "value ladder" style the company overdelivered on the entry-level product so that Johnny was primed to hear an upsell. Things had gone so well with the original sales help they asked for that it was a n...

In this episode Johnny catches up with Neel about his recent visit with the Hazda tribe in Tanzania. Neel got the special government permission necessary to go out there and learned a lot. Neel's day started with joining some of the members of the tribe hunting for food. He was blown away at how fast the tribal members moved through the bush and how accurate they were with the bow and arrow. Neel...

In this episode Neel and Johnny revisit the old quote about the five closest people to you and talk about proactively upgrading those people. They discuss: the power of groups like EO, EOA, and the Dynamite Circle why it's worth paying to join some groups (Johnny paid $50,000+ to join one particular group focused on e-learning businesses) the power of meeting people in Facebook groups and on Twitt...

In this episode, Neil gives listeners a step-by-step guide to starting their own vacation rental biz. He starts by highlighting the opportunity: people prefer vacation rentals to hotels now, and there is a huge demand for hotel-level cleaning services and a massive lack of companies to fulfill that need. Steps which Neel outlines includes: Your website: it doesn't need to be perfect...it just need...

In this episode Neel and Johnny discuss opportunity vehicles: what you are doing in your career, and how is it helping you achieve your life goals? Things they consider include: different "levels" of opportunity  how those levels can be completely different for people with different skill sets and personalities the undesirability of low margin businesses with lots of moving parts Enjoy the ep...

In this episode Neel and Johnny chat with Sergio, Johnny's business partner in Orange Window Cleaning, about their recent sale of the business. While Sergio and Johnny had always had a goal of growing a business to $10M, they realized over time that the vehicle they had built was not going to get them there without a much higher commitment of money and time. By contrast, another business they had...

In this episode Neel sits down with Dan Andrews of the Tropical MBA podcast. Neel reveals that Dan is the one who first used the phrase "remote local business" to describe what Neel was doing at MaidThis. Alas, there will be no royalty payouts if the podcast ever sells for a billion dollars :-) Neel and Dan discussed: how to disconnect your location from your earnings to live remotely why remote-f...