Frequently asked questions

1. NZ will remain our head office location. We have discussed this among the directors several times and all agree that NZ is where we want to be.
2. NZ will always be the base for Oncore. As the business grows internationally, it allows us to invest in better systems and other resources that each franchise benefits from.
3. We appoint a GM with their own team to provide local support and leadership in each country as required.

There are five companies in the group. Refresh Renovations®, Zones Landscaping®, Oncore®, We Sort It and PlanFirst. As at the end of 2024 we have over 175 franchisees operating within the group across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

Yes, some businesses have failed and they have left for a wide range of reasons: health issues and personal/family matters, deciding to move overseas etc. However, there are a few who have failed because they didn’t run their business properly. In each case it was because they didn’t follow a key part(s) of the proven process and business model. In all cases, we work with franchisees to help them out of any holes they fall into but, in the end, if they refuse to make the necessary changes and follow the business model, their business will not prosper.

1. Focussing on delivering a great customer experience
2. Driven to succeed and invest in their business
3. Good leadership, ability to build the team and make sure everyone is doing their job
4. Following the established process and successful formula
5. Using the systems to keep on top of sales, administration and business results

1. We have relationships with a number of lenders who rate the Oncore franchise system highly.
2. For finance, we recommend going through brokers who will get you the best deal. The most common way to finance is through equity on property you may have.
3. Oncore is a very low cost of entry model with very little required in the way of overheads. There is no requirement for commitments such as property leases, fit-outs, stocks or machinery, etc. (which are often required in other franchise systems).

You do not need industry experience to be a successful Franchise Owner. As a Franchise Owner, your focus will be on managing the growth of your business while your Construction / Project team(s) will coordinate a team of skilled trades. Our existing franchise owners have backgrounds in business, sales, accounting, customer service, hospitality and more. One of the things that makes Oncore so unique is that business-minded professionals run the business while project managers and trades focus on their area of expertise. This is key to creating a smooth experience for customers and also helps to keep employees and contractors happy within their roles.

Due to confidentiality, we cannot share actual accounts. The spreadsheets we have provided are based on the data we have across our franchise group.

During the due diligence process, you have the opportunity to meet some franchisees and will be able to discuss financials with them on a one-on-one basis.

When we meet to have business reviews, we look at progress versus business plan and also benchmark versus other franchisees on conversion rates and also financials (P&L). We provide benchmarking data across a wide range of business drivers.

This is covered in the briefing. All you need is a vehicle, phone and computer and you can run your business from home. Working capital, such as an overdraft facility, is to help cover your costs while ramping-up the business. This data is all provided in a spreadsheet during due diligence.

Franchise fees are paid upon the signing of the agreement.

Working capital is typically an overdraft facility rather than an upfront cost, which is only used as required.

Royalties and local marketing are monthly costs. Many franchise systems require royalties based on invoice but the Oncore royalties are only due once revenue is received by your business which is a big help to early cash flow. Unlike many franchises, there is no minimum royalty or national marketing fee paid which is helpful for cash flow, especially in startup stages when you are building your pipeline.

There is not a launch event as we are not a food franchise that requires a big launch to start.

Your marketing will be activated when you commence. Leads will start being entered into your system for you to follow up.

Your franchise fee covers the cost of signwriting your car, setting up your web presence and other marketing collateral.

You would probably run it from home for the first year or two. As your team expands, you may want to look into a small commercial office. This cost is covered by your business.

The Guarantor of the franchise agreement is the person or persons who personally guarantee the obligations of the franchisee (i.e. the business entity) under the franchise agreement. There are no guarantees registered against the personal assets of the Guarantors to secure the personal guarantee.

We lodge a GSA (General Security Agreement) against the "franchisee". To be clear, the "franchisee" is the business that is registered, not a person. The GSA is over the assets of the business.

In addition to the national branding and marketing, we provide a great deal of marketing support for your local franchise marketing that breaks down into 4 types:

1. Digital and online marketing: we provide resources to plan and implement cost-effective campaigns on your behalf.
2. Customer relationship marketing: we provide tools, databases and training to help you generate repeat sales and referrals.
3. Channel and trade relationship marketing: we help you build networks and campaigns to generate leads from various trade sources.
4. General marketing communications: we provide collateral and marketing support to help you run local campaigns. A personalised 0800 number is one of these tools.

We provide a marketing toolkit, training, benchmarking and other marketing resources to help you with local marketing.

Oncore spends hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on national marketing and resources to build the brand, develop online platforms, programmes and other marketing material.

You spend the specified minimum spend per month on local marketing and we help you put together the most effective programmes based on experience from the group.

The marketing support we provide can be targeted to generate different types of leads to manage your mix of small, medium and large project leads.

There is an extensive digital and web programme. During induction, we will set up a regional section on our website where you can work with our H.O. team to add your team profile, projects and other content to help to establish the local online presence. All this is managed and provided for you.

We collect 1% of all revenue as a National Marketing fund to apply to developing a brand platform, creating marketing assets for the Franchise Network, promotion, advertising, agency fees, marketing research and development, establishing loyalty programs, operating the website, operating a call centre, test of target marketing, marketing and consulting fees, relevant industry memberships and subscriptions, public relations activities and incident including but not limited to (social media and traditional) media programs and activities, providing promotional brochures and other marketing materials for the Approved Services and Approved Products.

We will provide you with a draft of the legal agreement for you to peruse and take to a franchise lawyer to get independent advice (this is normally supplied 2 - 3 weeks into your due diligence, once you are ready to proceed to legal). We do not change contracts because we would soon lose any structure which would undermine the whole franchise. However, we can acknowledge certain clarifications or amendments in attachments if we all agree to them. Generally, we find it is best for you to focus on getting to grips with the business model first; when you are comfortable with that, turn your focus to the legal side. If you try to do both at the same time it can get confusing with lawyers trying to provide commercial advice (which is not their expertise) and accountants trying to provide legal advice (which is not their expertise).

We don’t have a minimum fee. We do agree on minimum performance levels with you, as that helps you decide on the speed you want to grow your business and is necessary for planning and benchmarking. If franchisees don’t meet them, we work with them to see what’s needed to bring them back on track. We don’t use this as a mechanism to weed out franchises - it takes a huge effort to get good franchises so our incentive is to do everything we can to make it work for both parties.

We develop a business plan with you and have review meetings with benchmarking to help you achieve your plans. Everything in the plan is part of the coaching. We work with you for as long as it takes, providing support.

The agreement is 5 + 5 + 5 years with a right of renewal at terms no less favourable. In other words, the agreement doesn’t revert back to us. Details are in the franchise agreement.

The business is your asset to sell. You can go to a broker and ask for as much as you like. We don’t take a fee out of the sale. We will recover transfer costs - see the legal agreement. We do retain the right to make sure the new franchisee is suitable for the business. We provide the necessary training and support to help the new owner be successful.

You will set up a business that acquires the franchise. You can bring new partners into that business at any time. If you are intending to change the franchise management, we need to approve the change.

If you want to sell your franchise business, you are free to do so (provided you are not in breach of your franchise agreement). You set the price that you want to sell it at. We do not take a commission but will recover costs incurred in the administration of the sale. We reserve the right to approve the new owner to make sure they are suitable and will not damage the brand for the existing franchise holders.

You can sell the business as long as you are not in breach for some reason. See the legal agreement.

There is a breach process outlined in the legal agreement. For example, if you are damaging the brand. It is not in our interest to terminate franchises so we always do everything we can to support a franchisee.

The number of franchises in a territory is determined by the size of the repair and maintenance market in that area. The number is defined in your franchise agreement.

It’s a simple process. We do a letter of agreement which both the franchisor and yourself sign. This can happen if a territory is still available.

Yes, as long as your current territory is meeting its targets and there is a franchise available in the territory you are interested in.

As mentioned in the briefing, we are looking for commercially-oriented people who want to grow a large business by investing in the business and their team. We are not looking for builders who want to be on the tools.

Because we have limited the total number of franchise territories that will ever be available, we need to make sure we appoint people who will be successful because our success depends on making sure they are successful.

We do not appoint people who we feel do not have the capability to succeed.

The most important attributes are a positive attitude and a strong motivation to succeed. We recruit growth-minded franchisees that understand that they are managing a business, not a series of projects. That means managing teams of employees, trades, suppliers, etc. This is a sales-oriented, people business. Franchisees must understand that we are accountable to the customer for issues that arise.

Our initial training/induction is done at the HO and normally takes 2-3 full days. You then work closely with your appointed business mentor (who are chosen from among our most successful and experienced existing franchise owners) and they will show you how to do most of the key parts of the business one on one!

Yes, we agree to a 3-6 month onboarding program and all of the above, which are included in your fees.

Training on the Oncore systems and processes is ongoing and generally not charged for separately.

Travel, accommodation and personal expenses are covered by the franchisee.

We regularly offer lead management and sales training, as well as project delivery and various admin/business management training. We require you to attend some of those training sessions with your employees so that everyone understands their roles in the business. Generally, this is included as part of the fees. Exceptions would be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

You can expect a lot of support in general and, yes, there is technical support for the IT systems we use.

Each franchisee starts with a 2-3 day induction at head office that covers business management, marketing, lead management and sales. Project delivery comes later when you sell your first project.

Additional support is ongoing - coaching over the phone, in person and via teleconference is on an as-needed basis.

Much of a franchisee’s needed support is uploaded to the Oncore LMS (Learning Management System) in the form of manuals, FAQ’s, etc. that all comprise a vast knowledge centre. During the due diligence process, you will be given access to our live manuals to explore the depth and breadth of our knowledge base, which we are constantly developing.

We also require all franchisees to attend annual conferences, where we share updates and best practices, both formally and informally via networking with other franchisees.

You also get support from fellow franchisees! We have a forum on WhatsApp to ask anything you need, from referrals for trades and suppliers to costing for projects.

If you talk to the existing franchisees they will tell you that we offer great support. Most operational problems are teething issues that every franchisee goes through and we’ve built up our answers over time in the form of coaching, system functionality, training and documentation. You most likely won’t encounter an operational issue we haven’t already addressed a dozen times over.

Support from franchisees: franchisees establish their own informal networking but we also encourage and provide opportunities to network in more formal or facilitated environments like annual, mid-year conferences and webinars.

Performance feedback - definitely. We establish your revenue targets from day-1 of induction and review your progress and results against them regularly.

We review the agreed annual business plan and also benchmark versus other franchisees in lead conversion and also the Profit & Loss statement/business financials.

No fit-out is required as you are running it from a home office and then eventually you’ll move into a small commercial office. This cost would be for your business.

The HO marketing team will provide you with all the branding and design support required at a cost-recovery rate.

As much as you need - especially during your first 3-6 months!

We have a half-yearly operational franchise conference and an annual international conference which includes training, benchmarking and networking with other franchises.

You are also welcome to make contact and come see us at HO at any time if need be.

Through our systems we are able to see what your pipeline is looking like compared to your peers and if we spot any issues we will contact you.

Yes, we benchmark conversion rates, and also financials so we can help improve your business.

There are some minor seasonal aspects but repairs and maintenance happen year-round. The types of projects can vary with seasons, for example, you may have more insulation/heating enquiries in the autumn/winter and more deck enquiries in the spring/summer.

The only strong seasonal pattern is a drop of work in January but even that drop is beginning to even out.

Follow the process and use the systems in order to deliver our value proposition - giving customers a less stressful experience while delivering a high-quality outcome. Customer service, project management, communication and professionalism!

Oncore provides excellent online systems and manuals through the Oncore LMS to help you and your staff manage all aspects of the business.

Absolutely - we need you to do business the “Oncore way,” so offer training on all of our platforms, not just Xero. From time to time we may change the IT systems but there is a consultation process with franchisees if we do this.

A Business Plan is set up with each franchise. This includes the individual marketing plan for the franchise based on their growth aspirations. This plan is reviewed with each franchise and adjusted as required.

White sign-written vehicle. You need it shortly after induction training as customer leads will start flowing into your business quickly.

If your vehicle is in good condition but not white, a very viable option is to have it ‘wrapped’ in white as part of the sign-writing process.

Your first vehicle will be sign written for you as part of your start-up pack.

Sign writing the first vehicle is part of your initial start-up pack (excluding wrapping, if that is required).

• Franchisee WhatsApp group
• Contact details of all franchisees on the Oncore LMS
• Monthly newsletters from HO.
• Monthly WebinarsDirect emails from HO managers.
• 6 monthly operational and annual international conferences and meetings.
• Individual business plans and coaching from head office managers.
• Plus many more…

You can submit new ideas via email and they will go into the development schedule to be prioritised and considered as new features. You can also submit new FAQs, glossary terms, etc. for consideration to help us grow our knowledge base.

We have excellent communications with franchisees. Several areas have informal groups which we support if required. A FAC hasn’t been requested.

Oncore is responsible for national brand marketing and providing the web and digital platforms for marketing. The 1% marketing fee makes a contribution to this resource.

Franchisees are responsible for the marketing required to generate sufficient leads to meet their growth targets. Their local marketing budget covers this.

Oncore HO provides digital and marketing staff resources and the web and digital platforms for the franchisees to run.