Corporate Refugee to Franchise Owner: Your First-Year Guide

Franchise business coach Giuseppe Grammatico's definitive blueprint for the franchisee's first year! This full episode combines expert insight and real-life stories to guide corporate executives out of the employee mindset. Learn how to choose the right brand, build a powerful support system, and avoid the top 5 rookie mistakes new owners make. If you are serious about investing in a franchise and achieving time and financial freedom, this is a must-watch. 

DISCLAIMER: The information on this podcast is for general information purposes only. Franchising involves risk and careful consideration should be given before making any decisions.

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Transcript

Dan and Natalie: 0:00

I have never had a family member not one time say that's a good idea. Not one time has anyone of all my businesses ever said, you should go for that. It's a good time. It's never been the case. They were wrong on the Ring doorbell, which is massive. They were wrong about so many other things. And then they invested a lot of money in things that didn't work like that Sweet balls, like what was that about? So I think even if you have people that could be experts, they could be wrong. But I think that the number one mistake business owners make is they start to succeed and then they go buy the boat or they go get the new car and it's like, no, you should, like you said, re reinvest the money into your business for a while.

Joey Romanczuk: 0:37

Some of these corporate environments are so structured where you might feel like you're making decisions, but it's really. You know, you, you've been given two. It's like the matrix. You've been given two pills. Take this one or this one.

0:50

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast, where you can escape the corporate trap through franchise ownership. Here's your host, Giuseppe gr, the franchise guide.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 1:00

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Giuseppe Grammatico, your franchise guide to show where we help corporate executives experience time and financial freedom. Thanks for joining us today. We really appreciate it. And don't forget, feel free to visit our website, ggthefranchiseguide.com Click on that book a call. I'd love to chat with you, answer your questions in regards to business ownership, franchise ownership, if you're potentially a good fit. Book a 20 minute call with me today. There's no cost, no commitment, and I would love to help you out in any, way we can. today I'm joined by industry experts who have helped countless families build franchise empires that last. Whether you're planning to pass your business to the next generation or building your first franchise with Legacy in mind, you'll get real world stories and expert insights right here. let's dive into what really takes to create a franchise that just doesn't just survive, but thrives for generations.

Dan and Natalie: 1:50

and what's going on guys?

Giuseppe Grammatico: 1:52

Nothing. Looking forward to that. I, merging the shows, which is kind cool. Meeting of the minds.

Dan and Natalie: 1:57

Absolutely. And then of course, we've also got a special guest over there, Mia. Hello, Mia. Mia's not feeling well, it's take me out to work day. That's awesome. You get the freedom as a business owner to be able to do that, right? Yeah. No one's gonna fire me, so that's a plus. Yeah. Yeah. You had to fire your to then become the boss. Well, we're gonna be talking about you know, utilizing advisors or, you know, not utilizing advisors and kind of the difference when thinking about starting a business. And I think I'll, I'll kick this off. Obviously you need to talk to trusted people about, anything that you're thinking about doing when it comes to getting into a business. My advice, though is to talk to people that are in that industry. So if you're thinking about getting into the technology industry, talk to a technology advisor. If you're thinking about getting into franchising, talk to a franchise advisor not your neighbor. Not your, you know, friend that tells you that, you know, they, they don't think franchising makes sense because they, heard on TV that, you know, x, y, z happened. And I, I would tell you that, that, where I like to think about this is I'm on my, you know, maybe fourth business of starting and I have never had a family member not one time say that's a good idea. Not one time has anyone of all my businesses ever said, you should go for that. It's a good time. It's never been the case. And I'll leave with, or I'll kind of end with I was thinking about this Sarah Blakely, she started Spanx. Mm-hmm. And she actually said that when she had the idea, she didn't tell anyone for a year. She built the idea because she knew that if people, she told them they would start to bring her down. So she had to work on her own. Get that momentum, get that confidence. What do you guys think about that? You actually did that to me. I had a business idea a long time when we first started the, when we first started our consulting business, I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I was like, we just need to make a site where we sell FDDs and has like every single FDD on it. And then after we sold the business, I did it and it worked. Yeah, there there you go.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 3:49

Don't listen to Dan.

Dan and Natalie: 3:50

Don't listen to me. Exactly. See, it applies to me It applies. I was like, why didn't I do that earlier? But it definitely was a massive undertaking at the time. But I think what we were talking about is Giuseppe was with Shark Tank. And you were telling us about something and that's how even the sharks are wrong.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 4:07

They, listen you, you never know exactly what's work out. And I think just to add what you guys were saying, sometimes it's, people don't mean anything negative by it. It's of they're just, they're being, cautious. don't want you to money or there's a big risk believe it or not, my first business, my accountant told me I couldn't make money with the franchise. You know what happened? I made money with the franchise and I fired the accountant. So hopefully he's not listening. We're not gonna name, we're gonna name names, but they look at the numbers, they don't look at necessarily the big picture of the actual business itself. So yeah, I, I completely it. But when you do ask advice, have to be very of who you're asking for.

Dan and Natalie: 4:42

Yeah. And where are their motivations coming from?

Giuseppe Grammatico: 4:44

Sure.

Dan and Natalie: 4:44

You know, I, I know that in my 11 years of being in franchising, I've never heard a financial planner, no offense to financial planners, but a lot of times I've seen people, they get close to buying a, a business, they go to their financial planner to get their financial planners opinion. And, you know, again, I like to think, most people operate with integrity. I'm sure they do, but keep in mind. The money that you have in your retirement account or in your investment accounts, if you're talking to a financial planner about taking them out, they make a percentage fee on the money that's in there. Right. The more that is in there, the more that they can manage and the more that they can make you, but also the more that they can make it themselves. And so a lot of times they're not gonna be motivated either to say, yeah, I think it's a great idea to take out half the revenue stream of my business out of the account so you can go do another business. Meanwhile, they own their own business anyway. Yeah. And yeah, offense to financial planner, I am funded.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 5:33

It's a, part of vest it's under management and hard to control a versus you're mutual There's data, there's lot more history. Yeah, we've I've experienced that as well, so about Shark Tank? some, do we have some examples of, of deals?

Dan and Natalie: 5:47

Uh, Yeah. I mean, but imagine if you were like, well, let me call Mark Cuban, and you had his ear and you told him about an idea they were wrong on the Ring doorbell, which is massive. They were wrong about so many other things. And then they invested a lot of money in things that didn't work like that Sweet balls, like what was that about? So I think even if you have people that could be experts, they could be wrong. You just need to trust your instinct and it's the secret ingredient in a business is you. Yeah, but I mean, you have to understand is like if you want to, you know, get in shape or lose weight, you have to go through pain to get there, right? If you wanna make a business, successful, you have to go through sacrifice. And so you're gonna have to, like you said, get your spouse involved.'Cause they have to be on board with the sacrifice that

Giuseppe Grammatico: 6:29

They're gonna be sacrificing too. It may be less, no income first year. It may be no first year or is be a shift in lifestyle. Absolutely. They have to know what they have set'this is the expectation, but the goal is to, you know, go on more vacations, retire spend more time with family. So think they've set the expectation, they're on board then, but ultimately everyone, everyone has be on board or gonna be a rocky road.

Dan and Natalie: 6:53

I have a question. What's this trend or thing that I feel like I've been seeing, which is people that are looking at buying a franchise business with an expectation of like, they have to make this, crazy profit their first year. Which by the way, to me, crazy profit is anything that's like. A good amount of money, like, you know, you're trying to replace your salary or something in the first year. I've never really seen businesses usually do that. So what are you guys seeing where people come with those expectations? Has something changed in the, you know, kind of economy or the generation? Like what is that kind of driving?

Giuseppe Grammatico: 7:25

I people expect the immediate return, right? They wanna go viral in first post on social media. So I think where it's coming I always tell people that first year you're, it's a learning curve. never owned business never hired people. So this new. you're learning something be matching the income you were making immediately. You're, building something to have that expectation, you I always take step back say realistically profit, so even if is that kind profit, you wanna reinvest the team, in the right systems. Because not a business you hope to 10% a year. This is something that's gonna be growing exponentially. That's something I've experienced in my business and I always, my first year reinvested everything back. I didn't take a dime out, but I also set reserves aside for that. So I think it's this instant gratification I have to make money right away, and it's okay if you don't match salary the first year. You should really be investing in systems or else you're starving the business. You're pulling too much out. You're not hiring the right people or not, paying them what they're owed and you're not investing the, in technology as well.

Dan and Natalie: 8:27

Yeah. But people say that, but they're still taking a salary and they're saying the business isn't profitable

Giuseppe Grammatico: 8:32

they're pulling their salary.

Dan and Natalie: 8:33

And pulling their salary. I mean, I think it just depends. Some people can hit the ground running and some people don't. There's hurdles that you can't predict. No one has a crystal ball like covid happened. People that own certain businesses were affected and other people you were selling masks, you killed it, or gloves or whatever. Right, right. So it just depends. I think you can make money year one. We've done it before and it's doable, but

Giuseppe Grammatico: 8:59

It's of you do with money So even if you make you don't have pull it out. You can, reinvest. think you should be reinvesting as much as you can to build that base so that the money's made first few years. The money's made and in many cases made the exit.

Dan and Natalie: 9:15

Yeah. You know, it's interesting, like Yeah, right. People forget about the enterprise value that they're building in a business. Right. I was talking to I was talking to a business owner that, had started building a business. They, their first year did well but didn't make money. They, they lost money, But they were building the bones of the business. And in their regular job, they made a substantial amount of money. And what you have to remember is like, you know, I can't give tax advice, but when you lose money in a business, but you have another income that, that loss is a net operating NOI net operating loss. Right? And and then yeah, net operating loss and, it carries over into your taxes. And so if you're making a bunch of money in one place, well now you're losing money, if you will as far as your other business. But you're building a business, you're building an asset you're mitigating tax exposure. And then the next year when you do build the business further, and let's say you do start to make a profit, which by the way, most business owners, they, they wanna try to not have a big profit. But when they do start to have a profit, you're gonna be able to get a multiple on that profit of, you know, whatever, multiple down the road. And so you have to think, think of it as like enterprise value of what you're building. But I think that the number one mistake business owners make is they start to succeed and then they go buy the boat or they go get the new car and it's like, no, you should, like you said, re reinvest the money into your business for a while. Do you ever realize that the people that. Want to make, like they're like, I need to make this much money first here. They're in a worker mindset. Yeah. They're, they don't have a business mindset. So I was having a conversation with someone and it just clicked to me when you said that, that he was, I was like, oh, have you worked with a franchise consultant in the past? And he was like, yes. I was like, okay, great. Tell me a little bit about what you looked at. And he was really attached to what the business was.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 11:00

and, uh, Joey. Uh, we had worked together last year you know, worked for a, a major, uh, auto, uh, uh, company, and, um, just needed a change. Left the, left the job and you know, was looking at a franchise business. So, really excited. We're, we're doing a two part series. We're gonna talk about, you know, how we, um, you know, how you went from employee to employer you know, exactly what he was looking for in a business and then how things are going now. So, very excited for it today. But Joey, welcome, uh, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm, uh, excited. I, you know, I always throw that out there and I know people get busy, so I appreciate the time and. By the way, let, let's continue these. Maybe we'll, we'll do a, we'll do another show a year out from now and see how things are, are going and, and progressing. So, if you could just, uh, before we dive in, I had some questions I wanted to ask you, book recommendations and things like that. But, uh, wanted to start off, if you can give the audience a little context, a little, little bio background information.

Joey Romanczuk: 11:55

Yeah. Uh, absolutely. Giuseppe. Well, thank you for having me. Uh, my name is Joey Romanczuk. I'm the proud owner of Resta Pros of Hudson County. Uh, like a lot of your listeners, I'm sure, I was a, I was a corporate exec, so I was a general manager for a large auto automotive firm. Uh, had done that for a number of years. Grew to be a, a territory operations manager with a large customer service team underneath me. The long and short of it is we helped, uh, about 20 different service centers with customer service and customer interactions. I was, by all means doing well. I was receiving promotions, getting better responsibilities, increasing my earning potential with the company. But what I didn't have was time. Uh, I didn't have time, weekends, holidays, you name it. If you were doing a Memorial Day weekend down at your house. There was no way I was gonna be able to attend. So I started to look around at myself and I said, well, hey, I, I, I, you know, I've done well and I've grown professionally, but at the end of the day, I just, I don't have the same time that I wish that I had for things. Uh, I started to look at business ownership. I realized pretty quickly that I was in, uh, a little bit over my skis as I started to look at different business opportunities in the area. And, uh, that's what brought me to franchising. So. I, uh, you and I had had plenty of conversations. We had had conversations, uh, positive and negatively about my skills. What works? Is this gonna be the one, maybe this, uh, maybe this is the brand and, uh, settled on Resto Pros. So we've been operational now for the last. Call it three months. So it's, it's still in the very early formative days for us. But, uh, you know, especially with where I'm at as our business still very close to, uh, the due diligence done to make this decision and some of the early days after having made this decision. And, you know, I, I, I hope that some of my feedback helps others consider the same thing.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 13:50

Awesome. I appreciate it. And, and one, and one thing I, I'd like to mention, and we talked about this before the show is. You know, you're, you, when you talk about feedback, just talk, giving us the journey. You know, it's not this clear transition, it's exactly, this is gonna happen and there's never gonna be an issue or a hiccup or, or anything like that. And sometimes the expectations, you know, things exceed the expectations. So I like how you're putting out, I don't know if it's weekly or every other week. I, I forget the, uh, the frequency, but kind of a, kind of an update. How things are going. You know, this is, uh, it's a big transition, right? Going from employee to employer. I always say you go from signing the front, uh, the, uh, the back of the check of your paycheck to the front of the check. So, um, talk to us a little bit about that transition. Just the, you know, that's an emotional rollercoaster, right? You know, having that consistent paycheck, responding to the employer. Basically they, they're telling you exactly what needs to get done. You're just showing up. So talk to us about. That transition, you know, you know, talking about how that affected your, your family, how your thought process and what that looked like.

Joey Romanczuk: 14:52

Yeah. You know, it was, it was a, it was a decision that I think, you know, I'm, so, okay let's back up. You know, when you think about the decision to go from cor, the corporate world of having a W2 job to being a business owner, it is a. Binary decision where I need to make it. Right. But at the end of the day, you're not making this on your own. Right. And, and I, I think that that was the thing that really helped me. You know, I mean, this decision couldn't have been made without the support of my fiance, without the conversations of, of my peer advisors, my father you know, the people in my life who have. Been a, uh, been a powerful guiding light for me so that I can tell whether or not, even though, this sounds good, this sounds like something that we can do. Um, you know, that that group advisory is really important to making sure that. I am receiving checks and balances of what I believe is a good decision. Right. You know, I think the first place that I would take this is that feeling in corporate America of being like, whether it is, uh, you have a good job that you're happy with, but maybe some of your needs aren't being met. Maybe it's the, the feeling that you are being compensated, not, not compensated enough, and want a little bit of a change. Mm-hmm. Um, for me it was. I, I, I said it before, it was time. I was working just about every week, weekend. Saturdays were mandatory, holidays were mandatory, and that to me was like the first little nugget of maybe something needs to change here. You know, I wanna start working to get a little bit of this time back. And as I continued to grow, I thought to myself you know, I've, I've experienced a number of promotions. And that's only brought me increased responsibility, but also just like increased time and presence in some of these roles. I was working for a company who the higher you grew, the more involved and invested in all aspects you had to be. And so for me, the only piece that was missing was the business ownership because. I believed that the better manager I was, the better I can maximize my people, the less I should have tactically that I need to do day to day. And it just wasn't the case. You know, I was like, I was very much so like this piece in the machine that had to make certain things go and when I wasn't there, things weren't able to advance in a way that. Scaled me out of the business, even though we all know the best way for an owner to scale out is for getting the right people in. So I wasn't able to make some of those decisions. Having made this and having now been on the other side of it, you're absolutely right. I think some of the early challenges is about taking on and accepting the responsibility that these decisions kind of start and end with me. They, you know, and, and, and the nice thing about the franchise model is you have the support that you need to be able to make that decision in a right way. But as the business owner, the onus of making that decision falls on my shoulders. And I, I think that's probably one of the harder transitions I hear people talking about when it comes to exploring whether or not the franchise thing is for them. Some of these corporate environments are so structured where you might feel like you're making decisions, but it's really. You know, you, you've been given two. It's like the matrix. You've been given two pills. Take this one or this one. Right? Well, in the, well, in the franchise world, you're suddenly standing like at a pharmacy, trying to figure out like, what is the right medicine for me to take for this thing? And so it's a lot of information intake.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 18:12

You know, determining the right brand. And, you know, we talked about when we first started working together there's no exact number because it changes, but we'll say around 4,000. Franchise companies and 70 plus industries. So what really stood out about maybe we'll work in reverse, what stood out about Resto Pros that made you make that that decision?

Joey Romanczuk: 18:31

Yeah. Well, I guess in the spirit of the conversation, we're talking about decision making here, so I'll, I'll break it down into a few pieces. Sure. You, when we started this conversation, there was a, it was a bit of, well, what do I like? What do I not like? What do I enjoy about my previous career? What worked well there and, you know, what am I looking for in the next thing? Mm-hmm. And, and so for me it was, I would say three components that I was looking for in a franchise brand, because these three components did not bring me immediately and directly to Resta Pros, right? It was some level of customer service and experience. So I wanted to be working with people is a strength of mine, uh, and being able to provide customer experience. Looking at customer experience processes and figuring out ways to do that better is not only a strength, but something I really enjoy and take fulfillment out of. So I wanted there to be an element of people service. Number two, I, I, I guess I, I kind of said it. There was service, you know? Mm-hmm. I wanted to, I wanted to provide a service, not a product. And so when we started to look at some of these brands, it was important to me that there was a service that we were providing. Um, I felt like that could give us a bit of a competitive edge in whatever brand it was gonna be. And then I would say number number three for me was having some flexibility and autonomy, right? To be able to enjoy time with family and friends on holidays. This was something was, that was so foreign to me. Um, and so I wanted to be able to at least that, maybe it's not. The immediacy. But at at, at a point I wanted to be able to have the comfort where I could enjoy my holidays and unless there's an emergency, my people as well. We were looking at a couple of different brands. I won't say any of the other brands that I didn't settle on. They were, they were great for their own reasons, but just not for me. I mean, one that we were looking at was very kids and family focused. I'm not a family person yet. I don't have children of my own just yet. It didn't feel like something that would align with me at this point. You know, maybe when I have kids, it'll be something I think about. And to me, the water mitigation game. And what I learned in the discovery was it's really a business to business game. You know, we're, we're the, the basis of a lot of our early sales right now are the business relationships that we're building. Mm-hmm. And so with that. I was like, okay, now we have something where I can network and improve the potential for more sales. I can bring in people that might be able to help us establish a network. And so really we don't need to be better at the website optimization, the SEO some of. Those, you know, things that happen where we're just waiting on the phone, we can be active about this and just build relationships and hit doors and try to find new opportunities. I like that because that gave me a little bit of control over our early sales, especially being in it in the beginning full time. Right. Um, and so, so that was really, that was really what brought me over to rest the pros. But the biggest thing was just being able to service other people. I the joys that I got in my previous role were just helping people in a time of need. You know, they either needed a car because of X, Y, and Z. There was some type of issue. And being that person that was able to help them when they needed something done most, and be able to handle the problems that they might experience with a transaction like that, I always enjoyed. And so for me, I've gotten a, a great joy and sense of fulfillment out of helping people that are, are in my community. I'm walking these streets, I'm running with my dog, uh, and I'm running past your house. So, it's great to be able to help and participate within the community and all those things really helped me settle on what ended up being a really great partnership with the brand. I, I did settle on with Resta Pros.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 22:16

Awesome. I love that. You nailed it. I mean, you, you covered, you covered a few things there. We talked about, um, how to win friends and influence people. If you could recommend another book, I know you said you didn't have it on you, but if you could recommend another book, to the audience listening, what, what would that be?

Joey Romanczuk: 22:32

You know, I, we were talking about it before, but business building and business developing is, uh, a, a new skill for me. I, I, it's, it's a collection of a lot of different skills, but looking at build. A business and scaling the business that you want is something that is foreign to many people, right? But also wealth of resources available. Uh, I'm gonna butcher the AU author's name. I don't know if I know it. You know it better than me, but you recommended it to me. That's traction. And that's what's just have to be, remind me, what's that Officer?

Giuseppe Grammatico: 23:04

Gino Wickman. Yeah. Gino Wickman, yep.

Joey Romanczuk: 23:06

He, beyond just traction, he does amazing work as far as being able to provide entrepreneurship with resources to make sure that. Uh, not only are they growing and advancing in their business, but also let's remember that like my business grows and, and is running at full speed. If I am, well, if I am right of mind, if I am locked in and focused on not only my business, but my passions and my family, and Gene gives like a ton of resources on why that's like. That is so important, especially at this stage. Um, so traction has been one for me. It's really helped me understand where operationally we need to be focused on right now. And, uh, especially'cause that's really where all my time's going. So when it comes back to the business books, it's gonna be that, uh, that's, that's the big one for me right now. I think they should, I think they should use that as a textbook in, uh, in, in school, you know, in, in a business related class. It, it really should. I think. I think the other one that I would give, and I'm looking at it, I'm looking at it right now. This one I read in, in 2023. It's 4,000 weeks and it's by. Oliver Berkman, 4,000 weeks. It is a bit of a different look on productivity. I am guilty as probably many other people of overt stuffing my calendar, my to-do list, and feeling as though I need to maximize every moment of my day. What we don't realize is maximization always a, also happens in the stillness of our days, taking a few moments to just, you know, be here in this conversation versus all the other things that are going on. Right. Whether it's, uh, just looking at a, a study guide from that book or just listening to some of those chapters, I recommend anybody who's thinking about this or who is a high achiever trying to go out there and do some great things in this world, take a beat and read that book.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 24:55

Awesome. No, that's, I've never, that one, I, I haven't heard, so I just I jotted that down. Uh, what have, what, I guess any, any other piece of advice from someone that's actually, done the transition from W2 to, to employer, employee to employer, uh, any other advice, you know, any other suggestion? Yeah.

Joey Romanczuk: 25:13

Yeah. Yeah. This has been one that, you know, unfortunately there's a lot of layoffs going on, and there's a lot of layoffs happening in my network right now. So I've been getting a lot of people who, uh, in one way or another, you know, whether it's franchising or just trying to figure out what is going to be the next thing that happens to them trying to figure out what's next. The thing that I find myself going back to when it comes to feedback on franchise or business ownership, even if. Even if you're partnering with a franchise, remember you are accepting the responsibility of business ownership, right? The franchise has a model, they have a playbook, and they have. All the resources A A as as they should, if they're a good brand to help you maximize your success. But the trick there is maximize your success and not guarantee your success. And so I believe that anybody who's interested in franchise ownership should start with the acceptance of the responsibility that they're now a business owner. And with that means. Maybe late nights. What that means, things are gonna go wrong. What That means that I see you're nodded.'cause you're like, yeah, things are gonna go wrong. Like it just happens. It happens. It's avoid,

Giuseppe Grammatico: 26:24

it happens. Yeah. It's, it's part, part of it's a business, right? It, it franchise business on training wheels. If you wanna an explanation of what it is, that's it.

Joey Romanczuk: 26:32

Right. There might be a safety net, but that doesn't mean that you're not gonna still fall. And, and so I, I, I think for me, I really, I try to eMASS this acceptance of responsibility as the biggest piece of, of takeaway when it comes to making this decision. Because if you expect it to be easy, it won't, but that's a good thing if you expect it to be easy work and very passive from the beginning. It may, but it also might not. And you gotta be ready to accept that it might take a lot of effort and challenge to get where you want it to be. In your mind, that vision isn't gonna happen on its own. It's gonna take you, the business owner to make it happen. And so if you just accept that some of those things are gonna happen, when those problems happen, you're like, oh, okay. Wait, wait, wait. I, yeah, I got this right. I accepted this responsibility, so now we're gonna make it right. And man that mindset has changed everything for me because now when things go awry. Which they will, we tackle it, we take it on full steam ahead. Um, and I, I, I think sometimes some of the frustrations of somebody maybe who is in this chair having made this decision and is wrestling with the other side of it, where maybe it's not working, maybe it's not the right brand, I think comes down to, uh, I thought it was gonna work out. I thought this, I thought that. It's it starts and ends with you.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 27:44

Well said. And, and, uh, and, um, you know, I, I gotta give you credit there.

Dan and Natalie: 27:48

No one's doing their business perfect. You know what I mean? Your ego is not your amigo. Yeah. Like if you've never been in business and you're in your first year of business, like it's not fair to expect you're gonna be the best business owner ever. And that's okay. But yeah, your ego, the ego gets in the way. Same for franchisors. Their ego gets in the way.'cause they start to think, well, like we've been doing this for so long. We actually have a, we call it like a commandment, but one of our franchisor commandments is they could be, right, Which is an idea that like that franchise owner could be, right. Let's make sure we're actually listening to them, but then we expect them to also listen to us. Yeah, no, for sure. One thing that you said was about oh, we'll never get there without doing it this way. I hear that sometimes where someone is like. Oh, I don't need a franchise. I can just make my own burger place. I'm like, yeah, you don't need McDonald's. You could do Bob's Burgers, but do you really wanna come up with the branding, all the ads, like I don't think you realize how much work is involved. Like of course you could do it. You're smart, you're capable, you're an executive. Like if you wanna do all that work at this point of your life, yeah, go for it and then you can do it.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 28:52

One other thing I, I want to add too, where, when I, when hear people complain, is that the idea of semi absentee ownership where, you know, they, they're keeping their job and then they're running the business the side. And I said, there's a couple components there. Obviously the franchisor has to allow that, but people are hiring managers. They, they've never owned the business. They're hiring managers, but they're not managing the manager there. There's no oversight. So they're assuming the managers doing what they need to do, but they're not checking in. They're not doing the weekly meetings or calls and stuff like that. And if they, and if they are like I did with my business and a mistake I made. Many, many moons ago, 20 years ago was I bottlenecked the business. So the manager, every big decision had to get approved by me. Well, who the heck was I to approve it when my manager had more in years I was alive at the time. Yeah. So, I became a bottleneck. So the, so the big part is finding a franchisor that support and allow part-time semi-absentee ownership. But on the flip side, when bring that person on, they have. Some equity, phantom equity, so they have some skin in the game. know getting a, cut some of the profits, you're also managing setting the expectation, this is what I need you to do. These are the decisions I need you make. These are the hours I'm available. Because if you have a job, obviously, you know, and you can't talk the hours nine to two, nine to three, or even nine to five, they know when to contact you and what decisions can make. I believe it's, it's both. It's the right person and expectation and, you know, finding the right franchise that, would support that type of ownership.

Dan and Natalie: 30:23

I mean, just for like, you know, obviously the, for your listeners, they know your background, but you, you owned a cleaning company. Like what, can you just give the background real quick just for my audience.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 30:32

Yeah. We had, you know, c commercial building maintenance, commercial cleaning. I ran business full time to really scale that business. then after that first year, brought on that manager, it operations manager, general manager. I what the actual title was but I was so tight to the business, you know, I touched every part of the business. I had to make, finalize every decision. So I had brought a, a manager and, and by the way, my background was in, on Wall Street and we owned the restaurants. I had no, no in that industry whatsoever. Yeah. So I brought a, an experienced person to the table a GM with 20 years of experience, 20 plus years experience in that business. But yet I had to okay. All his decisions to the point where. You know, he wasn't able job. It became kind of a, a, a bottleneck. So, I was running at semi-absentee, but not allowing the manager to do their job you know, on, on a daily basis. So, an interesting business, I learned a lot. I learned that you be the expert in all areas and that you to hire people better than you in certain areas, know, at social media, at marketing, at sales. So, I learned a lot in that business, and I bring. I I do a lot of learning, so try to bring that table helping people to find a franchise.

Dan and Natalie: 31:43

You know, it's interesting what you did though is you, you, you got in the business, you learned it and you grew it. Like, when I think of my definition of, of semi-absentee, first of all, is it's a hockey stick. Mm-hmm. Right? And so when you start a business, your revenue is the lowest you work the most. It's the worst time. But as you grow the business, the revenue goes up. And then your time goes down. Right? But this idea that you're not gonna work in the business and the revenue's gonna go up, I've just, I've never experienced that in, in a business. And I, I think that you have to be involved like. know, example, I'm not as involved in the day-to-day of Voda as I was even six months ago, right? But it took time to get there. And my definition of semi-absentee isn't that. Now I'm going on the beach, drinking my ties, and, you know, hanging out. If I'm not in the office on a Monday through Friday, then I'm out doing something to generate revenue or recruit people. Now, sometimes that might mean going out to play around a tennis in Friday afternoon, networking with a property manager, a plumber, or a consultant, a, a potential teammate. That is the of the business owner. But I always of semi absentee means like you're not in the day to day, so you can go out there and be what we call the mayor of the town. Thanks for tuning in 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.