Diary of a Franchise with Neel Parekh

In this solo episode, Neel offers 8 Pillars he uses to audit and improve his personal life. A couple years ago Neel was happy with how systematized his business was, but was shocked as to how not-systematized his personal life was. Inspired by Gary Keller's The One Thing , he created a monthly and weekly system to help him level up in: Health and Vitality Friends and Family Productivity and Perfor...

In this episode Neel interview Mike Grigery of ClickCallSell.com to get the scoop on how to market your local services business. Mike has helped hundreds of companies execute thousands of marketing campaigns and he's been Neel's business coach for sometime. He definitely knows what he's talking about when it comes to home services and how to properly market them. Tune in to learn: The importance o...

In this episode Neel and Johnny talk about the impact of sharing what you've learned in business. After five years of grinding and building a window cleaning business, Johnny packaged what he learned to create Home Service Academy, which is an e-learning platform that helps people build their own home services business. Neel packaged what he learned after years of building MaidThis in a single loc...

In this leisurely spitball episode, Neel and Mitko Karvoshki talk all things remote work and digital nomad as it applies to different spots around the world: who's winning, who's losing, and who's underrated. If you don't know Mitko, you're missing out! He runs Parable , which produces HBR-style case studies on online bootstrapped businesses and has a weekly newsletter called Remote Insider (subsc...

In this episode Neel and Johnny discuss various pieces of software that they use to run their businesses. There was clear agreement on some of the big hitters today, like Slack (can't live without it), G-Suite (tons of tools), and Loom (great for training). But there were also some different companies and use-cases discussed: Neel shared his love for Launch27 as his CRM with ActiveCampaign as the...

In this episode Neel and new co-host Johnny Robinson offer a blueprint for earning your first $10k from scratch without reference to cleaning companies, a sector both of them have had a lot of success in. Neel and Johnny outline: where to find subcontractors and how to pay them the importance of the "money milestone," earning that first dollar on the Internet why there really is no such thing as "...

In this episode Neel and David discuss David's three-month meditation teacher training course and what his future looks like.  His last appearance featured his explaining what he had to do in order to be gone that long from his businesses . This podcast originally began as a co-hosted effort between Neel and David but this is the final episode of that era, as David moves on to what's next in...

In this episode Neel offers thoughts on how to make your Remote Local business better prepared for recessions. Neel takes a two-pronged approach to preparing for recessions.   First, he focuses on insulating the business, which can include estimating a percentage dip (25% at MaidThis) and adjusting accordingly, which can include cutting expenses, speeding up receivables, and getting promos re...

In this episode Neel welcomes Keith Levenson of Angela Coté Inc . to talk about franchising. Keith got his start in franchising by actually helping a family entertainment center go through the process themselves.  He then took an opportunity to become a franchise advisor, helping dozens of brands grow by focusing on franchisee growth. Neel and Keith also discuss: Who should franchise (and who...

In this episode Neel is joined by Johnny Robinson to whiteboard some Remote Local business ideas. Johnny has been on the pod before but we kick off the episode with a brief bio to catch up listeners who may not have heard him before. Neel and Johnny then go back and forth, trading possible ideas with their pros and cons, including: mobile car detailing (both Neel and Johnny love this idea, but the...

In the second of an ongoing series on EOS, Neil shares his adaptation of Gino Wickman's Entrepreneurial Operating System, and how he's used it to great success at MaidThis. In this episode Neel gives strategic tips for how to deal with specific aspects of "EOS Lite," including: creating vision (dump the fluff, focus on what's real) developing KPIs via scorecards (lagging, not leading metrics that...

In the first of an ongoing series on EOS, Neil shares his adaptation of Gino Wickman's Entrepreneurial Operating System, and how he's used it to great success at MaidThis. Things Neel learned in the process of creating an "EOS Lite" include: how to have quarterly meetings that ran like clockwork and had clear and measurable KPIs how an org chart can help you figure out which roles really matter ho...

In this episode Neel shares what he learned catching up with dozens of digital nomads (past, present, and future) at a Dynamite Circle conference in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. He found out that: Travel is definitely back (except for parts of Asia, which remain closed) The Western Hemisphere, particularly Mexico and Latin America, have profited from Asia being closed Many used the last two years to...

In this episode Neel sits down with Donald Spann to look over the pros and cons of the various remote local business models he has tried. Like Neel, Donald was part of the Launch27 crew, aka the "cleaning company mafia," which came out of a subreddit thread back in 2013.  While Neel has continued to grow his cleaning business, Donald has exited his and iterated around remote local concepts. N...

In this episode Neel shares different ways to think about exiting your business, including his own current plans for MaidThis. While some might say that you need to know what your exit plan is before you even start your business, Neel very much advocates for starting first and thinking more short-term, in terms of one year. He goes on to share four frames to use when thinking about exiting a busin...

In this episode Neel chats with Amar Ghose, Founder and CEO of ZenMaid. Neel and Amar have managed not to meet, despite being the only two in their digital entrepreneur group in the cleaning space over the past few years.  One time Amar left Chiang Mai for a few weeks and Neel happened to show up during the same time (everyone said it was just a swap out! :-) ). Neel and Amar discuss: the imp...

Neel recently came back from a ten-day desert island survival experience.  As he switched back into work mode, he saw so many connections between what he had just experienced and how a daily business grind works. He has five lessons he learned, including: Getting your key work done when you have the most energy: stack your tasks to take advantage of when you're at your most energetic Play to...

In this episode Neel and David discuss the classic question of how to deal with angry customers. As with so many great business (and life) tactics, this starts with having the right mindset.  In this case, learning how to deal with irate customers can help you develop a superpower, something that can help you walk into any confrontational situation with confidence, helping you get what you wa...

In another of the Remote Local Podcast's ongoing series of entrepreneurial interviews, Need chatted with Mike Loftus of Connor Landscape . Mike got a finance degree but found out he hated working inside.  He took $10k of his own savings and started knocking on doors, building a landscaping company from scratch.  After building it to $750k in revenues, he started acquiring others, three s...

In the first of a three-part series, Neel gives you an ultimate guide to hiring, from his own successful playbook! This episode focuses on the mindset (and a few tactics) for hiring in general and putting up your job ad. Great tips which are included: How much an employee leaving can cost you How much an A-team player can make you each year Why you should ABC (always be 'cruiting...hey, close enou...

In the second of a three-part series, Neel gives you an ultimate guide to hiring, from his own successful playbook! This episode shares the six places that MaidThis posts jobs ad to find talent for their local services business. Those places include: Indeed.com ZipRecruiter Craigslist (yes, really!) Facebook (not just ads, but in groups) Oh, did you want the other two?  You'll have to listen...

In the last of a three-part series, Neel gives you an ultimate guide to hiring, from his own successful playbook! This episode focuses tweaking your flywheel to make sure it's working at its best. Neel also shares: What he does on screening calls The purpose of a test job How many cleaners he actually ends up with from 20 applicants (shockingly low!) Collect all three! If you haven't listened to t...

In this episode Neel interviews Chris Munn, a fellow remote local entrepreneur. Chris grew up in Detroit, now lives in LA (though he lived in Paris for a while), but has a cleaning business based in Tampa.  Neel connected with him on Twitter and they had a chance to meet and connect in real life and decided to continue on some of the themes they had a chance to discuss when together, includin...

In this episode Neel interviews Jodie Cook, who recently exited her remote local business (and is getting ready to start another!). Jodie knew from an early age that she wanted to work and earn her own money and be independent, and that hustle meant sometimes two jobs as she figured out what she wanted to do.  Turns out that was a social media digital marketing agency that began from the desi...

In this episode Neel and David talk about limiting beliefs, how to identify them, and how to replace them with empowering beliefs. David has been preparing to leave for 90 days off the grid and was worried one of his businesses would implode and Neel was battling the idea that more growth = worse life.  Both of them share how these limiting beliefs paralyzed them for a while and how they move...