In this episode of “The Digital Tradie” podcast, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by David List.
As the Chief Marketing Officer of Jim’s Group, I shared my unique journey from law clerk to top marketing executive, highlighting the innovative strategies that have propelled Jim’s Group to unprecedented growth.
We discussed the power of social media, the importance of a founder’s story, and the impact of creating relatable and transparent content. I also touched on the role of employees as internal influencers, the significance of Facebook groups for lead generation, and the potential of podcasting as a marketing tool.
Additionally, I talked about my personal podcast, “The Lived Experience,” which focuses on mental health stories beyond depression and anxiety. This episode is packed with valuable insights for tradies and business owners looking to enhance their social media presence and marketing strategies.
A big thank you to David List for hosting this enlightening conversation.
Watch the interview
Transcript
David List 01:39
So, I know Jim has been asked this question several times, but from your perspective, a marketing perspective, what is your favorite franchise?
Joel Kleber 01:50
It’s tough to pick or get in trouble if they see it, but look, probably as a brand. Like it’s not a franchise, but the Jim’s Group brand is something that’s, for me, that’s sort of what I look after, right? But look, Jim’s Mowing, you know, everyone knows that. It’s, um, I think, you know, as a new business owner looking to get into business, you can buy a share of a 98% recognized brand in Australia for a really small fraction of the price, and it gives a lot of opportunities to people. So for me, Jim’s Mowing because everything’s built up from Jim’s Mowing, the whole Jim’s Group. Every other brand that’s in the business is built from the Jim’s Mowing franchise system originally from Jim. But for me personally, the Jim’s Group, which we don’t have any franchisees as Jim’s Group, but the Jim’s Group brand, which is something I’ve been passionate about since 2019, in terms of building it, is probably my favorite because it’s all my sort of work. But Jim’s Mowing, you can’t go wrong with the original.
David List 02:33
Why do you think that is? Because Jim could have started Jim’s Cleaning at the beginning. Do you think it would have been as successful as Jim’s Mowing? What makes Jim’s Mowing so successful apart from the other franchises?
Joel Kleber 02:48
Yeah, it’s multiple factors. Like Jim’s book is a really good one, and we have the website available for download. But I think timing was a big thing. So back when it happened, that’s when franchising started having VIP as a really big company. If you read Jim’s book, you know, he took a bit from VIP, which he liked and didn’t like, and he changed it around. But I think timing is always a good thing. Opportunity and being like he was just so relentlessly driven to make this work because he had to make Jim’s Mowing work so that he could get the money to fund his research. That’s his life’s work. So Jim’s Mowing and Jim’s Group exist to fund his epigenetics research. He was always toying around with it as well. How do I get rich? He tried a computer shop; he tried all these different things. He kept going back to this mowing round. Then he looked into franchising and thought, this is the vehicle I’m going to use to make myself the wealth I need to fund my research. So he was so driven and committed to that, and the timing. I think the logo is just iconic now because it’s been around for so long, and people have that good nostalgia when they grew up seeing the Jim’s Mowing guy on their street. It just has that brand appeal. If you think of brands and you say to people, which brands do you think of as Australian? They might say Bunnings, VB, or Jim’s Mowing, for example, Dan Murphy’s. You get a good idea of where the Jim’s Mowing brand stands, or Jim’s Group brand stands with all the memes online. I love memes. I think memes are a great thing for a company, and sometimes it annoys franchisees seeing the meme, and they think they’re taking the Mickey a bit. But that’s a really good sign of the brand’s love and strength when people go out of their way to make all these memes or shirts and stuff which they sell, which we don’t approve of, but that’s what they do. Not officially, but that’s just the world brand. Timing, his commitment to customer service, and being a really good fair system where people, when they do leave the system, still say good things about it, which is why I think it’s so big. When he started, he was approached about doing cleaning, for example. He tried it under another brand called Sunlight, which was in the book, and it didn’t work. Then someone came back to him and said, why don’t you do it as Jim’s Cleaning? Jim was like, why would anyone want this bloke Jim’s Cleaning? They tried it, and the rest is history. Now we have 40 plus divisions, always bringing on new divisions all the time as the Jim’s brand. It’s transcended the Jim’s Mowing brand now. If you ask people on the street now, they might generally say Jim does everything, which is a good thing. But it’s definitely transcended just the Jim’s Mowing brand now. It’s gone into more that logo with the hat and the Jim part. People now associate that with an Australian brand, customer service teams. That’s everything.
David List 05:52
You’ve got that meme generator on your website.
Joel Kleber 05:56
We do. I did that a while back, and we ran a meme competition and flew the winners over from Perth. The winner was this guy called Jimmy Mitchell. He’s a very smart digital marketer. I didn’t know this at the time, and he had a friend who had a Facebook page called Aussie Ads. What Jimmy Mitchell did, we said whoever gets the most likes and shares on their meme would win. His friend had a Facebook page called Aussie Ads, which had like half a million Facebook followers. So they put it on that one, and obviously, it had the most likes on that page. We flew him over from WA, and they met Jim and all that sort of stuff. We have a meme generator on our website where people can make their own logos. We’ll do another competition during the year for it.
David List 06:12
And the book is “Every Customer a Fan”?
Joel Kleber 06:14
Yes, Jim updates that every two years to keep it fresh about what’s happening in the company. Things get deleted, things get added in, depending on what happens. That’s available for download from our website for free, and the audiobook too as well.
David List 06:27
So can you take me back? When if you look on your LinkedIn profile, you started at Jim’s Group as a law clerk, correct? How does someone go from a law clerk to the top marketing executive in Australia?
Joel Kleber 06:38
Yeah, it’s a bit of a weird one, isn’t it? The franchising thing was a real weird shock. I was quite embarrassed actually to win that because you’re beating CEOs like Sanshiro and others, and you’re like, it was a bit weird. But what happened was I was doing real commerce, didn’t know what I wanted to do, needed to keep my mom happy, so I did a law degree. I had to transition up to Melbourne to continue with the degree from Audible. I had a mate working here as a paralegal, and he was going back, so he said to take his job, and I would get a job here. I ended up starting two days a week because I needed to for uni. Then after seven months, I’ve just been in different parts of the business, like Jim’s Insurance, I was there for four years, then around our documents, compliance team, and legal team for a little bit. Then I sort of created this role for myself. Back in 2019, we outsourced social media with our branding funds to a digital marketing company, which I won’t name. I saw what they were doing, and I thought, no one knows about Jim. He’s got no profiles online. No one knows about Jim’s Group. The social media was really poor. I was young enough to use Facebook, so I started taking over social media. From there, we just built on from 2019 to what it is today. We’ve got a full-time great video team of Charles behind me and some office off-site as well. We’ve had really good people over the years who have helped us build it. Now, we’ve effectively got our own little media company in here, and we just pump out content over and over. We’ve been doing that since 2019. The business had a lot of good things about it, but what it didn’t have was promotion of Jim himself. Our main key difference as a brand is the founder’s story. No matter how big the company is, if you’ve got a founder, they’ll have a story that’s relatable. So, I took all the stuff from Gary Vaynerchuk and just applied it to Jim’s. Radical transparency around franchising was the other thing because there’s always stories coming out on A Current Affair and stuff about a disgruntled franchisee. I thought we need to be real transparent about what we do because I know what we do is a little bit different. That’s where it came from, about being more transparent about franchising and trying to clear up all the confusion. There’s still heaps of confusion, like when you get posted on TikTok, and people say Jim takes 40%, and all that sort of stuff. There’s still a lot of work we’ve got to do on that sort of thing, but it was also what the business needed.
David List 09:06
So you said the marketing agency that you used was not doing a good job. What did that look like for you guys? Were you like, they’re just not getting ROI, or it just looked terrible?
Joel Kleber 09:19
They weren’t doing video, and Facebook was saying do live video and stuff. They were just posting if I look. To be fair to them, they probably didn’t have the resources or the budget from the time, and the franchisors didn’t value social media. They didn’t have any understanding of it. They didn’t value it at all. But I understood the power of it, being a bit younger. I gave Jim the Gary Vaynerchuk book “Crushing It.” He listened to audiobooks. So, as they listened to this, the stuff I was telling him got reinforced by that book. He came back to me saying we need to be doing this and this, which we’ll sign up for anyway. But more they weren’t doing a bad job, but they didn’t have the resources. The franchisors didn’t really understand the power of it. What really kicked the whole thing off was when Facebook said to start doing live videos and we’ll promote it. So, I sat Jim down for a Q&A in front of a webcam and said let’s just do this thing called “Ask Jim,” where people can jump on and ask him a question. We’d get questions like what happened to his beard? Is there really a Jim? All that sort of stuff. You can actually watch the first one online. It’s quite funny and awkward. It’s amazing to see how he’s gone from that to what he is now with the online stuff. When we did it, we got a really good reaction from our franchisors saying they’ve never seen this side of Jim. He was joking around a bit and stuff. They asked if we could do it again. So, we did it again, and then franchisors got their franchise prospects to tune in and ask Jim a question. They’d ask a question on the live stream, and we’d respond. You’d see them in training three or four weeks later or two months later, and they’d start Jim. They came in from the live stream, watched two or three of them, and then it made sense. So, we just kept doing it more and more. That’s where the whole thing grew from, seeing the actual business results with people coming into training. That’s why we’ve been allowed to do what we’ve been allowed to do by franchisors and franchisees as well.
David List 11:10
So you mentioned very briefly about the franchisors marketing their part of the business, but from the outside looking in, I would expect head office to do all of the marketing, or at least that’s what I would expect a franchise to do. Right? Can you step through exactly the different parts of Jim’s from Franchise down the bottom all the way up? Because there’s division and all that?
Joel Kleber 11:33
It’s quite confusing. There’s a national franchisor, which is Jim’s Group. Every contract we have the national franchisor, and then we have what we call divisional franchisors or divisions. Jim’s Mowing is a division, Jim’s Cleaning is a division, Jim’s Antennas is a division, Jim’s Fencing is a division, right? Each one of those divisions has to be run by someone. It’s impossible for us to run everything to the point that it needs to be done. We don’t own everything as well. We own Jim’s Mowing, for example, Jim’s Handyman, Fencing, but there’s another person who owns Jim’s Cleaning group, another who owns Jim’s Antennas, another who owns Jim’s Building Inspections. It’s up to that divisional franchisor to grow their division almost in a silo. Underneath divisional franchisors are regional franchisors. So, you might have Jim’s Mowing WA split up into four regions: north, south, east, and west, right? Then you have a regional franchisor who’s responsible for that part of the country. They might have 50 or 60 franchisees within their region. They’re the boots on the ground, the people actually doing the work. They’re the first point of call for the franchisee. If a franchisee has a problem, they’ll call the franchisor, and the franchisor will sort it out. The franchisor is responsible for marketing in their own region. The reason it’s done that way is because local papers and stuff were so effective back in the day. The guy who had Gippsland would go to the local paper and advertise directly with them, and the guy in another region would do their own thing and do their own local area marketing. Now it’s more digital. We actually own a lot of regions now at head office, and we’re responsible for around 1000 franchisees. My team is responsible for advertising for around 1000 franchisees in their regions. We try to do our best. The franchisor was such a crucial part of the company growing up over 30 to 40 years. Without them, we wouldn’t be as big as what we are. That’s why they’ve always been responsible for their marketing efforts. In meetings, their franchisees will say, where’s our marketing money being spent and stuff? They’re responsible for communicating that to the franchisees. It’s always been decentralized that way. The only way the company has been able to scale is by having those entrepreneurial divisional leaders. When you get a really good one, it just takes off.
David List 14:53
It’s a really complex ecosystem. So if you own, for instance, a certain number of these divisions, and then you’ve got these other ones owned by other people, how do the people that you own so gyms group how do they feel about the residual sort of marketing efforts that are going towards these other franchises that don’t really have to do as much effort?
Joel Kleber 15:22
Good point. Good question. No, we only be everyone. So we have in our newsletter, we have a franchisor interview, Lincoln calendar, they booked with me over the franchisee where they can book into me. Only a few people all over the country. Okay, so we don’t just do the marketing. If it is Jim’s group I do I try and keep it as fair as possible. We try and do it for everyone. So it’s not isolated to one division. So I do a lot of stuff, just the ones definitely like so our head office, like Charles and myself, you know, Charles would go out to Jim’s laundry, for example, to an expo, so we don’t own that division. But yeah, he went out to it on a Saturday, gave it his time to go and film with Jim’s laundry, for example. So we try and share the video team efforts around and try and do the interviews. After some dealing with the guy in Queensland. He’s not a regional franchisor under anything we own, just from Phuket. Okay, but that’s good because it gives him marketing content, which he can then use for prospects as a head office, we share this function around. But in regards to the actual marketing efforts per division and regions, you know, it’s a pretty, it’s a pretty full-on thing and like, you know, you don’t hear any complaints when there’s lead gen coming left, right, and center. If the economy slows down a bit, you need to be a bit smarter for lead gen, and that’s when you start hearing some complaints about maybe it’s a bit quieter and stuff and then having regional franchisors who are responsible or divisional franchisors with answers makes it a lot better. Because that way, you know, at least the franchisee feels engaged about where’s my marketing money being spent. But from a Head Office perspective, we try and be as fair as we can. So obviously, half of the group’s mowing, we try and focus half of our efforts on mowing content, and then the rest of you there share around half of the whole of Jim’s mowing. It’s less than half now. Half of the franchisee numbers. It’s around 20-23 years. Actually, it’s less than half now. Yeah. 2300 in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
David List 17:03
That’s insane. It’s a lot. And Jim wants everyone to be as big as mowing. So all the divisions like cleaning and all these sorts of stuff. We want to try and get as big as mowing better. Yes, a large number. So that’s 2300 almost. So that leaves in total you’ve got about 5000 franchises across the year.
Joel Kleber 17:08
We’ve got 5350 ish now. Yeah. So you know, we don’t count suspended franchisees whose franchisees on holidays and stuff, it’s around nearly 5500 actually total franchisees on our system, but we don’t take into account ones who are suspended or on holidays. It’s around 5350. You are the biggest franchise in Australia. Correct. By Numbers? We are Yeah. Well, the southern hemisphere actually. Yeah. Oh, really? We got like to say southern hemisphere. Yeah. Yeah, by numbers, we are by units. We are yet by units. And that’s opposed to by gross revenue is that you’re you’re referencing. Yeah, for gross revenue, like, it’s been hard to beat, obviously, a head office, you know, we don’t make as much money as what people probably think so but like, they’re quite figures, like, you know, half a half a billion or a billion dollars. So in terms of what our franchisees actually make in terms of revenue. So if we combined it all, okay, so Jim, generally, I think Jim started quoting like a billion dollars revenue, okay, with franchisees and what they make, and all that sort of stuff together. Just an insane number to even think about it is we’re still a very small market share when you put us in isolation. So that’s crazy. So you said like 5500 franchisees? What was prior to 2019? What was it is around 3200 ish or 3000? I think Harriman exact numbers are 3600 or 3200. Around 2019. So, you personally could attribute the growth to Jim’s to you. Well, Jim does our climate but our climate mean my video guys over the years, but yeah, well, that yeah, a large part of that. He basically says, Yeah, for sure.
David List 18:14
So you essentially have doubled Jim’s group? Nearly. But from a really short period of time. Well, basically, yeah, you know, it’s been a bit of timing as well. But I think you know, with people wanting to be more entrepreneurial, do small business ownership, you know, whether they look at franchising, in my opinion, still very style, in what information is out there. So, yeah, we got a five year Headstart and, you know, but yeah, he will, he will say, you know, a large part of the grief group’s growth is attributed to the YouTube and all the content that we do, because it’s what we needed to do. And then we got in early, and now we’ve got the growth because of it. And you know, we have everything we actually have anywhere from 90 to 140 people in our lecture theatres sitting there, and I asked him the same thing, you know, where, how did you? What did you watch before coming here, everyone puts their hand up, watch this, watch this, watch this, watch this. And I’ll tell Jim, now, I’ve been listening to podcast 40 episodes, and that’s 40 hours, that someone’s listening to franchisees talking about stories before actually coming here. So the franchisor doesn’t have to do anything, really, if they’ve listened to the podcast or YouTube channel, before coming here, it’s better for us as well, because they know what to expect. So, and we get in here and you can see, you know, they sort of know you in a way and it makes things a lot easier. They feel as though they know Jim a bit better as well, rather than just meeting him for the first time. They’ve watched content or podcasts with them, and they maybe for listening for 10 hours, it’s 10 hours of listening to the CEO speak about his values and you know, the company it’s just really easy sales thing for us, right. So but yeah, the growth for the companies reflective of when we started doing all the video, yeah.
David List 20:03
What’s your favorite piece of content that you’ve put out?
Joel Kleber 20:06
There was one where we had a young child on the spectrum who was a really big fan of Jim. His mom reached out to us and said, can you send us some mowing stuff? I said, where do you live? She said, we live around here. I said, have you come in, and I’ll get him to give you a mowing lesson. She brought the young gentleman during training week; his name was Seth. We gave him a tour around, and he was around for an hour. We put a video of that online, and that was it. That’s probably one of my favorite pieces of content. We do get randomly some kids who are on the spectrum, who are obsessed with Jim’s Mowing or Jim’s something for whatever reason. If we can get them in, we’ll get them in and do something nice for their families. We try and do some content with them as well. “Down the Road” for us has been as a business the best. When we go out for a day with a franchisee and do like a vlog for an hour and condense it into like an hour or 45 minutes. It’s harder for Charles and the boys, but one done five years ago, it’s a pretty bad production when you look at it, but that video still gets people into training. The “Down the Road” stuff for us as a business value has been really good, too.
David List 21:07
You’ve been able to build Jim’s personal profile through this whole marketing effort that you’ve done, but also your own profile as well. How do you think businesses, corporate and B2B businesses, should be looking into the future at potential internal influencers? I’ve had a similar experience trying to build up in a corporate structure, but it’s very difficult.
Joel Kleber 21:35
All businesses should have a founder active on the platform. That’s a no-brainer. If they outsource, that’s fine. I run Jim’s socials. But employees, I think you should be encouraging employees because people trust the posts from an employee or the person more than the company, right? Way more. If you can have multiple employees in your business posting about your business daily, it’s a really good thing. I think it should be encouraged and rewarded. They should provide training. I’m the only one in Jim’s who really does it, and I try and tell the staff to post stuff. There are a few that are slowly doing it. The reason I post is more for protection. Jim could walk in and sack me, and if I’ve got nothing to show for it, I’m in trouble. So that’s why I put a little bit of effort into the personal brand, just posting what we do as more of an insurance policy. But regards to employees, I think it’s a really good point you make. Employees should be encouraged to post left, right, and center on LinkedIn and rewarded. It’s such a good network effect you get, especially on LinkedIn. The organic reach is really good. People trust people more than the corporate profile. If you get a staff member sharing, even the company’s content, reposting it or posting it natively into their own thing about working at the place, it helps. It should be encouraged. But it doesn’t happen nearly enough.
David List 22:51
No, it’s really tricky. I remember posting videos and then getting the company I was working for saying, okay, but what about the customers you’re working with? Are they okay with it? There wasn’t a lot of guidance around it. It’s still very young, and hopefully, it matures.
Joel Kleber 23:10
We do it at a franchisee level. In training, we have a social media and AI session, which I take, and we encourage them to post left, right, and center. We’ve got franchisees in pool care with the biggest TikTok accounts in Australia. I’m pretty sure they are top five, one with 220,000 followers, and one with 120,000 followers, just posting pool care content. They’re in their customers’ houses all the time. We rarely get complaints from customers if someone posts a picture of their house or lawn. They’re generally proud of it. We encourage our franchisees to do it. At a franchisee level, we encourage them to post their work. We probably go against all the rules of what they say in branding. We give them free rein. It’s rare we have to take down a post. If you put a lot of barriers in front of someone before they can post, like logging into a system and getting pre-approval, it takes all the creativity out of it. We wouldn’t have that franchisee with 220,000 followers on TikTok. It’s important and way more important than companies realize. It’s still very early days.
David List 24:18
You mentioned things like 200,000 followers on TikTok. How do you feel about vanity metrics when we’re talking about YouTube and other stuff?
Joel Kleber 24:28
I get asked that a bit. Some guys will say, he’s got 220,000 followers, but how many leads did you generate from those videos? That’s a good point. You can get lost in vanity metrics a bit, but what’s your goal with it? If you want to generate leads from social media, you should post content directed at that or use the platform best for generating leads. For a tradie, in my opinion, it’s Facebook and Facebook groups.
David List 24:40
Really?
Joel Kleber 24:48
Yes, Facebook groups. We encourage our franchisees to post in them a lot. I’ll give you an example. We have a thing called the Paperwork Guarantee. They can offer free services in their community, and we’ll pay them for that job value, up to $100. The reason we do this is it gets them out in the community, generates referrals from the person who gets the free job, and gives them practice. It can be hard to knock on someone’s door and say, hey, I’m new in the area, do you mind if I mow your lawn for free? There’s no catch. A lot of people won’t believe it. So now we tell them to go into their local community group, post a picture of themselves, and say, hey, I’ve just started a Jim’s Mowing franchise. If anyone in the community needs a free mow, I want to give back because I’ve just started, and I know times are tough. Then they’ll get people messaging or leaving comments saying, can you do mine? The franchisee goes around, does the job, and then posts a picture of that back into the group saying, this is Mrs. Jones, we did a free community mow. If you need any jobs done, please let me know. We’ll do a couple of these community mows a week. The comments blow up, and they get flooded for work after the first week, which is paid work. So, you’ve got to look at what you’re using social media for. Yes, you can get a video with a million views but no leads, which is common. You might have a video with 1000 views that generates a couple of inquiries. If you’re using social media for lead gen, focus on the platform that will give you that result and create content targeted at your audience. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get the views, be consistent over time, and you’ll get the result.
David List 27:29
Facebook groups are interesting because I almost discourage my clients from them because you tend to get knocked back. Depending on your offer, your offer is very attractive because it’s free. What advice would you have for tradies outside of the Jim’s franchise that want to use groups? Should they offer free services to avoid getting knocked back?
Joel Kleber 28:00
I think community groups are for sharing things in the community that are good. If you’re doing a free job every month, post a picture of the job and promote it in the group. If you get goodwill out of it, even better. Customers might post the franchisee’s business card into the local groups saying, just had this bloke around, really good job, give him a call. The comments blow up, and you get direct results. If I were a tradie, I’d give discounts and ask the customer to post in their local Facebook group about the good job. That’s what I’d be doing.
David List 28:39
That’s a really good tip.
Joel Kleber 28:40
That’s what I’d be doing. It’s direct, and you get results. Don’t underestimate the power of those local groups.
David List 29:00
It’s almost more powerful than a Google review or anything.
Joel Kleber 29:04
Google reviews are important, but it’s hard for franchisees to ask. They might feel weird. They send a text or email, and it’s never done. The best time to ask for a Google review is in person at the end of the job when they’re happy. There’s software for it, but the person asking is best. Even better is the local group post. People will see it, and hopefully, they engage with you. In training, I show an example of a customer posting for a franchisee in car detailing, and he got around 10 jobs. That’s worth a couple of thousand dollars.
David List 29:52
I give my clients Google NFC cards, free ones, because it is at the point of sale where you should tap and go.
Joel Kleber 30:04
Yes, at the end of the job, they’re happy. Just ask in person. When you go away and send an email or text, your success rate drops. In person at the end of the job is best. It’s the same for franchisees. Get it done while they’re there. Everything else is just hope.
David List 30:33
So as far as the strategy of Jim’s Group goes, you put out a lot of content. Is there a particular strategy to it? Crushing It by Gary Vaynerchuk is essentially just volume, social media en masse. Is there anything particular you’re looking at? Storytelling or anything?
Joel Kleber 30:57
We try and get better at that. But we work on volume because we have so many things to promote. We have so many divisions, so much to talk about. Our money comes from selling franchises, so a lot of our content is B2B. We want to promote becoming a franchisee, the training, and stuff like that. But we also do B2C stuff, taking excerpts from interviews about customer service and talking about services. We cut that up and post it as clips. Also, Jim’s personal brand is separate because we get people who follow Jim but not Jim’s Group. We post all day about that. But the strategy is volume because you can put time into a nice piece of content, but if it doesn’t hit the mark, you’ve wasted time and money. You’ve got to work on volume to know what works. We promote four to five different divisions daily on different channels. There’s so much we can talk about. If I limited it to one post a day, that’s 365 posts from 40 divisions, not including anything about Jim. That’s why I work on volume because there’s so much to post about. We have the ability to post it, and our competitors don’t.
David List 32:31
A lot of the time, you are the face of the brand. Is that something you had to build up, or are you naturally in front of the camera?
Joel Kleber 32:40
It’s just that we don’t have the resources. If I could hire a professional presenter, I would, but it’s easier for me. I’ve been in the business so long, and I want to ask. We’ve had external faces for trade days, like Jason Hodges, and they’re great but expensive. Jim is the face of the brand, but franchisees are too. The only reason I do it is that it’s easier. I’m here, my video guy is there, and we interview the franchisee. I’d love to have Jim do interviews with franchisees, but that’s not his MO. He’s inclined to be interviewed and answer questions, but if he did that, we’d be a lot bigger on his personal brand side. But you work with what you’ve got. That’s why I’m in a lot of stuff, because it’s easy for me.
David List 34:13
You mentioned timing with starting your social media journey in 2019.
Joel Kleber 34:19
I wish we started earlier. If we started back in 2010, we’d be massive.
David List 34:24
But timing-wise, that’s about when TikTok and short form was really taking off. Do you approach short form and long form differently?
Joel Kleber 34:36
Good question. If you’re doing it properly, you’d have one person for each platform, a Pinterest person, a TikTok person, an Instagram person, a Facebook person. But you’d be paying more than a million dollars at least. It’s very expensive. We try to maximize our shoots. Charles will shoot long form, maybe two hours, and then we look through what makes a good short form. We don’t plan short form when doing long form. It’s more about creating long form and then making engaging short form from that. Our short form content has changed a bit. We try to do jump cuts and attention-grabbing edits. But we’re not focused on vanity metrics. We know who we’re trying to speak to. It’s about becoming a franchisee. So, when we edit something, it might get 1000 views, but if it has four hours of watch time from people hearing about becoming a franchisee, it’s worth it. The problem is always attribution. It’s hard to attribute. Someone might see the TikTok video, go to the website, and inquire. You think the website share generated the lead, but it was TikTok. Jim understands that. He doesn’t want reports and attribution for each video. He knows people come to training and say they saw it on TikTok. He gets that someone might watch a video and then inquire later. So, he gets the organic social process, which is about being consistent over time.
David List 37:00
I think it’s important because often people want ROI after a few months. This is above the top of the funnel. It’s awareness of your brand. I think we need to approach it that way. What else have you got in store for Jim’s social media?
Joel Kleber 37:25
Good question. I think about staying fresh. Some franchisees are copying us, which is great. It’s not a secret. But how can we take it to the next level? We’re creating a podcast studio for higher production quality, more storytelling pieces, elevating the business owner. Each platform seems to be about short form now. But people might want to go more long form again. More “Down the Road” videos, where we go from 7am to the end of the day with a franchisee vlog style. It’s really effective for us. More franchisee podcasts, better production value. More shop stuff. We’ve got a lot of merch now, so more TikTok shop when it’s available in Australia. Younger people love the brand, so selling the idea of becoming a business owner. We might do vox pop style stuff, taking merch to Flinders Street, asking people questions about how much they think Jim’s franchisees make. People will underestimate it. The problem might be getting pushback from people saying we’re too expensive. We promote how much franchisees earn, and it’s a touchy subject in Australia. In America, they love talking about how much they make. I’d love to title videos like that because franchisees make a lot, but I can’t because of the sensitivity around money. We’ve talked about changing our YouTube strategy to talk about money more. There’s a real lack of understanding about how much a small business can make. American YouTube channels talk about it a lot, but in Australia, we’re a bit reserved. But I think we need to do it because a lot of kids don’t understand the opportunity they have as small business owners.
David List 41:00
You mentioned the next generation. I’m passionate about bringing the next generation into trades and getting them into apprenticeships. Is there an MO for you guys to have apprenticeships? You mentioned putting them straight into a franchise rather than doing an apprenticeship.
Joel Kleber 41:20
I’d love to. We’re working on an RTO to do that for the general public. Jim wants to do that. Our training course is not just for franchisees. He wants it to be available for anyone who wants to run a business. They can get accredited and come through our training, soft sell to become a franchisee, and provide more workers for our franchisees. Our franchisees are desperate for good workers. A kid can come through, do a certificate, work with a franchisee for a year or two, and then start their own business. That’s what he’d love to see happen. I agree with you. Not everyone is going to be a tech millionaire. There’s a lot of opportunity in trades and small businesses. America gets it well. The book “The Millionaire Next Door” talks about how your best chance of being a millionaire is through home services, trades, and stuff like that. In Australia, we don’t push that nearly enough.
David List 42:25
In fact, I think to the opposite, it’s to our detriment.
Joel Kleber 42:30
It is. We just want to put them into uni and think that’s the path to success. But as you said, we went to uni, and it didn’t teach me anything. I don’t think it teaches kids a lot.
David List 42:41
Did it teach you anything?
Joel Kleber 42:42
Not really. I never wanted to be a lawyer. I just needed to keep my mom happy. It taught me I could stick at something I didn’t want to do. It teaches you resilience in that way. But even when we hire here, someone having an MBA doesn’t mean anything to us. We hire for character and stuff like that. Getting into a trade and small business as quickly as possible is such a good thing for people. It matures them a lot quicker. You go to uni, party for four or five years, and don’t know much about yourself at 25. You get into debt, and you’re behind. Whereas a tradie goes in at 16, maybe 15, or even 18, and by 22, they’ve got money for a house. I’ve seen it’s a better path for people, and more suited to trades and small businesses than uni. Schools aren’t geared that way. Jim is passionate about that. We’ve done a lot of content about it. We had a video on TikTok go viral with Jim saying arts degrees are useless. That sparked a lot of debate. But even Jim, who has a PhD in history, is really anti-university.
David List 44:24
It’s one of the best marketing strategies anyone’s ever had, university. They’ve been able to manipulate a whole population of people to just onboard.
Joel Kleber 44:30
Look at America, just the amount of debt people go into. They sell it as the only path to success. If you don’t go to university, you’re a failure. We hear that all the time. We get people with PhDs who become cleaning franchisees and are far happier and make more money. But they don’t know that’s possible.
David List 45:56
Wrapping this up a little bit, what do you think is the biggest ROI a tradie can get on social media right now? Something that’s super easy that they can do but has the biggest ROI?
Joel Kleber 46:00
There are so many things. I think going hard in Facebook groups is really good. It’s direct ROI. People will PM you in your group and hopefully in your area because it’s local. Make sure you have all your profiles set up. A lot of tradies don’t have a social media presence. Have a social media presence. Pick one platform, though. Don’t try to be everywhere. In training, we tell franchisees to focus on Facebook for lead generation. If you want to get more awareness, be creative, and post content, Instagram or TikTok are good. If you’re a tradie wanting to work with more other B2B stuff, Instagram is good. Follow every business in your area and start reaching out. Follow real estate agents and body corporate managers on Instagram, interact with their posts, and start networking. Getting active in Facebook groups is really good. Do good things for the community, post about it, and get goodwill. A customer posting your business card in a local group is great. That’s the most effective thing, getting a referral from a customer in your local group. I wouldn’t underestimate the power of those local groups. That’s the biggest ROI.
David List 47:26
I think top of the funnel, being a guest on a podcast like this has the biggest ROI. Until I started doing this, I didn’t understand the power if it’s done properly. The backlinking from Google, Spotify, all that stuff is crazy. I direct all the traffic back to their website. They can use it, the know, like, and trust factor on YouTube, it’s crazy.
Joel Kleber 48:12
You’re right. Podcasts are really good. The person doing it gets their family and friends to see it, share it, and your name is in Google. Podcasting is a powerful tool. Tradies should use it. They should create content, share their knowledge, and build a presence. People are interested in it. Don’t underestimate the knowledge you have. Capture it and share it. You can become known as the go-to person in your area.
David List 49:56
You mentioned podcasting. You have your own podcast, The Lived Experience. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Joel Kleber 50:04
Yeah, I do it occasionally now. There are a few mental health podcasts, but they generally talk about depression and anxiety. There are not many that talk about bipolar, schizophrenia, and stuff like that. I had a single mom with bipolar disorder, she spent a lot of time in and out of psychiatric wards. I spent time in foster care. There’s literally no content about it. So, I created content around that. When I did it originally, I got a lot of good responses from people sharing their stories. It’s just a platform for people to share their stories beyond depression and anxiety. There’s a lot of mental health content now, but it just focuses on depression and anxiety. It doesn’t talk about bipolar, schizophrenia, foster care, or young carers. It’s more stories around that.
David List 51:03
What I took out of your podcast is the residual or the impact on other people, particularly those with mental illness.
Joel Kleber 51:04
I get nice messages. I’d love to have more time to do it. I work probably 60-70 hours a week. I’m actually shooting an episode today after this. A guy wants to share his story. It’s valuable. I get it all transcribed, it goes on my website, and it’s there for good. I get nice messages from people in America who think they are the only one going through that situation. It helps them a little bit.
David List 52:41
I think the more the better. We’ve come such a long way with mental health.
Joel Kleber 52:44
We have, but there’s still a long way to go. It seems like a cycle. An event happens, there’s awareness, and then two weeks later, it drops down. The government throws money at it, but it’s not always effective. You need money in the right areas. There are so many support charities now, but a lot of money goes to marketing or administration. If you donate a dollar, you might get 20 cents actually allocated to services. That’s why we’re passionate about TX. It’s a really good service we provide to franchisees. We’re passionate about that one. The mental health thing, it wasn’t talked about when I was growing up. Even now, it’s still not. There’s still stigma around schizophrenia and bipolar. Depression and anxiety are more understood, which is fantastic. There’s still a long way to go. The government throws money at it, but they don’t put it in the right areas. Greg Hunt shared his story about his mom having bipolar. He grew up in a similar situation, and you’d think he would do more, but the bureaucracy and red tape are in the way.
David List 54:46
It’s a shame we have to rely on private industries like TX to promote these things when we have the power within the government to do it.
Joel Kleber 54:56
The power of the government, they allocates so much money to other things. But there’s still an undercurrent of people who think depression is made up or don’t know what bipolar is. There’s still a long way to go. In workplaces, they do the right thing on the surface, but people internally might think differently.
David List 55:32
Thank you very much for coming on the podcast. This is your opportunity to do the hard sell on Jim’s. How can people contact you if they’re interested?
Joel Kleber 55:47
Just go to jims.net or YouTube and check us out. We have a few trades, like Jim’s Plumbing, Jim’s Roofing, Jim’s Electrical. If you’re struggling to run your business as an independent, for what you pay in fees, you’d spend on Google Ads alone. It’s a good opportunity. That’s my hard sell. It makes it easier. If you’re already in the electrical or plumbing business and struggling, Jim’s is a good vehicle to help you out. Check out jims.net, YouTube channel, Jas podcast.com. Thanks for tuning in.
David List 56:20
You bloody legend. I hope you got some value out of that because I definitely did. If you want me to continue to get these awesome guests on this podcast, like, subscribe, and share this with your mom. This has been the Digital Tradie. I am David List. Until next time, make sure you’re creating some legendary content.
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