Escape the Corporate Grind & Achieve True Freedom!

Are you a corporate executive feeling trapped and yearning for time and financial freedom? 

In this full episode of the Franchise Freedom podcast, Giuseppe Grammatico, your franchise guide, breaks down why franchising might be your escape route. 

He dives deep into the franchise model, discusses its pros and cons, and shares invaluable insights from his 15 years of experience as a franchise owner and consultant. 

Learn how to take control of your destiny and build a fulfilling life! 

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The Franchise Freedom: Discover Your New Path to Freedom Through Franchise Ownership, Book by Giuseppe Grammatico https://ggthefranchiseguide.com/book or purchase directly on Amazon.

Transcript

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When you own a business, obviously you are controlling the day to day. You're controlling the amount of effort you're putting into the business, the people that you're hiring, the budgets that you're placing in, in marketing, You switch over as a, as an employer from employee to employer and owning a franchise. Obviously you can control a lot of things, right? I can't control the economy, but you can control effort. the franchisor if you take a step back, they are basically your partner in the business. They are, their goals are aligned. The better you do the better they do. Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast, where you can escape the corporate trap through franchise ownership. Here's your host, Giuseppe Grammatico, The Franchise Guide. Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Giuseppe Grammatico, your franchise guide, the show where we help corporate executives experience time and financial freedom via franchising. Thanks for joining us today. For anyone that has had any interest, we've been getting some messages, some questions on, on franchising. We've been tackling a lot of new shows and, and topics. But if you wanted to dive in jump on a 20 minute call just to figure out if franchising is the right fit for you. Let us know. We cover, all 50 states. We, we, we work in Canada. You can book a call directly, ggthefranchiseguide. com and you can apply to work together. There's going to be a few questions. And then you'll be able to enter your information and pick a time that worked and time that works best for you. So we'd love to help out and explore franchise ownership see if the match is there and answer any questions. For today's topic I wanted to make the case on why you should consider a franchise. Obviously, we talk a lot about business ownership and the various vehicles, but. Going back on, on some of the comments we've received the last couple months and questions and revisiting a few shows want to talk about, why you should consider a franchise now, with that being said, and before we dive into some of the reasons. Wanted to just as a side note, talk about just, or to reiterate for a lot of our new listeners, what is a new or what is a franchise? I should say. And, I look at franchising. Sometimes I describe it as a business on training wheels a business that, has that ongoing support so that people don't have to reinvent the wheel, just like myself. I wanted a business where I can easily follow a system, the brand and the website and the policies, procedures, and, just even the descriptions for your employees were all set up for you. I wanted something where I could run with. Get opened up relatively quickly in my case went to training was opened up in, I believe it was 30 days if I remember correctly, it's been a while signed the franchise agreement trained and actually opened up and generated revenue within 30 days. Wasn't a lot of revenue was not profitable in 30 days or anything like that, but was able to dive in and really learn and understand a business. And this was full time. So we dove in and it was a, it was a great experience. Learned a lot about franchising and all the different options and industries and things like that. Who a franchise is not good for, or the right fit for, I should say, are people that really, they want to create everything from scratch, from the branding to the logos to, if it's fast food, all the menu items and things like that. So nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but. I always say you want a franchise to be the right fit for you. And, you're going to be following a proven system. Everything is going to be set up, but if you value creating that from scratch, nothing wrong with that, a franchise may may not be the right fit for you. So those are, I always wanted to revisit that before diving in. You know why you should consider a franchise. There are so many reasons. I tried my best to break it up into, we'll call it five categories. And then we'll, we'll talk in a little, a little bit more detail and I'll provide some Kind of some experiences and, and, and things I've learned along along the way. Got my notes here. I'm going to go through these. So number one is the idea, idea of control. And when you own a business, there are only so many things you can control. When you own a business, obviously you are controlling the day to day. You're controlling the amount of effort you're putting into the business, the people that you're hiring, the budgets that you're placing in, in marketing, there's going to be a lot more control versus being a W2 employee. As a W2 employee, I'm going to talk about my experience. Last three companies I worked for. All went through some type of merger acquisition and there were layoffs. And I was unfortunately experienced some layoffs. In my time where certain departments were eliminated due to just overlap from the, the company coming in and things like that. So when I look at my W2 role, really, the control wasn't there. So I had a job. I showed up every single day. I was told, the areas to cover the products and services to sell, to sell and things like that. But my, compensation was out of, out of my control. I remember in three years of my last employer every year I brought in more revenue and made less income. And that is because I can, I can control my dedication and my work ethic, but I was at, it was not in control of what they were paying out, the commission and the comp structures and things like that. The other thing that I did not have control was. Managers. I had, a handful of managers above me and they really controlled not me, but they controlled as far as my advancement within the organization and I've had some great managers and not so great managers over the years, but they really controlled, what, advancement would look like what the next position was. And in one of my, I'm not going to name names, one, the manager, but Was eliminated. They eliminated a lot of managers, a layer there in the, in the in the hierarchy. So manager I knew for several years was no longer there. And I'm now building a relationship with another manager that was new to the organization. Another, another thing was, with retirement had a 401k that I always maxed a 401k. There were, there were company matches, but at the same time I was given a list of 12 or 15, whatever the number was. We're going back over 20 years now of mutual funds and could not control obviously what mutual funds were. Offer to me, I got the, I got the select of those 12, 12 to 15 mutual funds, but even with the mutual funds, you had someone else. A prop what do you call it? An investor manager, portfolio manager that was investing in those various securities and assets and things like that. And they dictated when there were changes and when they were heavier in equity or, or heavier fixed income. My, my whole point in all of that is that we, work a job with little control don't know what our future will be. We blindly invest in, in, in a 401k plan that we also can't manage aside from the percentage and the actual funds, we're not managing those portfolios. Within those 401ks and just the, the advancement, just because you are doing well and improving every, it doesn't guarantee you advancement and it was left out of your hands as far as will I get that promotion? What does that look like? Who is my manager? And some of the larger organizations, there were just multiple levels. You switch over as a, as an employer from employee to employer and owning a franchise. Obviously you can control a lot of things, right? I can't control the economy, but you can control effort. In my last business, we started back in oh seven. So going in oh seven, oh eight, we switch concentration. So we saw that things were going south in the economy. So we service businesses that were not as effective, like healthcare dialysis, surgery centers and things like that. And that really helped because. Those businesses, there was always a need people needed treatments and things like that. We didn't switch businesses. We just switched who our ideal customer was. And that's something that I, that I, you just, you don't really plan for that. It's just something that happens and it's something that happened to us. We pivoted and we saw that again with COVID. A lot of, a lot of people pivoted and went from, in person to, to virtual meetings and, and, and things like that, just in how your, your service is now being offered via zoom versus at a coffee shop or in an in person presentation. And, going back to the, the, the employee side, I forgot to mention, you're creating a safety net. So when you do potentially go through a layoff. the business is the safety net. So if you are running the business part time, because you're keeping your job, it is a safety net, like an insurance policy that you have something being built that's generating income that you can step into the business at any point in time. So I forgot to mention that, but going back as a business owner, the control, control of, you're able to put a lot more aside in, in retirement and really pick what is you're not having to pick those 12 or 15 mutual front funds. There's Stock there's real estate. There's so many various options that you can use in order to to, to invest for retirement as a, as an employee, there's a lot of people that actually use their 401ks from their previous employers to fund their franchise, which is really cool. Control is big. You can only control certain things. And you definitely have more control in that, in that business and following the system, that, that the franchise opens up once you, once you invest in that and pay that franchise fee, you're running the, the day to day there. I thought control was big. Another one is, you know, you have a partner, a lot of, a lot of people I work with, they will ask, Hey, I may have a partner I may bring to the table and that's fine. We have plenty of people that have purchased a franchise and maybe their girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, investment partner, whatever, whatever that may look like other people, they're a little bit light on the financials and they'll go out looking for a partnership someone they could do business with. And, my, my comment is always. Obviously you want to do whatever works best for you, but the franchisor if you take a step back, they are basically your partner in the business. They are, their goals are aligned. The better you do the better they do. Obviously. So you're growing that franchise usually a royalty which is a percentage of your revenue is paid back to the franchise or after paying the initial franchise fee. Their goals are aligned. They want to see you grow. They want to make sure you're happy, you're making money, they're making money. You're obviously going to be speaking very highly of the franchise, potentially invest in additional territories, additional locations and, and validate really and say really positive things to other. Perspective people that are taking a look at the at the franchise. So that built in partnership, what, what does that truly mean? Well, on the investment side, obviously some people are looking at it just for maybe silent partners, but, and running the day to day that built in partner. Is it going to be someone that you're going to be, that, that franchise or is going to be offering you support and coaching. They're going to be assisting with marketing, whether that be turnkey marketing or whether that be a call center and things like that. So the partnership is, is going to be really big and that's obtained day one. And there's no learning curve. That partnership is established once you sign that franchise agreement on even. Actually, prior to that, making sure you're even a good fit for the franchise before being awarded that franchise, but the partnership is going to be it's crucial that partnership. And because the franchise orders, the one that created the system will allow you to open up and scale faster. A lot of service brands that don't, that don't require brick and mortar are up and running in 90 days or less, which is huge. You want to start making that money back on whatever you put down on the franchise fee or if you paid, it was cash or loans and things like that. That partnership I think is, is, is key. And we've had a lot of people say, you know what, that's a good point. Since the franchise is always bringing a lot to the table, since I'm paying the royalty and there's all these other kind of supporting areas. At the franchise or is assisting, maybe I don't need a partner. Partnership is, is definitely a big one with, well, via my experience it was really nice, not having to figure out, okay, how do I create a website? How do I pay the contractors, the employee, the employees, what does a policies procedure look like? What does an employee handbook look like? I've never, aside from signing and reading one having that all put together. When I had recommendations and or questions, I had someone that can come back and say that's something we're working on or that's a good point. Maybe we should change things. So that partnership is is key. And again, someone that's aligned with you and that's going to be with you every step of the way. So you'll get that from due diligence. And speaking with the franchise or usually the founder or one of the higher ups, one of the C suite will be on those earlier calls. And then you'll get to speak with existing franchisees via validation and get to speak and just say, Hey, how, how has the support been? How's that? What's that partnership and look like? Are they supporting you and things like that? So I'm going to touch on support again. Culture. Is a big one for me. Culture, culture is big and you're going to get a really good feeling just on those first couple calls with the with the franchise or, how they go about just with communication, the openness for the franchise or to share information and then that rolls into speaking with the existing franchisees and their openness to share. Work with you and, just help with the overall process. Those franchisees understand that they were in your shoes not too long ago and really understand like, Hey, a lot of, a lot of people have never owned a business before. I, I had some side businesses, some side hustles in the past on the family business where, you know, I, I, I wouldn't say I was full time and had my family who actually launched the business. They understand it's a lot, it's, it's a lot, it's overwhelming. And they are, they're there to assist or they're not compensated. They understand that they were helped in the past and support in the past by existing franchisees and sharing kind of their feedback. And, they, what they do is they really cycle, maybe giving you a week, a month or every other month or whatever that looks like to be respectful of your time, but truly sharing your. your experiences with the franchise or that's going to be big. And what, what happens is each franchise company will just say they have an annual conference. Sometimes they'll have more, re regional conferences, but a bare minimum, they may have a, meet at a resort or, or somewhere where all the franchisees and everyone, that's part of the organization gets together, gets together. And, you get to. Meet the other fellow franchisees in person. This is really nice. This is almost like a mastermind in that you get to share ideas You get to share experiences I've been to some in the past and you have people that have never owned businesses you have serial entrepreneurs You have a CPA You have some of that owned maybe they own another franchise or they own the deli or a restaurant or whatever that may look like people are coming from all different experience levels. And the nice part is that everyone's bringing up a different perspective, a different skill set to the table. Although there's going to be similarities and, who the ideal franchisee is and, and, we, we call that the franchise avatar, but the culture is big because there's going to be idea sharing. There's going to be a lot of sharing of just, like what's working, what's not working. Potentially, you're, if you're buying a franchise and a service based business and it's territory based you may be getting to meet your neighbors and you're not competing with one another and you're, you're sharing ideas. Maybe you're sharing staff equipment your contractors. Got a ton of work. I don't have the, the labor, can you help me out and vice versa? It may be someone that's been in the business a few years and you may have the staff and, and need to help out. It's a win win for everyone. Ideas I've, or things I've seen is you can share with marketing spend. So obviously everyone puts their money into a pot. It gets, it gets split up. So that's a, it's a big plus when it comes to, working with your fellow franchisees. And, and this is actually something that that's not really talked about quite a bit is the resale market. What we have seen is that there are plenty of resales going on, but before they're even hitting our desks, a lot of franchisees are really selling to one another. Which is actually really big. So by selling a franchise to one another you're avoiding, excuse the the camera there you, you are avoiding essentially having to pay a broker fee at broker fee can be, we'll estimate about 10 percent of the of the total sales price. So by selling to a fellow franchisee, you have the benefit of number one. Being able to sell the sell the business with less fees and then number two, having someone that already knows the business, understands the business. Overall, there's going to be less of a learning curve in that business and they're going to be able to dive in and not have to, go to training and things like that. So just handle the the proper paperwork. There may or may not be a transfer fee. Usually there is. And it's a, it's a nominal fee. To transfer that business so that they can get merged in all together. But that's also one of the benefits of a franchise is that you may have your, your built in exit strategy there. I do recommend making friends with all your neighboring franchisees and, and getting to know them, sharing ideas, maybe taking them out For a coffee or dinner lunch and sharing ideas, best practices, and where you can hook up and work together because keep in mind, when you open a franchise, the territory that you're assigned and invest in may not be the same territory as your labor pool. And if you have a, if you're in the roofing business and I'm in Northern New Jersey and someone is in central and there's someone in South Jersey and there's three, so there's three franchisees. And you're subbing out the work to roofing contractor, you may have one roofing contractor that covers the whole state. So their territories not may not necessarily align with exactly the way your territory has been created. Culture, is, is the big one. Someone just had a conversation yesterday with someone looking at a franchise. And I said that culture, not only does culture within franchisees, but then that kind of flows down to your individual business, right? You want to have a strong culture with depending how you're running it. If you have a general manager or not, and your staff and things like that. So the culture needs to Float throughout the entire organization so that your employees are happy to come into work. They are, they have goals and compensation plans that align. They have structures in place for advancement. Maybe they start off as a technician for a restoration type of business and work their way up to maybe an assistant general manager, or maybe running an entire territory on their own. Where you create an incentive for them to stay on and learn the business and, and grow within the organization. Fourth is and these are not in any order, order of importance. I just call this the money category. With, with a franchise, one thing I, I benefited on was economies of scale and as the franchise companies get larger and larger those economies of scales get better and better. So what, what does that even mean? So it could mean, outsourcing marketing. If you have one office versus five, the cost comes down because the message is the same. Maybe there's some tweaking and some changes for the local markets and pictures, but overall. Marketing companies are able to service five locations, maybe saving in our case. I think it's saved us 15 to 20 percent in the total costs for, for marketing. Again, this fall all falls under the money category. This is, this is reason number four. So economy scale are big. We've seen in other companies where buying power it could be holiday lighting where all the lights in larger quantities are purchased, larger quantity, larger discounts, which is, is being passed down to the franchisees. And this goes for all services, call center related items, the bigger the call center you're able to cut back on, on costs when you're adding in a parent company with multiple brands and utilizing the same centers, same, same exact thing. Go, go into money a franchise gets you up and running, as I mentioned before. Potentially much faster, especially in a non brick and mortar type of business. Even, even with brick and mortar they, they know exactly, what markets work best, not the exact location, but maybe the zip code. And then you're going to use a third party to find the ideal location. But on a non brick and mortar 90 days or less, I opened up in 30 days. That all depends on how much staff is needed vehicles, when the next trainings are, when you're available for the training, that's why. I say 90 days or less. It could take more, it could, it could potentially take less, but you want to make sure you have everything set up marketing is being done before launch so that you're going on appointment just like we did. Marketing was done prior. Day of launch, I already had an appointment. We closed same day, not a huge deal. But it was a good win and help with confidence building closing a deal on the first day on the first sales call. What else on money, the other idea as far as money is that, some people will use this to diversify income streams. So there's. They always say, don't put all your eggs in one basket. So maybe they are diversifying in, in different businesses, certain franchise and non franchise businesses may only have one or two income or revenue stream. So by diversifying you're able to spread it out. So if the roofing business. Maybe it's roofing restoration. There are brands that actually can provide a liquid roof, believe it or not, add the texture back on the, on the shingles, the roofing tile and provide a a protectant really to extend the life of the roof. That could be a way of diversifying. So now that you can truly service the customer, both in the replacement, the repair and the extension of life in, in the roofing business other people can easily add on brands. So if you are, you work for, it doesn't have to be part of a parent company, but there, there are definitely some advantages there. And going back to the example, you own a roofing franchise. You can add on and say, okay. What else can, can we do aside from just the roofing? And I have a 500 customers that we have service. I can call them up and say, we now offer painting. I can call them back and say, we did your roof. We painted your home. Now we're able to replace and service your garage doors, replace your gutters, the list goes on. In some cases that. Parent company will offer one CRM, one marketing platform, one call center to really support you with all those businesses. And that also keeps costs down keeps your customer acquisition costs really low because now you're just, they had a great experience. Now you're just upselling them on different services. And now you're the one stop shop. You're the one point of contact for anything exterior of the home interior or the entire home kind of owning the the home that, that home in, in, in those zip codes that you service. And with, with money in a franchise, the way it usually works is that when you look to expand, you're buying, it's usually a discounted franchise fee, you're buying an additional territory or rights for another. Brick and mortar location. So there is that one time investment. There's still going to be a royalty on revenue, but that's really what it looks like. Is it when you're, when you're staying within a brand and going wider. So if you're in the roofing space and you buy additional territory. Usually you're just paying a discounted franchise fee and then adding staff on when needed. So the investment, initial investment upfront is going to be a little bit less but you have the higher acquisition costs of your customers since you're servicing brand new areas. Flip that around and now you're, adding brands. So you're in the same zip code and go from roofing to painting to gutter replacement investment's going to be a little bit greater because now you have a learning curve for a different, gutters are not the same as roofing and roofing is not the same as painting. So you may need some additional staff and training. There's franchise fees and things like that. So your investment may be a little bit greater, but if you prefer staying close to home and mine, you'll have that lower acquisition costs. So then you'll save that, that money there since you're servicing all those happy customers again. So that is the the area of money and then, depending on your entity LLC, S corp C corporation, whatever, whatever the entity is as a business owner. You have some robust retirement plans, I think as a, an LLC just taking a look at 2025, I believe you, you're maxed out at 70,000. versus a W two employee. If you're an employee, you can max out at 24,000. And then there's, there's different amounts that you can increase depending on age. Just another, this is just an advantage of, of being a business owner, which obviously as a franchise owner that's you can take advantage. And. Back to money and, and, or going back to control, you own this business, your LLC, your S Corp, your C Corp. Those are the three entities we see a lot of. You own it a hundred percent. Yes, you are buying a franchise. Yes, you are paying a royalty, but you own the business. You're able, if it's a 10 year agreement, you can buy it after two years, you want to sell it. You don't like the business. You did really well. You want to take the profits and best elsewhere. You're able to do that. Just review the, the FDD and the agreement speak with the franchisor about options on selling and costs. That way you have a clear picture and if they're able to assist in the process as well. And then the, number, number five here. And these, we touched on, is support. Support is a big one. You are, the value proposition of a franchise is you want that proven system. A system is only good as a support, right? They can't, it's not just, here's a system, good luck, or Here's a video. So the support is gonna be crucial, especially if you've never owned a, a business before. So just reiterating things in the systems like. How long it takes to generate a new customer and costs and things like that. And things may not line up initially. With a, a really good franchise and you're going to hear this in your due diligence speaking with franchisees and things like this things like that, you're going to ask about, initial support. What is included, including costs to get up and running item seven in the agreement will, will itemize everything for you. What specifically am I getting for my royalty? Some people will comment, well, 10 percent seems high, 5 percent seems high, whatever, whatever the percentage is. But the better question is what am I getting for the royalty? Because if they're handling everything for you you're saving another spot. So for example, we have brands that offer a turnkey marketing and those leads get sent over to a call center. Well, just because of that, you don't need an office, a home office, since it's being done either remotely or at the. Headquarters of the franchise or if there's turnover, the franchisor is dealing with that. You're paying a flat fee, whether it be monthly fee or per lead. However, the I'm gonna take a drink here. Franchise or sets it up for you and that'll vary brand to brand. But you want to know exactly what's included initially to get up and running, how do I how do I get assistance marketing this business to get it up and running? And then what does the ongoing support look like? So in my case, I, I had owned some businesses in the past. But didn't really create one was a side hustle. One was with my family. So I wanted to know, it never really did a PNL. I've read a PNL, but to create a PNL and balance sheet and chart of accounts through QuickBooks and all that kind of stuff, I needed some additional support then they were great. And they took the time to really explain how things work, the cash versus the accrual basis. Like we, we, we dove pretty deep and then partner with a an accountant to help me with the process. Had, hired a. Not just a franchise attorney, but a regular attorney to review the, the correct legal entity and things like that. So the support is going to be crucial because, a lot of the franchisors realize since you're many people have never owned the business kind of giving a checklist of things to consider. So if you're leaving your job and you are starting this business full time where are you getting your health insurance from? Is is it a spouse? If you're, if you're retaining your job, then you can keep it there and you're running the business part time. But where are you getting health benefits? What what about just the insurance of the business? Making sure that you have funds aside so that if the business takes a little bit longer to get up and running, we don't know, times change economies up, up and down, things are cyclical. So you want to make sure to have a six months living expense. You want to make sure your personal finances are all covered. And with the business, some businesses you'll know ahead of time, businesses that revolve around insurance payment. Working with government or municipal contracts may have a 30, 60, 90 day turnaround to get paid. Where's that buffer? Do you have the funds aside? Is that a line of credit you have to get on the home? Some, sometimes the SBA will offer that. Those are additional items. And then, as far as support goes we've heard things where and I'm not saying this is for every brand, but. Weekly calls where in one case, a founder will do a weekly call every, I believe every Wednesday morning for an hour and franchisees, whoever's available, they jump on, talk about a thing. Okay, I'm stuck here. Can I get assistance? What do I do in this, in this case? And they're able to troubleshoot and work with you. Sometimes it's really specific and some brands will assign you a franchise coach, which is ongoing. They'll travel with you in the field if need be. There'll be your, your kind of main point of contact for any type of support issues, questions, advice, things like that. We've seen a trend with franchise orders via support offer dashboards. This is pretty cool. Dashboards that will help you compare yourself with other offices where, where you're at in revenue for the month or for the year. What's your close ratio on leads. The number of leads received, things like that. And that way you can figure out and say, okay we're getting a lot of leads, but our close ratio is really low. I'm going to compare myself to other offices. If I'm on the lower end, we need to figure out if the quality of lead is really poor or my salesperson needs additional training or maybe a combination of both. And what's nice is either the franchise or, or depending on, we've seen some, some brands do this you can hook up with that specific office and maybe have your salesperson speak with that. Salesperson. This, this, this kind of combined support and culture in that franchise, these are very open and want to, really assist you because the more the bigger the brand and everyone's making money and, and, and happy everyone's growing their businesses and, and, contributing more to the to the bottom line. Support is, is going to be crucial. They'll outline everything you get what I always ask from a support standpoint. Is that when I, you go to a discovery day, the final stage in the process asks, what additional support items will be created? Are you working on, is there an initiative to offer, for example, AI, AI technology, where technicians are 24 seven video, if they're stuck on a job and not contacting the franchise owner, the general manager of the home office, they have access to a full database. Based off of pictures, based off of certain keywords, text, video, whatever's been, whatever the inputs are. They're able, so we've heard brands add, not replace, but add AI to the arsenal to support not just the franchisee but the staff as well. And, the franchisees love it'cause the staff is gonna be much more efficient, especially if the franchisees working the day. The service is being done in the evenings for whatever reason, maybe it's line striping of, of parking lots and they're stuck, a piece of equipment isn't working, they can troubleshoot that. So the the support is, is going to be key. It's going to be ongoing and, asking the franchise or, person, I always say the captain of the ship, where's this business going? We have one brand we work with in the coatings business. They went from one. Revenue stream, which was to really restore vinyl siding. Instead of replacing it to nine different service options. So from the franchisee standpoint, they had a franchise with one revenue stream that now has nine, no additional investment, because that's something that's a value add, that's the, that's almost everything that we talked about, a combination where. Yes, there's going to be some additional training where there's always going to be some, somewhat of a cost there, maybe some equipment, but not having to buy another franchise to be able to also restore kitchen cabinets and that kind of deal. What is the franchise or doing that same franchise or was also, via their, support and marketing efforts got into some of the larger chains. So now that, some of these larger chains. You're the preferred vendor and are receiving lead flow from some of these large retailers across the country. So these are things that it helps when the brands are getting larger because they have more of a footprint, a larger footprint they're able to cover, these large retail chains across the country. So the larger the brand the easier these national accounts are able, you're able to to get. So national accounts are great. That falls on their support that falls on the money and the economies of scale. And that you're able to offer great and competitive pricing and be the preferred vendor for some of these large chains out there. Just to go down the list, we talked about control as one of the main benefits. You have a built in partner that's aligned with your goals, money, which we talked about, diversifying income streams economies of scale. And cutting down on the, on the costs of your, your marketing even the, just the products that you're that you're that you're purchasing ongoing and initial support as well as the culture, working with other franchisees, sharing ideas, experiences. partnering up where, where you can and potentially having that that person be your buyer and with the added benefit of that culture flowing down to your staff so that, you, you have a great, just overall, your staff has a great experience. They're, they're getting paid fairly and there's a track, a career track basically. These are, these are things to consider with a franchise. Keep in mind, a franchise is still a business. There's a risk with any business just like you have with the franchise. The key part of a franchise is you want to find not just, all right, I like this product or service, but you need something that aligns. With everything that we, that we talked about in previous episodes. We want to make sure the investments in lines, you're not spread thin. It's located in an area that works for you. You're not commuting two hours to get to the location. That's going to be extremely difficult. And it's going to be run based off your skillset. So a good thing to think about are what are the things you're good at? Not do I have experience in financial services? Do I have experience in roofing or mosquito spraying, but what, what is a common theme in those businesses? Are you an extrovert? If not an extrovert, are you a good networker? Some people don't like, maybe door to door sales, which would be an extreme, but they're great at networking. So figure out the transferable skillset. And then it's on you to really spend. A lot of time on due diligence, the franchise or, in the first three to four phone calls will give you, a good understanding of the business, your role, the investment, the, the potential helping you with the proforma or outlining what a proforma and things to consider. But it's on you to really spend the time speaking with franchisees. You're going to be offered franchises to speak with. Obviously, no one can make you do it, so it's highly recommended because you want to get feedback, positive and negative. You want to hear the good, the bad, the in between, and really have a good understanding of what that, that franchise is. Ask them the million dollar question I talked about in the last episode, knowing what you know now, would you do it all over again? So these are key things that, that I have everyone. A franchise is, is a business on training wheels. It's one of the vehicles where you pay the the, the franchise fee. You could be up and running in 90 days or less. There's clear ways of, of scalability, whether that be additional territories. Complimentary brands brick and mortar, same, you want to know exactly kind of the, the areas, if you should invest in those, in those areas or territory sooner than later to lock in that the future expansions, what each location or territory will yield you, what that investment will look like you want to are clear understanding and then get to meet the founders and CEO. It's, it's, it's a lot of work. It's going to be a lot of work to get the business up and running. It's not a passive investment, but man, can it be rewarding? I look back at my career and to be up and running in 30 days and leave my job in my case full time. So we were on one income, my wife's income we were getting a health insurance through her employer. But I wanted that business to scale quickly and because I ran it for full time and my wife. Was working, I was able to reinvest just about every dollar back into the business the first year. So the first year growth year, I, it was I was open technically open 10 in business nine months. We did about 750, 000 in, in, in revenue. So it was a, it was a good year. We were profitable the first year. Not saying that happens in every business, but. With that, I paid myself a bare minimum salary at the time. I forget what that number was, but it wasn't, wasn't, wasn't much, but reinvested all that because I wanted the first year to build a foundation, learn the business. It was, it was a business I was not familiar with. I wanted to find my staff, get marketing in place, get some customers, get feedback from them. And then grew from there. We ended up buying our second territory a year later. And then selling the businesses back in 2020. So exit strategy planning that that'll be a whole nother episode in and of itself more than glad to share. And guys, listen, this is some of the great stuff that we talk about on our daily calls. So if you want to bypass and you find value in the, in the podcast, excuse me, give us a book, a call let me just grab a drink here. Book a call. You can apply to work together. There's three questions, get your information in there, book a call, and we're going to go through all this so you don't have to remember all this. You can use this podcast as a reference, but we'll go through how to find the right business, who's a good fit for a franchise. We'll break down, the, the importance some people money is not the first thing. It's more time freedom. They want something that is not going to require even it, money is always important, but they, the time for me was the most important. I wanted to become a coach and not miss the soccer games. Or the events or, or what have you. Really figuring out what's most important, what are the skillsets? And if you work, if you reverse engineer it. And, and we'll look within financials, skillsets, what's important to me. What's my, why, what's the ideal business look like. Then we go out and look at the brands and the simple act of, one item. I can run the business only part time the first year. That's going to rule out a ton of franchises. What's available in my specific market. That's also going to rule out, especially if you're in a, in a major market can rule out a lot of the franchises it needs to be within this investment again. It rules them out, but you know, as you're going through, I always talk about both ends. So if you're leaning towards a service business, but you want to learn, the realities of a brick and mortar we talk about it and maybe the timing is it right now, but the goal is to have a home based service business and a brick and mortar physical location, whether it be standalone or in a shopping center later on. Use me as a resource and that's part of the services that once we work together, there's no, no cost or fee or contracts were paid from the franchise company. If you buy the franchise and we're always with you. So I have people calling me five, six years later. Hey, I had a question here looking to expand. I'm not sure if it's going to be a franchise or not great, more than happy to help. Or I want to add a franchise. Or is it better to add a new franchise or should I add territory? Well, there's, there's pros and cons to both. Let's talk it through. Give me a shout no silly questions. If you just want to go back just to the basics and figure out if a franchise is a good fit for your situation, because everyone's situation is going to be different. More than glad to have that conversation. Please take me up on that offer. You work directly with me. I don't have a team. Aside from a company that helps you with our marketing and podcasts, you're going to get, you're going to get me every time. Again Gigi, the franchise guide. Book a call. If you're not ready, check out the podcast, 200 plus episodes. You can search on any topic, 25 FAQs. That's a great starting point. One to three minute videos. And I would love to help you in your next step in the journey. So again appreciate your support, appreciate the the comments. And I think in the next couple, or at least the next episode, we're going to be summarizing our findings of. Going to the national conference in Houston, where we got to meet well over a hundred franchise companies. Look forward to recording that episode until then take care of guys and we'll talk to you soon. Bye bye. If you want to learn how to make the transition from corporate to owning your franchise, join Giuseppe on the next episode. You can also follow on all social media platforms and achieve financial and time freedom today.