Spray-Net Founder Carmelo Marsala - Innovation, AI & Building a Purpose-Driven Franchise

In this full episode of the Franchise Freedom Podcast, Giuseppe Grammatico welcomes back Carmelo Marsala, founder of Spray-Net! Dive deep into Spray-Net's innovative franchise model, from patented technology and AI-powered support to its commitment to community impact and franchisee success. Learn about service expansion, economic resilience, and Carmelo's invaluable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. This is a must-listen for anyone considering a franchise in the home services industry! Choose the right path at https://ggthefranchiseguide.com

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Transcript

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We're really looking for people who are not looking for that boring business, that business that anybody else can do, something that's actually different. But really it's a no brainer because. You paint something. It's not going to last very long. It's going to scratch. You do this last 15 years, won't scratch, won't peel. It looks brand new. You can wash it. but at the end of the day Would you rather just live with regret thinking like I should have or I could have just try I mean I mean, I know it's easy to say I'm an entrepreneur and that's just the way i'm wired 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. We have a very exciting show for you today. We have a two timer, Carmelo Marsala from SprayNet. Carmelo, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me again. It's it's awesome. If you watch SNL, I got to get you a robe soon. I don't know if it's the SNL robe for it. It's either three times or five times, but I know Tom, Tom Hanks, I think started that. So we'll, we'll get you a robe for the for the next appearance, but wanted to invite you back. It's been, it's been a while. I think we had you on the show several years ago and I wanted to bring you back on and, you know, talk about kind of what's going on with spraying up. But for those that. Missed the first episode give the audience a little background who Carmelo is, and then we'll dive into us right now. Yeah, sure. Um, I mean, I founded SprayNet in 2010. We actually manufacture our own proprietary coatings. You'll see behind me here, I don't know if you can see this, Cousin Chemistry for Smarter Painting. So basically, we have these surface tailored coatings that we apply to exterior and interior surfaces, like vinyl, vinyl windows siding. Kitchen cabinets and we actually have four patents on our process And chemistry in order to be able to give that 15 year warranty that we give so started that in 2010 started franchising in 2014. Actually, it's been over 10 years now and expanded to the u. s. Originally from canada expanded to the u. s. In 2022 And we actually now have more u. s locations than we do canadian ones. So that's kind of it in a nutshell Oh, wow. So more, I did not realize that some more, more locations in the U S wow. you know, it would spray net. I know it started off with with siding, right? I believe it was painting a siding. So talk to us about the evolution, because, you know, when I talk to people, they always ask, it's like, okay, do I. Have to expand and add maybe a complimentary business. We call it brand stacking. And then in some cases, brands will add on additional services. So talk to us kind of where you started and where you are today, as far as the, maybe if you could list out the services you offer. Well, it's funny that you talk about brass sacking because initially we only did exteriors and in the seasonal markets We basically operated from May to end of October And that was enough for most franchisees to kind of make a living for the whole year and be happy with it But you know a lot of people wanted more so then we stacked and layered in kitchen cabinet refinishing kind of just complement the seasonality of our business and then We're not actually now a kitchen cabinets is almost 50 percent of our business in the US which is huge. It actually took off like crazy and what's amazing about kitchen cabinets is when people do the cabinets do the exterior and vice versa And now we're adding on another business. We actually save, you know, sprain and fringes three business one We actually have a new roofing business that I can get into if you'd like but Yeah. So, this actually started in 2016. So we were doing exteriors. People would, would often be like, well, you know, I'm not going to do the outside of my house because my roof is not going to match. I don't want to spend 20 K to change the color of my roof. So, you know, we sought out to kind of find a way to change the color of the roof. And like everything we do. We didn't want it to look repainted. So we said, how can we actually just replace these granules? It took us years. In 2019, we actually had our first iteration of a product where it will spread granules on top of a roof. We did that and we realized this had a whole bunch of other benefits. The roofing has increased impact resistance, wind resistance. Long story short, we applied for a patent in 2019. We actually were just granted this patent two months ago in the U S. So we actually have a patent on our root coding too. So we're really like three businesses in one. So there's no need to stack anything else. Our franchisees have trouble keeping up already with what we have. I congrats. So that's awesome. So, so with the patent, that that's great. And now, you know, with the different, different services in a way, it's almost a reoccurring service, right? I mean, it's, people are coming in, you know, coming in for one service, like the siding Then the cabinets don't go into the roof if not doing it all at one time But you know people always ask what's what's reoccurring and what's not it seems like people are You know, maybe testing you out on the and the exterior bringing you inside. I mean, what's your experience been with that? Well, it's funny. So we we finally had our first customer who did all three of our services, right? Which is amazing because you know, I did the exterior they did the the cabins and we went back to do the roof And we're starting to see that more and more and more. Right. If you, if you like, if you like your vendor or your supplier or whoever, someone's coming to your house and you trust them, well, obviously it was in front of the services, but the whole, the whole recurring revenue thing, it's funny because a lot of the recurring revenue is small. You know, you get, you get these pest control or whatnot. I have a job size, almost 6, 000. So, you know, to have that recurring revenue over 10 years or have it right, right away, I mean, I'd rather have it right away and then. You know, we tell our franchisees are recurring revenue. Like you mentioned is now let's try to get the other services on that house. And we just leverage that customer and that, that customer acquisition costs. Right. You get that, that, that ROI. That, that makes a lot of sense. You're right. Re reoccurring, like mosquito spraying, maybe a hundred bucks or a couple hundred bucks a month. So what does that annualized assume you can even spray all 12 months. So that, that, that is a really good point when you kind of look at. The total, the total job size. So, awesome. There was a question I was going to ask. I lost my, I started thinking of that, that, that got me into a different I was going to go in a different direction there. Go. All right. So kind of going back to spray net, you know, we bring on, we've been, you know, we created a series, we're bringing on founders of various franchise companies and all different industries and. The reason we're doing that is to really to educate not every brand is going to fit what you're looking for. And really what it comes down to is not the widget, not the service, but really the characteristics of who does well in the business based off your experience based off of the, that franchise avatar. So, talk to anyone that's maybe looking into something like a company like spray net in the home services space. What are the, the key characteristics? Who, who is that person that you're looking for that will do well in this type of business? Yeah, I'll tell you especially for a long long time. We are not the right fit for everyone. I mean That's just the reality of it. We're not a simple business. You know, we've got three services We've got multiple spray guns. We've got all of this cool stuff But the reality is it makes for a less simple business, but on the flip side We've got this higher barrier to entry, very unique, high margin. So someone who's looking for something, something simple you know, not having to spend that much time, you know, building the business or whatnot, probably not the right fit for them. We're really looking for people who are not looking for that boring business, that business that anybody else can do, something that's actually different. You know, the flip side of that, like I tell people is it's great. You're excited about the service. It is really cool. Trust me. I know I've been doing this for a long time. Customers are ecstatic about it, but. But the flip side is people are skeptical that it's possible, right? So it takes some time to get that awareness and get your business off the ground So it is a bit of a steeper ramp, right? Like it takes a bit of time to get ramped up But once you get ramped up, you know, we've done 13 houses on the same street, right? People love it, but it's not like roofing everybody knows for example That I need to replace my roof or a plumber or whatnot Not everybody knows you can spray your vinyl windows or your vinyl siding or finish your cabinets in this way Or do your roof in this way. It's an awareness thing on our on our end Yeah. Education is is key because I, I didn't know until we met several years ago that you can actually do that. And I go, wow, that's, I already have a fading on one side of the home. So we got, we got a quote to replace that. And that was, that was pretty scary given the home is just just over 10 years old. So, so, so, so in actuality, you're not really competing and correct me if I'm wrong, you're not really competing with. Painting companies, you're competing with contractors looking to replace the roof. Contractors looking to replace siding or even cabinets, if, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, we're, we're, we're lucky because we fit nicely in between. So like painters don't do a lot of the stuff that we do. So we actually refer them where we don't, we don't paint walls, right? Like we don't, we don't do like a decks or peeling paint or whatnot. So we'll refer them work and they'll refer us back somewhere, right? There are some overlays, but generally that's how it works with contractors often. They'll refer us to because instead of losing the customer or not getting the job anyways, they'll be like, well, you know what? Like there's no, there's no need to replace this. Like, for example, in your case, there's no need to replace this. It just needs, it just needs to be freshened up. Here's a company that can do this properly. So we, and then vice versa, we refer them when the siding is just destroyed and it's like, Hey, so we're kind of nicely, nicely nestled in the middle where we get referrals and we can refer them out. So yeah, I guess we're an alternative to replacement in some cases. That'd be probably the most accurate way to depict it. That that's a good point, right? Because even with the roof and the siding, sometimes it just, it needs to be replaced. There's there's shingles missing, there's leaks, there's. Right. Nothing you can really do. So what do you have an idea? So compared to traditional paste paint, because I'm sure people have tried painting their kitchen cabinets with the roller and just regular paint. So you know, is how much, how much of a premium, I guess is the question over pain and on the flip side, what are people saving versus replacing cabinets or, or siding if, I don't know if you have. Kind of estimates. Yeah. Yeah. So typically wherever there is overlap in us with conventional painters, we we're generally about 25 to 30%, maybe more expensive. So like, okay, not a huge amount. And you know, obviously versus replacement, we're probably a quarter of the price, sometimes even a fifth of the price. But really it's a no brainer because. You paint something. It's not going to last very long. It's going to scratch. You do this last 15 years, won't scratch, won't peel. It looks brand new. You can wash it. Like actually I convention this year I launched our new version of our kitchen coating and one of my, one of my party tricks. I like to call it was I actually started my presentation with a piece of our side, a piece of our, our cabinet. I put wine on it. I put coffee on it at the end of it. I just wiped it and showed everybody how it was. One of those infomercials. Yeah. I like that. I was like, this better work though. Imagine like I would pull, you know, a musk where he throws, he throws that, that ball and it breaks, it breaks the glass. And it's true. I mean, that's a. Stuff that happens, right? I mean, let's, let's talk real life examples of what actually goes on in a, in a kitchen. So I love that. And you know, what, what is, what does it look like for someone? So someone someone just ends up, you know, they buy a spray net franchise in the, in the territory they live. What is the initial kind of team look like? And what does that franchisee doing? So we're from, from kind of that first month to maybe month 12, what are they doing just to give the audience a little idea as far as their role? Yeah, so I mean We started training, right? So training, we've got online training. Then we get into actual virtual training and then we have our hands on training at our Miami office. So that's, that has to do with sales, financial planning, how to hire people, you know, all, all of that fun stuff, all the basics of business, you know, how do you spray guns, et cetera, which is fun. People love spring actually. And then. From there you get your first quotes, right? Those go to our call center. We schedule the quotes, we send out a sales trainer to the first quotes with the franchisee. They signed, they signed a backlog. So once we hit, you know, at least 10 jobs backlog, then we start producing those jobs. So at that point you'll have hired a crew, a crew of four to five people. And then we'll come in and we'll do those first jobs with you too with your crew and train you and your crew. So that's typically how it goes. I mean, that whole process from training to starting your first job. Yeah, probably about 60, 60 days, 60 to 90 days, depending on how quickly you're able to assign jobs. And that, and that's, and that's huge. I mean, not only you're offering training, but you're actually doing the first couple of jobs with them. And that's where. You know, I own franchises and, and we talk about support and every franchise you can't look at, okay, this, this industry, and this is a sport I get every franchise is going to be different as their approach, who they're looking for. And a big part of training is that, that hands on training, the travel, because you go to training, you know, at a remote location. At the headquarters, you come back, you're, you're super excited. And it's like, okay, what do I, what do I do now? They almost need that, that extra push. Like, okay, let's, let's apply it firsthand in a directly in front of customers. Let's do a job. Let's, let's come across all the issues that we, you know, that you're going to come across on these jobs. So. Training is and support have been kind of the, the number one question. It used to be, well, how much money can I make? Right? Joke. I mean, it's like, well, it's just like any business, you know, you're going to do your, run your pro formas and things like that, but now it's kind of like, I've never owned a business. I don't know what, what I, what I don't know. You know, I really need that support. So can you go into a little bit more on the training and maybe even touch on you know, utilizing AI? Yeah. Well, like, honestly, you know, I spoke about it a bit before. What we do is a bit more complicated. So like, as a result, we have, we overcompensate on training. Right. Because we want to make sure that people can actually actually, once you get it, I mean, it doesn't, doesn't stay calm, but like for us it's easy now. Right. But like, you know, there's a steeper learning curve. So like on top of the hands on training, we've got our internal social media. So like we've got an internal social media where, where, where rookies, we have a rookie channel and all company channel, we have a production channel, sales channel, people are asking questions to other franchises. Honestly, it's an amazing community. We're almost 70 franchisees and like the veterans are answering the rookies. I'm getting in there. I, you know, people always joke. I love being on Viva Engage, which is our internal social media. I'm like literally there five times a day. Just answering questions because I love to be able to answer a question that every, the whole system can see. Right. And then what's even better about that is. We've got an AI bot. So, chat GPT, basically API that goes in and crawls all of that, including all of our training materials, including all of our any webinar that we've ever given. It goes through the transcripts so that a franchisee or their staff can literally ask it a question. And it's got all this brain at knowledge. So again, answer question 24 7. We're always in the back end. There are single questions are answered. If there's not a documentation, we supplement it, but it's crazy. Like it's answered over a thousand questions this month alone. Like, and we're like, what day 12. So, so like of staff of franchisees. So like AI is just an amazing tool to supplement all the coaching that we can get. I love that now they, and taking advantage of it's learning and people, I'm sure a lot of people have the exact same questions, especially when they first start. So. I love that switch, switching gears a little bit. So you guys were based at originally based out of Canada. So. This is more educational because I just received this question. So, since you're basing in Canada, I wanted to talk if you can just kind of briefly FDDs franchise disclosure documents, we did a show with Houston Barnes a while back and, and how to review an FDD, but going back to, if you are, since you are based in Canada, is there a separate FDD in Canada as, as you have in the U S and. Do they merge that, that information together? I guess if, if the audience has, doesn't know, can you explain the differences between the two? Oddly enough everything seems to be way more regulated in Canada, except for franchising is way more regulated in the U S we actually, yeah, it's like, it's, it's way, it's actually way better structures because so many more franchises in the U S. So basically we start with our U S FPD because that's the most stringent. And then we update our Canadian one, but like a U S FDD. Needs to be updated every year. Canadian one doesn't necessarily, just if there's a material change. So, really our, our source of truth, where the most information is, is actually in our USFDD. And does that combine the data between the two or is that, does it keep it separate? So if you want to look at, you know, Canadian number of Canadian franchisees, is that included in the U. S. FDD? So it's all outlined. So it is, it's not, you can, you can look at it however you'd like. So the way that we do it in our item 19, which is where the numbers are shown. So I'm assuming you're referring a little bit about a little bit to that. Now, the reason we do it that way is because most of our U. S. franchises are new and our Canadian franchisees have been operating for longer. So we say, Hey. Here's what our new us franchisees are doing. Here's what our veterans are doing just so that us branches can extrapolate in time what they could potentially be doing. What's cool actually is people always ask, well, yeah, but that's in Canadian dollars. Our average job size is actually higher in the U S and it is in Canada. So we're not charging less in the U S we're charging dollar for dollar, the same thing, actually a little bit higher. So the dollar amounts that they see in Canada are very easily, you can easily extrapolate that to create a sound business fund. Wow. Okay. No, that's interesting. So I learned, I learned some stuff there. So I asked these questions for, you know, to educate, but in the process I, I I learned as well. So that's awesome. What a lot of exciting stuff got, got a, got a new patent, but also, you know, when, when we talk with with candidates, people looking to explore different franchises, they look for differentiators and. There's a lot of great companies out there. They offer great products, great training, but it's like, how do we, how do we get the word out to the masses as far as national exposure? Uh, talk to us a little bit about that. Cause I I've seen you online and we've seen videos. I think you teamed up with some larger companies. Talk to us about. Maybe national accounts and just how you've, you've gained some national exposure. Yeah. So we actually are in Lowe's which is, which is amazing, right? Our franchisees get to have a kiosk in Lowe's the Lowe's associates talk about our service. You know, they sell our kitchen cabinet refinishing service. That's just one of the ways. I mean, I think like most franchisors, it's how do you leverage your brand fund? So brand fund for those that are familiar with it is, you know, one of the I think probably the best thing about being in a franchise is a brand fund because everybody can kind of contribute a little bit to this big fund that goes a longer way that you couldn't be able to do on your own. So, you know, this year, for example, we're exploring HGTV, right? You know, if you're starting your own business by yourself. You may not be able to afford HGTV, but now if we've got this combined purchasing power, we can, right? And we can do a lot of really cool things with this, with this brand fund. So really, I think, I think utilizing the brand fund dollars to maximize exposure is probably, I guess, the responsibility of most franchisors. We're lucky. We have a great team. We're also lucky that we have a service. That is somewhat sexy, right? Because it's different because we've got patents because we've got differentiators. It's a little bit easier for us to get influencers, a little bit easier for us to get exposure through PR. So, you know, I said I was fortunate before I I'm saying it again. The fact that we'd have something different really helps us with that exposure. Right. I love that. Switching gears. This is just something relevant in the news today with everything going on. Big, big secret, but, Talk to us about the effect on, on tariffs. You know, that was something that actually came up in conversation with a family I was working with last week. And I know the answer to this, you guys did a great job in response, but I wanted to hear it. Directly from you. So how, how, how will terrorists affect the business? Will, will there be any effect? Talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah, well, I, I, I'm assuming Gab is, is Gab, our friend of guys who helped you out, but, but let, let me dive into that one. Cause there's a lot of pieces to it. So, number one. You know, I spoke about how our average job size is actually higher in the U. S. And as in Canada I don't know if you, I don't know if you check the exchange rate, but one Canadian dollar is 1. 45 U. S. dollars. Yeah. Which is crazy, right? Which means, yeah, which means that we're basically cheap labor for America at this point. So manufacturing in Canada. Actually is a huge benefit for our U. S. Franchisees. We do distribute through our, our, our, our, our, our U. S. Location, but manufacturing labor cost is almost 50 percent cheaper. Everything is just much, much cheaper. So if you're charging As they are in the U S the same or more, but you're paying almost 30 to 40 percent less for the product, but you can imagine the profitability for us franchise actually higher than our Canadian franchisees. And I've said this to them, so there's no secret. Everybody knows, unfortunately, the Canadians pay more for products, right? Just because of the reality exchange rate. Now let's say we layer on a 25 percent tariff that wouldn't increase the price of the product by 25%, obviously, because you know what it costs us, what we sell it are two different things we distribute through our us location. It would probably increase the price to the customer at the end of the day. If the franchisees were to maintain their same margin, let's say they wouldn't want to absorb the difference. It would increase the price of the customer by two to 3%. Which is negligible. You're talking about, you know, let's even know it was 5 percent just to make the math easy on a 5, 000 job. You're talking about 250. Like it's not like for the additional value that we have versus You know, conventional products or whatnot at 250. We're not that price sensitive. It's not going to make much of a difference. Right? So, so, you know, I get it. It's scary because everything else will go up in price, but for us specifically for our service, the fact that we distribute through our us, your center, the fact that we have cheaper Canadian labor, I guess, if you will, it's an advantage, this, this, this kind of just helps bridge that gap a little bit. But anyways, we'll even see if it, if it actually happened or not. Right. It's good. You know, it's good to talk about because people, people panic. They, they see the news and they don't know the actual true effect of what that will look like. So I, I appreciate that. I'm sure that's come up in your organization and it's good. It's great to stay ahead of it and just put everyone's mind at ease. So it's funny. Cause I thought the U S franchisees would panic a little bit more about it, but they've been so great about it. Like they're like, look, even if it were to go up 25%. Which it won't like our product costs will never go up 25 percent just because we distribute through the U. S. Let's say it increases by I don't know five to ten percent They're like our product cost is 15 of what we're selling right labor is really the big part, right? Yep. So so the increase of the customer is really what we're looking at and it's it's it's almost negligible Yeah, I was going to bring that up. It's mostly labor, right? Pain, pain is one aspect, right? But labor is going to be most of it. So very, very good point. I'm glad, I'm glad you brought that up and wanted to cover it. I like to cover the issues at hand because people panic. They don't, they don't know what questions to ask. So it's good to address. And every business is going to be different. You know, some people may be manufacturing in their home state or they may be making changes. So it's good to ask these questions. Should be part of your due diligence when you're speaking with each and every one of the franchise companies. So, sorry, I don't want to talk cause I don't want to lose my train of thought, but that being said, it has always been our plan to manufacture in the U S we manufacture a small portion in the U S we're going to continue to manufacture more and more in the U S. The reason why we haven't done it yet is because it's actually more expensive. So, you know, the, we actually just manufacture here, distribute to our U. S. center and then distribute from there. But to manufacture in the U. S. would actually cost us more. So that's the reason why we don't do it. We don't want to increase the price but it is in the plans to do it just from an efficiency standpoint. Gotcha. Okay. No, that makes sense. Let's see. I was listening to it was a podcast. I don't remember. Where this podcast was, but it was interesting podcast. It was president of the IFA and they and I talked about this on previous episodes and he had mentioned that this was interesting, 75 percent of people. That they've pulled show that they had interest in owning a business, which I thought was interesting. So 75 percent of that, that group of that 75%, three quarters gave the reason that they never actually had moved forward with a had gone moving forward with a business was they didn't know where to start which was actually pretty interesting. I always thought it was going to be a wall. It's money. They just felt like you needed millions of dollars like you do with. Some of the bigger brick and mortar fast food chains. Um, what advice would you give to someone that, that's kind of starting out, given that they're pulling people and that seems to be the biggest thing, they have no idea where to start. That's actually a surprising stat. Like, if that's really the reason, well, obviously contact someone like you, right? I mean, you, you, you know, the business landscape, you know, like obviously franchise, look, it sounds biased. But the reality is I speak to friends and I was like, well, you know, you're lucky you had this great idea. And he started this business, I don't have this great idea. I'm like, okay, you don't need the idea. Right. You can get a franchise. That's the whole point of a franchise. Right. And if you don't know what franchise to get, well, hire someone like Giuseppe, right. He's, he's seen the landscape because you know, you may meet someone, you'd be like, well, that person may not be the right fit for SprayNet and maybe for something else and you'll put them in that direction, but like. If you don't know where to start, I mean, obviously hire someone like you to help you kind of navigate that landscape. And, and I, and I appreciate that. But you know, if, if they're not ready to speak with someone, you know, I always say kind of take a step back and just figure out whatever that business is. Don't even worry about the service, but figure out what the business looks like. And I always have people explore and stand like, what, what's your role? Are you keeping your job? Are you running it full time? I always say, if you have the ability to run it full time, no one's going to run that business better than yourself. You know, that's how I approached it. Some franchises will allow you to run part time. Some prefer you to be full time upfront, but there's a major benefit of running the business full time. You get a better appreciation. And not only that, you can figure out what role you want to play down the road. And, and, you know, and, and. Part of that too is sampling different things. So just because you have a sales background doesn't mean Maybe you want to be head of sales and going on appointments. Maybe you're networking at the chamber of commerce. So anything you wanted to add to that because I I always encourage people like it's not that complicated. I think they're Looking at the 4, 000 franchises in North America and getting overwhelmed. I always say, don't worry about the franchise. Don't worry about the top 500 lists. Worry about, you know, what your, what your role is, what you want to do and what, what's your timeframe. So anything you would like to add to that, because this is something that comes up over and over again. Yeah. Also, I know everybody says like, don't get into business based on what you like. I agree with that because if you hate what you're doing, if you're not passionate a little bit about what you're doing, like, look, I, I like home improvement. I got, I'll be honest. Like I love doing rentals. I love getting hands on. I love seeing that final product. Like, wow, what a difference. If that doesn't speak to you at all. I mean, see if there's something that does, right? Like, I guess like choose your industry. And I wouldn't say like, you know, have tunnel vision on like, this is the industry, like, you know, look at other stuff, but make sure you feel good about what you're doing. Like, you know, when I speak to our top performing franchisees, they almost always tell me the same thing. They're like, I didn't want a boring business. I wanted something that had an impact on the community. I wanted something that put smiles on people's faces and, you know, create good jobs for people. Right. And they're like, I'm happy that I did this. Right. So make sure that it checks the boxes that you want to take off. Like for me, creating jobs and creating a good culture was, was key to me. Right. Impact on community. Honestly, I never even thought of that, but that's a huge one. I didn't even realize, but that is a huge one, right? Like some services are cool, but are you really having the impact on the community that you'd like to have? Right. So anyways, I'd say like. Everybody talks about boring businesses and everybody talks about, you know, you don't have to follow your passion. And I agree with that a little bit to some extent, but to some degree you should. Right. Yeah, no, that that's, listen, that, you know, people like the before and after that's, that's what home service is all about. Redoing a bathroom spray net, you know, redoing the roof, the exterior colors of the home. So, people really enjoy that. And, you know, really figure out, you know, one of the questions, if we're not working together to ask the franchise company, the franchise, or. Is, Hey, what, what is a day in the life of a franchisee? What does that look like? Because you want to make sure you'll, you'll notice in many cases, the roles are going to be similar, similar than many brands. But are you going to be excited? Are you going to be enjoying talking about it? Is it something that's just going to be a grind? Well, you got options. That's why we, we try to figure out a model. Let's look at kind of the behind the scenes, what you're doing on a daily basis, because, because that's the thing, all things equal, no matter what. you're going to be grinding year one, right? You know, like let's assume everybody gives great support and you've got a good model and a good community, whatnot. You're going to be grinding year one. It's going to suck a little bit, but at the end of the day, are you being fulfilled by what you're doing to a certain extent? Because, because then it's just like, feels like, why am I even doing this? Right. Like beyond the money. You know, there needs to be something beyond them. I know the money is very important, but there needs to be something a little bit beyond the money to keep you going because it gets tough and, and those, those, those dark days get really dark. They do. They, the it's, it's just like the stock market. It's a rollercoaster ride. It's ups and downs. It's cyclical. So I always say, you know, go back, go back to the why, you know, that to me is why that. Why we started this. Sometimes we need that, that reminder when things aren't going as planned. And I think we've all experienced that me included in my past businesses, current businesses, something, you know, it's cyclical. So, but absolutely, I, I think that's that's really important and not, not to lose sight of that. So kind of, I would say reverse engineer, you know, don't look at the brands to start, look at kind of what the model looks like. What you want to be doing. What's the average day in a life? What are your strengths? You know, do you want a big staff? Do you want a brick and mortar location? Figure all that out before starting to look at brands. Why? Because when you look at the brand initially, in my opinion. And just like I did, and I won't name names, but in the, in the restaurant business, you start to settle. You know, I don't want to work nights and weekends, but I'll, I'll settle because I have to work nights and weekends. I don't want lots of staff, but I'll settle. So I kept settling, settling to the point where, you know, the, the business looked nowhere near what my ideal business looked like. So figure that out. You know, I definitely help and spent a lot of time there. But you don't need me to, to initiate that. Start, start with that short list, get your financials together. That's a good start. Reach out and we can absolutely help and figure out what the brands are. And sometimes we find the perfect branding and guess what? You know, franchises are territory based, maybe the area isn't available. So if you really like a brand, are you open to exploring? You know, 30 minutes away, 45 minutes away. These are the things that come up in franchising. And this is what I like to prepare people for. So, that's awesome. I, what, yeah, go ahead. No, sorry. Cause just to add on that, like I've been doing this for almost 15 years now. And it's funny. What lights me up is testimonial Tuesdays and before now pictures that people post on our internal social, like you should see, and I may have sent you some, but like. So our franchisees are like the customer was thrilled in caps and then they put the review and the customer's review is just glowing and it's like that fuels you right that keeps you going like to be able to provide that service to people make them that happy and then and then you get we've even had staff say like I asked staff like why do you why do you keep coming to work and they're like The smile on customers faces, like it's a different project, different challenge every day. Anyways, I'm not here to just toot my own horn here about spraying it, but it's just, that's what keeps me going. So it's fine. That thing that keeps you going. Right. So anyways, yeah, I guess I, yeah, you got, you got to give that some thought and, and, and reflect. And sometimes I always say like, when do you do all this? You got family, you got work. I always say, you know, during the week, it's busy. Take time on the weekend, sleep in a little bit, spend some time there. That's where I did a lot of my, my deep thinking, because during the week you got a million things going on, but really. Set aside an hour, you know, figuring that out, let the family know if you're, if you're married, let your spouse know, let the kids know why you're doing all this. I talk about this quite a bit. I think that's crucial, you know, going to be mom and dad are going to be working a lot longer, you know, you know, maybe no vacation this year as we launch the business, but we're doing it. To obviously, you know, create some, some, some time freedom. So we can spend a lot more time with you guys have a flexible schedule. Just like I do, you know, we're big soccer fans and I don't miss my son's soccer matches you know, whatsoever we go to practices, we record with those AI cameras. I'm, I'm the guy in charge of that. And I really enjoy doing that. So sometimes. That time freedom is really what people are trying. You know, there's only 24 hours. We have the same equal even in canada You guys have the same amount of time. So, uh You know, so it's like, you know, you know in all seriousness we have the same amount of time So, how do we how do we free it up so we can really spend the days? Uh as we uh as we see fit, you know as we want to spend them best piece of advice you have ever received It's a Ted talk. Actually, you know, I change this every time someone asks me a question, depending on what's going on. What did you say in the last show? But, but, but just, just based on this week, based on, on, on something that just came to mind this morning is, is be a giver. You know, there's a TED talk by Adam Grant, Givers vs. Takers. If you haven't seen it, I was, I was drunk. This is just watching it. Give give to the world. Give to others. Be generous of your time. You know, be a giver, not a taker. And that, that ties into what I've been talking about the whole time. Like, you know, something that you could, you see yourself, not just taking cash, not just being a giver to society, to community, creating jobs. If I feel, I strongly believe that if you're a giver in the long run, maybe not in the short term, that's not always the way, but in the long run, it'll come back to you. So just, just, just be a giver and not a taker. And that's Adam Graham, TED talk, you said? Adam Grant. Yeah. A grant. Yeah. There's a 15 minute TED talk. I strongly suggest watching it. I, I talk about it all the time because it's just so true and you feel it when people are just taking, when people are giving. So be generous with your time, with everything, right? And it'll come back to you. Love that. We're gonna, I'm going to look that up and we'll, we'll put the the YouTube link on the in the show notes. Anything else we didn't talk about? Sorry, I got a little feedback. Any, anything else we didn't talk about? Um, you know, got a lot of first time entrepreneurs or people looking to, you know, lead the corporate grind to, to start their own business. Any other pieces of advice that you would like to leave the audience with? I know it was cliche, but like If you're thinking about all the time just do something about it You don't want to like wake up 10 years from now and just be regretting it you know, is it going to be the right choice? Maybe maybe not like it may be harder than you think it, you know um but at the end of the day Would you rather just live with regret thinking like I should have or I could have just try I mean I mean, I know it's easy to say I'm an entrepreneur and that's just the way i'm wired but And we all took risks. I mean, there's, there's, there is no guarantees that we'll have our job. There's no guarantees. The business will succeed. But going back to Ted talks and I, and I forget the speaker, but a grit. There was a Ted talk on grit and it talks about just this unwavering persistence to just make things happen. Understanding there's going to be the ups and downs like we, you know, the, the, the being cyclical and that kind of stuff. But just, you know, making, you know, this is, this is the life I want. These are the changes in order for me to have these changes. I need to really take control of my career. So. It definitely won't be easy. It's going to be a lot of hours. As I tell everyone, I don't like to paint a, a picture where you just buy a franchise and what is it? And I don't know if you remember back in the day that Ron Popeil said it and forget it, you just, you just throw this stuff in the machine and it makes a sausage links for you. It's, it's nothing like that, that you have to be involved. It's not just, you pay the franchise fee, the franchise, or. Runs a business they would need you for that, right? They need you to have that grit and really to, to, to work the business, follow the system. So, but I encourage everyone to explore it, you know, start talking other franchise owners, entrepreneurs, not people that never owned the business. Talk to people that own the business. You want to know how it's the ups and downs. How does it feel not paying yourself? Maybe the first month, how does it feel two years later when you're never missing? You know, I don't know, a dance recital, a soccer event and things like that. So talk, talk to those people at different stages in life. I think that's super helpful, but ultimately it's what you make of it. You got to do your due diligence, but you got to start somewhere. And to your point don't want to live with, with any regrets. And I see a lot of people coming back to me year, 20, 30 years of looking into it. Maybe they're fearing losing their job. Now they're in their fifties and sixties saying. You may, is this the right time to own a, to own a business? Because I feel like, you know, the end is near with the job I have. So, so absolutely. No, that, that's awesome. I really appreciate that. I'm going to put that in the show notes. Look at the end of the day, there is no magic bullet. It's just about trying something like we've been franchising for so long now that like, we've gotten a bit more selective on who we want to let in. Just because like you should do, like, let's say you're exploring a franchise or whatnot. Do I feel comfortable working with these people? And actually, my litmus test is, do I feel like, if times get really tough, that I can have a reasonable conversation with this person? And if the answer is not without a doubt, no yes, then maybe, maybe it's not a fit, right? And it goes both ways. Like, I always, I always tell people, like, yes, we're exploring if you're the right fit, but you also need to be exploring if we're the right fit for you, right? Like, we gotta see ourselves working together for 10 years. Two, two way, I always say it's a two way interview, it's a two way street. And big part of any franchise or as you want to speak directly, whether it's in person or it's virtually with the founder. So that would be Carmelo in this case. But talk to the, I always say that the way I explain is talk to the captain steering the ship because, you know, spray net, whatever the franchise is, you kind of know historically what has been done. You have the franchise agreements. This is our system, but where is this business going? What do you anticipate? Challenges, additional services, whatever the, whatever the case may be, maybe changes to marketing, working with another company like Lowe's, it's good to know and speak directly with the founders. And I actually, yeah, I actually host. Calls every two weeks with potential candidates. We actually had a really good call last week. It was, I think we're eight people on the call and it's, it's actually fun because, you know, some people piggyback off each other's questions. We have a good conversation and honestly, it's, it creates content for us too. Like, Oh, I didn't think people. Had a question about that, right? Like maybe you should put content out about that because a lot of people have questions about that. So it's actually fun for me, fun for the group. And we kind of get to see what do you connect with? What do you not connect with? And that's, you know, and that's how we invite people to the next stage in our process. I think, I think it's huge because you know, I know other, there have been other companies where the founder, basically you meet them at the very end, you don't speak with them, you meet them at the very end. And at that point, it's like, that's kind of decision time, right? Either you get accepted. You obviously have to agree to the, to the award letter, a number, a number of territories, locations, whatever the franchise is. So I think that's crucial in the process to be for the founders to be involved. And not wait till the very end to say, yeah, maybe, maybe you weren't a good fit. And I probably could have told you this two calls in and vice versa, you know, that the person exploring may say, love the brand, love everything about it. But the, the founder, I think we just. Differences of opinion. Maybe I kind of feel like it should go in this direction. They're going in a different and that's fine It's not about right or wrong. It's about it's about the match. So I love that So that's I think that's what we're seeing more and more of that where founders are involved earlier on in the process And when people say well What are the odds of getting approved now? we say the odds in my in my personal opinion should be pretty high because At that point if you've made it that far to get you know, invited to a discovery virtual or in person discovery day. Then, you know, you've, you've, you've checked off boxes on both ends and there usually is a higher approval process as opposed to never talking to the founder and going in blind, not knowing. So, not that it's guaranteed, but you are at the end of the day, awarded a franchise. You are awarded a select number of territories. So, you know, keep, keep that in mind as well. You know, you want to speak with founders or maybe even requests. To speak with the founder or maybe it's like like in a group setting like you guys were doing so I think that's I think it's a big plus. So, and last thing, I, I, I, I think I forgot this on, on, on our first one. Fun fact, Bobby, you remember what you put down? I did not but I mean, it is pretty fun. I've got four kids, so that's kind of fun. It's a party in my house. Did I say that the first time? No, I didn't even have four kids back then. No, I don't think you did. Yeah, they were, they were younger. So I think, yeah, you did not. Cause I think it was, it was two, two and a half years ago. I think is when. It was when the last show aired. I may have. Yeah. We, we got a surprise two for one special. We've got twins trying for our third. So yeah, we went from two to four. So that's it. That's even more motivation that you know, to, to, to stay in the business. So, and and, and we're, we're hardcore soccer fans. So that's You know, we, we, we you know, we, we definitely enjoy the sport, but cool. Listen, I, Carmine, I really appreciate it. Looking forward to having you back on the show. If there's anything I always tell the guests that we didn't talk about or something even a link or something you'd recommend the audience to check out, shoot me an email, we always include a blog and show notes with some additional information. So you'll find all the links, spray net. You know, the Ted talk here about being don't be just being a giver grit. We'll, we'll include all those links in the show notes and we'll we'll definitely talk soon. Thanks again. Thanks, sir. Talk soon. 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.