Janine’s Success Story

Putting in the hard yards

Janine got down and dirty from the outset, developing the structures, business plan and ethics that have been the staple of every franchise employee since. “I flew to Adelaide to open the first store; I ran it, scrubbed the floors and really learnt the business. It meant I was continually developing and growing it”, she says of her initial output. By her own admission she never had the intention of opening just one store. And though it may seem strange to some to start in a foreign state, logistically the options were better to start in Adelaide. Janine and Jeff had researched the market and found that starting in a smaller market offered less financial risk. Despite her vision for opening more than one store, Janine never really knew how big the brand would become. She threw herself into the deep end at the outset, didn’t take no for an answer and never looked back.

Building momentum

With the help of a leasing consultant, Jeff – who looked after all leasing matters – came home one day when only two stores were open with an agreement to open 18 stores in Westfield Shopping Centres throughout the country.

“What was interesting”, says Janine of the Westfield deal, “was that he [Jeff] came in and went ‘We’ve got to build it [the business].’ We didn’t have much infrastructure to do it. I drew the first five stores to scale, so it was very hands on the whole way. We had a rule at one point that we weren’t allowed to count the store numbers. If we counted them it would seem like an enormous job.” To get things up and running, Janine and Jeff refused to take no for an answer. The word ‘try’ never entered into their vocabulary. Boost has a ‘can-do’ attitude that is reflected in all its stores. “If someone comes up and says ‘I’ll try and do it’, we say ‘don’t try, just do it’,” says Janine. “And so many times through our journey, particularly through building our stores, there have been many no’s that were converted to a yes. If you go in with a positive attitude you can do anything.”

The growth of the Boost brand was all about putting those practices into place. Yet the hardest thing to do was not so much creating the Boost philosophy, but putting the right people into place.

“Once you’ve put the right people in place, everything is easy”, admits Janine. “If they don’t have the right cultural fit, forget it.”

The franchise model

There was never any doubt that Janine would franchise. It was a fantastic way to grow the business, not so much in terms of cash but in terms of quality.

All Boost franchisees are referred to as partners. “They are an important part of the Boost family”, says Janine. “Their success is our success and visa versa.” Janine does not believe in letting partners fend for themselves. Boost will source the best locations with the most reasonable rent so that all Boost businesses are profitable.

“We are totally transparent”, says Janine of the business model. “We actually tell people at the start, ‘If you don’t want to share your figures on profit and loss, you’re getting into the wrong company’.

We talk about P&L’s (Profit and Loss) every month. They see ours, we see theirs and we discuss how to improve their bottom line. A lot of franchisors worry about their top line because they get royalties. We worry about their [franchisees] bottom line because we want to make sure they are as successful as possible, because if they’re a solid business it helps the business overall.”