January 30, 2025 • 46 mins
We are wrapping up January with one final re-release of episodes that speak to the core of the Imperfect Genius mission.
In the third episode of the Imperfect Genius podcast, host Rachel Foster is joined by former entrepreneur and franchisee Dawn Whalen. Rachel and Dawn discuss their experiences as franchise owners and provide valuable insights on the pros and cons of franchising.
Want to know more? Join the discussion! Call or text (404) 425-9862 with your questions.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello.
So this is the last of my new year re-releases for January.
This is episode three of the Imperfect Genius podcast.
And similar to the last, the previous episode, this is another one that is essential tothe core of the Imperfect Genius mission.
(00:21):
In this episode, I'm talking to Dawn Whalen and we're talking about business ownership.
We specifically focus on
owning a franchise and talking about franchising versus starting from scratch.
the conversation and the topics about business and getting started in business are what Imean when I say it's essential to the core of the mission at Imperfect Genius.
(00:45):
So take a listen and I hope you enjoy.
Welcome to Imperfect Genius, the podcast helping Black women thrive by providing technicaladvice on effectively navigating the business development journey and advice on building
(01:09):
successful careers in the tech industry.
I'm your host, Rachel Foster, a tech professional, educator, and entrepreneur.
With me today is a longtime friend and former virtual business partner, a term that wetotally made up, by the way, Dawn Whalen.
Let me tell you a little bit about Dawn.
Dawn hails from the Northwest corner of Connecticut.
She's married with two grown children.
(01:30):
one who just graduated from college and one who's a junior in college.
She has a very business background in management consulting, event planning andfundraising with over 20, I'm sorry, over 10 years in the nonprofit sector as an executive
director.
Dawn is a certified interim executive leader.
Her nonprofit experience includes literary festivals, public arts events, our exhibits,and managing co-working spaces with experience in the affordable housing and substance use
(01:58):
disorder spaces.
But most notably, for the purposes of today's podcast, Dawn was a franchisee with ComputerExplorers for five years.
Dawn, welcome to the podcast.
Rachel, I am so incredibly happy to be here today with you.
Thank you so much for the invitation.
I'm so happy to have you here.
(02:18):
I wanted to have you on this podcast because I wanted to I was thinking about doing apodcast about franchising.
I was like, who better to talk about franchising with than my former franchise partner?
We just sort of told, we said we were going to be like virtual business partners.
I will tell, we'll tell a little bit more about that story.
In fact, let's, but before we get into our story, let's talk about what is franchising forthe listeners, because you know, this part of this episode, I just want to sort of
(02:44):
introduce the concept to our listeners.
So I'll say that in the simplest terms and Dawn, feel free to, you know, correct me ifyou've got a different definition,
I'd say in the simplest terms that a franchise is basically like a prefab well-definedpre-orchestrated business model that can be easily replicated.
The most famous franchise in the world is McDonald's probably.
(03:05):
would guess would be McDonald's.
And there's actually, there's a documentary on Ray Kroc, but basically here's whathappened.
Here's how McDonald's came to be.
Ray Kroc stumbled across these McDonald Brothers.
I don't remember their names.
Again, there's a documentary out there on either, I don't know if it's Netflix or AmazonPrime somewhere.
It's called Founder, I think.
(03:27):
But anyway, so Ray Kroc stumbled across this hamburger stand that was run by theseMcDonald Brothers.
And he was like, this is the most well-run, most efficient burger stand that I have everseen before.
And he was like, I could turn this into a product.
And when he said this, he meant like this business model.
I could just turn this out so that could be a McDonald Brothers hamburger stand on everycorner.
(03:47):
Again, obviously visionary.
So that's what he did.
He basically noted down all of their processes and how they made their burgers, how theymade their fries, how they took their orders and just basically turned that entire
business model into a thing that he could sell to other people.
So now today, if you want to run a burger stand, you can buy a McDonald's franchise if yougot enough money.
(04:09):
So basically that's what a franchise is.
So let's say that you're a fitness buff and you've already streamed of owning a curves,then you could buy a franchise.
Or if you're a mechanic, then maybe you buy a Jiffy Lube franchise.
That's what a franchise is.
Any additional commentary you want to add on that Dawn in terms of like?
(04:29):
I think that the overall concept is that it's turnkey.
It provides you with everything that you need to at least get started.
Yes.
Yes.
In fact, turnkey is like a...
an imperative part of the definition that the idea is that you don't have, like youliterally get everything you need to start this business.
You don't have to figure everything out on your own.
(04:51):
So that's what a franchise is.
little creativity goes a long way though as well.
true.
And I think we'll talk about that a little bit when we talk about some of the pros andcons.
But I think it would be helpful for the listeners if we go back a little bit to thebeginning, Dawn, and explain how we know each other.
And I think you remember the story a little bit better than I do.
So do you mind telling the story?
(05:11):
Sure.
So I was thinking about this.
I know for sure we met in person for the first time at what was called a Discovery Day atthe headquarters of this franchise in Houston, Texas.
I was purchasing an existing franchise in Hartford County, Connecticut, and you werepurchasing a new franchise territory in your home county, Cobb County, Georgia.
(05:40):
I know that was the first time, but was thinking that now we're going almost 20 years ago.
I believe we spoke on the same conference call.
This was pre-Zoom way before any kind of that technology.
think there was sort of a conference call where we were learning about the franchise andabout the headquarters and about the parent company and all that.
(06:03):
I think you're on because when I met you in person, I feel like I already knew.
I already knew you.
So you're saying that like my big mouth guy, like you're like, that's the one who wasdoing all the talk.
Like you say, I always talk too much is what you're telling me.
I was impressed by how much research you did.
(06:24):
And I know we're to talk about that a little bit as well.
and then I'm thinking, like, I don't think we went to new owner training together, but wewere definitely at some conferences together cause they would bring us in to, you know,
highlight whatever new product or new
curriculum we were going to be introducing.
And I remember being in Las Vegas with you.
(06:48):
Okay.
I didn't remember Vegas.
I remembered the conferences.
I didn't remember Vegas.
I think you're right about the new owner training because I think you went to new ordertraining before I did.
Like I think you were in the cohort right before me and then I was in the next one becauseyou were buying an existing franchise and I was starting a new one.
And so I think there took me a little bit more time to get to the startup part.
So I had no time.
(07:09):
needed to like, you're like, gotta go.
gotta go.
I gotta go.
Um, but speaking of the conferences, I didn't remember we were in Vegas.
I do remember the conferences.
Do you remember?
This is a very vivid memory for me.
Do you remember being at one of the conferences?
It was the award ceremony and they were bringing up all of like the top franchisees andsaying what their revenue numbers were and things like that.
And we were like, we're going to promise ourselves that we're going to be up there oneday.
(07:31):
We're going to be up there in two years.
Like we had, like, we were setting our goals.
remember that?
I believe, I believe the term we threw out was the million dollar club.
We're going to be part of our own level of achievement in the organization.
Yes.
Cause I think at the time, think the top was what 250, 250,000.
(07:53):
Yeah.
There was a ways to go, it was a turning point there when the numbers started going up andbusiness was good.
And I think we should tell the listeners a little bit about specifically this franchisethat we own.
So it was originally called Computer Tots and Computer Explorers or CTC.
It was founded by Karen Marshall and Mary Rogers in 1994.
(08:18):
They basically they were doing teaching preschoolers because so the computer tots wereages three to five and explorers were five and up.
But we really only did training up through middle school.
But, they they were doing this.
training at these preschools and I think they were in Virginia.
I can't remember exactly where they were, yeah, I think it was Virginia.
And so they were they and they started doing it at multiple preschools.
(08:40):
And at some point they decided that they wanted to franchise it.
So, you know, go back to my earlier description of like the McDonald's.
Basically, they were like, we're going to turn this into a model that we can then sell topeople across the country.
And eventually it did become international.
So they started it and it was they started as a home based business.
And then eventually, you know,
sold it to ICED, which Stan, I had to look this up Dawn, cause I didn't remember.
(09:04):
The International Center for Entrepreneurial Development.
And they owned a bunch of different franchises, like Quick Copy and a bunch of likeprinting and kind of franchising franchises.
And they just, bought Computer Explorer.
They also had like Parcel Plus and some other ones like that.
So Mary and Karen sold it to, to ICED.
And do you remember Bud?
Bud, what was Bud's last name?
(09:25):
Hadfield?
Hadfield, yes.
We each had a meet.
with him individually and he couldn't hear very well.
So we had to wear these oversized name tags with our first name in like 72 point font sothat he could know our name.
so he was like the founder of ICED and we had, yeah, it's, so, it was such an experience.
(09:50):
mean, the, just for the listeners, just to give you some visual of just sort of the placewhere we did our training.
was a replica of the Alamo.
was like on this cover.
It was such an interesting experience.
they were mostly wearing us in the summertime when it was hotter than you know what.
(10:11):
In Texas, yeah.
In rainy season that they would leave umbrellas at each door so you can go betweenbuildings.
You just took an umbrella and hoped for the best.
And where you stayed was in a cabin, like a legit cabin.
it was, cause you weren't like, it was a compound.
You were staying on the compound and you weren't in the hotel or whatever.
And you were staying in a cab, like a literal log cabin.
(10:33):
And again, you were going to classes at the Alamo.
And, and to save money, they would have us have lunch at like 10 30 in the morning.
Cause it was cheaper in the cafeteria.
You can't make up this stuff.
You really can't.
make this stuff up.
was so, wow.
Wow.
Okay.
I think now would be a good time to take a, just take a quick break.
(10:56):
And when we come back, we'll talk a little bit about, how do you buy a franchise?
And then just some of the pros and cons of owning a franchise.
(11:17):
Okay, so Dawn, let's talk about how is it that you came to buy your Computer Explorersfranchise?
It's an interesting story.
So my husband and I were hoping to move back to, we were thinking New England.
We weren't sure Boston area or whatnot from the Virginia DC area.
(11:39):
He was in the Navy and when he got out of the Navy, we ended up outside DC.
But I'm originally from Connecticut, and so the goal was always to get back up towards NewEngland.
But before that, I was looking for a mom-friendly part-time job, still while we wereliving in Virginia.
(12:02):
And I had two babies at the time.
They're not even quite two years apart.
And so was looking for something that I could do, perhaps while they're at...
preschool or whatnot.
So I was searching and came across this job posting for a technology teacher.
And I had done some, you know, technology training in my management consulting days.
(12:28):
So making that transition to teaching, I didn't think was going to be that much of a leap.
And so I interviewed for the job and
I could start at any time, but then I got curious about, know, because I learned it was afranchise.
(12:52):
And so I got curious about, well, let's see if there's one that might exist inConnecticut.
And there were, there were several franchises in Connecticut and we knew generally wherewe wanted to live.
And so I contacted the franchisee owner that was closest to where we wanted to live.
and asked her if she was hiring.
(13:15):
And she said, no, but I'm selling the franchise.
Are you interested?
And pretty much from that day forward, all I could think about was owning my own businessand what that could mean for my family and that it was going to help us achieve our goal
of, you know, moving to Connecticut.
Of course, Scott needed my husband.
He needed to find a job as well.
So all the stars had to align, but it was a very fast process.
(13:38):
It was less than,
I don't know, maybe three or four months.
Wow.
Between me learning about computer Tots, computer explorers and actually moving toConnecticut.
And it all happened really, really fast.
And I think, you know, some reality set in pretty early on and we can talk about that whenwe get to the pros and cons.
(14:05):
But I think what, you know,
I had the wherewithal to at least show it to my friend's dad who is an accountant, showhim the finances.
And he actually wasn't really interested in the opportunity for me.
But again, like I said, there was nothing really that was deterring me from Scott was onboard with it.
(14:29):
It just seemed like everything was right about it.
And the idea of running my own business was like super, super.
So yeah, it's very, it's a very compelling idea.
know it's funny because it sounds like you had a couple of red flags or yellow flags andyou're like, no, I think it's, is what I think.
Yeah, exactly.
It's fine.
(14:50):
It'll be fine.
I had the same thing happen to me.
So my story about how I bought my franchise is a little bit different.
What happened with me was I'd been in corporate.
You know, this story, Emma knows this story.
Our producer Emma knows this story.
The listeners may or may not have heard this story by this point in time, by the time thatthey listened to this episode, but I have been working in tech since I was 15 years old.
(15:13):
So like I've been in corporate America forever.
I don't even remember how old I was at the time.
I could do the math, right?
But I don't feel like doing it right now.
But I had been in corporate America forever.
I was kind of miserable.
And what happened when my mother had passed away years before, and then both mygrandparents died two months apart, three months apart.
(15:34):
the year that I decided to buy the franchise.
And what happened was I just, with their deaths, I was like, you know what?
Life is too short for me to be this miserable in corporate America.
I'm going to go do my own thing.
And I'd always wanted to own my own business.
Like literally when I was 16 years old and I'd written down like my goals for life, owninga house and a, and owning a business were like number one and two.
And then somewhere was getting married and having kids.
(15:55):
Like there was like other stuff in there, but it was like, Nope, I'm going to buy a houseand I'm going to own a business.
Like those are like number one and two.
So like it had always been a dream of mine to own a business.
So was trying to decide what did I want to do?
Like I had no idea.
So I literally, made a list.
made a list of a couple of lists.
What, what I did want to do and what I didn't want to do and like things on the, what Ididn't want to do is I didn't want to go into an office.
(16:17):
I didn't want to wear a suit every day.
Cause this was back in the days when people wore suits to work and went into the office.
This was, this was in the early 2000s.
Right?
So, you know, I made a list of that.
And then I was like, things that I did want to do.
I wanted to work with kids.
I wanted to work in education.
One of the things I didn't want to do was I didn't want to completely throw away my techbackground.
Even though I was miserable in corporate America, I didn't want to, I was like, I've gotthese degrees and all this experience.
(16:39):
I don't want to throw that away.
So, you know, I definitely wanted a business that had something to do with tech, but Iwanted to be in education and work with kids.
So I literally took this list and I went to Google or, know what, this is like 20 yearsago.
Was it, I mean, I Google existed 20 years ago, but it could have been asked.
Yeah, went to some search engine and I was like, okay.
(17:00):
I'm looking for this thing.
I'm like, I'm looking for something that allows me to do the following things and thatdoes not include these other things.
And somewhere along the way in that search process, I found computer tasks and computerexplorers.
I was like, there it is.
It's everything I'm looking for, working with kids, kids, you know, working in technology.
Like that was how I made the decision.
And your listeners should know that Rachel is very good at making lists and she alwaystrusts her lists.
(17:27):
Her lists are golden.
and helped us immensely over the years.
This is true.
This is true.
I am a master list maker.
I have lists for my list.
I even have like indexes of my list.
I believe it 100%.
This is true.
(17:48):
Okay.
So that's how we came to buy our franchise.
I want to share a couple of resources with the listeners because those were our journeysto franchising.
One of the things, even though, like I said, I went to a search engine and looked up somethings.
The other thing was I looked up books on franchising and one of the most helpful books forme was so these, know, this is like the analog as opposed to the digital solution.
(18:11):
there was entrepreneur magazine had this book called the ultimate book of franchises andwill include a link in the show notes so that you can because it's still available on on
Amazon.
So I went and bought that book.
There was another book called the franchise Bible.
I didn't like that one so much, but I literally bought books on
buying a franchise.
And there's some other sites that exist today that I didn't use back then, like there'sthe consumer's guide to buying a franchise that the Federal Trade Commission puts out
(18:37):
there.
There's a couple of like franchise search websites, like franchise gator orfranchising.com.
Entrepreneur magazine or entrepreneur.com also has like the franchise 500, the top 500franchises.
So there's a couple of resources that you can use online to try to find a franchise.
But like I said, I also bought
books on franchising.
(18:58):
So I bought books to learn about what it means to buy a franchise.
So that's how I learned about, did you remember the UFO seed on the uniform franchiseoffering circular?
Do you remember what that is?
thick book that tells you everything you need to know about the franchise that you'reabout to buy.
Not only, you know, your initial investment, but additional startup costs, your franchisefees, different stuff like that.
(19:20):
The important thing, speaking of like ignoring red flags, Don,
At the back of it includes the current franchisees as well as former franchisees andincludes their contact information.
So you can call them up and ask them like, okay, what's it like to own this franchise?
What's the good and what's the bad?
So not only did I call, I think I call like 20 current franchisees or whatever, but Icalled like 10 or 15 former franchises.
(19:43):
Like, why don't you own this franchise anymore?
What were you like?
Why did you leave?
And it was so funny because I was so arrogant.
But I think it's kind of like what you said, Dawn, like once you've got it in your headthat you want to own a business, you just want to own a business.
Because when I was talking to the former franchisees and they were like telling me thereasons why they weren't in, you know, they didn't own the franchise anymore, any negative
things that they said about the franchise, I was like, I'll solve that by doing this.
(20:05):
Like in my head, I didn't say that to them, but in my head I was like, oh, I'll just solvethat by doing that.
You know, like, oh, that's not a big deal.
know, like I just couldn't believe it.
I remember calling some as well.
Plus I had, you the person I was purchasing the from.
true.
Yeah.
You know, in her story was nothing having to do with the franchise itself.
She was literally moving.
(20:25):
In fact, we swapped.
She moved to Virginia.
I moved to Connecticut.
And it just so it just worked out that way.
for family reasons, was going back to Virginia.
Yeah.
And also I will say for all the research Rachel did,
I didn't.
And so we were virtual business partners before Rachel even knew it because I was hangingon every word that she said in that discovery day.
(20:54):
I barely listened to the people who owned the franchise.
I was just listening to Rachel.
That is so funny.
And I think we should talk about how this virtual business partner thing came about.
So what happened was there were a lot of franchise, a lot of the, the territory.
you would get a territory based on your zip codes.
Like I was cop County in, in Georgia and I had like 50 zip codes that like, were includedin my territory.
(21:19):
And you might have adjacent franchisees.
So like there was another group of franchisees that had the Metro Atlanta area.
I think those were the only two Georgia or we were the only two Georgia.
But anyway, so you have like these territories.
And most of the other territory owners were partners.
was usually like two friends who like bought the business together.
But Dawn and I were the only, well, we weren't the only one, but we were like singlefranchise owner.
(21:43):
We own the territory.
We had nobody else to talk to.
And so it was like, literally like you have nobody else to talk to.
So you're like trying to do marketing and you're trying to, you know, like, why am I notgetting enough signups or, you know, and you just, and so literally we would just call
each other up and go, okay, here's the problem I'm having.
I'm trying to sell this one class.
It's elementary engineering and I can't get anybody to sign up or.
What do you think about the price point?
And so finally, because it might have been at one of the conferences, we were talkingabout how jealous we were of all the franchisees that had partners.
(22:11):
We were like, it's so unfair.
We were like, well, on the one hand, it's unfair because there's two of them to share theworkload and have bounce ideas off each other.
On the other hand, they have to split the money too.
It's like there's the pros and the cons.
Totally.
And there were there were other franchisees in Connecticut.
Like we had a little group where we would get together on occasion.
(22:34):
But they were they were sort of sort of already leaps and bounds ahead of where I was.
And so when I would ask a question, they would be like, well, you know, like it didn'tresonate with them because they were so far past that problem.
They couldn't even, you know.
Right.
They're like, I don't remember.
That was like 10 years ago when I first started.
(22:56):
I would bring the question or the issue or whatever to you, we could talk about it from aframe of, we're, you know, this is new for us.
How can we, how can we best work through it?
So yeah, I feel like a lot of, a lot of the time we tried to formalize like, right, once amonth or whatever it was, but it ended up being like on the fly most of the time.
(23:19):
And, and, and we got to a place where
we would make time for each other and that was really special.
Yeah.
And we decided we were like, we're business partners.
virtual, we're not really business partners, but we're virtual business partners.
So yeah, was share one of my non-profits with you.
Well, yeah, I was going to say, so speaking of, so let's get into that.
So like knowing what we know now, let's talk about the good, the bad and the ugly ofowning a franchise.
(23:42):
I think,
And, I'll start by saying that now I have the perspective of having bought a franchise andhaving started a business from scratch.
And so like I can compare and contrast the two and there's challenges and there'sopportunities on both sides of the fence.
From the franchise perspective, you've got this business model that somebody's alreadytheoretically proven out that this is the way that it works.
This is how you sell these.
(24:03):
This is what your, your customer looks like.
You know, this is how you make money.
You know, so like you've got that, you've got marketing.
You don't have to worry about.
creating logos and marketing copy and trademarking.
I've got a trademarking story that is bonus content for the podcast about my trademarkjourney for the new business.
(24:28):
But anyway, so back to the pros and cons of franchising.
So you've got the business model, you've got the marketing, you've got the support fromyour franchisor.
For us, we were selling classes and we didn't have to write curriculum.
Our franchiser would give us the curriculum for those classes.
We could tweak it and we could write our own if we wanted, but we didn't have to.
But we also had the franchisee community.
(24:49):
We could reach out to other franchisees.
We just talked about that.
But then there's the downside because it costs a lot of money.
You can't just decide I'm going to own a McDonald's unless you've got a million dollars.
I don't even know what the franchise buy-in cost is for McDonald's, but I think the
even the cheapest franchises are maybe 20 or $30,000 of like just initial costs.
(25:13):
And that doesn't include all of your startup costs.
think for me as a new, don't remember, I'd have to pull out my old UFOC.
I want to say like,
The UFAS OC for computer explorers might've said like 40,000 or something like that.
I don't even remember.
But I remember when I talked to my lawyer and my accountant, they were like, you shouldplan for another $20,000 in startup cost.
Like they were like, the number that in the book was not what the final number was gonnabe.
(25:36):
Like it's- Did that price include equipment or was that just to buy the franchise?
No.
It was to buy the franchise and then it was the training and like literally there was abreakdown of what all that cost was.
I think-
15 or 20,000 of it was just the franchise fee.
And that was the only part you could finance.
So like, ICE would finance a portion of it for you if you wanted to.
(25:59):
Everything else you had to either find your own financing or come out of your pocket.
And I did the dumb thing.
I spent my own money for everything, which hindsight is 20-20.
I would never do that again.
But that 40,000, was like, think a 15 or 20, I don't remember, for the franchise fee plusall these, like plus training.
plus blah, blah, but it did not include equipment.
(26:20):
I think it was marketing materials, some other stuff, but it didn't include equipment.
So that was part of like, I was going to have to spend that money to buy equipment to getstarted and whatnot.
So there's just a lot of costs to start up.
But more importantly, I think the biggest negative for me was the franchise fees.
Because here's the thing about those franchise fees, you have to pay it whether you'remaking money or not.
(26:41):
So like, you've got these minimums that you're supposed to hit.
And don't you even get penalized if you don't hit the minimums?
And I'm like, well, if I can't, if I...
I don't have any money to pay you in the first place.
How are you going to penalize me for not meeting the minimum?
I know, like give us a break.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So no matter what though, you have to pay those franchise fees.
like a, it's, there's like a, it's supposed to be a percentage of your revenue, but thereis minimums.
(27:05):
so again, like I don't even remember what the numbers were, but you know, even if you'renot making whatever your, your target is, you still have to pay a minimum franchise.
So you can almost be in the hole.
because you owe money even though you haven't made any money, you so like you're justlosing money.
So that was a downside.
And then I'll flip and say the, you know, the other side of it and then Donna, I'll letyou weigh in, terms of your thoughts on pros and cons, but I will, I will contrast that
(27:30):
with starting a business from scratch.
Again, pros and cons.
The downside is you're starting from scratch.
So you literally have to create everything.
Like it's just like everything.
It's like, man, I got to do that.
And then I got to do that.
So there's like, no, you're just having to start and.
create everything from scratch.
then, know, there's also, there's just you, you know, there's, there's nobody, there is nofranchisor to support.
(27:53):
There's no additional franchisee.
There's nobody else.
It's just like, you're going to sink or swim on your own, unless you've got wonderfulpeople like assistant producer, who are helping you out or friends like Dawn, who want to
come onto your podcast and have a meaningful business conversation with you.
mean, but you know, it's still, everything falls on your shoulder.
You don't have a lot of support.
(28:14):
on the upside though, you know, you, don't have to have that big outlay of, of costsbecause you're, know, if you're starting from scratch, your bootstrap and you can decide,
like you do as much as you can afford to do until you can do more, you know, so that's anupside.
And then, you know, also it's your own vision.
Like you can make it whatever you want it to be.
You don't have to fit because franchises, you have to do things a certain way.
can't decide that you want to like the yellow and orange of McDonald's and you want to useblue and red.
(28:38):
No, that's not allowed.
You know, like you, so you have the vision to be able to make the thing what you want.
And honestly.
being a creator is fun, like creating things from scratch is fun.
I was telling Emma and another podcast guest that I'm like basically living in my ownHallmark Christmas movie at this point in time.
Like, I'm like, I get to create all these things.
I'm having so much fun.
So like those are like the pros and cons of, for me, of franchising versus starting fromscratch.
(29:02):
But Dawn, what are your thoughts?
Well, and I just want to add to that, you know, in starting the Imperfect Genius, you're,even though it's...
brand new, you are starting from experience.
You are starting from a place that you have those years of as a franchisee, even thoughit's a totally different business model, you know what are some of the pitfalls already
(29:26):
and you can probably hit them off at the pass.
not make the same mistakes.
you know, always.
Yes.
It's going to be 100%.
successful.
I know it for sure.
Thank you.
But you know, for the for me, the you know, the good part was, again, I had youngchildren.
(29:50):
So the idea was this is supposed to be a mom friendly, you know, enterprise that I couldkeep, you know, hours, business hours while they were in school.
I had all the tools and resources at my disposal.
Buying an existing franchise, it came with
(30:10):
all of the equipment at least to start.
And so probably comparable in price from the initial franchise fee or franchise purchasefee plus equipment, we were probably in at about the same amount.
It's just I had everything upfront.
(30:32):
I found the marketing pieces so helpful because you didn't have to think about what.
what a mark, you know, what an advertisement for a teacher needed to look like.
That piece was very helpful.
And then, you know, having you there as a virtual partner for sure was it was a totalupside.
There were times that I was like, forget it.
(30:56):
And she would talk to me off the ledge or I would talk her off the ledge.
It's because running a business is hard.
really is hard.
And you learn a lot about your
capacity and having and so you know part of the maybe the bad part of it it wasn't uglybut it was challenging was having part-time staff who who for which your your business was
(31:24):
their side gig I had a lot of teachers who you know they were teachers during the day andthen taught after-school classes for me or in the summer
So, you know, a lot of the times I was not their priority.
And, you know, you really had to set some boundaries, you know, for communication,response time and things like that.
(31:49):
And so that became a bit of a challenge.
And I lived a bit west of my territory.
And at the outset, it didn't seem like a big deal, but it was because
there weren't very many teachers willing to drive out to my house for training.
So I would often have to do training at their homes, which meant I had to pack everythingup and go on the road or rent a place, you know, or find a, you know, a place that'll let
(32:21):
us, you know, library or whatever that has a conference room.
And then, you know, it was, it was hard to keep up with the technology.
think this is a unique franchise.
in that it, had to definitely change with the times.
and sort of when I realized I'll share a quick story.
(32:43):
you know, the recession had hit in 08.
and I think we both experienced loss of contracts.
know, I always, I always describe it as, know, we were the extra in schools.
If there are any parents out there, you know, the extras that, that.
Like chess club and Jimbery or the tumble bus and all that kind of stuff.
(33:07):
All of that.
The gym thing, Jimbery thing, whatever it was called.
So we were kind of the first to go when school budgets started to get cut.
And we talked about that franchise fees, owing those regardless.
(33:27):
very quickly my business, I described my business became a bill.
It was a bill I had to pay every month, whether or not I had any revenue coming in.
And I tried to hang on through, I made it to I think 2010, 2011.
(33:48):
I prided myself initially early on in 08 that I did not lay off any teachers.
I kept all my staff, I thought I was doing the right things.
I was making cuts in other areas.
But the deciding factor, the day that I came home and said, I'm done, was the day I wentto this preschool.
(34:09):
It was a new contract.
I've somehow managed to get it.
And I brought in my clunky old Dell laptop.
Got all these little three and four year olds sitting in a circle, which is like a feat oflike,
you know, herculean effort to get them to want to all sit at the same time.
The challenge.
(34:32):
And so I held up the laptop and I said, so kids, have any of you ever used a laptop beforea computer?
And their responses were this.
I use my dad's iPhone.
I use my mom's iPad.
I use the I this, I that and I was like, that's it.
I'm out.
I didn't have anything.
(34:53):
There was nothing in my inventory.
And I realized, was like, if I'm going to, technology is moving too fast, it's changingtoo fast.
And I can't keep up with that.
And I'm going to be bringing in class materials and equipment for things kids have like,they've outgrown years ago.
(35:14):
And so, you know, it was then that I decided it was, that was the ugly, you know, thebusiness.
That's true.
I want to comment on two of the things that you talked about there, the part-timeemployees and the recession and the business being a bill.
So I think that that was one of the hardest things for me in the business because
(35:36):
the nature of our business, every employee was going to be part-time.
There was never going to be anybody who was going to be a full-time employee just becauseof the way that the model was.
Like even if you had, we had these things called whole school contract.
We would do after school classes.
So of course those are part-time, but we would do whole school contract.
And I had a whole school contract with Cobb County schools, which was a big get, but I'mstill only like, so I had a teacher who was going and basically, you know, just like kids
(36:01):
rotate through,
like music class or gym class, they would rotate through computer class.
And that was my teacher was doing that, but it's still not a 40 hour a week gig.
You know, like it's not 40 hours a week.
I think she may have been working 25 or 30.
I don't even remember how many hours, but it was still not, it was never going to, therewas never going to be a full time thing.
So when you have a business that is dependent a hundred percent on part-time employees isreally tough because a lot of people just viewed it as transitory.
(36:29):
Like there's, I'm just doing this until I find my next.
corporate gig or my next thing.
And so the turnover, like you were constantly having to hire and retrain and you're havingall this turnover in these schools where there's no consistency.
Like they're used to seeing, they want to see the same teacher coming every week.
Like they don't want to see you change teachers every three months or whatnot.
And so it took me a while to figure out that my best hires were retired teachers becausethey were retired and you know, they like teaching, they wanted to get back into it, but
(36:57):
you know, they didn't, they weren't even, they didn't want full time.
But the downside of that is a lot of retired teachers were retired because they leftbecause they were, same thing like technology, like I don't want to have to keep up with
technology.
So like it was like, like my best hires would have been retired teachers, but then theyalso didn't want to learn technology.
So that was like, that was really rough.
And then there was also the times when I remember, I will never forget again, this wholeschool contract I had, I am sitting, I'm working on the books, I'm doing bookkeeping, I'm
(37:23):
doing whatever, I'm sitting in my home office.
I get a call from the principal of the school and again, this is a whole school contractwhere we're supposed to be there.
know, teaching classes all day.
And the principal calls and is like, yeah, I've got a computer lab full of students andyour teacher's not here.
I was like, I will be right there.
Luckily there were 10 minutes of the school was 10 minutes away from me.
And I was like, I literally dropped everything and ran over to the school to go teach thatday.
(37:47):
And it wasn't until later.
And the teacher never called me until later.
I, when I reached out to her, she's like,
Oh yeah, I had a flat tire.
Like you didn't think to call me and tell me like, there's literally a room full of kidswaiting for you to show up and take a class.
But again, like you say, go ahead.
Yeah, no, I think that that all that you had to, you were the face, you, they were yourface and voice when you weren't there, but the minute they weren't there, you were on.
(38:13):
Yeah.
And you did, had a contract to fulfill.
I think on the flip side, you know, I'm thinking about
What if any of our franchise leaders listen to this podcast someday?
You know, what are some of the good things we can say to, you know, we didn't have towrite curriculum.
It was ready for us.
And that made teacher prep a whole lot easier.
(38:35):
You know, for the the ones who are doing those during the day school programs.
Yeah, all of that was turnkey.
It was.
And that, you know, the potential was there, you know,
circumstances, think, you know, when the organization, the franchise was created back,what did you say in the 90s?
(38:58):
I think it was 1994.
mean, you know, nobody had home computers.
Right.
It was brilliant.
The whole concept was brilliant.
And there are still franchises that exist today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think they sell new franchises anymore, at least in US.
think they do.
Yeah.
(39:18):
Yeah, but think there are skills and it's some of the original owners.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Way, way, back.
And so, you know, I think timing and circumstance and so I had I wanted to make note tospend just a minute or two on like when you buy a franchise, understanding your territory.
(39:40):
What is who are you serving?
Who who is going to be your customer base?
And for me, and maybe for you too, I had sort of a mixed, you know, I had some veryaffluent towns that were hard for me to get into because they're like, well, we own all of
this, you know, our kids, you know, we do have this.
(40:00):
But then there were some inner city towns, inner cities that I had in my territory, andthey were grateful for our programs.
Like they're like, please, can we have all of them?
it was a balance of trying to, you know,
give them what they needed and what I could actually provide.
And so, you know, even if it's a McDonald's or whatever, knowing what your demographic isand where you're gonna be pulling your customer base for certainly needs to be, you know,
(40:33):
a priority.
know.
you know, hindsight is 2020, right?
I was thinking like, great, I got all these rich.
but she rich towns in my territory.
going to just buy up these contracts.
It was the exact opposite.
They didn't really want anything to do with me, but it was the, it was the towns where theresources are stretched, where they were grateful for our types of programs.
(41:00):
also figured out that my best customers were techies.
Basically, people who understood the value of their kids learning tech properly.
And I stress properly because kids will learn tech no matter what, but learning theactual, the right way to do things.
they would understand the value of it, but they knew they didn't have the time to teach itto them.
(41:21):
So they're like, no, this is great.
They need to know this.
You teach it to them.
So like those are, I found were my best customers.
and the, and my worst customers were the ones who were the parents who were afraid oftechnology.
And they're like, well, I don't, I don't really know.
You know, my kid knows more about this than I do.
And I'm like, yeah, but that doesn't mean that they know.
the right way to do things.
This is one of my famous sales pitches was if I'm doing like, say, a word processing classfor after school, I'd get these parents like, Mike, and I'm doing like for third graders.
(41:50):
My kid already knows everything there is to know about Microsoft Word.
What are you going to teach them in this class?
And I'd say, OK, well, you we do project based learning.
So we're going to learn how to do a newsletter this semester.
And so they're going to learn how to do multi column text.
They're going to learn how to wrap text around graphics.
They're going to do headers and photos.
And I would go on about all these things.
And by the time I was done, the parent would go.
Wow, can I take that class?
I don't know how to do that.
(42:10):
I'm like, I you don't know how to do that.
That's why I teach in the class.
I'm like, I'm going to teach your third grader how to do that.
You know, like, this is why you need to sign up for my class.
But again, if I would tell just a techie parent, hey, we're going to be teaching wordprocess into your third grader, they go, great.
Yes, you do that because I don't have time to teach.
You know, like it was so you're right.
Like understanding your demographic.
agree with that.
The other thing I wanted to say, you were talking about, like, you know, if our franchiseleaders are listening to this podcast later, things that, you know, to say back to them in
(42:36):
terms of positive and whatnot.
I will say that the recession was not their fault.
Like both of, both you and I left franchise because the recession hit and it wiped us out.
It wiped out contracts.
It wiped out revenue.
That was in no way their fault.
And you know, was it and they were very supportive.
You know, like they did everything they could to support us, but that's just somethingthat nobody could have planned for.
Like that's the reason that we went out of business.
(42:58):
was not because the franchise failed us because the entire world was imploding or, it wasthis women.
And they really cared.
They did.
They really cared.
to the point where they brought me on to write newsletters for them and articles.
Like they were paying me to kind of keep going while things were kind of struggling.
(43:19):
So they really did care and it was a family in that sense.
I think the whole, I always remind my children that I was their first technology teacher,even though they far surpassed me.
But one other thing to think about when you're, you know, you want to buy a franchise isreally having a realistic look at the time commitment.
(43:44):
Because even though I wanted and more or less kept a mom schedule, I know for sure I leftopportunities on the table because, you know, I just couldn't, I wasn't able and it wasn't
in a position to do all of that and just, you know, leave them in daycare.
72 hours a week.
(44:07):
was, know, so know where you are in your life, what season of life you're in and where canyou make those commitments and, you know, be realistic about, do you want to be writing
proposals at 11 o'clock at night?
Because that's a lot of what I did.
I would go back to work after they went to bed.
So, yeah, yeah, even though it was in my house.
(44:28):
We all know now, the blurred line between work from home.
We know that.
You know, the pandemic highlighted that in bold.
But back then we're like, yeah, I can just go back to my office and work for another threehours.
No problem.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that's true.
That's very true.
That's very true.
(44:50):
Wow.
I feel like we've given the listeners a lot to think about and we could go on for hours.
I mean, I know for a fact, I mean, we could go on for hours, but I say let's wrap thingsup here and we'll plan to have some follow-up conversations in future episodes because
maybe we'll get some voicemails with some questions about franchising.
Again, there's many other things I know, Dawn, you and I could go on and we could talkabout sales, we could talk about marketing, we could talk about hiring and training.
(45:14):
There's so many things we could go on.
Let's end it here.
end our introductory conversation here and wrap things up.
Dawn, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.
You're welcome.
I'm so happy to have been here.
I really appreciate it.
To the listeners, we hope that you've discovered some valuable information that might bebeneficial to you in your entrepreneurship journey.
(45:36):
As always, we want to thank you for listening.
Visit subscribe.imperfectgenius.com to subscribe to our newsletter and receive a copy ofour show notes.
Leave us a voicemail at 404-425-9862 and you may hear an answer to your question on afuture podcast episode.
You can follow us on social media at Ask Imperfect Genius.
(45:56):
And until next time, I am Rachel Foster reminding you that your journey may not beflawless, but it can be phenomenal.
Hello.
So this is the last of my new year re-releases for January.
This is episode three of the Imperfect Genius podcast.
And similar to the last, the previous episode, this is another one that is essential tothe core of the Imperfect Genius mission.
(00:21):
In this episode, I'm talking to Dawn Whalen and we're talking about business ownership.
We specifically focus on
owning a franchise and talking about franchising versus starting from scratch.
the conversation and the topics about business and getting started in business are what Imean when I say it's essential to the core of the mission at Imperfect Genius.
(00:45):
So take a listen and I hope you enjoy.
Welcome to Imperfect Genius, the podcast helping Black women thrive by providing technicaladvice on effectively navigating the business development journey and advice on building
(01:09):
successful careers in the tech industry.
I'm your host, Rachel Foster, a tech professional, educator, and entrepreneur.
With me today is a longtime friend and former virtual business partner, a term that wetotally made up, by the way, Dawn Whalen.
Let me tell you a little bit about Dawn.
Dawn hails from the Northwest corner of Connecticut.
She's married with two grown children.
(01:30):
one who just graduated from college and one who's a junior in college.
She has a very business background in management consulting, event planning andfundraising with over 20, I'm sorry, over 10 years in the nonprofit sector as an executive
director.
Dawn is a certified interim executive leader.
Her nonprofit experience includes literary festivals, public arts events, our exhibits,and managing co-working spaces with experience in the affordable housing and substance use
(01:58):
disorder spaces.
But most notably, for the purposes of today's podcast, Dawn was a franchisee with ComputerExplorers for five years.
Dawn, welcome to the podcast.
Rachel, I am so incredibly happy to be here today with you.
Thank you so much for the invitation.
I'm so happy to have you here.
(02:18):
I wanted to have you on this podcast because I wanted to I was thinking about doing apodcast about franchising.
I was like, who better to talk about franchising with than my former franchise partner?
We just sort of told, we said we were going to be like virtual business partners.
I will tell, we'll tell a little bit more about that story.
In fact, let's, but before we get into our story, let's talk about what is franchising forthe listeners, because you know, this part of this episode, I just want to sort of
(02:44):
introduce the concept to our listeners.
So I'll say that in the simplest terms and Dawn, feel free to, you know, correct me ifyou've got a different definition,
I'd say in the simplest terms that a franchise is basically like a prefab well-definedpre-orchestrated business model that can be easily replicated.
The most famous franchise in the world is McDonald's probably.
(03:05):
would guess would be McDonald's.
And there's actually, there's a documentary on Ray Kroc, but basically here's whathappened.
Here's how McDonald's came to be.
Ray Kroc stumbled across these McDonald Brothers.
I don't remember their names.
Again, there's a documentary out there on either, I don't know if it's Netflix or AmazonPrime somewhere.
It's called Founder, I think.
(03:27):
But anyway, so Ray Kroc stumbled across this hamburger stand that was run by theseMcDonald Brothers.
And he was like, this is the most well-run, most efficient burger stand that I have everseen before.
And he was like, I could turn this into a product.
And when he said this, he meant like this business model.
I could just turn this out so that could be a McDonald Brothers hamburger stand on everycorner.
(03:47):
Again, obviously visionary.
So that's what he did.
He basically noted down all of their processes and how they made their burgers, how theymade their fries, how they took their orders and just basically turned that entire
business model into a thing that he could sell to other people.
So now today, if you want to run a burger stand, you can buy a McDonald's franchise if yougot enough money.
(04:09):
So basically that's what a franchise is.
So let's say that you're a fitness buff and you've already streamed of owning a curves,then you could buy a franchise.
Or if you're a mechanic, then maybe you buy a Jiffy Lube franchise.
That's what a franchise is.
Any additional commentary you want to add on that Dawn in terms of like?
(04:29):
I think that the overall concept is that it's turnkey.
It provides you with everything that you need to at least get started.
Yes.
Yes.
In fact, turnkey is like a...
an imperative part of the definition that the idea is that you don't have, like youliterally get everything you need to start this business.
You don't have to figure everything out on your own.
(04:51):
So that's what a franchise is.
little creativity goes a long way though as well.
true.
And I think we'll talk about that a little bit when we talk about some of the pros andcons.
But I think it would be helpful for the listeners if we go back a little bit to thebeginning, Dawn, and explain how we know each other.
And I think you remember the story a little bit better than I do.
So do you mind telling the story?
(05:11):
Sure.
So I was thinking about this.
I know for sure we met in person for the first time at what was called a Discovery Day atthe headquarters of this franchise in Houston, Texas.
I was purchasing an existing franchise in Hartford County, Connecticut, and you werepurchasing a new franchise territory in your home county, Cobb County, Georgia.
(05:40):
I know that was the first time, but was thinking that now we're going almost 20 years ago.
I believe we spoke on the same conference call.
This was pre-Zoom way before any kind of that technology.
think there was sort of a conference call where we were learning about the franchise andabout the headquarters and about the parent company and all that.
(06:03):
I think you're on because when I met you in person, I feel like I already knew.
I already knew you.
So you're saying that like my big mouth guy, like you're like, that's the one who wasdoing all the talk.
Like you say, I always talk too much is what you're telling me.
I was impressed by how much research you did.
(06:24):
And I know we're to talk about that a little bit as well.
and then I'm thinking, like, I don't think we went to new owner training together, but wewere definitely at some conferences together cause they would bring us in to, you know,
highlight whatever new product or new
curriculum we were going to be introducing.
And I remember being in Las Vegas with you.
(06:48):
Okay.
I didn't remember Vegas.
I remembered the conferences.
I didn't remember Vegas.
I think you're right about the new owner training because I think you went to new ordertraining before I did.
Like I think you were in the cohort right before me and then I was in the next one becauseyou were buying an existing franchise and I was starting a new one.
And so I think there took me a little bit more time to get to the startup part.
So I had no time.
(07:09):
needed to like, you're like, gotta go.
gotta go.
I gotta go.
Um, but speaking of the conferences, I didn't remember we were in Vegas.
I do remember the conferences.
Do you remember?
This is a very vivid memory for me.
Do you remember being at one of the conferences?
It was the award ceremony and they were bringing up all of like the top franchisees andsaying what their revenue numbers were and things like that.
And we were like, we're going to promise ourselves that we're going to be up there oneday.
(07:31):
We're going to be up there in two years.
Like we had, like, we were setting our goals.
remember that?
I believe, I believe the term we threw out was the million dollar club.
We're going to be part of our own level of achievement in the organization.
Yes.
Cause I think at the time, think the top was what 250, 250,000.
(07:53):
Yeah.
There was a ways to go, it was a turning point there when the numbers started going up andbusiness was good.
And I think we should tell the listeners a little bit about specifically this franchisethat we own.
So it was originally called Computer Tots and Computer Explorers or CTC.
It was founded by Karen Marshall and Mary Rogers in 1994.
(08:18):
They basically they were doing teaching preschoolers because so the computer tots wereages three to five and explorers were five and up.
But we really only did training up through middle school.
But, they they were doing this.
training at these preschools and I think they were in Virginia.
I can't remember exactly where they were, yeah, I think it was Virginia.
And so they were they and they started doing it at multiple preschools.
(08:40):
And at some point they decided that they wanted to franchise it.
So, you know, go back to my earlier description of like the McDonald's.
Basically, they were like, we're going to turn this into a model that we can then sell topeople across the country.
And eventually it did become international.
So they started it and it was they started as a home based business.
And then eventually, you know,
sold it to ICED, which Stan, I had to look this up Dawn, cause I didn't remember.
(09:04):
The International Center for Entrepreneurial Development.
And they owned a bunch of different franchises, like Quick Copy and a bunch of likeprinting and kind of franchising franchises.
And they just, bought Computer Explorer.
They also had like Parcel Plus and some other ones like that.
So Mary and Karen sold it to, to ICED.
And do you remember Bud?
Bud, what was Bud's last name?
(09:25):
Hadfield?
Hadfield, yes.
We each had a meet.
with him individually and he couldn't hear very well.
So we had to wear these oversized name tags with our first name in like 72 point font sothat he could know our name.
so he was like the founder of ICED and we had, yeah, it's, so, it was such an experience.
(09:50):
mean, the, just for the listeners, just to give you some visual of just sort of the placewhere we did our training.
was a replica of the Alamo.
was like on this cover.
It was such an interesting experience.
they were mostly wearing us in the summertime when it was hotter than you know what.
(10:11):
In Texas, yeah.
In rainy season that they would leave umbrellas at each door so you can go betweenbuildings.
You just took an umbrella and hoped for the best.
And where you stayed was in a cabin, like a legit cabin.
it was, cause you weren't like, it was a compound.
You were staying on the compound and you weren't in the hotel or whatever.
And you were staying in a cab, like a literal log cabin.
(10:33):
And again, you were going to classes at the Alamo.
And, and to save money, they would have us have lunch at like 10 30 in the morning.
Cause it was cheaper in the cafeteria.
You can't make up this stuff.
You really can't.
make this stuff up.
was so, wow.
Wow.
Okay.
I think now would be a good time to take a, just take a quick break.
(10:56):
And when we come back, we'll talk a little bit about, how do you buy a franchise?
And then just some of the pros and cons of owning a franchise.
(11:17):
Okay, so Dawn, let's talk about how is it that you came to buy your Computer Explorersfranchise?
It's an interesting story.
So my husband and I were hoping to move back to, we were thinking New England.
We weren't sure Boston area or whatnot from the Virginia DC area.
(11:39):
He was in the Navy and when he got out of the Navy, we ended up outside DC.
But I'm originally from Connecticut, and so the goal was always to get back up towards NewEngland.
But before that, I was looking for a mom-friendly part-time job, still while we wereliving in Virginia.
(12:02):
And I had two babies at the time.
They're not even quite two years apart.
And so was looking for something that I could do, perhaps while they're at...
preschool or whatnot.
So I was searching and came across this job posting for a technology teacher.
And I had done some, you know, technology training in my management consulting days.
(12:28):
So making that transition to teaching, I didn't think was going to be that much of a leap.
And so I interviewed for the job and
I could start at any time, but then I got curious about, know, because I learned it was afranchise.
(12:52):
And so I got curious about, well, let's see if there's one that might exist inConnecticut.
And there were, there were several franchises in Connecticut and we knew generally wherewe wanted to live.
And so I contacted the franchisee owner that was closest to where we wanted to live.
and asked her if she was hiring.
(13:15):
And she said, no, but I'm selling the franchise.
Are you interested?
And pretty much from that day forward, all I could think about was owning my own businessand what that could mean for my family and that it was going to help us achieve our goal
of, you know, moving to Connecticut.
Of course, Scott needed my husband.
He needed to find a job as well.
So all the stars had to align, but it was a very fast process.
(13:38):
It was less than,
I don't know, maybe three or four months.
Wow.
Between me learning about computer Tots, computer explorers and actually moving toConnecticut.
And it all happened really, really fast.
And I think, you know, some reality set in pretty early on and we can talk about that whenwe get to the pros and cons.
(14:05):
But I think what, you know,
I had the wherewithal to at least show it to my friend's dad who is an accountant, showhim the finances.
And he actually wasn't really interested in the opportunity for me.
But again, like I said, there was nothing really that was deterring me from Scott was onboard with it.
(14:29):
It just seemed like everything was right about it.
And the idea of running my own business was like super, super.
So yeah, it's very, it's a very compelling idea.
know it's funny because it sounds like you had a couple of red flags or yellow flags andyou're like, no, I think it's, is what I think.
Yeah, exactly.
It's fine.
(14:50):
It'll be fine.
I had the same thing happen to me.
So my story about how I bought my franchise is a little bit different.
What happened with me was I'd been in corporate.
You know, this story, Emma knows this story.
Our producer Emma knows this story.
The listeners may or may not have heard this story by this point in time, by the time thatthey listened to this episode, but I have been working in tech since I was 15 years old.
(15:13):
So like I've been in corporate America forever.
I don't even remember how old I was at the time.
I could do the math, right?
But I don't feel like doing it right now.
But I had been in corporate America forever.
I was kind of miserable.
And what happened when my mother had passed away years before, and then both mygrandparents died two months apart, three months apart.
(15:34):
the year that I decided to buy the franchise.
And what happened was I just, with their deaths, I was like, you know what?
Life is too short for me to be this miserable in corporate America.
I'm going to go do my own thing.
And I'd always wanted to own my own business.
Like literally when I was 16 years old and I'd written down like my goals for life, owninga house and a, and owning a business were like number one and two.
And then somewhere was getting married and having kids.
(15:55):
Like there was like other stuff in there, but it was like, Nope, I'm going to buy a houseand I'm going to own a business.
Like those are like number one and two.
So like it had always been a dream of mine to own a business.
So was trying to decide what did I want to do?
Like I had no idea.
So I literally, made a list.
made a list of a couple of lists.
What, what I did want to do and what I didn't want to do and like things on the, what Ididn't want to do is I didn't want to go into an office.
(16:17):
I didn't want to wear a suit every day.
Cause this was back in the days when people wore suits to work and went into the office.
This was, this was in the early 2000s.
Right?
So, you know, I made a list of that.
And then I was like, things that I did want to do.
I wanted to work with kids.
I wanted to work in education.
One of the things I didn't want to do was I didn't want to completely throw away my techbackground.
Even though I was miserable in corporate America, I didn't want to, I was like, I've gotthese degrees and all this experience.
(16:39):
I don't want to throw that away.
So, you know, I definitely wanted a business that had something to do with tech, but Iwanted to be in education and work with kids.
So I literally took this list and I went to Google or, know what, this is like 20 yearsago.
Was it, I mean, I Google existed 20 years ago, but it could have been asked.
Yeah, went to some search engine and I was like, okay.
(17:00):
I'm looking for this thing.
I'm like, I'm looking for something that allows me to do the following things and thatdoes not include these other things.
And somewhere along the way in that search process, I found computer tasks and computerexplorers.
I was like, there it is.
It's everything I'm looking for, working with kids, kids, you know, working in technology.
Like that was how I made the decision.
And your listeners should know that Rachel is very good at making lists and she alwaystrusts her lists.
(17:27):
Her lists are golden.
and helped us immensely over the years.
This is true.
This is true.
I am a master list maker.
I have lists for my list.
I even have like indexes of my list.
I believe it 100%.
This is true.
(17:48):
Okay.
So that's how we came to buy our franchise.
I want to share a couple of resources with the listeners because those were our journeysto franchising.
One of the things, even though, like I said, I went to a search engine and looked up somethings.
The other thing was I looked up books on franchising and one of the most helpful books forme was so these, know, this is like the analog as opposed to the digital solution.
(18:11):
there was entrepreneur magazine had this book called the ultimate book of franchises andwill include a link in the show notes so that you can because it's still available on on
Amazon.
So I went and bought that book.
There was another book called the franchise Bible.
I didn't like that one so much, but I literally bought books on
buying a franchise.
And there's some other sites that exist today that I didn't use back then, like there'sthe consumer's guide to buying a franchise that the Federal Trade Commission puts out
(18:37):
there.
There's a couple of like franchise search websites, like franchise gator orfranchising.com.
Entrepreneur magazine or entrepreneur.com also has like the franchise 500, the top 500franchises.
So there's a couple of resources that you can use online to try to find a franchise.
But like I said, I also bought
books on franchising.
(18:58):
So I bought books to learn about what it means to buy a franchise.
So that's how I learned about, did you remember the UFO seed on the uniform franchiseoffering circular?
Do you remember what that is?
thick book that tells you everything you need to know about the franchise that you'reabout to buy.
Not only, you know, your initial investment, but additional startup costs, your franchisefees, different stuff like that.
(19:20):
The important thing, speaking of like ignoring red flags, Don,
At the back of it includes the current franchisees as well as former franchisees andincludes their contact information.
So you can call them up and ask them like, okay, what's it like to own this franchise?
What's the good and what's the bad?
So not only did I call, I think I call like 20 current franchisees or whatever, but Icalled like 10 or 15 former franchises.
(19:43):
Like, why don't you own this franchise anymore?
What were you like?
Why did you leave?
And it was so funny because I was so arrogant.
But I think it's kind of like what you said, Dawn, like once you've got it in your headthat you want to own a business, you just want to own a business.
Because when I was talking to the former franchisees and they were like telling me thereasons why they weren't in, you know, they didn't own the franchise anymore, any negative
things that they said about the franchise, I was like, I'll solve that by doing this.
(20:05):
Like in my head, I didn't say that to them, but in my head I was like, oh, I'll just solvethat by doing that.
You know, like, oh, that's not a big deal.
know, like I just couldn't believe it.
I remember calling some as well.
Plus I had, you the person I was purchasing the from.
true.
Yeah.
You know, in her story was nothing having to do with the franchise itself.
She was literally moving.
(20:25):
In fact, we swapped.
She moved to Virginia.
I moved to Connecticut.
And it just so it just worked out that way.
for family reasons, was going back to Virginia.
Yeah.
And also I will say for all the research Rachel did,
I didn't.
And so we were virtual business partners before Rachel even knew it because I was hangingon every word that she said in that discovery day.
(20:54):
I barely listened to the people who owned the franchise.
I was just listening to Rachel.
That is so funny.
And I think we should talk about how this virtual business partner thing came about.
So what happened was there were a lot of franchise, a lot of the, the territory.
you would get a territory based on your zip codes.
Like I was cop County in, in Georgia and I had like 50 zip codes that like, were includedin my territory.
(21:19):
And you might have adjacent franchisees.
So like there was another group of franchisees that had the Metro Atlanta area.
I think those were the only two Georgia or we were the only two Georgia.
But anyway, so you have like these territories.
And most of the other territory owners were partners.
was usually like two friends who like bought the business together.
But Dawn and I were the only, well, we weren't the only one, but we were like singlefranchise owner.
(21:43):
We own the territory.
We had nobody else to talk to.
And so it was like, literally like you have nobody else to talk to.
So you're like trying to do marketing and you're trying to, you know, like, why am I notgetting enough signups or, you know, and you just, and so literally we would just call
each other up and go, okay, here's the problem I'm having.
I'm trying to sell this one class.
It's elementary engineering and I can't get anybody to sign up or.
What do you think about the price point?
And so finally, because it might have been at one of the conferences, we were talkingabout how jealous we were of all the franchisees that had partners.
(22:11):
We were like, it's so unfair.
We were like, well, on the one hand, it's unfair because there's two of them to share theworkload and have bounce ideas off each other.
On the other hand, they have to split the money too.
It's like there's the pros and the cons.
Totally.
And there were there were other franchisees in Connecticut.
Like we had a little group where we would get together on occasion.
(22:34):
But they were they were sort of sort of already leaps and bounds ahead of where I was.
And so when I would ask a question, they would be like, well, you know, like it didn'tresonate with them because they were so far past that problem.
They couldn't even, you know.
Right.
They're like, I don't remember.
That was like 10 years ago when I first started.
(22:56):
I would bring the question or the issue or whatever to you, we could talk about it from aframe of, we're, you know, this is new for us.
How can we, how can we best work through it?
So yeah, I feel like a lot of, a lot of the time we tried to formalize like, right, once amonth or whatever it was, but it ended up being like on the fly most of the time.
(23:19):
And, and, and we got to a place where
we would make time for each other and that was really special.
Yeah.
And we decided we were like, we're business partners.
virtual, we're not really business partners, but we're virtual business partners.
So yeah, was share one of my non-profits with you.
Well, yeah, I was going to say, so speaking of, so let's get into that.
So like knowing what we know now, let's talk about the good, the bad and the ugly ofowning a franchise.
(23:42):
I think,
And, I'll start by saying that now I have the perspective of having bought a franchise andhaving started a business from scratch.
And so like I can compare and contrast the two and there's challenges and there'sopportunities on both sides of the fence.
From the franchise perspective, you've got this business model that somebody's alreadytheoretically proven out that this is the way that it works.
This is how you sell these.
(24:03):
This is what your, your customer looks like.
You know, this is how you make money.
You know, so like you've got that, you've got marketing.
You don't have to worry about.
creating logos and marketing copy and trademarking.
I've got a trademarking story that is bonus content for the podcast about my trademarkjourney for the new business.
(24:28):
But anyway, so back to the pros and cons of franchising.
So you've got the business model, you've got the marketing, you've got the support fromyour franchisor.
For us, we were selling classes and we didn't have to write curriculum.
Our franchiser would give us the curriculum for those classes.
We could tweak it and we could write our own if we wanted, but we didn't have to.
But we also had the franchisee community.
(24:49):
We could reach out to other franchisees.
We just talked about that.
But then there's the downside because it costs a lot of money.
You can't just decide I'm going to own a McDonald's unless you've got a million dollars.
I don't even know what the franchise buy-in cost is for McDonald's, but I think the
even the cheapest franchises are maybe 20 or $30,000 of like just initial costs.
(25:13):
And that doesn't include all of your startup costs.
think for me as a new, don't remember, I'd have to pull out my old UFOC.
I want to say like,
The UFAS OC for computer explorers might've said like 40,000 or something like that.
I don't even remember.
But I remember when I talked to my lawyer and my accountant, they were like, you shouldplan for another $20,000 in startup cost.
Like they were like, the number that in the book was not what the final number was gonnabe.
(25:36):
Like it's- Did that price include equipment or was that just to buy the franchise?
No.
It was to buy the franchise and then it was the training and like literally there was abreakdown of what all that cost was.
I think-
15 or 20,000 of it was just the franchise fee.
And that was the only part you could finance.
So like, ICE would finance a portion of it for you if you wanted to.
(25:59):
Everything else you had to either find your own financing or come out of your pocket.
And I did the dumb thing.
I spent my own money for everything, which hindsight is 20-20.
I would never do that again.
But that 40,000, was like, think a 15 or 20, I don't remember, for the franchise fee plusall these, like plus training.
plus blah, blah, but it did not include equipment.
(26:20):
I think it was marketing materials, some other stuff, but it didn't include equipment.
So that was part of like, I was going to have to spend that money to buy equipment to getstarted and whatnot.
So there's just a lot of costs to start up.
But more importantly, I think the biggest negative for me was the franchise fees.
Because here's the thing about those franchise fees, you have to pay it whether you'remaking money or not.
(26:41):
So like, you've got these minimums that you're supposed to hit.
And don't you even get penalized if you don't hit the minimums?
And I'm like, well, if I can't, if I...
I don't have any money to pay you in the first place.
How are you going to penalize me for not meeting the minimum?
I know, like give us a break.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So no matter what though, you have to pay those franchise fees.
like a, it's, there's like a, it's supposed to be a percentage of your revenue, but thereis minimums.
(27:05):
so again, like I don't even remember what the numbers were, but you know, even if you'renot making whatever your, your target is, you still have to pay a minimum franchise.
So you can almost be in the hole.
because you owe money even though you haven't made any money, you so like you're justlosing money.
So that was a downside.
And then I'll flip and say the, you know, the other side of it and then Donna, I'll letyou weigh in, terms of your thoughts on pros and cons, but I will, I will contrast that
(27:30):
with starting a business from scratch.
Again, pros and cons.
The downside is you're starting from scratch.
So you literally have to create everything.
Like it's just like everything.
It's like, man, I got to do that.
And then I got to do that.
So there's like, no, you're just having to start and.
create everything from scratch.
then, know, there's also, there's just you, you know, there's, there's nobody, there is nofranchisor to support.
(27:53):
There's no additional franchisee.
There's nobody else.
It's just like, you're going to sink or swim on your own, unless you've got wonderfulpeople like assistant producer, who are helping you out or friends like Dawn, who want to
come onto your podcast and have a meaningful business conversation with you.
mean, but you know, it's still, everything falls on your shoulder.
You don't have a lot of support.
(28:14):
on the upside though, you know, you, don't have to have that big outlay of, of costsbecause you're, know, if you're starting from scratch, your bootstrap and you can decide,
like you do as much as you can afford to do until you can do more, you know, so that's anupside.
And then, you know, also it's your own vision.
Like you can make it whatever you want it to be.
You don't have to fit because franchises, you have to do things a certain way.
can't decide that you want to like the yellow and orange of McDonald's and you want to useblue and red.
(28:38):
No, that's not allowed.
You know, like you, so you have the vision to be able to make the thing what you want.
And honestly.
being a creator is fun, like creating things from scratch is fun.
I was telling Emma and another podcast guest that I'm like basically living in my ownHallmark Christmas movie at this point in time.
Like, I'm like, I get to create all these things.
I'm having so much fun.
So like those are like the pros and cons of, for me, of franchising versus starting fromscratch.
(29:02):
But Dawn, what are your thoughts?
Well, and I just want to add to that, you know, in starting the Imperfect Genius, you're,even though it's...
brand new, you are starting from experience.
You are starting from a place that you have those years of as a franchisee, even thoughit's a totally different business model, you know what are some of the pitfalls already
(29:26):
and you can probably hit them off at the pass.
not make the same mistakes.
you know, always.
Yes.
It's going to be 100%.
successful.
I know it for sure.
Thank you.
But you know, for the for me, the you know, the good part was, again, I had youngchildren.
(29:50):
So the idea was this is supposed to be a mom friendly, you know, enterprise that I couldkeep, you know, hours, business hours while they were in school.
I had all the tools and resources at my disposal.
Buying an existing franchise, it came with
(30:10):
all of the equipment at least to start.
And so probably comparable in price from the initial franchise fee or franchise purchasefee plus equipment, we were probably in at about the same amount.
It's just I had everything upfront.
(30:32):
I found the marketing pieces so helpful because you didn't have to think about what.
what a mark, you know, what an advertisement for a teacher needed to look like.
That piece was very helpful.
And then, you know, having you there as a virtual partner for sure was it was a totalupside.
There were times that I was like, forget it.
(30:56):
And she would talk to me off the ledge or I would talk her off the ledge.
It's because running a business is hard.
really is hard.
And you learn a lot about your
capacity and having and so you know part of the maybe the bad part of it it wasn't uglybut it was challenging was having part-time staff who who for which your your business was
(31:24):
their side gig I had a lot of teachers who you know they were teachers during the day andthen taught after-school classes for me or in the summer
So, you know, a lot of the times I was not their priority.
And, you know, you really had to set some boundaries, you know, for communication,response time and things like that.
(31:49):
And so that became a bit of a challenge.
And I lived a bit west of my territory.
And at the outset, it didn't seem like a big deal, but it was because
there weren't very many teachers willing to drive out to my house for training.
So I would often have to do training at their homes, which meant I had to pack everythingup and go on the road or rent a place, you know, or find a, you know, a place that'll let
(32:21):
us, you know, library or whatever that has a conference room.
And then, you know, it was, it was hard to keep up with the technology.
think this is a unique franchise.
in that it, had to definitely change with the times.
and sort of when I realized I'll share a quick story.
(32:43):
you know, the recession had hit in 08.
and I think we both experienced loss of contracts.
know, I always, I always describe it as, know, we were the extra in schools.
If there are any parents out there, you know, the extras that, that.
Like chess club and Jimbery or the tumble bus and all that kind of stuff.
(33:07):
All of that.
The gym thing, Jimbery thing, whatever it was called.
So we were kind of the first to go when school budgets started to get cut.
And we talked about that franchise fees, owing those regardless.
(33:27):
very quickly my business, I described my business became a bill.
It was a bill I had to pay every month, whether or not I had any revenue coming in.
And I tried to hang on through, I made it to I think 2010, 2011.
(33:48):
I prided myself initially early on in 08 that I did not lay off any teachers.
I kept all my staff, I thought I was doing the right things.
I was making cuts in other areas.
But the deciding factor, the day that I came home and said, I'm done, was the day I wentto this preschool.
(34:09):
It was a new contract.
I've somehow managed to get it.
And I brought in my clunky old Dell laptop.
Got all these little three and four year olds sitting in a circle, which is like a feat oflike,
you know, herculean effort to get them to want to all sit at the same time.
The challenge.
(34:32):
And so I held up the laptop and I said, so kids, have any of you ever used a laptop beforea computer?
And their responses were this.
I use my dad's iPhone.
I use my mom's iPad.
I use the I this, I that and I was like, that's it.
I'm out.
I didn't have anything.
(34:53):
There was nothing in my inventory.
And I realized, was like, if I'm going to, technology is moving too fast, it's changingtoo fast.
And I can't keep up with that.
And I'm going to be bringing in class materials and equipment for things kids have like,they've outgrown years ago.
(35:14):
And so, you know, it was then that I decided it was, that was the ugly, you know, thebusiness.
That's true.
I want to comment on two of the things that you talked about there, the part-timeemployees and the recession and the business being a bill.
So I think that that was one of the hardest things for me in the business because
(35:36):
the nature of our business, every employee was going to be part-time.
There was never going to be anybody who was going to be a full-time employee just becauseof the way that the model was.
Like even if you had, we had these things called whole school contract.
We would do after school classes.
So of course those are part-time, but we would do whole school contract.
And I had a whole school contract with Cobb County schools, which was a big get, but I'mstill only like, so I had a teacher who was going and basically, you know, just like kids
(36:01):
rotate through,
like music class or gym class, they would rotate through computer class.
And that was my teacher was doing that, but it's still not a 40 hour a week gig.
You know, like it's not 40 hours a week.
I think she may have been working 25 or 30.
I don't even remember how many hours, but it was still not, it was never going to, therewas never going to be a full time thing.
So when you have a business that is dependent a hundred percent on part-time employees isreally tough because a lot of people just viewed it as transitory.
(36:29):
Like there's, I'm just doing this until I find my next.
corporate gig or my next thing.
And so the turnover, like you were constantly having to hire and retrain and you're havingall this turnover in these schools where there's no consistency.
Like they're used to seeing, they want to see the same teacher coming every week.
Like they don't want to see you change teachers every three months or whatnot.
And so it took me a while to figure out that my best hires were retired teachers becausethey were retired and you know, they like teaching, they wanted to get back into it, but
(36:57):
you know, they didn't, they weren't even, they didn't want full time.
But the downside of that is a lot of retired teachers were retired because they leftbecause they were, same thing like technology, like I don't want to have to keep up with
technology.
So like it was like, like my best hires would have been retired teachers, but then theyalso didn't want to learn technology.
So that was like, that was really rough.
And then there was also the times when I remember, I will never forget again, this wholeschool contract I had, I am sitting, I'm working on the books, I'm doing bookkeeping, I'm
(37:23):
doing whatever, I'm sitting in my home office.
I get a call from the principal of the school and again, this is a whole school contractwhere we're supposed to be there.
know, teaching classes all day.
And the principal calls and is like, yeah, I've got a computer lab full of students andyour teacher's not here.
I was like, I will be right there.
Luckily there were 10 minutes of the school was 10 minutes away from me.
And I was like, I literally dropped everything and ran over to the school to go teach thatday.
(37:47):
And it wasn't until later.
And the teacher never called me until later.
I, when I reached out to her, she's like,
Oh yeah, I had a flat tire.
Like you didn't think to call me and tell me like, there's literally a room full of kidswaiting for you to show up and take a class.
But again, like you say, go ahead.
Yeah, no, I think that that all that you had to, you were the face, you, they were yourface and voice when you weren't there, but the minute they weren't there, you were on.
(38:13):
Yeah.
And you did, had a contract to fulfill.
I think on the flip side, you know, I'm thinking about
What if any of our franchise leaders listen to this podcast someday?
You know, what are some of the good things we can say to, you know, we didn't have towrite curriculum.
It was ready for us.
And that made teacher prep a whole lot easier.
(38:35):
You know, for the the ones who are doing those during the day school programs.
Yeah, all of that was turnkey.
It was.
And that, you know, the potential was there, you know,
circumstances, think, you know, when the organization, the franchise was created back,what did you say in the 90s?
(38:58):
I think it was 1994.
mean, you know, nobody had home computers.
Right.
It was brilliant.
The whole concept was brilliant.
And there are still franchises that exist today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think they sell new franchises anymore, at least in US.
think they do.
Yeah.
(39:18):
Yeah, but think there are skills and it's some of the original owners.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Way, way, back.
And so, you know, I think timing and circumstance and so I had I wanted to make note tospend just a minute or two on like when you buy a franchise, understanding your territory.
(39:40):
What is who are you serving?
Who who is going to be your customer base?
And for me, and maybe for you too, I had sort of a mixed, you know, I had some veryaffluent towns that were hard for me to get into because they're like, well, we own all of
this, you know, our kids, you know, we do have this.
(40:00):
But then there were some inner city towns, inner cities that I had in my territory, andthey were grateful for our programs.
Like they're like, please, can we have all of them?
it was a balance of trying to, you know,
give them what they needed and what I could actually provide.
And so, you know, even if it's a McDonald's or whatever, knowing what your demographic isand where you're gonna be pulling your customer base for certainly needs to be, you know,
(40:33):
a priority.
know.
you know, hindsight is 2020, right?
I was thinking like, great, I got all these rich.
but she rich towns in my territory.
going to just buy up these contracts.
It was the exact opposite.
They didn't really want anything to do with me, but it was the, it was the towns where theresources are stretched, where they were grateful for our types of programs.
(41:00):
also figured out that my best customers were techies.
Basically, people who understood the value of their kids learning tech properly.
And I stress properly because kids will learn tech no matter what, but learning theactual, the right way to do things.
they would understand the value of it, but they knew they didn't have the time to teach itto them.
(41:21):
So they're like, no, this is great.
They need to know this.
You teach it to them.
So like those are, I found were my best customers.
and the, and my worst customers were the ones who were the parents who were afraid oftechnology.
And they're like, well, I don't, I don't really know.
You know, my kid knows more about this than I do.
And I'm like, yeah, but that doesn't mean that they know.
the right way to do things.
This is one of my famous sales pitches was if I'm doing like, say, a word processing classfor after school, I'd get these parents like, Mike, and I'm doing like for third graders.
(41:50):
My kid already knows everything there is to know about Microsoft Word.
What are you going to teach them in this class?
And I'd say, OK, well, you we do project based learning.
So we're going to learn how to do a newsletter this semester.
And so they're going to learn how to do multi column text.
They're going to learn how to wrap text around graphics.
They're going to do headers and photos.
And I would go on about all these things.
And by the time I was done, the parent would go.
Wow, can I take that class?
I don't know how to do that.
(42:10):
I'm like, I you don't know how to do that.
That's why I teach in the class.
I'm like, I'm going to teach your third grader how to do that.
You know, like, this is why you need to sign up for my class.
But again, if I would tell just a techie parent, hey, we're going to be teaching wordprocess into your third grader, they go, great.
Yes, you do that because I don't have time to teach.
You know, like it was so you're right.
Like understanding your demographic.
agree with that.
The other thing I wanted to say, you were talking about, like, you know, if our franchiseleaders are listening to this podcast later, things that, you know, to say back to them in
(42:36):
terms of positive and whatnot.
I will say that the recession was not their fault.
Like both of, both you and I left franchise because the recession hit and it wiped us out.
It wiped out contracts.
It wiped out revenue.
That was in no way their fault.
And you know, was it and they were very supportive.
You know, like they did everything they could to support us, but that's just somethingthat nobody could have planned for.
Like that's the reason that we went out of business.
(42:58):
was not because the franchise failed us because the entire world was imploding or, it wasthis women.
And they really cared.
They did.
They really cared.
to the point where they brought me on to write newsletters for them and articles.
Like they were paying me to kind of keep going while things were kind of struggling.
(43:19):
So they really did care and it was a family in that sense.
I think the whole, I always remind my children that I was their first technology teacher,even though they far surpassed me.
But one other thing to think about when you're, you know, you want to buy a franchise isreally having a realistic look at the time commitment.
(43:44):
Because even though I wanted and more or less kept a mom schedule, I know for sure I leftopportunities on the table because, you know, I just couldn't, I wasn't able and it wasn't
in a position to do all of that and just, you know, leave them in daycare.
72 hours a week.
(44:07):
was, know, so know where you are in your life, what season of life you're in and where canyou make those commitments and, you know, be realistic about, do you want to be writing
proposals at 11 o'clock at night?
Because that's a lot of what I did.
I would go back to work after they went to bed.
So, yeah, yeah, even though it was in my house.
(44:28):
We all know now, the blurred line between work from home.
We know that.
You know, the pandemic highlighted that in bold.
But back then we're like, yeah, I can just go back to my office and work for another threehours.
No problem.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that's true.
That's very true.
That's very true.
(44:50):
Wow.
I feel like we've given the listeners a lot to think about and we could go on for hours.
I mean, I know for a fact, I mean, we could go on for hours, but I say let's wrap thingsup here and we'll plan to have some follow-up conversations in future episodes because
maybe we'll get some voicemails with some questions about franchising.
Again, there's many other things I know, Dawn, you and I could go on and we could talkabout sales, we could talk about marketing, we could talk about hiring and training.
(45:14):
There's so many things we could go on.
Let's end it here.
end our introductory conversation here and wrap things up.
Dawn, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.
You're welcome.
I'm so happy to have been here.
I really appreciate it.
To the listeners, we hope that you've discovered some valuable information that might bebeneficial to you in your entrepreneurship journey.
(45:36):
As always, we want to thank you for listening.
Visit subscribe.imperfectgenius.com to subscribe to our newsletter and receive a copy ofour show notes.
Leave us a voicemail at 404-425-9862 and you may hear an answer to your question on afuture podcast episode.
You can follow us on social media at Ask Imperfect Genius.
(45:56):
And until next time, I am Rachel Foster reminding you that your journey may not beflawless, but it can be phenomenal.
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