October 11, 2025 • 44 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Giuseppe Grammatico (00:00):
My why was my, it was my family.
(00:01):
Well, what does that mean?
Well, my, my, that why my familybasically meant wanted to spend
more time with them.
I worked on wall street.
You know, 2003, four, five, six.
And with that commute, I wasnever going to see my family by
the time I left at five 30 inthe morning and got home after
eight 30, nine o'clock at night,five hour round trip commute.
(00:24):
I, I needed to make a change sothat my, why was spending more
time with family flexibility,and And you know, always had the
idea of becoming a soccer coachand never missing a soccer game,
which is something I, I got toaccomplish.
But that why is going to besuper important because just
like in any business, there'sgoing to be bumps in the road
and you need that strong enough.
(00:45):
Why to really get you throughthe, the ups and downs in, in
any business.
Michael Minitelli (00:50):
I want to invest and bet on me, which is
another thing that people, youknow, like to do.
Welcome to the Franchise FreedomPodcast, where you can escape
the corporate trap throughfranchise ownership.
Here's your host, Giuseppe gr,the franchise guide.
Giuseppe Grammatico (01:05):
Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast.
I'm your host, GiuseppeGrammatico, your franchise guide
to show where we help corporateexecutives experience time and
financial freedom.
Thanks for joining us today.
We really appreciate it.
And don't forget, feel free tovisit our website,
ggthefranchiseguide.com click onthat book a call.
I'd love to chat with you,answer your questions in regards
to business ownership, franchiseownership, if you're potentially
(01:27):
a good fit.
Book a 20 minute call with metoday.
There's no cost, no commitment,and I would love to help you out
in any, way we can.
today I'm joined by industryexperts who have helped
countless families buildfranchise empires that last.
Whether you're planning to passyour business to the next
generation or building yourfirst franchise with Legacy in
mind, you'll get real worldstories and expert insights
(01:49):
right here.
let's dive into what reallytakes to create a franchise that
just doesn't just survive, butthrives for generations.
It is a lot of work.
There's a big time commitment.
And usually the people I workwith, they are looking to do
accomplish a few things.
Number one is they want tocreate another source of income
which is good.
They want to create a safety netin the event of the next Job
(02:10):
loss, right?
There's, there's especiallycertain industries have been
cutting back on jobs job lossesand layoffs and things like
that.
There are other individuals thatown businesses that either want
to convert their business into afranchise or diversify.
Their investments and maybe addon just purely investment or add
on additional income streams.
Maybe it's a mom and pop roofingcompany that wants to offer an
(02:36):
add on a a franchise that offerspainting services.
or a coverings business wherethey're able to essentially
restore vinyl siding and thingslike that.
So really figuring out, youknow, why you want to own a
business.
Yes, we all want to make moremoney, but you know, really kind
of figuring out what is yourwhy.
For me as an example, and that'ssomething I'm starting to do a
(02:58):
lot more is kind of give my, mystory and give some examples.
My why was my, it was my family.
Well, what does that mean?
Well, my, my, that why my familybasically meant wanted to spend
more time with them.
I worked on wall street.
You know, 2003, four, five, six.
And with that commute, I wasnever going to see my family by
(03:18):
the time I left at five 30 inthe morning and got home after
eight 30, nine o'clock at night,five hour round trip commute.
I, I needed to make a change sothat my, why was spending more
time with family flexibility,and And you know, always had the
idea of becoming a soccer coachand never missing a soccer game,
which is something I, I got toaccomplish.
(03:39):
And that was my big, my bigaccomplishment as a business
owner is not just.
The money, but you know, thattime freedom that it created.
So some people, you know, Ialways tell people they're
looking for different things,time, freedom, financials are
more important than time, buttime is a close second or vice
versa.
And that is okay.
Everyone's situation isdifferent.
But that why is going to besuper important because just
(04:02):
like in any business, there'sgoing to be bumps in the road
and you need that strong enough.
Why to really get you throughthe, the ups and downs in, in
any business.
So things to consider with thefranchise.
Number one is you need money toinvest now with a startup.
The investment could be less,but what happens is that you're
figuring out the system.
So what you save avoiding afranchise fee in a startup you
(04:26):
know, it may take you two, threeyears to put that business plan
together.
Whereas a franchise, there arecertain businesses that don't
require any type of brick andmortar.
You're up and running in 90 daysor less.
So you're really kind ofspeeding up the process.
Kind of figuring out, you know,what you have, looking at your
financials, always getting your,your financials in order.
So liquid assets you know, yourliquidity, your total assets
(04:49):
your liabilities.
So basically your assets minusyour liabilities give you your
net worth.
The assets also include theliquidity, but how much money do
you have to put towards thebusiness?
I recommend as a starting point,50, 000 liquid, a hundred
thousand net worth.
You know, you're looking at theyou know, the equity in your
home and things like that for,for the assets, but you need to.
(05:10):
deduct a mortgage, but that'sjust a starting point.
You need to make sure that, youknow, it also depends how you're
running the business.
So if you're running it fulltime, you need to make sure that
you have enough of a, a safetynet or a nest egg set aside to
pay your, your monthly expense.
You may need six months livingexpense aside.
Because if you are the onlyincome in the household, who's
(05:31):
paying your mortgage and rentand health insurance and, you
know, student loans or whateveryou have out there.
Money is one.
So get your financials in orderregardless.
If you're going to buy abusiness or not, you should know
where you stand financially.
You know, that that's one.
Secondly, with a franchisespecifically, you want to look
at things such as, you know, amI okay following the system?
(05:54):
You know, if you're buying afast food franchise that serves
burgers, Are you going insaying, okay, I'm okay with,
with the menu and I'm just goingto run with what works or is
your first thought, how can youchange the menu?
And usually that's a red flagnot to say there's not any
autonomy in, in running thebusiness, but the intention is
(06:15):
to run with that model.
That's the advantage you'regetting with a franchise.
Things to think about.
So financials is one, and younotice some of these questions
pop up on the website.
You know, the second one is, canyou follow a system?
Really important because that'sthe, the value proposition of a
franchise, right?
They have the, the system builtout for you so that you can
easily execute and run with it.
(06:35):
Some people like to createeverything from scratch and
that's okay.
You know, maybe not the best fitfor a franchise, but that's
really what a franchise is.
They have the system, you runwith it.
You know, speed, speed to, to,to get open, which is a major
advantage and the autonomy comeswith how you're running the day
to day via the marketing, yourroles and things like that.
(06:57):
And we're going to touch more onroles and characteristics of the
business next.
And, and the last thing, youknow, as far as, so financials.
And, you know, can you follow a,a system is timeframe because at
the end of the day you can spendas much as you'd like
researching franchises, butultimately with the franchise if
you're looking at a specificfranchise, other people are
(07:18):
looking at a franchise too, justlike, you're in the real estate
market, looking at a home or aninvestment property or building
on the commercial side, youknow, that may not be available.
So I always tell people if.
You are looking to make adecision within six, six months
or less.
Now's probably a good time tostart considering a franchise,
(07:38):
not to open, but to actuallymake that decision further than
six months.
If it's a year or two, it's okayto start the process, but not
maybe dive into specific brandsbecause we don't know what's
going to be available in thenext year or two.
That's something also to thinkabout is that with the
franchise, it's going to be alocation or specific territory
and other people are going to belooking at that as well.
(07:59):
So consider those, those threebullet points I think is going
to be super beneficial and youknow, hopefully you're, you're
getting a lot of takeaways.
And again, if we're workingtogether, We're going through
all this.
We're spending a lot of time.
And that's done on our firstcall, which is that 20 minute
intro call.
So we'll figure out togetherkind of your current situation,
what you're looking toaccomplish expectations of, of a
(08:22):
franchise.
We're going to go through thingsand we'll touch on some here
that there are over 4,000franchises So these are the
stats that we give.
70 plus industries, allinvestment levels.
You know, there, if you canthink of a business model,
there's a franchise.
And not every franchise iscreated equal.
So we're going to, we go throughthat as well.
And typically 20 minutes or lessassuming how that call goes.
(08:46):
If we both agree that afranchise may be a good fit we
schedule a second call and priorto that second call, we sent out
a survey or questionnaire thatwill give us a little bit more
insights on your background,your experience levels you know,
what your, your skill set is notjust you have experience in the
roofing business, but is it, isit that transferable skill set
(09:06):
of sales and things like that?
You know, so it'll go throughthere.
Will you have partners if you'remarried or are you going to have
partners, you know, are theygoing to be involved and at what
capacity they silent or activepartners, you know, what do they
bring to the table?
And once we get that back, weschedule kind of the second
part, which is you know, Whatdoes the ideal franchise look
(09:26):
like?
So again, if a franchise is in agood fit, no real reason, start
looking at brands, doing all theextra work, it's really getting
clear for franchise could work.
So that's, that's kind of stepone, step two, and finding your,
your perfect franchise is whatis the ideal business look like?
Now this is really reverseengineering the process because
what most people do is.
(09:48):
They'll look at a company likeMcDonald's or Subway and say,
okay.
Back in the day when I startedlooking, Subway was, I think,
one of the top sellingfranchises at the time.
And I said, okay, I can make itwork.
And what I found out was I wassettling.
I kept settling.
Like I didn't want a lot ofstaff.
I didn't want to be open everysingle day.
I didn't want to rely on a grossstrategy of.
(10:11):
additional locations, which is,there's nothing wrong with, but
just wasn't my ideal businesswhen I wrote it down on paper.
So you start to settle.
So my challenge to you is putall the brands aside.
We don't even care about brandsat this point is to set up a 60
minute consultation call.
And if you're doing it on yourown, And really, if you're kind
of listing out what the idealbusiness looks like.
(10:33):
So let's go down some, someoptions.
You know, what is your role inthe business?
Are you going to be a full timeowner, you know, leaving your,
your full time job, or are yougoing to be running this part
time?
Semi absentee.
You've, you've heard that term.
I've talked about it on previousepisodes.
Will you be relying on a generalmanager?
Not all brands will require ageneral manager.
(10:54):
Some can be run on your ownwithout staff, maybe a few
contractors, but.
You know, are you okay with amanager?
And if you are, you know,keeping in mind that will
increase your investment becausenow you have an extra salary.
So those are things to consider.
Secondly, you know, what do youenjoy doing?
What, what are your skills?
Are you an introvert, anextrovert?
(11:16):
Do you enjoy sales?
You know, the role in thebusiness is going to be, is
going to be big because we tendto fall in love with the product
or service of the franchise,forgetting what the role of the
franchisee is.
And you may love the idea of acertain service, but if it
requires you to be the mayor ofthe town and, and really network
(11:37):
and go to events and podcastsand stuff like that, and that's
not your cup of tea that's goingto be a difficult business to
run.
So really, you know,concentrating on the role and
keeping in mind too, that every,every franchise is different.
So you may have two franchisesthat offer the same service and
or product and the roles will bedifferent.
You know, one you know, one ofthe brands we'll say mosquito
(12:00):
spraying, we'll have you goingout there spraying for
mosquitoes.
building up a base and thenhiring staff.
Another one will maybe neverhave you touching a blower and,
and spraying for mosquitoes andhave you networking day one.
So same exact business servicewise, but different, completely
different roles.
These are, these are things tothink about.
Your employees is anothercategory.
(12:23):
What do your employees looklike?
And that's an odd question, butyour staff is going to be
crucial.
There are going to be certainbusinesses that require W 2
employees, some are going torequire 1099 contractors and
some are going to be a hybrid.
So maybe you're, you know, yourbookkeeper, your admin, your
general manager, those are the W2, the operational support.
(12:44):
And then the person the peopledoing the actual work.
We'll call it roofing andsiding.
Those are going to becontractors.
That's an option.
There are other businesses,exec, executive recruitment,
expense reduction, where you canrun the business on your own and
solely rely on, on 10 99contractors.
You know, other things toconsider with, with staff, are
they full time?
(13:04):
Part time?
Is it a larger staff?
You know, you're going to tendto see larger numbers in the
cleaning space.
Whereas you're going to seemaybe lower numbers in the water
and smoke restoration mitigationspace.
You know, with the largernumbers you're going to need
some type of background inmanagement, right?
Cause you're going to bemanaging this larger staff.
So those are, those are thingsto think about.
(13:26):
Do you prefer, you know,traveling standalone building?
Or do you prefer the flexibilityof working from home where
you're offering a service at acommercial property
residentially cleaning gutter,cleaning and repair and
replacement you know, roofing,painting, all that kind of
(13:46):
stuff.
So those are, again thedifferences there.
And you know, I'm not going tosay one is better than the
other.
But, you know, you have to lookat, okay, at the end of the day,
if I prefer the brick and mortarmodel, what is the growth
strategy and the growth strategyis simply to add on, you know,
the additional locations.
So that's something to thinkabout.
So once you hit certaincapacity, you know, that each
(14:10):
location can generate X and manyof those locations are needed.
Factoring in, you know, what itcosts to open up each one versus
a service based type of businesswhere, you know, your territory
base.
So if you're buying one, two orthree territories of a specific
brand, you're going toessentially incur some
additional discounted, usuallyfranchise fees for those
(14:32):
additional territories, justlike, you know, you would pay
with the the brick and mortaroption, but you would really
kind of focus on the localmarket.
With the same team, if yourteam, if you have a team of
three or two or whatever thatnumber is, whether you buy one,
two or three territories, you'regoing to start off with the same
team and slowly or graduallyexpand the staff.
(14:54):
Once you hit certain capacitywith your, with your staff and
employees.
So there's definitelydifferences there.
And we talk a lot more aboutthat, that, that, that's a kind
of, that scalability is going tobe kind of, another show in and
of itself.
Those are, those are things thatwe talk about in the
consultation.
If we haven't what else as faras that, that is you know, a
couple of things we dive.
(15:15):
A little bit deeper.
So the difference with kind ofthe service we offer versus a
portal, instead of saying, okay,do you prefer a brick and mortar
or service?
Do you prefer a low number ofemployees or a lot, you've never
owned the business.
You may have a hard timedeciding or not knowing the
difference.
And I always say, go with what,you know, your comfort level is.
But what we do is we break downin that 60 minutes.
(15:38):
Okay.
You know, what's the differencebetween a brick and mortar aside
from needing a physicallocation.
We talk about the length oftime.
We talk to, to get open theinvestment, you know, for a lot
of the home service brands areup and running in 90 days or
less brick and mortar nonstandalone could take six months
to a couple of years to getopen, depending on the
(16:00):
complexity of the build out.
Brick and mortar.
If you're building somethingfrom scratch in a standalone
building.
So they're building thestructure or if they're just,
you know, essentially there wasa restaurant in there and you,
you're just changing it for yourconcept that there's going to be
some variables they're workingwith the landlord negotiating
leases.
So tend to take a lot longer toget up and running.
(16:20):
But these are, these are thepreferences, you know, putting
together the list of, you know,things that you want the
business to have.
And we get really, reallyselective, you know, we want to
make sure each business checksoff all the boxes as opposed to,
let me just check off one boxand not the others and, and
start to settle.
Now you have a business that'skind of 50 percent of what you
envisioned that business to be.
(16:42):
That consultation along withyour responses from the survey
you sent to us give us acomplete picture of what this
ideal business looks like, andwe summarize it in a franchise
model which is essentially ifyou're doing it on your own, a
summary, just list those keyareas.
List your answers and that'sgoing to be part of your
criteria search.
We, we put it all together andreally kind of help in what that
(17:05):
ideal business looks like sothat any business, whether it's
a franchise or, or even nonfranchise.
We want to make sure that thatmodel we're using that model to
gauge any business goingforward.
Between this call or, or thesecond step that the
consultation that we justfinished wrapped up here, we
also want to talk about funding.
I always, you know, recommendspeaking with a funding company
(17:27):
directly.
You know, you have yourfinancials together.
They usually, we work with acompany both Benetrends or
Franfund are two companies wework with and they'll do a free,
no cost analysis.
There's no hard credit check.
Usually it's a soft check.
To see kind of what you qualifyfor.
They'll go through options likeSBA, government backed loans.
(17:48):
Believe it or not, there aresome brands out there that once
approved by the SBA will offer ahundred percent financing not
common, but there are a handfulof brands that will do that
typically.
20 to 30 percent is really theis what you're looking to put
down.
You know, just say an average aservice based brand is.
150 to 200, 000 all in which isessentially the 90 days of
(18:10):
operation, working capitalfranchise fee and all the costs
involved to get it.
The business up and running andto run for, for three months,
we'll round it up to say 200,000, you're looking at about 20
to 30%.
So 40 to 60, 000 and that 40 to60, 000 would be the down
payment.
And then the rest would befinanced via the SBA.
(18:31):
The use of retirement assetsROBS, Rob's plan rollover
business startup.
And those plans get to you toget, you get to utilize previous
employers 401k and oldtraditional IRA, not, not a Roth
IRA IRA.
If all your money's with yourcurrent employer, those funds
will become qualified afterleaving the employer.
So something to think about aswell.
(18:52):
Some people use a combination ofa retirement rollover or and
then an SBA loan and Benetrendsor friend fund will be able to
walk you through the process.
Kind of like when you're, whenyou're buying a home, I want to
make sure that everything is inline, that you're qualified and
looking at brands that youqualify for financially, but
just because you qualify for upto half a million.
(19:14):
Your comfort level may only be200, 000.
So getting clear on, you know,what you qualify for and then
what you're comfortable with aretwo different things.
Michael Minitelli (19:22):
40, 45 years ago our founder, Len Fisher.
Who was an ERISA attorney bytrade came up with this process.
He was working with one of hisclients who had most of his
assets in a retirement account,and Len utilized the IRS code
and you know, tax.
You know, all the informationthat the IRS lays out and
(19:44):
realize, Hey, you can do this ifit's done properly.
So it kind of happened byaccident and he created this
this process and 45 years later,you know, 50,000 plus clients
later, we've really created awhole industry around that
product.
So, yeah, it's very much, legal,it's very much blessed by the
(20:07):
IRS, I think Giuseppe the first15 years of us kind of in
business, it was a lot more, youknow, lobbying, you know, with
the IRS to get their blessing onthis.
Right.
But you know, they have sincegiving us the kind of green
light and nod that, you know,what Robs is, something that's
gonna be here and here to stay.
And you have our blessing aslong as you have an organization
(20:30):
like Benetrends or some of ourcompetitors that are doing it
properly and managing thoseaccounts.
So, yeah man it's again, just anoption.
Most people don't realize it'sat their fingertips.
And honestly, man, it's not verycomplicated.
I think a lot of people, to yourpoint, like.
I think it's like, I've neverheard of this.
(20:52):
So it gives them a natural kindof, hesitation.
But it's really no differentGiuseppe of the rollovers most
of us have done in our corporatelife.
Right, right.
So I had very, I was kind when Isat across Len 10 years ago when
he explained this to me.
He explained it to me in a waythat it made sense to me.
(21:13):
And I do that a lot with ourcandidates because they do come
from corporate backgrounds,right?
So we're both New Jersey guys,right?
We got a, you know, hundreds ofdifferent pharmaceutical
companies here, right?
So let's just say I'm, you know,an analyst at Johnson and
Johnson, right?
And I have a 401k with j and j.
Let's say there's$300,000 inthere.
(21:33):
And I get an opportunity to gowork for Pfizer.
Right.
Typically what we do inscenarios like that is I'll take
my j and j 401k with$300,000.
I'll roll that out into an IRA,or I can just roll that into
Pfizer's new 401k, right?
And going from one qualifiedretirement plan, you never pay
(21:54):
taxes and penalties on thattransaction.
All of us have done that incorporate life, right?
You have 300, you move 300.
Super simple.
When I'm at Pfizer and I'm goingthrough all my onboarding and
training and they're setting meup with my benefits and, you
know, fidelity 401k or Schwab,whatever they set me up with,
and I'm going through investmentoptions within that 401k
(22:16):
Giuseppe.
A lot of times one of thoseinvestment options is purchas
purchasing company stock.
Right.
So again, something I know I didin my technology career, you've
probably done it.
Most of the people that we workwith have done it.
At the time I didn't realize itwas kind of setting off a chain
of events, right?
So if I look at that 300 k and Isay, you know what, I'll take a
(22:37):
hundred of it and invest it inPfizer, I can do that.
Then what happens is my 401kjust now owns the amount of
shares that I just purchased forPfizer, and that a hundred
thousand dollars that I used topurchase it.
It doesn't remain in my Fidelityaccount.
It doesn't float.
In financial purgatorysomewhere.
(22:59):
It goes to Pfizer in one oftheir many corporate checking
accounts that company could nowuse for whatever legitimate
business expense that they want.
Right?
R and d product, salaries, realestate, anything.
So what Len figured out and whatwe do at Benetrends is literally
that same exact chain of events,but instead of doing it for
(23:21):
Johnson or Pfizer or Amazon, weset up Minitelli Enterprises,
right within MinitelliEnterprises.
We set up a qualified customizedretirement plan, and then we can
take that same$300,000 for myold j and j, 401k.
We roll it into MinitelliEnterprises.
(23:42):
New qualified retirement plan,and just like before going from
one qualified plan to the next,no taxes and penalties.
And then what happens is.
The retirement account thatBenetrends created for me is now
just gonna purchase privatelyheld stock in that Minitelli
Enterprises, and then throughthat privately held stock
(24:03):
purchase.
Giuseppe the retirementaccounts, gonna own privately
held shares$300,000.
Now goes to Mike Minnelli'scorporate checking account that
I could now use for anylegitimate business expense.
So that can be the franchisefees.
That can be a build out of mylocation if I'm having a brick
and mortar trucks equipment.
(24:25):
It can also be used to payyourself a salary, which is a
lot of times very hard to getfrom a loan.
And it can also be combined withSBA or another form of.
Funding to get additional fundsto help secure you know, your
investment.
So yeah, again, that, thathelped make sense to me 10 years
ago.
And when I try to explain itthat way, Giuseppe, it does seem
(24:46):
to resonate.
It does actually, with thepeople that have done it in
their corporate life, right?
It absolutely does when you kindof say it that way.
And that explanation actually isreally helpful because people
start getting into the weeds onthis, and I go I'm not the
expert in this area.
You know, we work with Berend,we work at Jade.
We work with Jade every singleday, you know, back and forth.
(25:08):
We, there's always this you'veprobably never heard of this
scenario.
It's always one of thoseconversation starters, but she's
been really helpful in, in, instarting that.
So, so that is, I guess abenefit there is, I'm looking at
it, it seems like it's yourmoney, so you get access to the
funding quicker and you don'thave to worry about note
payments every month, right.
It's just you got a newbusiness, right.
(25:29):
Yeah.
Yeah there's a lot of advantagesto it.
It is, to your point, a veryquick way to get, you know,
funding right from start tofinish.
You're looking at usually threeto four weeks from engagement to
that money sitting in yourcorporate checking account.
Even Giuseppe for the peoplethat have cash and liquidity and
they learn that this is anoption they quickly say to
(25:49):
themselves.
Well, if it's sitting in cash,that means I've probably already
paid my taxes on it, right?
Cash is good to have for yourday-to-day life, right?
You know, Becky needs braces.
Johnny's going to college.
Tree trees fell down on myhouse.
You know, cash is always good tohave.
So once they realize I canaccess my pre-tax dollars in
(26:12):
sometimes an underperformingretirement account.
I'd rather keep my cash here,right?
And then access these pre-taxdollars to, to help fund the
business.
So, you have the aspect of usingprevo versus post-tax.
Some people like thediversification of it, right?
If you have somebody that hassubstantial amount of money
(26:35):
within the IRAs and retirementaccounts, if they have a million
dollars and they can just pull200 of it.
Take it out of Wall Street andthe market and say, Hey, now I'm
investing it in Giuseppe and mybusiness.
It's diversified, right?
So it's not tied to Wall Street.
It's tied to me.
And then you have the individualGiuseppe that just likes
(26:55):
control, right.
Maybe there's some distrustabout Wall Street and you know,
the market and they say, youknow what?
I want to have control over mymoney and my destiny.
God forbid it doesn't work out.
There's nobody to blame but meand myself, I want to invest and
bet on me, which is anotherthing that people, you know,
like to do.
So it, there's a lot ofdifferent ways that, that people
(27:17):
view this.
And again, to, to our point,most people go into this
conversation not even knowing orrealizing that this is an
option.
Awesome.
No, that's that, that is reallyhelpful and, for anyone that
wants to learn a little bitabout, about, about the Robs or
any, anything we're talkingabout today, we're definitely
sharing this episode since youdo a much better job in
(27:38):
explaining it.
Yeah, especially when thequestion started started popping
up.
So this is one avenue of manytalk to us about, you know,
another, product or service isthe SBA loan.
So what is that?
What does SBA stand for?
For someone that's listening forthe first time and you know,
what does that process looklike?
And maybe even, you know,compare the two, maybe some
(28:00):
differences, obviously one'salone, but if there are
differences is what you can usethe funds for.
Yeah.
SBA Giuseppe is small businessadministration.
It's our government backedentity supporting small business
and entrepreneurship in the US,right?
You know, at the end of the day,these are just banks lending the
(28:21):
money.
What the SBA does is incentivizebanks to lend to Michael, to
Giuseppe, to anybody out thereby guaranteeing a certain
percentage of that loan.
I talk to people all day, everyday, and sometimes I ask, Hey,
why do you wanna look at A anSBA loan?
And they say, well, it'sguaranteed.
Yeah.
While that's true, it's notguaranteed to the borrower, it's
(28:44):
guaranteed by the bank that'slending it.
Right.
So, you know, I also get thequestion pretty frequently of,
well, why do I need an SBA loan?
Why can't I just get something,you know, traditional or
conventional?
the short answer is they're justharder to come by.
Banks like to follow the SBAprocessing guidelines because
(29:06):
they know at the end of the day.
Up to 75% of that loan can beguaranteed by the federal
government, right?
So the banks have protection.
Knowing that they have thebacking of the US government,
right?
If they do somethingconventional or traditional,
that risk is entirely on them,right?
So they like to follow thisprocess because again, it gives
(29:28):
the banks a level of protectionand it's kind of a safety net,
right?
And, you know, it's still a verypopular way people get into
business.
All of these banks are verydifferent in the types of loans
they have appetites for, andthose appetites change as they
become you know, you know, indifferent industries and
(29:49):
different thresholds once theyhit.
So what Berend does is wepartner with 60, about 60
lenders across the country, and.
We take 45 years of experienceand we're gonna walk a client
through from prequalification togoing directly to those lenders
that we know, love, fitness, orwe know love, service based or
(30:13):
health and wellness or quickfood service, and then try to
get the best potential ratethat's out there for the client,
right.
Because these are governmentbacked loans, though, gi, that
the banks do have to followspecific guidelines and
criteria.
So, if you don't mind, I'd loveto kind of just give you the
basis of what they look for,right?
(30:34):
Yeah.
They wanna know that theindividuals, you know, just to
outstanding, you know, UScitizen, right?
Clean record, you know, thingslike that.
Then they look into the creditprofile.
Usually anything from a six 70or above from a credit score
perspective will qualify.
And then the banks start to gothrough the the numbers, right?
(30:57):
So, regardless of the investmentrange that a client may be
looking at, typically what thebanks would like to see come
from the borrower.
Is anywhere from 10 to 20% ofthat total investment come from
them.
Right?
That's gonna be their skin inthe game.
And then the bank lends theremaining portion of the loan,
(31:19):
right?
The bank wants to know thatagain, you know, Joe or Mary
Smith you know, have funds goingtowards the project.
Gotcha.
Other things the banks want tosee is something we call
post-closing liquidity and realsimple GI epie.
What that means is, hey, after Icome to that table with 20%, do
(31:40):
I have sufficient?
Cash reserves and assets tocontinue to support my debt to
income ratio and livingexpenses, right?
They wanna make sure somebody'snot over leveraged, just coming
up with that 20%, right?
So they're gonna wanna see alittle bit of a runway, right?
I.
Sometimes the banks wantpersonal collateral, not all the
(32:02):
time, but as the investments getlarger, sometimes the banks do
wanna, you know, see collateralnine times outta 10, that's
gonna be a second position lienon a primary or investment
property.
Not always the case, it's alwaysdone on a lender decision.
But those are the typical sortof requirements that the banks
look for.
(32:23):
When lending money to anindividual or a partners.
Zach Beutler & Jen Wherre (32:25):
Well, yeah, I think there's, so,
there's two sides to thatanswer.
The, what I experiencedinitially was completely
entrepreneurial in business.
I looked at it and go, there'snothing in this space.
I feel was geared towardsteenagers that created a really
unique experience.
So that had me interested.
I've had a big concern oncustomer acquisition for a few
(32:45):
years now, where I think thedigital landscape is broken and
it's really hard to digitallyadvertise out there across
almost all industries.
And so with this concept, wereally, I mean, you really know
where your kids are at whenthey're there.
You have a new crop coming inevery year.
So there's things that you canstrategically do to get in front
(33:07):
of those customers and buildthose relationships.
I like that.
Versus having to go door todoor.
Or, you know, just blanket amarket.
You can be very sniper like withhow you approach the customer
acquisition, the residual.
This I thought was interestingwhen I heard that the only
campaign that they've done inadvertising was one direct mail
piece.
You know, that's where I waslike.
(33:30):
There's something here ontosomething.
Yeah.
You know, recession proof.
I think that you would wait toget your house roofed before you
make sure that your kid wassafe.
So there's a mandated from astate standpoint, even in like
Nebraska and Florida, wherethere's not a mandate, they
still either have to go througha program like this.
Or do documented driving hourswith a legal guardian.
(33:52):
And so it's, you know, I thinkparents would rather outsource
that to a professional than doit themselves.
So that's the first part.
I went from a business checkingthe boxes going, customer
acquisition can be dialed in aprofitable, residual, unique
experience.
Clearly can d differentiateyourself from the competition.
When I did the ride alongthough, I had not thought, you
(34:12):
know, and this is me beingtransparent, the mission
obviously, you know, wasimportant, but it was purely
business.
Right.
When I did the ride along,that's when it became emotional
for me.
And it, you know, with my kidsare young and I, this is what
they're gonna go through.
And there's not many businessesthat you can start where you can
make money build somethingthat's important to the
(34:33):
community and also do somethingthat's as, as unique as saving
kids lives.
I mean, it's really rewarding.
So that I didn't hit, that didnot hit me until I did that ride
along, and that's when it waslike completely flipped from my
mind in a different direction.
And I think that ride, yeah,that ride along, it's totally
different if they just, it kindof explained or showed you a
video to actually experience itfirsthand.
I know for myself, I have twoteenagers.
(34:55):
My son's 17, my daughter will be15.
So, yeah, we, we went, it'swe're in New Jersey, so it was
one of the, in one of the stateswhere you had to.
Mandated to have a drivingschool.
We didn't know where to go.
We just contacted the schoolbecause everyone's, you know,
and naturally every year youhave.
I forget how many kids in eachclass?
Two, 300 kids in each class.
So obviously they're all gonnabe in need of this service as
(35:16):
well.
If I can add one thing down theroad, if you can add, after they
get their licenses, I need toget one of these brakes on the
passenger side that are e thatare easy to to install because
I'm doing the air brakeconstantly whenever someone else
is driving.
So if that could be installedeasily that would be that would
be awesome.
But yeah I like that.
Who.
Who would you say?
So, you know, you know, this isa brand that obviously high-end
(35:38):
demand, you know, who is, whowould be the right fit.
So from a, you know, someonemaybe under it gets the mission
really hits home, but, you know,who are you looking for?
You know, what are the skillsets, the characteristics that
of that, you know, franchiseavatar that you're looking for.
There's some deal breakers withthis brand.
It, you know, I'm, I've alwaysbeen an experienced person, I
(35:59):
thought, I always think theexperience that you provide.
Is what can really set youapart.
And I think that's where I had alot of success from the
franchise development side.
And now being able to implementthat both on the franchise
development as well asoperations, we little bit
differentiate ourselves, but Ithink when you look at that
experience, you have to havesomeone at the top that can
(36:20):
culturally affect theorganization down.
And so the franchisees is gonnahave to be outgoing, it's gonna
have to have that just.
They're likable, they'reconnected in their community.
Preferably have a 14 to 16,17-year-old kid or teenagers
that are have recently wentthrough, are gonna have to go
through the program.
'cause then they have a builtinnetwork.
Right.
Right.
(36:40):
But I, it's a community typeperson that's got the
connections that people like.
And that when they look to hirepeople like themselves, they can
replicate that experience downthe totem pole.
You wanna add there?
No, you hit nail on the headthere.
The outgoing personality thatis, you know, a pillar of the
community, somebody that, thatagrees with mission too, I think
is important that are lookingfor things that they wanna do
(37:02):
that are mission based.
Isn't, you know, only thing thatI can think of body there that I
think who you don't want's also,or I don't think the analytical
chief technology officer thatwants to be in the office all
day is probably not the rightfit.
For this type of brand, and weare really wanting people to
focus on a superior experiencethat the teams go through.
(37:22):
Right.
And that's really important andthat's why I invite different
franchise companies, brick andmortar food, non-food service
base, you know, the experiencewe want not the experience, the
knowledge kind of to reallyexplain to people what does the
initial setup look like?
Who does well in certainindustries or with certain
brands.
And I do this, and I like tohelp people kind of compare and
(37:43):
contrast just to see, hey, do Isee myself doing this?
Is this a brand that, that mayor may not be a good fit?
You know, specifically for whatI'm looking to accomplish, based
off the skill sets, notnecessarily the experience that
you had.
Maybe you worked on Wall Street,but what is that transferrable
skillset?
Is it networking?
Is it sales?
That was my background andthat's how I got into to f my
first franchise and nowconsulting.
(38:05):
So I always tell people, thinkabout the skillsets, not
necessarily the actualexperience.
When it comes to, you know, theinvestment in funding, Jen,
obviously this is where we metin the past on the funding side.
So can you talk to a little bitabout, you know, maybe very some
ways of funding this type ofbusiness?
Maybe, you know, maybe top 2, 2,3 ways of funding this.
(38:27):
Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I mean, obvious, the obviousone is that the SBA loan.
Also we're gonna be looking intonot necessarily a fleet loan for
the vehicles, but going to thelocal, well, I don't know, Zach,
you could probably explain thefleet program side better than I
can, but Well, there's, I thinkthere's a couple options on the,
yeah.
When you look at the vehicles,our goal is to, hopefully they
(38:47):
ramp up as quickly as possible.
We're flexible on the actualtype of vehicle they're gonna be
driving.
So a lot of the times thedealership is gonna have the
lowest interest rate and bestfinancing option on the vehicle
itself.
I think it's gonna be thetypical lobsters rollover sBA
type of funding opportunity.
Yeah.
And then for initial growth, Ilike this concept for the future
growth because it can be donethrough the dealership
(39:09):
financing.
You know, it's on a$250,000second vehicle they, to get,
have, it's a 20 to$30,000 car.
Right.
Sounds good.
I and that's right.
I actually, you know, we talkabout SBL all the time, but I
forgot about the fleet loan, sothat, that's a very good point.
What else?
A about the brand that reallystands out or someone's taking a
look?
(39:29):
Obviously when someone's lookingat franchise, they're looking at
different brands, and we talkedabout the mission.
We talked about kind of, youknow, who the ideal candidate
would be.
Anything else that really standsout that, that differentiates
the brand compared to maybe someother businesses on the service
side?
Yeah, the customer acquisitionis always I think that's an
important part for a lot ofcandidates is, you know, how am
(39:49):
I gonna get customers?
When you look at emergingfranchise brands, the reason
that you're able to find them is'cause they have territory that
is open.
Right?
You look at like a Jimmy John'sand McDonald's, they're sold out
for a reason, but they havesystems and processes, but the
more important is they havenational awareness that are
feeding customers.
And so, you know, when you lookat different brands, how do you
go find those customers and howdo you manage that activity and
(40:13):
effort that we just talked aboutearlier?
I liked the idea that, there's aplace that you can go, you can
find out where they're at.
There's a strategy that we canput in place to go and get in
front of those types ofcustomers that, that I liked.
You know, where your customersare at, when they're gonna be
there, and you can go then doyour pitch versus having to sit
back and wait and hope they cometo you.
Right.
I like that mentality a lotbetter.
(40:34):
I think when you look at thecompetitors.
I mean, everybody that I'vetalked to recently across
multiple states have sent theirkids through a graduate license
program like this, know they hadto, there was a waiting room.
They had to wait several monthsbefore their kid could get in.
The, that local business istypically a vanilla shell, DMV
type of feel.
And so, you know, this, we'rereally trying to create an, a
(40:54):
superior experience.
We have.
Games in the lobby, we have theRainforest Cafe type of theme.
And so we're really trying tocreate a, an experience that's
just better than thecompetition, right?
And we really do believe that wecan capture market share pre
fast pace.
I like that.
And that's a concern peoplehave.
You know, two, two things.
Client ac client acquisition.
(41:15):
I've never done marketingbefore.
I worked for a large corporationjust like I did, and it was all
done for you.
You know, leads were essentiallyhanded to us to close, so.
Turnkey marketing, but ways tomanage it.
You know, we talked prior tohitting the record button and
maybe I should start recordingas soon as we, we all joined.
'cause we missed out on that.
But it, you know, what do we doto bring on leads to, to attract
(41:35):
new clients to the business?
That's crucial and it's an everevolving thing.
I know when I first started withSEO and the algorithms are
constantly changing, so reallyhaving that, that support.
As to e Exactly.
You know, how do I go aboutthis?
And and then what do you do overand beyond?
So yes we handle the digital,but what else can be done as you
mentioned events.
(41:57):
So, you know, is it my wife waspresident of the PTO for three
years.
I think that was the max.
And then you had to change itinto a diff change a different
position.
So.
Or P-T-A-P-T-O.
I know, depending on the school,they call it different, but you
know, what should we be doing?
Should we be sponsoring events?
Should we be working with theschools?
How early, what grade?
And I think having that roadmapand then you just really just.
(42:18):
Go after it.
Right.
Just kind of have that, that,that blueprint of exactly what
you should be doing.
So, am I missing anything there?
But I know that's crucial.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Yeah.
Getting into the schools and wehave specific parts of our
marketing that have usintertwined with the school
systems and not just, and a Hey,this is what we do, but hey
we're here to help and and be apart of the school's fabric,
(42:40):
which is just another componentto what we're doing with Jungle.
Yeah.
In my experience in marketing,too many franchise brands try to
hit home runs.
And it's not necessarily abouthome runs, it's about having
small wins and, you know,getting to a certain number of
Google reviews is important.
Having enough followers and on,on social platforms just to be,
(43:03):
to capture attention withupdates is important.
And then how do you manage thoseeffort and activities for a, for
like a gm for an example?
Like how do you know they'reactually going and doing those
things?
There's more.
There's more than you have to domore than one thing and have
more than one campaign andstrategy to be able to win the
game.
And so we're attacking it fromstill an old, one of them is an
old school targeted mailer tohouseholds that have a 16,
(43:25):
excuse me, 14 to 16-year-oldkid.
You know, that's a list that'sfairly cheap that you can attack
at the right time with a greatcall to urgency or an offer
that's still really effective.
And then a budget based on eachschool within a certain amount
of rate, a certain number of, ofthe school and we can really be
strategic about when they go,what they say, what they offer
at certain times.
(43:46):
Direct.
You know, I read somewheredirect mail is dead and I called
BS on that.
Direct mail is not dead.
It's how you go about it.
Thanks for tuning in if you wantto learn how to make the
transition from corporate toowning your franchise.
Join Giuseppe on the nextepisode.
You can also follow on allsocial media platforms and
achieve financial and timefreedom today.
My why was my, it was my family.
(00:01):
Well, what does that mean?
Well, my, my, that why my familybasically meant wanted to spend
more time with them.
I worked on wall street.
You know, 2003, four, five, six.
And with that commute, I wasnever going to see my family by
the time I left at five 30 inthe morning and got home after
eight 30, nine o'clock at night,five hour round trip commute.
(00:24):
I, I needed to make a change sothat my, why was spending more
time with family flexibility,and And you know, always had the
idea of becoming a soccer coachand never missing a soccer game,
which is something I, I got toaccomplish.
But that why is going to besuper important because just
like in any business, there'sgoing to be bumps in the road
and you need that strong enough.
(00:45):
Why to really get you throughthe, the ups and downs in, in
any business.
Michael Minitelli (00:50):
I want to invest and bet on me, which is
another thing that people, youknow, like to do.
Welcome to the Franchise FreedomPodcast, where you can escape
the corporate trap throughfranchise ownership.
Here's your host, Giuseppe gr,the franchise guide.
Giuseppe Grammatico (01:05):
Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast.
I'm your host, GiuseppeGrammatico, your franchise guide
to show where we help corporateexecutives experience time and
financial freedom.
Thanks for joining us today.
We really appreciate it.
And don't forget, feel free tovisit our website,
ggthefranchiseguide.com click onthat book a call.
I'd love to chat with you,answer your questions in regards
to business ownership, franchiseownership, if you're potentially
(01:27):
a good fit.
Book a 20 minute call with metoday.
There's no cost, no commitment,and I would love to help you out
in any, way we can.
today I'm joined by industryexperts who have helped
countless families buildfranchise empires that last.
Whether you're planning to passyour business to the next
generation or building yourfirst franchise with Legacy in
mind, you'll get real worldstories and expert insights
(01:49):
right here.
let's dive into what reallytakes to create a franchise that
just doesn't just survive, butthrives for generations.
It is a lot of work.
There's a big time commitment.
And usually the people I workwith, they are looking to do
accomplish a few things.
Number one is they want tocreate another source of income
which is good.
They want to create a safety netin the event of the next Job
(02:10):
loss, right?
There's, there's especiallycertain industries have been
cutting back on jobs job lossesand layoffs and things like
that.
There are other individuals thatown businesses that either want
to convert their business into afranchise or diversify.
Their investments and maybe addon just purely investment or add
on additional income streams.
Maybe it's a mom and pop roofingcompany that wants to offer an
(02:36):
add on a a franchise that offerspainting services.
or a coverings business wherethey're able to essentially
restore vinyl siding and thingslike that.
So really figuring out, youknow, why you want to own a
business.
Yes, we all want to make moremoney, but you know, really kind
of figuring out what is yourwhy.
For me as an example, and that'ssomething I'm starting to do a
(02:58):
lot more is kind of give my, mystory and give some examples.
My why was my, it was my family.
Well, what does that mean?
Well, my, my, that why my familybasically meant wanted to spend
more time with them.
I worked on wall street.
You know, 2003, four, five, six.
And with that commute, I wasnever going to see my family by
(03:18):
the time I left at five 30 inthe morning and got home after
eight 30, nine o'clock at night,five hour round trip commute.
I, I needed to make a change sothat my, why was spending more
time with family flexibility,and And you know, always had the
idea of becoming a soccer coachand never missing a soccer game,
which is something I, I got toaccomplish.
(03:39):
And that was my big, my bigaccomplishment as a business
owner is not just.
The money, but you know, thattime freedom that it created.
So some people, you know, Ialways tell people they're
looking for different things,time, freedom, financials are
more important than time, buttime is a close second or vice
versa.
And that is okay.
Everyone's situation isdifferent.
But that why is going to besuper important because just
(04:02):
like in any business, there'sgoing to be bumps in the road
and you need that strong enough.
Why to really get you throughthe, the ups and downs in, in
any business.
So things to consider with thefranchise.
Number one is you need money toinvest now with a startup.
The investment could be less,but what happens is that you're
figuring out the system.
So what you save avoiding afranchise fee in a startup you
(04:26):
know, it may take you two, threeyears to put that business plan
together.
Whereas a franchise, there arecertain businesses that don't
require any type of brick andmortar.
You're up and running in 90 daysor less.
So you're really kind ofspeeding up the process.
Kind of figuring out, you know,what you have, looking at your
financials, always getting your,your financials in order.
So liquid assets you know, yourliquidity, your total assets
(04:49):
your liabilities.
So basically your assets minusyour liabilities give you your
net worth.
The assets also include theliquidity, but how much money do
you have to put towards thebusiness?
I recommend as a starting point,50, 000 liquid, a hundred
thousand net worth.
You know, you're looking at theyou know, the equity in your
home and things like that for,for the assets, but you need to.
(05:10):
deduct a mortgage, but that'sjust a starting point.
You need to make sure that, youknow, it also depends how you're
running the business.
So if you're running it fulltime, you need to make sure that
you have enough of a, a safetynet or a nest egg set aside to
pay your, your monthly expense.
You may need six months livingexpense aside.
Because if you are the onlyincome in the household, who's
(05:31):
paying your mortgage and rentand health insurance and, you
know, student loans or whateveryou have out there.
Money is one.
So get your financials in orderregardless.
If you're going to buy abusiness or not, you should know
where you stand financially.
You know, that that's one.
Secondly, with a franchisespecifically, you want to look
at things such as, you know, amI okay following the system?
(05:54):
You know, if you're buying afast food franchise that serves
burgers, Are you going insaying, okay, I'm okay with,
with the menu and I'm just goingto run with what works or is
your first thought, how can youchange the menu?
And usually that's a red flagnot to say there's not any
autonomy in, in running thebusiness, but the intention is
(06:15):
to run with that model.
That's the advantage you'regetting with a franchise.
Things to think about.
So financials is one, and younotice some of these questions
pop up on the website.
You know, the second one is, canyou follow a system?
Really important because that'sthe, the value proposition of a
franchise, right?
They have the, the system builtout for you so that you can
easily execute and run with it.
(06:35):
Some people like to createeverything from scratch and
that's okay.
You know, maybe not the best fitfor a franchise, but that's
really what a franchise is.
They have the system, you runwith it.
You know, speed, speed to, to,to get open, which is a major
advantage and the autonomy comeswith how you're running the day
to day via the marketing, yourroles and things like that.
(06:57):
And we're going to touch more onroles and characteristics of the
business next.
And, and the last thing, youknow, as far as, so financials.
And, you know, can you follow a,a system is timeframe because at
the end of the day you can spendas much as you'd like
researching franchises, butultimately with the franchise if
you're looking at a specificfranchise, other people are
(07:18):
looking at a franchise too, justlike, you're in the real estate
market, looking at a home or aninvestment property or building
on the commercial side, youknow, that may not be available.
So I always tell people if.
You are looking to make adecision within six, six months
or less.
Now's probably a good time tostart considering a franchise,
(07:38):
not to open, but to actuallymake that decision further than
six months.
If it's a year or two, it's okayto start the process, but not
maybe dive into specific brandsbecause we don't know what's
going to be available in thenext year or two.
That's something also to thinkabout is that with the
franchise, it's going to be alocation or specific territory
and other people are going to belooking at that as well.
(07:59):
So consider those, those threebullet points I think is going
to be super beneficial and youknow, hopefully you're, you're
getting a lot of takeaways.
And again, if we're workingtogether, We're going through
all this.
We're spending a lot of time.
And that's done on our firstcall, which is that 20 minute
intro call.
So we'll figure out togetherkind of your current situation,
what you're looking toaccomplish expectations of, of a
(08:22):
franchise.
We're going to go through thingsand we'll touch on some here
that there are over 4,000franchises So these are the
stats that we give.
70 plus industries, allinvestment levels.
You know, there, if you canthink of a business model,
there's a franchise.
And not every franchise iscreated equal.
So we're going to, we go throughthat as well.
And typically 20 minutes or lessassuming how that call goes.
(08:46):
If we both agree that afranchise may be a good fit we
schedule a second call and priorto that second call, we sent out
a survey or questionnaire thatwill give us a little bit more
insights on your background,your experience levels you know,
what your, your skill set is notjust you have experience in the
roofing business, but is it, isit that transferable skill set
(09:06):
of sales and things like that?
You know, so it'll go throughthere.
Will you have partners if you'remarried or are you going to have
partners, you know, are theygoing to be involved and at what
capacity they silent or activepartners, you know, what do they
bring to the table?
And once we get that back, weschedule kind of the second
part, which is you know, Whatdoes the ideal franchise look
(09:26):
like?
So again, if a franchise is in agood fit, no real reason, start
looking at brands, doing all theextra work, it's really getting
clear for franchise could work.
So that's, that's kind of stepone, step two, and finding your,
your perfect franchise is whatis the ideal business look like?
Now this is really reverseengineering the process because
what most people do is.
(09:48):
They'll look at a company likeMcDonald's or Subway and say,
okay.
Back in the day when I startedlooking, Subway was, I think,
one of the top sellingfranchises at the time.
And I said, okay, I can make itwork.
And what I found out was I wassettling.
I kept settling.
Like I didn't want a lot ofstaff.
I didn't want to be open everysingle day.
I didn't want to rely on a grossstrategy of.
(10:11):
additional locations, which is,there's nothing wrong with, but
just wasn't my ideal businesswhen I wrote it down on paper.
So you start to settle.
So my challenge to you is putall the brands aside.
We don't even care about brandsat this point is to set up a 60
minute consultation call.
And if you're doing it on yourown, And really, if you're kind
of listing out what the idealbusiness looks like.
(10:33):
So let's go down some, someoptions.
You know, what is your role inthe business?
Are you going to be a full timeowner, you know, leaving your,
your full time job, or are yougoing to be running this part
time?
Semi absentee.
You've, you've heard that term.
I've talked about it on previousepisodes.
Will you be relying on a generalmanager?
Not all brands will require ageneral manager.
(10:54):
Some can be run on your ownwithout staff, maybe a few
contractors, but.
You know, are you okay with amanager?
And if you are, you know,keeping in mind that will
increase your investment becausenow you have an extra salary.
So those are things to consider.
Secondly, you know, what do youenjoy doing?
What, what are your skills?
Are you an introvert, anextrovert?
(11:16):
Do you enjoy sales?
You know, the role in thebusiness is going to be, is
going to be big because we tendto fall in love with the product
or service of the franchise,forgetting what the role of the
franchisee is.
And you may love the idea of acertain service, but if it
requires you to be the mayor ofthe town and, and really network
(11:37):
and go to events and podcastsand stuff like that, and that's
not your cup of tea that's goingto be a difficult business to
run.
So really, you know,concentrating on the role and
keeping in mind too, that every,every franchise is different.
So you may have two franchisesthat offer the same service and
or product and the roles will bedifferent.
You know, one you know, one ofthe brands we'll say mosquito
(12:00):
spraying, we'll have you goingout there spraying for
mosquitoes.
building up a base and thenhiring staff.
Another one will maybe neverhave you touching a blower and,
and spraying for mosquitoes andhave you networking day one.
So same exact business servicewise, but different, completely
different roles.
These are, these are things tothink about.
Your employees is anothercategory.
(12:23):
What do your employees looklike?
And that's an odd question, butyour staff is going to be
crucial.
There are going to be certainbusinesses that require W 2
employees, some are going torequire 1099 contractors and
some are going to be a hybrid.
So maybe you're, you know, yourbookkeeper, your admin, your
general manager, those are the W2, the operational support.
(12:44):
And then the person the peopledoing the actual work.
We'll call it roofing andsiding.
Those are going to becontractors.
That's an option.
There are other businesses,exec, executive recruitment,
expense reduction, where you canrun the business on your own and
solely rely on, on 10 99contractors.
You know, other things toconsider with, with staff, are
they full time?
(13:04):
Part time?
Is it a larger staff?
You know, you're going to tendto see larger numbers in the
cleaning space.
Whereas you're going to seemaybe lower numbers in the water
and smoke restoration mitigationspace.
You know, with the largernumbers you're going to need
some type of background inmanagement, right?
Cause you're going to bemanaging this larger staff.
So those are, those are thingsto think about.
(13:26):
Do you prefer, you know,traveling standalone building?
Or do you prefer the flexibilityof working from home where
you're offering a service at acommercial property
residentially cleaning gutter,cleaning and repair and
replacement you know, roofing,painting, all that kind of
(13:46):
stuff.
So those are, again thedifferences there.
And you know, I'm not going tosay one is better than the
other.
But, you know, you have to lookat, okay, at the end of the day,
if I prefer the brick and mortarmodel, what is the growth
strategy and the growth strategyis simply to add on, you know,
the additional locations.
So that's something to thinkabout.
So once you hit certaincapacity, you know, that each
(14:10):
location can generate X and manyof those locations are needed.
Factoring in, you know, what itcosts to open up each one versus
a service based type of businesswhere, you know, your territory
base.
So if you're buying one, two orthree territories of a specific
brand, you're going toessentially incur some
additional discounted, usuallyfranchise fees for those
(14:32):
additional territories, justlike, you know, you would pay
with the the brick and mortaroption, but you would really
kind of focus on the localmarket.
With the same team, if yourteam, if you have a team of
three or two or whatever thatnumber is, whether you buy one,
two or three territories, you'regoing to start off with the same
team and slowly or graduallyexpand the staff.
(14:54):
Once you hit certain capacitywith your, with your staff and
employees.
So there's definitelydifferences there.
And we talk a lot more aboutthat, that, that, that's a kind
of, that scalability is going tobe kind of, another show in and
of itself.
Those are, those are things thatwe talk about in the
consultation.
If we haven't what else as faras that, that is you know, a
couple of things we dive.
(15:15):
A little bit deeper.
So the difference with kind ofthe service we offer versus a
portal, instead of saying, okay,do you prefer a brick and mortar
or service?
Do you prefer a low number ofemployees or a lot, you've never
owned the business.
You may have a hard timedeciding or not knowing the
difference.
And I always say, go with what,you know, your comfort level is.
But what we do is we break downin that 60 minutes.
(15:38):
Okay.
You know, what's the differencebetween a brick and mortar aside
from needing a physicallocation.
We talk about the length oftime.
We talk to, to get open theinvestment, you know, for a lot
of the home service brands areup and running in 90 days or
less brick and mortar nonstandalone could take six months
to a couple of years to getopen, depending on the
(16:00):
complexity of the build out.
Brick and mortar.
If you're building somethingfrom scratch in a standalone
building.
So they're building thestructure or if they're just,
you know, essentially there wasa restaurant in there and you,
you're just changing it for yourconcept that there's going to be
some variables they're workingwith the landlord negotiating
leases.
So tend to take a lot longer toget up and running.
(16:20):
But these are, these are thepreferences, you know, putting
together the list of, you know,things that you want the
business to have.
And we get really, reallyselective, you know, we want to
make sure each business checksoff all the boxes as opposed to,
let me just check off one boxand not the others and, and
start to settle.
Now you have a business that'skind of 50 percent of what you
envisioned that business to be.
(16:42):
That consultation along withyour responses from the survey
you sent to us give us acomplete picture of what this
ideal business looks like, andwe summarize it in a franchise
model which is essentially ifyou're doing it on your own, a
summary, just list those keyareas.
List your answers and that'sgoing to be part of your
criteria search.
We, we put it all together andreally kind of help in what that
(17:05):
ideal business looks like sothat any business, whether it's
a franchise or, or even nonfranchise.
We want to make sure that thatmodel we're using that model to
gauge any business goingforward.
Between this call or, or thesecond step that the
consultation that we justfinished wrapped up here, we
also want to talk about funding.
I always, you know, recommendspeaking with a funding company
(17:27):
directly.
You know, you have yourfinancials together.
They usually, we work with acompany both Benetrends or
Franfund are two companies wework with and they'll do a free,
no cost analysis.
There's no hard credit check.
Usually it's a soft check.
To see kind of what you qualifyfor.
They'll go through options likeSBA, government backed loans.
(17:48):
Believe it or not, there aresome brands out there that once
approved by the SBA will offer ahundred percent financing not
common, but there are a handfulof brands that will do that
typically.
20 to 30 percent is really theis what you're looking to put
down.
You know, just say an average aservice based brand is.
150 to 200, 000 all in which isessentially the 90 days of
(18:10):
operation, working capitalfranchise fee and all the costs
involved to get it.
The business up and running andto run for, for three months,
we'll round it up to say 200,000, you're looking at about 20
to 30%.
So 40 to 60, 000 and that 40 to60, 000 would be the down
payment.
And then the rest would befinanced via the SBA.
(18:31):
The use of retirement assetsROBS, Rob's plan rollover
business startup.
And those plans get to you toget, you get to utilize previous
employers 401k and oldtraditional IRA, not, not a Roth
IRA IRA.
If all your money's with yourcurrent employer, those funds
will become qualified afterleaving the employer.
So something to think about aswell.
(18:52):
Some people use a combination ofa retirement rollover or and
then an SBA loan and Benetrendsor friend fund will be able to
walk you through the process.
Kind of like when you're, whenyou're buying a home, I want to
make sure that everything is inline, that you're qualified and
looking at brands that youqualify for financially, but
just because you qualify for upto half a million.
(19:14):
Your comfort level may only be200, 000.
So getting clear on, you know,what you qualify for and then
what you're comfortable with aretwo different things.
Michael Minitelli (19:22):
40, 45 years ago our founder, Len Fisher.
Who was an ERISA attorney bytrade came up with this process.
He was working with one of hisclients who had most of his
assets in a retirement account,and Len utilized the IRS code
and you know, tax.
You know, all the informationthat the IRS lays out and
(19:44):
realize, Hey, you can do this ifit's done properly.
So it kind of happened byaccident and he created this
this process and 45 years later,you know, 50,000 plus clients
later, we've really created awhole industry around that
product.
So, yeah, it's very much, legal,it's very much blessed by the
(20:07):
IRS, I think Giuseppe the first15 years of us kind of in
business, it was a lot more, youknow, lobbying, you know, with
the IRS to get their blessing onthis.
Right.
But you know, they have sincegiving us the kind of green
light and nod that, you know,what Robs is, something that's
gonna be here and here to stay.
And you have our blessing aslong as you have an organization
(20:30):
like Benetrends or some of ourcompetitors that are doing it
properly and managing thoseaccounts.
So, yeah man it's again, just anoption.
Most people don't realize it'sat their fingertips.
And honestly, man, it's not verycomplicated.
I think a lot of people, to yourpoint, like.
I think it's like, I've neverheard of this.
(20:52):
So it gives them a natural kindof, hesitation.
But it's really no differentGiuseppe of the rollovers most
of us have done in our corporatelife.
Right, right.
So I had very, I was kind when Isat across Len 10 years ago when
he explained this to me.
He explained it to me in a waythat it made sense to me.
(21:13):
And I do that a lot with ourcandidates because they do come
from corporate backgrounds,right?
So we're both New Jersey guys,right?
We got a, you know, hundreds ofdifferent pharmaceutical
companies here, right?
So let's just say I'm, you know,an analyst at Johnson and
Johnson, right?
And I have a 401k with j and j.
Let's say there's$300,000 inthere.
(21:33):
And I get an opportunity to gowork for Pfizer.
Right.
Typically what we do inscenarios like that is I'll take
my j and j 401k with$300,000.
I'll roll that out into an IRA,or I can just roll that into
Pfizer's new 401k, right?
And going from one qualifiedretirement plan, you never pay
(21:54):
taxes and penalties on thattransaction.
All of us have done that incorporate life, right?
You have 300, you move 300.
Super simple.
When I'm at Pfizer and I'm goingthrough all my onboarding and
training and they're setting meup with my benefits and, you
know, fidelity 401k or Schwab,whatever they set me up with,
and I'm going through investmentoptions within that 401k
(22:16):
Giuseppe.
A lot of times one of thoseinvestment options is purchas
purchasing company stock.
Right.
So again, something I know I didin my technology career, you've
probably done it.
Most of the people that we workwith have done it.
At the time I didn't realize itwas kind of setting off a chain
of events, right?
So if I look at that 300 k and Isay, you know what, I'll take a
(22:37):
hundred of it and invest it inPfizer, I can do that.
Then what happens is my 401kjust now owns the amount of
shares that I just purchased forPfizer, and that a hundred
thousand dollars that I used topurchase it.
It doesn't remain in my Fidelityaccount.
It doesn't float.
In financial purgatorysomewhere.
(22:59):
It goes to Pfizer in one oftheir many corporate checking
accounts that company could nowuse for whatever legitimate
business expense that they want.
Right?
R and d product, salaries, realestate, anything.
So what Len figured out and whatwe do at Benetrends is literally
that same exact chain of events,but instead of doing it for
(23:21):
Johnson or Pfizer or Amazon, weset up Minitelli Enterprises,
right within MinitelliEnterprises.
We set up a qualified customizedretirement plan, and then we can
take that same$300,000 for myold j and j, 401k.
We roll it into MinitelliEnterprises.
(23:42):
New qualified retirement plan,and just like before going from
one qualified plan to the next,no taxes and penalties.
And then what happens is.
The retirement account thatBenetrends created for me is now
just gonna purchase privatelyheld stock in that Minitelli
Enterprises, and then throughthat privately held stock
(24:03):
purchase.
Giuseppe the retirementaccounts, gonna own privately
held shares$300,000.
Now goes to Mike Minnelli'scorporate checking account that
I could now use for anylegitimate business expense.
So that can be the franchisefees.
That can be a build out of mylocation if I'm having a brick
and mortar trucks equipment.
(24:25):
It can also be used to payyourself a salary, which is a
lot of times very hard to getfrom a loan.
And it can also be combined withSBA or another form of.
Funding to get additional fundsto help secure you know, your
investment.
So yeah, again, that, thathelped make sense to me 10 years
ago.
And when I try to explain itthat way, Giuseppe, it does seem
(24:46):
to resonate.
It does actually, with thepeople that have done it in
their corporate life, right?
It absolutely does when you kindof say it that way.
And that explanation actually isreally helpful because people
start getting into the weeds onthis, and I go I'm not the
expert in this area.
You know, we work with Berend,we work at Jade.
We work with Jade every singleday, you know, back and forth.
(25:08):
We, there's always this you'veprobably never heard of this
scenario.
It's always one of thoseconversation starters, but she's
been really helpful in, in, instarting that.
So, so that is, I guess abenefit there is, I'm looking at
it, it seems like it's yourmoney, so you get access to the
funding quicker and you don'thave to worry about note
payments every month, right.
It's just you got a newbusiness, right.
(25:29):
Yeah.
Yeah there's a lot of advantagesto it.
It is, to your point, a veryquick way to get, you know,
funding right from start tofinish.
You're looking at usually threeto four weeks from engagement to
that money sitting in yourcorporate checking account.
Even Giuseppe for the peoplethat have cash and liquidity and
they learn that this is anoption they quickly say to
(25:49):
themselves.
Well, if it's sitting in cash,that means I've probably already
paid my taxes on it, right?
Cash is good to have for yourday-to-day life, right?
You know, Becky needs braces.
Johnny's going to college.
Tree trees fell down on myhouse.
You know, cash is always good tohave.
So once they realize I canaccess my pre-tax dollars in
(26:12):
sometimes an underperformingretirement account.
I'd rather keep my cash here,right?
And then access these pre-taxdollars to, to help fund the
business.
So, you have the aspect of usingprevo versus post-tax.
Some people like thediversification of it, right?
If you have somebody that hassubstantial amount of money
(26:35):
within the IRAs and retirementaccounts, if they have a million
dollars and they can just pull200 of it.
Take it out of Wall Street andthe market and say, Hey, now I'm
investing it in Giuseppe and mybusiness.
It's diversified, right?
So it's not tied to Wall Street.
It's tied to me.
And then you have the individualGiuseppe that just likes
(26:55):
control, right.
Maybe there's some distrustabout Wall Street and you know,
the market and they say, youknow what?
I want to have control over mymoney and my destiny.
God forbid it doesn't work out.
There's nobody to blame but meand myself, I want to invest and
bet on me, which is anotherthing that people, you know,
like to do.
So it, there's a lot ofdifferent ways that, that people
(27:17):
view this.
And again, to, to our point,most people go into this
conversation not even knowing orrealizing that this is an
option.
Awesome.
No, that's that, that is reallyhelpful and, for anyone that
wants to learn a little bitabout, about, about the Robs or
any, anything we're talkingabout today, we're definitely
sharing this episode since youdo a much better job in
(27:38):
explaining it.
Yeah, especially when thequestion started started popping
up.
So this is one avenue of manytalk to us about, you know,
another, product or service isthe SBA loan.
So what is that?
What does SBA stand for?
For someone that's listening forthe first time and you know,
what does that process looklike?
And maybe even, you know,compare the two, maybe some
(28:00):
differences, obviously one'salone, but if there are
differences is what you can usethe funds for.
Yeah.
SBA Giuseppe is small businessadministration.
It's our government backedentity supporting small business
and entrepreneurship in the US,right?
You know, at the end of the day,these are just banks lending the
(28:21):
money.
What the SBA does is incentivizebanks to lend to Michael, to
Giuseppe, to anybody out thereby guaranteeing a certain
percentage of that loan.
I talk to people all day, everyday, and sometimes I ask, Hey,
why do you wanna look at A anSBA loan?
And they say, well, it'sguaranteed.
Yeah.
While that's true, it's notguaranteed to the borrower, it's
(28:44):
guaranteed by the bank that'slending it.
Right.
So, you know, I also get thequestion pretty frequently of,
well, why do I need an SBA loan?
Why can't I just get something,you know, traditional or
conventional?
the short answer is they're justharder to come by.
Banks like to follow the SBAprocessing guidelines because
(29:06):
they know at the end of the day.
Up to 75% of that loan can beguaranteed by the federal
government, right?
So the banks have protection.
Knowing that they have thebacking of the US government,
right?
If they do somethingconventional or traditional,
that risk is entirely on them,right?
So they like to follow thisprocess because again, it gives
(29:28):
the banks a level of protectionand it's kind of a safety net,
right?
And, you know, it's still a verypopular way people get into
business.
All of these banks are verydifferent in the types of loans
they have appetites for, andthose appetites change as they
become you know, you know, indifferent industries and
(29:49):
different thresholds once theyhit.
So what Berend does is wepartner with 60, about 60
lenders across the country, and.
We take 45 years of experienceand we're gonna walk a client
through from prequalification togoing directly to those lenders
that we know, love, fitness, orwe know love, service based or
(30:13):
health and wellness or quickfood service, and then try to
get the best potential ratethat's out there for the client,
right.
Because these are governmentbacked loans, though, gi, that
the banks do have to followspecific guidelines and
criteria.
So, if you don't mind, I'd loveto kind of just give you the
basis of what they look for,right?
(30:34):
Yeah.
They wanna know that theindividuals, you know, just to
outstanding, you know, UScitizen, right?
Clean record, you know, thingslike that.
Then they look into the creditprofile.
Usually anything from a six 70or above from a credit score
perspective will qualify.
And then the banks start to gothrough the the numbers, right?
(30:57):
So, regardless of the investmentrange that a client may be
looking at, typically what thebanks would like to see come
from the borrower.
Is anywhere from 10 to 20% ofthat total investment come from
them.
Right?
That's gonna be their skin inthe game.
And then the bank lends theremaining portion of the loan,
(31:19):
right?
The bank wants to know thatagain, you know, Joe or Mary
Smith you know, have funds goingtowards the project.
Gotcha.
Other things the banks want tosee is something we call
post-closing liquidity and realsimple GI epie.
What that means is, hey, after Icome to that table with 20%, do
(31:40):
I have sufficient?
Cash reserves and assets tocontinue to support my debt to
income ratio and livingexpenses, right?
They wanna make sure somebody'snot over leveraged, just coming
up with that 20%, right?
So they're gonna wanna see alittle bit of a runway, right?
I.
Sometimes the banks wantpersonal collateral, not all the
(32:02):
time, but as the investments getlarger, sometimes the banks do
wanna, you know, see collateralnine times outta 10, that's
gonna be a second position lienon a primary or investment
property.
Not always the case, it's alwaysdone on a lender decision.
But those are the typical sortof requirements that the banks
look for.
(32:23):
When lending money to anindividual or a partners.
Zach Beutler & Jen Wherre (32:25):
Well, yeah, I think there's, so,
there's two sides to thatanswer.
The, what I experiencedinitially was completely
entrepreneurial in business.
I looked at it and go, there'snothing in this space.
I feel was geared towardsteenagers that created a really
unique experience.
So that had me interested.
I've had a big concern oncustomer acquisition for a few
(32:45):
years now, where I think thedigital landscape is broken and
it's really hard to digitallyadvertise out there across
almost all industries.
And so with this concept, wereally, I mean, you really know
where your kids are at whenthey're there.
You have a new crop coming inevery year.
So there's things that you canstrategically do to get in front
(33:07):
of those customers and buildthose relationships.
I like that.
Versus having to go door todoor.
Or, you know, just blanket amarket.
You can be very sniper like withhow you approach the customer
acquisition, the residual.
This I thought was interestingwhen I heard that the only
campaign that they've done inadvertising was one direct mail
piece.
You know, that's where I waslike.
(33:30):
There's something here ontosomething.
Yeah.
You know, recession proof.
I think that you would wait toget your house roofed before you
make sure that your kid wassafe.
So there's a mandated from astate standpoint, even in like
Nebraska and Florida, wherethere's not a mandate, they
still either have to go througha program like this.
Or do documented driving hourswith a legal guardian.
(33:52):
And so it's, you know, I thinkparents would rather outsource
that to a professional than doit themselves.
So that's the first part.
I went from a business checkingthe boxes going, customer
acquisition can be dialed in aprofitable, residual, unique
experience.
Clearly can d differentiateyourself from the competition.
When I did the ride alongthough, I had not thought, you
(34:12):
know, and this is me beingtransparent, the mission
obviously, you know, wasimportant, but it was purely
business.
Right.
When I did the ride along,that's when it became emotional
for me.
And it, you know, with my kidsare young and I, this is what
they're gonna go through.
And there's not many businessesthat you can start where you can
make money build somethingthat's important to the
(34:33):
community and also do somethingthat's as, as unique as saving
kids lives.
I mean, it's really rewarding.
So that I didn't hit, that didnot hit me until I did that ride
along, and that's when it waslike completely flipped from my
mind in a different direction.
And I think that ride, yeah,that ride along, it's totally
different if they just, it kindof explained or showed you a
video to actually experience itfirsthand.
I know for myself, I have twoteenagers.
(34:55):
My son's 17, my daughter will be15.
So, yeah, we, we went, it'swe're in New Jersey, so it was
one of the, in one of the stateswhere you had to.
Mandated to have a drivingschool.
We didn't know where to go.
We just contacted the schoolbecause everyone's, you know,
and naturally every year youhave.
I forget how many kids in eachclass?
Two, 300 kids in each class.
So obviously they're all gonnabe in need of this service as
(35:16):
well.
If I can add one thing down theroad, if you can add, after they
get their licenses, I need toget one of these brakes on the
passenger side that are e thatare easy to to install because
I'm doing the air brakeconstantly whenever someone else
is driving.
So if that could be installedeasily that would be that would
be awesome.
But yeah I like that.
Who.
Who would you say?
So, you know, you know, this isa brand that obviously high-end
(35:38):
demand, you know, who is, whowould be the right fit.
So from a, you know, someonemaybe under it gets the mission
really hits home, but, you know,who are you looking for?
You know, what are the skillsets, the characteristics that
of that, you know, franchiseavatar that you're looking for.
There's some deal breakers withthis brand.
It, you know, I'm, I've alwaysbeen an experienced person, I
(35:59):
thought, I always think theexperience that you provide.
Is what can really set youapart.
And I think that's where I had alot of success from the
franchise development side.
And now being able to implementthat both on the franchise
development as well asoperations, we little bit
differentiate ourselves, but Ithink when you look at that
experience, you have to havesomeone at the top that can
(36:20):
culturally affect theorganization down.
And so the franchisees is gonnahave to be outgoing, it's gonna
have to have that just.
They're likable, they'reconnected in their community.
Preferably have a 14 to 16,17-year-old kid or teenagers
that are have recently wentthrough, are gonna have to go
through the program.
'cause then they have a builtinnetwork.
Right.
Right.
(36:40):
But I, it's a community typeperson that's got the
connections that people like.
And that when they look to hirepeople like themselves, they can
replicate that experience downthe totem pole.
You wanna add there?
No, you hit nail on the headthere.
The outgoing personality thatis, you know, a pillar of the
community, somebody that, thatagrees with mission too, I think
is important that are lookingfor things that they wanna do
(37:02):
that are mission based.
Isn't, you know, only thing thatI can think of body there that I
think who you don't want's also,or I don't think the analytical
chief technology officer thatwants to be in the office all
day is probably not the rightfit.
For this type of brand, and weare really wanting people to
focus on a superior experiencethat the teams go through.
(37:22):
Right.
And that's really important andthat's why I invite different
franchise companies, brick andmortar food, non-food service
base, you know, the experiencewe want not the experience, the
knowledge kind of to reallyexplain to people what does the
initial setup look like?
Who does well in certainindustries or with certain
brands.
And I do this, and I like tohelp people kind of compare and
(37:43):
contrast just to see, hey, do Isee myself doing this?
Is this a brand that, that mayor may not be a good fit?
You know, specifically for whatI'm looking to accomplish, based
off the skill sets, notnecessarily the experience that
you had.
Maybe you worked on Wall Street,but what is that transferrable
skillset?
Is it networking?
Is it sales?
That was my background andthat's how I got into to f my
first franchise and nowconsulting.
(38:05):
So I always tell people, thinkabout the skillsets, not
necessarily the actualexperience.
When it comes to, you know, theinvestment in funding, Jen,
obviously this is where we metin the past on the funding side.
So can you talk to a little bitabout, you know, maybe very some
ways of funding this type ofbusiness?
Maybe, you know, maybe top 2, 2,3 ways of funding this.
(38:27):
Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I mean, obvious, the obviousone is that the SBA loan.
Also we're gonna be looking intonot necessarily a fleet loan for
the vehicles, but going to thelocal, well, I don't know, Zach,
you could probably explain thefleet program side better than I
can, but Well, there's, I thinkthere's a couple options on the,
yeah.
When you look at the vehicles,our goal is to, hopefully they
(38:47):
ramp up as quickly as possible.
We're flexible on the actualtype of vehicle they're gonna be
driving.
So a lot of the times thedealership is gonna have the
lowest interest rate and bestfinancing option on the vehicle
itself.
I think it's gonna be thetypical lobsters rollover sBA
type of funding opportunity.
Yeah.
And then for initial growth, Ilike this concept for the future
growth because it can be donethrough the dealership
(39:09):
financing.
You know, it's on a$250,000second vehicle they, to get,
have, it's a 20 to$30,000 car.
Right.
Sounds good.
I and that's right.
I actually, you know, we talkabout SBL all the time, but I
forgot about the fleet loan, sothat, that's a very good point.
What else?
A about the brand that reallystands out or someone's taking a
look?
(39:29):
Obviously when someone's lookingat franchise, they're looking at
different brands, and we talkedabout the mission.
We talked about kind of, youknow, who the ideal candidate
would be.
Anything else that really standsout that, that differentiates
the brand compared to maybe someother businesses on the service
side?
Yeah, the customer acquisitionis always I think that's an
important part for a lot ofcandidates is, you know, how am
(39:49):
I gonna get customers?
When you look at emergingfranchise brands, the reason
that you're able to find them is'cause they have territory that
is open.
Right?
You look at like a Jimmy John'sand McDonald's, they're sold out
for a reason, but they havesystems and processes, but the
more important is they havenational awareness that are
feeding customers.
And so, you know, when you lookat different brands, how do you
go find those customers and howdo you manage that activity and
(40:13):
effort that we just talked aboutearlier?
I liked the idea that, there's aplace that you can go, you can
find out where they're at.
There's a strategy that we canput in place to go and get in
front of those types ofcustomers that, that I liked.
You know, where your customersare at, when they're gonna be
there, and you can go then doyour pitch versus having to sit
back and wait and hope they cometo you.
Right.
I like that mentality a lotbetter.
(40:34):
I think when you look at thecompetitors.
I mean, everybody that I'vetalked to recently across
multiple states have sent theirkids through a graduate license
program like this, know they hadto, there was a waiting room.
They had to wait several monthsbefore their kid could get in.
The, that local business istypically a vanilla shell, DMV
type of feel.
And so, you know, this, we'rereally trying to create an, a
(40:54):
superior experience.
We have.
Games in the lobby, we have theRainforest Cafe type of theme.
And so we're really trying tocreate a, an experience that's
just better than thecompetition, right?
And we really do believe that wecan capture market share pre
fast pace.
I like that.
And that's a concern peoplehave.
You know, two, two things.
Client ac client acquisition.
(41:15):
I've never done marketingbefore.
I worked for a large corporationjust like I did, and it was all
done for you.
You know, leads were essentiallyhanded to us to close, so.
Turnkey marketing, but ways tomanage it.
You know, we talked prior tohitting the record button and
maybe I should start recordingas soon as we, we all joined.
'cause we missed out on that.
But it, you know, what do we doto bring on leads to, to attract
(41:35):
new clients to the business?
That's crucial and it's an everevolving thing.
I know when I first started withSEO and the algorithms are
constantly changing, so reallyhaving that, that support.
As to e Exactly.
You know, how do I go aboutthis?
And and then what do you do overand beyond?
So yes we handle the digital,but what else can be done as you
mentioned events.
(41:57):
So, you know, is it my wife waspresident of the PTO for three
years.
I think that was the max.
And then you had to change itinto a diff change a different
position.
So.
Or P-T-A-P-T-O.
I know, depending on the school,they call it different, but you
know, what should we be doing?
Should we be sponsoring events?
Should we be working with theschools?
How early, what grade?
And I think having that roadmapand then you just really just.
(42:18):
Go after it.
Right.
Just kind of have that, that,that blueprint of exactly what
you should be doing.
So, am I missing anything there?
But I know that's crucial.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Yeah.
Getting into the schools and wehave specific parts of our
marketing that have usintertwined with the school
systems and not just, and a Hey,this is what we do, but hey
we're here to help and and be apart of the school's fabric,
(42:40):
which is just another componentto what we're doing with Jungle.
Yeah.
In my experience in marketing,too many franchise brands try to
hit home runs.
And it's not necessarily abouthome runs, it's about having
small wins and, you know,getting to a certain number of
Google reviews is important.
Having enough followers and on,on social platforms just to be,
(43:03):
to capture attention withupdates is important.
And then how do you manage thoseeffort and activities for a, for
like a gm for an example?
Like how do you know they'reactually going and doing those
things?
There's more.
There's more than you have to domore than one thing and have
more than one campaign andstrategy to be able to win the
game.
And so we're attacking it fromstill an old, one of them is an
old school targeted mailer tohouseholds that have a 16,
(43:25):
excuse me, 14 to 16-year-oldkid.
You know, that's a list that'sfairly cheap that you can attack
at the right time with a greatcall to urgency or an offer
that's still really effective.
And then a budget based on eachschool within a certain amount
of rate, a certain number of, ofthe school and we can really be
strategic about when they go,what they say, what they offer
at certain times.
(43:46):
Direct.
You know, I read somewheredirect mail is dead and I called
BS on that.
Direct mail is not dead.
It's how you go about it.
Thanks for tuning in if you wantto learn how to make the
transition from corporate toowning your franchise.
Join Giuseppe on the nextepisode.
You can also follow on allsocial media platforms and
achieve financial and timefreedom today.
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