All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Goudy

Hi Shawn, 

Sorry for my delayed response.  I am working on a property in Houston that seems to be lucky enough to be in the way of any recent natural disaster.  Though it sucks, I will make money, so I cant complain.

I think that you are absolutely correct.  The owner of this franchise told me that he is a sufferer of PTSD, though he hasn't served in the military.  I am not sure I understand that (sorry if that is taken as "shallow" as I hold our service members on a special pedestal for this, and I must admit that I am not literate in mental illness, but moving on).  This guy is really disconnected.  He doesn't want to compensate a soul for doing a good job, and as you said, this is the root cause.  The turn-around there is worse than a fast food chain.

Thank you for your feedback.  I had hoped that this move would spark a natural synergy to improve the customer experience, but there has to be at least SOME processes underneath it, IMO.

I would like to look for flips in a neighborhood that has an undeveloped park nearby. When I am knocking on doors, I plan to ask the neighbors to let me know when they hear of a neighbor that is looking to sell, to let me know first and I can give them a $250 bonus for giving me the lead, and put $750 toward the local park. Whenever I make an improvement to the park, I plan to send a post card out to all of the neighbors that I have talked to, to let them know how my business is improving their neighborhood, and (hopefully) bringing everyone's property values up. These constant mailers should keep my firm as the one they call when they know of a deal.

I have a few questions about pulling this off. The primary one is, what can I do with these advanced leads if the owner wants more than I am willing to offer myself? I would like to honor my word and reward the person who gave me the lead and improve the park. Should I try to negotiate the deal and wholesale it with the $1000 coming out of my cut, or should I give the lead to my agent and try to work out a "finders fee" or something in the sale of the property?

I feel that this concept has the potential to snowball over time. I am approaching the owner as not a buyer for their property, but as a park improvement guy looking for leads.

What advice do you have to be able to pull of this scenario...or am I off my rocker. Your input is greatly appreciated.

I have a retail concept that I would like business-minded feedback on. It can be applied to a contracting business or whatever, but I conceived this with respect to food service.

The background, I went to a local pizza establishment that is the first franchise in a brand that I have known, and the recipes are fantastic. The location and decor of this first franchise is fantastic, but the customer service is really poor. Sometimes when you walk in, it is like a cave, but you can see 4 or 5 employees messing with their phones. They have a 3.3 on Google Reviews with their only criticism being the customer service.

I met with the owner of the franchise and proposed that he incentivise his employees by giving everyone on the payroll (down to the dishwasher) a $2 bonus on their paycheck for every 5 star review they get. Give a $20 bonus to an employee that gets mentioned by name as an over-achiever. He immediately took a defensive posture and thought his employees would try to "game" the system by having all their friends post reviews, to which my response was "and why is it bad to increase your five star reviews?". My wife took the position that this was dishonest, but my thoughts were that the employees would eventually run out of friends and the customer service would have to stand on it's own merit.

What are your thoughts? Is this a good way to boost your ratings and incentivise employees at the same time, or is this wrong or immoral or something? Apparently my filter is too broad, so I would appreciate a professional's opinion to keep me grounded. Thank you for reading this, and for your input of you wouldn't mind sharing.