Video Transcript
Slade: I have been in the building industry for 27 years. Started building homes right through the states in New South Wales, North Queensland, Northern Territory, before we settled back home in the Wide Bay Area.
Patrick: My background starts back in high school, doing a school-based apprenticeship with my dad as a carpenter.
Jason: So I started in the construction industry as an apprentice carpenter. From there, did my time and started a carpentry business.
David: I’ve been in the industry for a fairly long time now, since the year 2000. I came out of my time as an apprentice, I became qualified as a carpenter, and I set up my carpentry gang to work for a builder.
Daniel: I come from a family of builders, I’ve got my grandfather, and my uncle, and my brother is a builder, and my other brother is actually an engineer. And it’s a great family to be from.
Thomas: I got a master’s in civil engineering in the States at the University of Colorado, and then moved over to Australia with my wife. And we moved up to Queensland, started with nothing, and I ended up getting a job with James Stroud at the original franchise in Jimboomba.
Daniel: My brother and I were working extremely hard, and doing the best that we could, and it was tough, a lot of hours. But I realized pretty quickly that I need to be smarter. And I started working on some business models with my brother to work smarter, not harder. And eventually, we ended up realizing that we didn’t know enough. I was looking for a company that would still respect my values and my family values of high quality and personal ability with the client. And I was struggling to find that with other franchises that I was looking at in my area at the time. Stroud came along, and first thing that I noticed was they were taking the qualities that I had learned and had built into me by my family, of keeping that quality really, really high, and keeping that personability with the client, but taking it to a new level of professionalism that my family had never seen before.
Aletha: We’d actually been a part of a franchise before, so we weren’t scared of what a franchise was offering. We knew that they was offering us processes and procedures that we knew that we could put these in place, but at what costs, and at what time value we were losing with a young family. Stroud gave us that step and that position that we could really strike hard, and move quickly, which is what’s happened.
Jason: Obviously, there’s only a certain period of time you can strap the nail bag on. So, even though I was relatively young at the time, for me, the biggest factor and why I kinda like the idea of the Stroud Homes franchise was advancing my career, and building a business that I could see a lot of potential in.
David: I worked for both the South and the Western franchisees, and I saw that the level of commitment to their customers, the level of quality that Stroud was producing in the market was completely out of the world compared to the other builders. And so I found the building franching opportunity for the Brisbane East franchise, and I saw the step into the role as a franchisee for Brisbane East as the next step for me and my family.
Lisa: We looked at a lot of other franchises before we decided to go with Stroud. The difference was the quality, the simplicity about how the whole franchise works, about the fact that our clients knew exactly what they were going to be getting from us. That there was no hidden tricks or, you know, fees that come, you know, later on down the track. And also with Strouds’ record as well, we were able to clearly see that Stroud was a very reputable business, and was definitely the place for us.
Slade: Since we’ve started Stroud, my life has changed through. I was always on the tools beforehand, and we were trying to work our way of getting off the tools. And when we took the franchise on, the workload, and the procedures, and everything just made it easy for me to get off the tools for our work to pick up. So, I could work on the business rather than in the business.
Aletha: What we found was as we’ve gone from building 10 small homes a year, which each had their difficulties, to being on track to building 50 homes a year. Now whilst we have a lot of the same stresses and disadvantages that we had before, the difference between the two is that we have staff members that we can lean on. It has given us more opportunities and more flexibility with our young family of four small children.
Patrick: Currently, we are working at about two houses per month. We are definitely trying to scale that up with getting the right people into our business, which is something that we have struggled with. But, definitely, with the help of head office, we have become better recruiters, and know that for us to have a good team, what each team member needs to bring to the party.
Thomas: When you buy a franchise of Stroud homes, you’re able to get off the tools, and you’re able to run more jobs at the same time with less input because of the systems that they’ve implemented and make available to you. So since 2013, we’ve been able to build around 60 to 70 houses a year with around 9 to 11 staff. So because of the systems we’ve got, we can have that staff of quite low and build those sort of numbers. So there’s a real chance for you to better your life and get a bit of time back for yourself, while simultaneously improving your income due to the systems that Strouds’ got.
Jason: The transition from getting off the tools and owning a company of this size. So I’ve noticed myself with a lot better business knowledge than what I used to have. And that’s kind of given me the freedom to have a bit of time, a bit of time to my kids, to my family. And also there’s a financial element as well. So, at the moment, my wife and I are building a house down on the Gold Coast, and I don’t think I would have had that opportunity if I’d not have taken the leap into a franchise.
Daniel: Starting a franchise meant a lot of hard work at the start. But the rewards have been absolutely tremendous, and I couldn’t recommend it enough. Put in the hard yards at the start for a short amount of time for a massive amount of gain. It’s been fantastic.
David: I can tell you from experience, the first time I’ve handed over a house with Stroud, and seeing that customer’s face is priceless. It’s great. It’s going to be a great memory for me, for my family, for him and his family. And it’s the complete opposite of the industry, it shows you what the building industry can be, it shows you what Stroud Homes can be.