I'm not the techiest person around. And so when I was approached to talk to a couple of folks about geofencing, I thought, geo what? So I had to take a look, find out what it was, but then it fascinated me, and it is a way for a small franchise to really maximize their foot traffic. So in this episode of FranchiseU!, I talk with Ernesto Cullari and Barbara Wardell, who've come up with an incredible concept.
In this episode of FranchiseU!, I ask Ernesto and Barbara to share their initial curiosity and subsequent fascination with geofencing. They discuss how this technology can help small franchises increase their foot traffic and more. This conversation has some very innovative uses of the geofencing concept.
Topics discussed include:
1. Understanding Geofencing
2. Benefits of Geofencing include:
- Increased Foot Traffic
- Targeted Marketing
- Enhanced Customer Engagement
3. How to embrace Geofencing
4. Learn more at the Cullari and Wardell Ad Agency Website
Ernesto Cullari is a multifaceted creative professional writer, commercial photographer, director, and Co-founder and CMO; renowned for pioneering GPS-based, location-based advertising. With expertise in content creation, digital advertising, and marketing strategy, he has worked with a wide range of high-profile brands and personalities. He was a regular on-air contributor and producer for The Financial Quarterback™ and has an extensive background in the music industry, having led artist development for Grammy-winning KNS Productions. A published songwriter and columnist, Cullari’s writing has appeared on Fox News and in triCityNews. In 2012, he ran for U.S. Congress as a GOP candidate in Monmouth County. Follow Ernesto Cullari on LinkedIn
Barbara Wardell is a seasoned marketing and ad professional who left behind a very successful career in the specialty medicine world to become a disruptor on behalf of small businesses. She has a focused and competitive mindset she uses to guide, Cullari & Wardell, a geofencing ad agency. Wardell focuses on what makes her clients strong and their competition weak. She then uses GPS location data to match would-be customers to her client’s strengths, thereby best positioning her clients for success. The measurable results in terms of increased foot traffic and online conversations are game-changing. Beyond her professional pursuits, Wardell is a proud mother of two outstanding young men, balancing her role as a dedicated businesswoman with a passion for enjoying life to the fullest and spending quality time with family and friends. Follow Barbara Wardell on Instagram.
Don’t miss out on all things FranchiseU!:
Website: FranchiseU!
Instagram: @franchiseu_podcast
Facebook: @FranchiseU Podcast
Twitter: @franchiseupod
TikTok: @franchiseupod
Reach out directly to Dr. Kathy Gosser via LinkedIn.
This episode proudly brought to you by the Center for Global Franchise Excellence at the University of Louisville College of Business.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I am not the techiest person around. And
so when I was approached to talk to
a couple of folks about geo fencing, I
thought, geo, what? So I had to take
a look, find out what it was, but
then it fascinated me. And it is a
way for a small franchise
to really maximize their foot traffic. So in
this episode of franchise you, I talk with
(00:20):
Ernesto Calari and Barbara Wardell who've come up
with an incredible concept. Join me and take
a listen.
Welcome to the FranchiseU podcast,
where key industry leaders provide education and inspiration.
Here's your host, doctor Cathy Gosser, the director
of the Yum Center for Global Franchise Excellence
(00:43):
at the University of Louisville.
Welcome to another episode of FranchiseU,
and we have an interesting one for you
today. With me, I have Ernesto Collari and
Barbara Wardell, who are the cofounders of Collari
and Wardell ad agency, which we're gonna talk
about in just a bit. But, hey. First,
we're gonna talk about the two of you.
(01:04):
Welcome, and thanks for being here.
Kathleen, thanks for having us. We're so excited
to talk to you and your students and
the pod. Excellent. Well, you're gonna tell us
a lot of things that many of us
don't know. But let's talk about the two
of you first because it's always so interesting
to hear about the folks and the history
that you've had. So Barbara,
you are a seasoned marketing professional. You have
extensive experience in the medical field. You were
(01:26):
a sales rep in specialty medicines
and know tons about marketing.
Ernesto you too are in medical sales, but
a couple of interesting things I pulled out
of your biography is that you ran for
Congress in 2012
and you realized you needed a headshot.
And this was fascinating to me because headshots
are probably my least favorite. So same with
(01:47):
you. You purchased a camera and you became
a photographer.
You're also a writer. You're an artist development
and you were on air with the financial
quarterly weekly.
But what was really interesting was I heard
on another podcast that you both had the
dream
to never
have a real job and to be independent.
And I found that fascinating.
(02:09):
So there's a lot here, and I'm gonna
ask you all to take a moment to
highlight your career. So Barbara, let's start with
you. Can you tell us about your professional
journey through medical sales and now to being
a co founder of Calari and Wardell?
Sure. It's a great story. So I got
into the medical field. First, I was in
insurance, and then I ended up going into
the medical field in specialty medicines where we
(02:31):
do compound.
And, yeah, so basically,
my job was to handle figuring out
what medicine would work for the doctors'
patients that actually
were having a hard time figuring out what
would work for these patients. They were trying
all the medic medication that was on the
store shelves, you know, from the pharmaceutical companies,
(02:53):
but they weren't working. So what could we
go a step further and figure out how
to make a medicine that would actually work
for that client, whether it was autism.
I had a big autism in Long Island,
which a lot of the medicine that are
on the shelves have so many chemicals,
and those chemicals would interact with those patients
(03:15):
and have a averse reaction. So we ended
up making,
medicine that had some natural ingredients as
well with them because we had that ability
and it just it worked with them. They
had less side effects from those medications. Because,
you know, there are certain things that they
have to have. And when
you do, you want the least amount that
(03:36):
would affect that that patient.
So from that, I did,
urologist.
I mean, I
a broad spectrum because, you know, in compounding,
it's specialty, so you're not having the patients
like if you were onboard
and just the regular pharmacy and getting your
medication.
So I started there. I had 250
(03:57):
doctors on my route. It was exciting,
and then COVID happened.
And
I couldn't go see my doctors anymore.
I was doing 2,000 miles a month Oh
my gosh. You know, for a while. And
it was hard because I was so used
to being in the offices, talking to the
office people, the doctors. It was always exciting
(04:19):
because at least I felt like I was
helping. There was a lot of handcuffs on
you though. The doctors really can't do as
much as they want to do, and you
could see them struggle with it, but I
still wanted to help. But it got frustrating
after a while just for the fact that
you could see that they wanted to, but
they were limited because of the insurance obligations
(04:39):
and stuff like that.
But from there, during COVID, I was only
calling them, and I didn't really have much
to do. And I was trying to figure
out what to do, and I ended up
meeting Ernesto.
And during COVID, he was having some issues
with what he was doing from home because
he was doing all, like, Instagram work and
doing amazing stuff. I'll let him tell you
(04:59):
that story.
So we ended up,
I was wanted to open up a business
on the side, passive income, which you think
is passive, but it's not. Correct.
You know, laundromats. I was looking up three
because I found out that that was, like,
the sweet spot of opening laundromats.
So I had asked him to help me
look at areas to see where would be
(05:22):
the best area for those laundromats, and he
was doing a laundromat boot camp. He was
explaining the technology of geofencing.
And it ended up I did not go
to that boot camp for the fact that
I was looking to have information on the
laundromat, but actually we collaborated
together
building this business and went together,
(05:44):
actually to promote geofencing.
Interesting.
That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing all of that.
Ernesto,
tell us a few highlights of your career,
please.
Sure. So I went to college
for biology,
minored in Spanish, and minored in
philosophy.
And, at first, I thought maybe physical therapy.
(06:06):
I thought medicine.
And, ultimately, I just didn't wanna be in
school anymore after almost seven I hear you.
So I got into medical device sales, and
I worked in orthopedics and plastic surgery,
general surgery, doing orthopedic devices and xenografts.
So in 2015,
I actually got fired from my job as
(06:27):
a med rep. I had a patient with
necrotizing fasciitis,
which is flesh eating disease.
And, I didn't realize that we couldn't apply
this product, bedside, we had to do in
the OR. Make a long story short, I
made a mistake, ended up saving the patient's
life. And then materials management gave me a
hard time. And this is when I realized
that the medical industry was changing, sort of
(06:47):
like what Barbara was saying,
that doctors can do what they want in
terms of helping patients.
And now I was just a med rep.
I wasn't a doctor, but still infinitely more
experienced than a hospital administrator
when it comes to patient care. So I
ended up getting fired because I was like,
what do you know, lady? No. No. No.
So I get fired and then start doing,
in 2012,
(07:08):
I, you know, I ran for congress and
had that camera. My friends were like, you
should start shooting for makeup companies.
So I get fired. Day one, I start
shooting for makeup companies because I'd I already
had people reaching out to me through Instagram.
So that was great. And then fast forward
four and a half, five years later,
COVID shuts everything down. Barbara and I meet
(07:29):
at a Halloween party. She was always helping
me develop my business. We became friends and
she was always had great ideas, great input.
But, really, our collaboration began out of defiance
because we were like, screw the government. Screw
people telling us what to do. We went
to illegal parties now. Yeah. We, like, we
did go to illegal parties. That's how we
were like. Our attitude is if we I
(07:50):
always die. But that should be our attitude.
And if you're you know, this is for
your students who are listening. If you wanna
live in a free world, you need to
keep pushing the boundaries of what your government
says you can and cannot do. And if
you wanna make any money, we're self employed.
And it's all it's this is all headed
somewhere. Trust me. So
if you wanna be self employed, you have
to be willing to take risks. And Barbara
(08:11):
was gonna take a risk with laundromats, and
I was like, I'm a creative person, but
I am not a person who can run
a business.
So Barbara knows how to run a business,
and we mixed our two analytic sci scientific
backgrounds and
my creative background and her organized background, and
we formed Polaria and Wardell.
Now we have laundromats. We're an ad agency,
(08:33):
a geofencing ad agency with clients all over
The US, Canada, and Australia.
So while we specialize in laundry,
our background is way worse. You know,
working with makeup companies, I shot for the
Indigo Hotel.
I directed TV commercials with Larry Thomas, you
know, the suit Oh, yeah. Yeah. Seinfeld.
Yeah. So our content background is very diverse,
(08:55):
but we specialize in geofencing
because it is a data driven
form of advertising that gives the highest return
on investment,
specifically when you focus on foot traffic. And
what we do is we're focused on foot
traffic.
And then secondary, we look at online conversions,
which are also important.
But if you think about it,
(09:16):
foot traffic and foot traffic data and location
data is extremely important.
It impacts our local economies. And this is
exactly why we started
going back to COVID, is because a third
of small businesses closed.
And at the time, if you look, big
business, big box stores
really did well. Right? They were the only
(09:36):
places allowed to be open, but look how
that pendulum has swung. You have the auto
zone
closing
all their locations
in California.
You have a lot of franchises
and big box stores now closing, and guess
what remains?
Small business.
So small business is the backbone of our
country. That's why we decided to collaborate together.
(09:59):
And, if you're gonna do that, if you're
gonna franchise or if you're gonna open just
one location,
location intelligence is of the most utmost important.
And you know what's great in the franchising
model is that
franchisees can do their own local marketing, and
you can definitely have a hand in that.
So let's talk about your company. It's a
full service agency. You provide ad creation, photography,
(10:20):
website design, and foot traffic reporting, and this
geofencing,
which is the biggest differentiator.
So we're gonna talk about geofencing,
but I heard on another podcast that you
do foot traffic analysis, and I think that's
quite unique. Can you explain what that is
and why it's important to a business owner?
Sure. So what foot traffic data is real
(10:42):
time
location data,
and it is it shows you a a
history.
We can go back as far as two
years. We're a Unincast partner. We're actually
sponsored to unicast. Our podcast presence,
we're here because of unicast.
Unicast is a leader in location
intelligence, and what they provide users
(11:04):
is insights
into
who is coming to your place. How big
is your trade area? What hours?
But what's really important is not just what's
going on with your location,
but what's going on proximal to you. So
we were just talking about AutoZone
in California and how they're closing every single
one of their locations down. So why is
(11:26):
that important?
Well, when we looked at the other businesses
in proximity
to AutoZone,
we can see that at this location in
San Jacinto, California,
you have another automotive parts store down the
street.
And what you wanna look at is what
will be the impact of footfall
when this AutoZone
(11:48):
goes away.
So you can look across the street. Starbucks
will be impacted.
Burger King will be impacted.
Just Wiener Schnitzel or whatever that is will
be impacted.
But
then let's take a look at how their
foot traffic is doing at Starbucks. So this
is interesting.
When we start talking about if you wanna
(12:09):
open up a franchise or if you wanna
open up a small business
and you wanna talk about where to put
our occupation,
we start to look at what is the
health
of this area in which we're interested in.
So now we see another major business,
Starbucks, and we look and see that their
foot traffic is just Just plummeted. Weird.
Now there could be different reasons for that.
(12:31):
You know? Locally, the economy
could be very bad.
Particularly, if Starbucks is going down,
they had a restructuring of their real estate
holdings a few years ago where they opened
up certain locations and closed down a lot.
So we have to wonder, like, if this
was one of the remaining stores and they're
down 11%,
that's a big deal. That's gonna impact us
(12:52):
if we decide to open up a franchise
for ourselves.
So here's Burger King. We take a look
at that.
So now we're starting to see a full
picture here. Mhmm. So we see AutoZone is
down. Starbucks is down. Burger King is down.
Let's see what Wiener Schnitzel is. Again, wow.
That is a big It's a area that
That is a big blight right there. That's
(13:12):
a blighted I would say, at least, initially,
that's a blighted spot.
So now let's look at this is a
little strip mall down the street.
So
say we want oh, here's an O'Reilly's. Let's
see what O'Reilly's Auto Parts is doing.
So this is a serious this is a
serious issue here. This corridor right here
for foot traffic is very bad.
(13:34):
So let's go over what the science is
of what we're actually looking at. What we're
looking at is a measurement of a trend
of all mobile devices
in and out of these applications.
Smartwatch,
smartphone,
this is where all this data
is derived from. And because none of us
leave home without our phones,
at least for the last decade, we can
(13:55):
be sure
that this is highly relevant, highly accurate
data.
So why this matters is because what in
most cases in our country,
you're faced with the prospect of people opening
either a franchise
or a small business, and they're doing so
without really realizing
(14:16):
what the health of the foot traffic is
in that area.
You can look at any shopping district in
the country,
and you will see businesses
that are mismatched
to their location.
So you see that they've invested in real
estate. They've invested in branding.
Now when you're a franchisee,
(14:37):
there are a lot of compliance things that
you need to do to stay a franchise
member.
So you go through all these steps.
One of the first steps you need to
do is a due diligence to make sure
that your desired location or location, a franchise
location that you're gonna take over, is properly
placed. And one of the best ways to
do that is to look at the demographics
(14:58):
of a foot traffic study,
look at holistically how that neighborhood's doing,
look and see if the income and makeup,
demographic makeup of that population matches your business.
So and if you look at other businesses
that are supposed to be doing healthily and
they are not doing healthily,
then you might wanna choose either a different
franchise or choose a different location.
(15:20):
So why geofencing is so important
is because
sometimes
the stars do not align for you. And
when the stars don't align, you need to
realign those stars. What is the best way
to do that? Is to then use a
technique like geofencing,
which is the use of satellites to draw
(15:41):
virtual fences around areas of interest.
If we're AutoZone
and we're looking at getting into the auto
parts industry, we need to see who our
competitors are, and we could even target our
competitors
to gain business from them. So we draw
virtual fences around areas of interest. We could
then send everyone who entered that location and
(16:01):
add to come to our business. And when
they eventually do, we're able to measure that
foot traffic
back into our store. So that's how geofencing
works. You draw satellite fences,
people enter that fence, you capture their device.
It should be based on location intelligence, like
foot traffic studies.
And then, you should track those devices for
(16:21):
ninety to ninety days or more. And then,
you wanna be able to measure that foot
traffic. And when it's the highest return on
investment,
because unlike most forms of advertising, we're not
really concerned about clicks
or impressions. What we're really concerned about is,
did we drive a visitor
to location? And that's our main concern here.
That's our main concern. There was a lot
(16:43):
there, and Esther, let me see if I
can impact just a little bit of that.
So would you say the foot traffic analysis,
you say that's the first step. Is that
inside selection or in the beginning of creating
your geofencing plan or both?
It's both. Before you even think about opening
a business anywhere,
it's almost like a relationship of any kind.
You know? Where you're from and what's that
(17:04):
song by the back Backstreet Boys? Who you
are, where you're from, what you do as
long as you love me. Well, that's not
the case. Love love is not enough to
flow Correct. Business or marriage or any kind
of relationship.
Love has nothing to do with it. Loving
a location has nothing to do with it.
You need to do a foot traffic study
to understand the health of the entire region.
(17:25):
What Unicast, our provide our pot our our
partner at Unicast, what they're really great at
providing
is trade area information.
So why this is so helpful
is you really wanna see where do your
people come from that come to your customers.
How far is your reach?
(17:45):
So what this tells me with this is
California. And if you look at how far
away some of their customers come from this
auto zone,
this tells me if they had a decent
advertising budget,
that they actually would be able to get
that foot traffic trend from a negative
to a positive. They have really good reach.
It means
(18:05):
that people are aware of this location,
but if they were more top of mind,
if they were more persistent in their advertising
and marketing,
then they would be able to have a
greater impact.
So
you need to do this before you start
advertising.
Then once you start advertising,
then you can start looking into the first
(18:26):
thing you wanna do is dig deeper
so they get 24%
of their business
from the first
two miles of their location.
And so I would invest more money in
this area here, and then the next amount
of money I would invest is in this
ZIP code right here, 92544.
So
(18:46):
you gotta do this before you open a
location, and, certainly, you need to use it
after
because you need to make the most of
your ad dollars. What we see in every
single business
is that there's either a mismatch of the
location
or the dynamics of your trade area have
changed.
(19:06):
That's one. So we see a mismatch between
the location and the business.
And two, we see businesses that open, and
they're
mismanaging
their
advertising
dollars.
You know what else it would do is
I could see an emerging franchisor who's trying
to establish territories
for their franchise locations.
It would definitely help them with that to
(19:28):
understand, is it time to offer a new
territory
so many miles away?
So it could be very helpful there. Well,
the other question from the common consumer
is, do you think consumers feel that this
is invasive, this geofencing?
You know what's invasive? When we get off
this call,
Facebook is going to be sending us ads
for for things we spoke about. True. True.
(19:50):
No. To think about
what's interesting about these people is they sell
our secrets to China. Right? This is something
that's in the news right now.
There was an article that I was reading
before we got on the call how Meta
was willing to sell,
you know, basically demographic secrets about Americans for
access to in into China. Geofencing
(20:11):
is the exact opposite of that. What geofencing
does is we capture a device and we
anonymize the device. We don't we don't spy
on your We don't know your name. We
just Right. No identifier
from your cell phone or your laptop. Or
Yeah. Awesome. So it's completely different. You're anonymized.
Your privacy is protected,
and we're not spying on you. But
(20:31):
what's great about geofencing is we can draw
certain
inferences
based on your Mhmm. Location.
Chances are if you go to one Starbucks,
you'll go to another kind of coffee place.
If you go to one laundromat, we offer
you a better value proposition. To go more
likely to come to us. If you're in
one car dealership, we send you a better
offer. You're likely to come to our car
dealership. So we don't have to spy on
(20:53):
you
to offer you something of value.
Your behavior is indicative of your actual where
you go, not on your online. That's true
too. I can see that. That's a good
point.
So also
the other question is what about people that
have multiple devices? Doesn't it confuse all the
systems? Like, if I have an iPhone and
(21:13):
I have an Apple Watch and I walk
in with an iPad,
what happens there?
So specifically when you go home and you
log all your devices off your Wi Fi,
now you're unifying all our our apps.
And then it's called the hitchhiker effect. We
need it. Your devices, but every device in
your household would then
be impacted
(21:34):
for us to be able to send it
out to.
But, again, even though it sounds intrusive, it's
actually
the most benevolent, least intrusive
of all advertising because we're truly not a
spy
technology like Facebook is. It's the exact opposite.
We're just making a good guess.
And, actually, the foot traffic data says it
(21:55):
for itself.
When we first started off, we were getting
400 visits a month for some of our
clients. Some you know, they have, like, say,
ten, twenty different locations.
We're doing three, four, 700, some a thousand
visits a month
for their locations. So I'll give you an
example.
We had one group of laundromats in Missouri
(22:15):
when we first started, one group of laundromats
in North Carolina.
And on any given month
through their geofencing ads, we would measure
700,
a thousand.
If you're going to be a franchisor,
you really wanna use geofencing. Say you're gonna
open up a chain of furniture stores.
Geofencing is invaluable
(22:36):
because we're able to tell you which locations
we're driving visits to, which ones we're not.
We're able to tell you how many people
you're getting as a result
of not doing ads, meaning we can tell
your natural number who's coming in, who never
received an ad. We're also able to measure
who's a unique person and who's a repeat
visit.
(22:56):
So
it's really cutting edge technology,
and it's only getting better.
And
we are very mindful of privacy. As I
said, we don't spy on the mic or
the camera on your phone. How it's even
legal for the biggest companies in the world
to do this is beyond me, but it's
been proven. It's proven every time. We talk
(23:18):
about a product, pantyhose.
Now it'll show up.
Now everyone's phones are gonna be What the
hell? No one even wears pantyhose.
But, yeah, we're gonna get though. You're gonna
get ask for pantyhose.
Warm. So Do you know? That is funny.
It's so true because you often wonder how
did that happen, and that is creepy. But
I'm really glad to hear that, but that's
(23:38):
why I had to ask the question. And
then you've chosen the laundromat industry to focus
on. That is so interesting to me. Why
did you choose that? Of course, this can
go anywhere,
but you really focus on laundromats. Why is
that?
A friend of mine and Barbara's, his name
is Charles. He owns his own he actually
owns owns his own ad agency, but uses
us for geofencing, and he owns multiple laundromats.
(24:00):
And he said to us during COVID,
he's like, foot traffic is an issue for
anyone right now. If you can solve the
foot traffic problem with this technology called geofencing,
I'll refer everything to you.
And I was like, alright. Well, let me
check this thing out called geofencing.
I really didn't know any more about it
than the next person. You know? I've been
(24:21):
shooting makeup and ads and food ads for
different companies, and I was like, well, let
me see what this thing is about. Mind
you, I was on the marketing side,
not on the paid advertising side. This was
purely
content creation
and coming up with content campaigns, not paid
ad campaigns.
So I looked into the technology. I was
(24:42):
fascinated by it, and I really loved that
the learning curve was hard. So that just
told me that if the average person
is gonna struggle to understand this technology, then
that's what I wanna be in. Right? We
were solving a problem and something that we
had to learn to do it. Not everybody
could do it.
So that the hurdle to entry
was hard.
(25:03):
But if you can wrap your head around
the science, the data analytics, plus match it
with creative,
then you're doing things that most agencies can't
do. Because
on the creative side,
you have designers
and maybe some web developers, and they sort
of have been the modern agency for a
long time now. You have people who are
analytical, who are like, oh, now we're web
(25:25):
design designers. They're really not the same people,
but they assume the same role.
So we happen to have a very good
marriage of convenience where we have the analytical
all wrapped up with the creative.
And being able to design the ads in
a logical Right. And having it resonate with
people. Did we answer your question? I feel
like I Yeah. You did. I think that
(25:45):
one of the reasons for laundromats is that
it was an easy access, but then it
makes sense. And I have not heard anyone
focus on that industry, and I'm sure it's
quite large.
It is. There are 33,000
independently Oh my word. In The US. And
they need foot drops. Yes. 100%.
So That was the best space to Sure.
To ever do for what we do. Sure.
(26:06):
And what's important to understand about laundromats is
if you can really make that ad spend
go far
for a small mom and pop company or
if, say, they have 30 up to 30
or a 100 locations. But if you could
do it for one laundromat,
you can scale it to any Sure. Business.
So you can work with the Chipotles of
the world. You could work with the Burger
(26:28):
King's, which use this technology against McDonald's
a few years ago. They used it to
great effect. Chipotle actually used it to drive
their curbside pickup during COVID. Australia used it
to keep people off of the beaches and
in their houses. Yeah. Australia used this to
spy on the streets. So
yeah.
We we took a big industry
that
is only used by the major corporations
(26:51):
and
literally dumbed it down so that the small
businesses could use the same technology
and get results and cut the bigger one,
but he's with little cuts
and get that business.
When we say dumb down, we don't mean
the small business owners done. We Me. Mean.
We Correct. Dense it down. Well, you dense
it down. Yeah. Because obviously, the smartest people
(27:11):
at home are small business owners. These are
people who don't need to be a doctor
anymore. Oh. They don't need to be a
lawyer anymore. They don't need to be an
engineer anymore. They could be self employed.
So people who are small business owners
by default
are more successful more But you made but
you made it available for them, which is
something that probably wasn't before because it's such
big technology.
You know, I also heard you say I
(27:33):
think, Barbara, you said this, that you're in
the trenches with your clients. What do you
mean by that?
What do you mean by that is that
we're in there every day looking at what
the ads performance is and doing all those
things that need to be done. We don't
let our clients' ad spend run for thirty
days. We're in there making sure if a
tactic is not working and we're not seeing
(27:55):
the results for those tactics,
we move that money to an automatic. We
just don't let it run. That's the biggest
thing for how
we have had so much results because the
bigger companies, you know, they have ad spends
of $30,000.
They don't care. It's running
we drive our platforms crazy. Mhmm.
Because we're because we wanna see results, and
(28:15):
we know what we're looking for at this
point.
So at a certain point, we know that
that tactic's not gonna work, and we're not
gonna waste our customers' money in that section.
And the best thing about us is
all the knowledge that we have gained,
we are implementing that into a system
that others can actually go in and use
(28:36):
now as well. That's great. It's almost like
you're a day trader. You're constantly watching what's
working and adjusting, which is important. Yes. And
I probably learned that from that because I
used to train my own stuff. There you
go. There you go. Always transferring the skills.
That's for sure. So what other industries do
you see that could really use this? And
with that, do you work with any franchisees
(28:57):
now, and how has that worked?
No. Not at this moment. We have a
few that's in the works yet.
We're working with that because we developed a
platform that's aggregated, which has a dashboard and
data driven, and that they can plug themselves
into that and then see
what their actual franchises are doing. So if
(29:19):
there is a franchise say they have 10,
and they can actually go into the system
themselves
and look at it and say, okay.
This North place over here is doing really
well, but the South one is not doing
as well. Okay. What do we need
to bring to that to get them more
foot traffic?
So we've developed a system with labor of
(29:40):
love and
a whole bunch of technology
and to put what we know into this
system so that we don't have to be
hands on for some of the people who
don't want us to manage, and they have
someone who can do that, can use our
system data to do that. That's great.
The future really is data driven. It's no
longer that you can run campaigns, a marketing
(30:01):
campaign, and talk about
brand equity and name recognition. That's fine for
the first
thirty to ninety days, but really what's important
beyond that is having good data.
So our platform, this is actually the beta
version of our platform.
We're rolling out the one point o version
of this very soon in in the next
couple days. But this is gonna give you
(30:22):
an idea of just how powerful
our methodology
and the technology is in general. So here's
a client who has multiple locations. I believe
off the top of my head, they have
eight. So over the last thirteen months, they've
spent $12,831.
So here's what's interesting.
We've measured 2,919
(30:45):
visits.
So that's,
ad delivered,
ad impression delivered, and a foot traffic visit
received.
The average cost to acquire each visit
is $4.40.
I want you to ask yourself a question.
What can you afford
for $4.40?
(31:05):
So $4.40
to acquire
a new customer
is incredible value. Our national average
is actually around $5
a visit. So we're actually under that with
this particular client. But there's another way to
measure this data because, again,
data is what really matters. A client doesn't
really care about brand equity. They already built
(31:26):
their brand. Usually, they feel very comfortable about
their brand. They don't need you to pat
them on the back and tell them that,
oh, everyone knows your brand. What they wanna
know is who showed up and who's new
and who's a repeat customer. So we have
a separate system
that measures who is a new person and
who is a repeat person. So the totals
will differ a little bit because
(31:47):
this is a separate system that's only tasked
with measuring news and repeat. So with that
same ad spend, 2,798
satellite verified in store visits were re observed.
Almost 1,900 of them were unique people,
and 899
were unique visits.
So this is tremendous.
(32:08):
This is a tremendous value to the client.
We're able to look month over month. So
month one, we sent
them 228
visits.
And it got tough throughout these months, so
we changed some tactics up. But as you
see, like, even a bad month, we sent
them a 186
and a 116.
So we rebounded because we changed the ad
creatives.
(32:29):
So that's some of the things that you
need to think about impacted. With franchises. You
know, you wanna keep the branding Mhmm. The
same,
right, all throughout all your locations. So while
this is not a franchise, it's one group
of stores owned by one person.
So it's not a franchise because it's their
family business. They have multiple locations. But, look,
02/1954.
We're not done with the month of March
(32:50):
yet, and here we are at a 178
visits so far leaving February, and we're already
into March. So here's what's also important.
This this convenience store, this is the nitty
gritty of shoe fencing. We're able to attribute
visits, so 45 visits to this
that we received from targeting this Dollar Tree
(33:10):
in Des Moines, Iowa.
And you can see the competitors here. We
took
33
new customers from our competitor, which is line
three,
and another one, line five, thirty. And look
how much money it cost us to take
30 customers. You see this one, $3.11.
So the return on investment is crazy. $6.60
(33:34):
spent to get 45
new customers from this location.
So
the technology
is there.
It's very exciting.
I recommend
not getting into
any business unless you do your due diligence
understanding the foot traffic.
And then once you do, you know, you're
gonna wanna make sure that boots keep crossing
(33:56):
the threshold.
And what and our from our point of
view, we do believe in all forms of
advertising,
but we just happen to
know through empirical data
that geofencing is the most powerful of all
the technologies
because you're going after people who are proven
based on their behavior
to spend money
in businesses like yours. And if all you
(34:18):
need to do is just give them a
little tap on the shoulder and let them
know that you're down the street from the
business that they're already frequenting,
then it's that much easier. Like, you saw
some of those, like, spent $3 to get
x amount of 30 people, $3.11,
because that $3.11
was spent in the right Right. With behave
with the behaviors demonstrating that. That's awesome.
(34:40):
Well, this has been so fascinating. I certainly
have learned a lot. So thank you very
much. But as we are ready to close
this out, I'd like to ask both of
you because you've had great careers and you've
done some really interesting things. But what are
you most proud of? Barbara, you wanna start
first?
Well, I gotta say my children, because I
think being a mom is probably the best
thing you could be. But other than that,
(35:01):
I think this
actually
starting this company
and working as hard as we do and
have so many hats,
it's ours. It's like another baby, you know,
for us. It's growing. And
I think with the challenges,
it puts you in
out of your comfort zone,
and
(35:21):
you figure out things that maybe you would
just walk past or not even notice. And
you're
actually growing and fulfilling a need
for the common good because
the smaller midsize business is the fabric of
our country.
And those are the ones that actually grow
our country.
So if you're not helping them grow, where
(35:44):
are we
as a society?
So I think we are blessed to be
able to do this, and
I, you know, thank God every day. And
I think that
Ernesto and I have this passion to do
this.
And I think if we didn't,
then maybe
I don't know where we would be, but
I think this is my second greatest accomplishment
(36:05):
is building this business and giving the technology
to them because
it's so hard when you're running businesses and
doing your everyday and being a family.
You can't
watch all this technology
and implement it all the time. And what
we're being able to do is data driven,
and we're using all these different technologies,
(36:25):
Amazon,
Weatherbase,
all these different technologies that we can use.
We're putting in in one area
for our customers to be able to use
it all Awesome. If they need. Ernesto.
I would say that this is probably the
hardest thing
other than running for congress that I've ever
had to do in my life. If anyone
(36:47):
ever out there runs for something like the
US senate, US congress,
president, governor,
you'll see that you're tested.
You'll understand what kind of character you have.
I would say this is the second
greatest challenge I've ever had.
But while it's one of the hardest things
I've ever had to do,
I would say that it's the most rewarding.
And part of the reason is because
(37:08):
I think as people
you know, when Barbara and I both had
careers as med reps, and it was great.
You know? It's great when someone else is
taking the risk for their business, and you're
just you know, you're the salesperson. You're getting
the you're getting these nice rewards.
No one calls us after hours usually. Like,
no one calls us. No.
Like 247.
(37:29):
Well, the personal development that I've seen,
Barbara, both bar myself and Barbara undergo,
just
becoming
a business owner
and to create something that's super, super unique
and brings great value to people. Filling needs.
Yeah. I I'm proud of I'm proud of
(37:50):
what we do. You know, not to knock
on people who do things like real estate
or or sales or things like that. It's
hard. It's self. It is hard, but
Barbara and I are selling something that we
need That's right. And we've created.
And whether it's an Apple cart
or whether it's geofencing
or whether it's a doughnut shop or a
laundromat,
this is our baby,
(38:11):
and we're bringing value
to
The world. Our community. And we're in three
countries. So One different many parts of the
world. So right?
So I think,
I'm most satisfied with this, certainly the most
challenging.
And you personally get challenged. You know, we
pay ourselves or we don't pay ourselves. Ourselves.
Right. It was more like where we don't
pay ourselves. But and the client comes first.
(38:33):
But it's been an amazing journey. I'm definitely
some really
challenging times, but mostly uptimes.
But I'm proud that, you know, we can
sit here side by side,
slug it out to bring the best value
for our clients,
and it's only getting better from here. And
for people, your students,
who wanted to get into franchising, I would
(38:54):
say be a franchisor.
I would say,
come up with the idea.
Be the Chipotle.
Structure it for that franchise to grow. Make
it a solid foundation
and make sure that
when you're studying franchise and you're doing all
these things, build it to be a franchise.
It's great advice.
You know?
(39:15):
In fact, we have our own platform
that we came up with. You know?
We can talk about it now,
but Noah, who is Martha's son,
is the developer on this, and we came
up with this is the one that's special
for laundry, but we came up with our
own platform.
As you could see, we have an enterprise
option. So this enterprise option is for
(39:38):
people who have franchises
Wonderful. And multilocation
businesses.
This happens to be the one we branded
for laundry,
but Barbara we took our own advice. Barbara's
advice was
build it so that you can be a
franchise, build it so you can scale it.
We take the right
size. So now we're putting ourselves in the
position where anyone, even the other ad agencies,
(40:00):
can come and use our platforms, you know,
to hub for a lot of technology. Fantastic.
We'll still support it.
And, yeah. So now we're in the position
to scale our business just like a franchisor
would where we own all intellectual property. We
own the algorithms,
and, we're at the second level of our
own journey of being self employed. Smart. Smart.
Smart. Well, what a pleasure it was to
(40:21):
talk to the two of you about fascinating
concepts. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, Kathleen. Thank you so much for
having us. FranchiseU is brought to you by
the Yum Center for Global Franchise Excellence at
the University
of Louisville.
For more information on the center, visit business.louisville.edu/youngcgfe.
(40:42):
Thank you for listening to Franchise U.
I am not the techiest person around. And
so when I was approached to talk to
a couple of folks about geo fencing, I
thought, geo, what? So I had to take
a look, find out what it was, but
then it fascinated me. And it is a
way for a small franchise
to really maximize their foot traffic. So in
this episode of franchise you, I talk with
(00:20):
Ernesto Calari and Barbara Wardell who've come up
with an incredible concept. Join me and take
a listen.
Welcome to the FranchiseU podcast,
where key industry leaders provide education and inspiration.
Here's your host, doctor Cathy Gosser, the director
of the Yum Center for Global Franchise Excellence
(00:43):
at the University of Louisville.
Welcome to another episode of FranchiseU,
and we have an interesting one for you
today. With me, I have Ernesto Collari and
Barbara Wardell, who are the cofounders of Collari
and Wardell ad agency, which we're gonna talk
about in just a bit. But, hey. First,
we're gonna talk about the two of you.
(01:04):
Welcome, and thanks for being here.
Kathleen, thanks for having us. We're so excited
to talk to you and your students and
the pod. Excellent. Well, you're gonna tell us
a lot of things that many of us
don't know. But let's talk about the two
of you first because it's always so interesting
to hear about the folks and the history
that you've had. So Barbara,
you are a seasoned marketing professional. You have
extensive experience in the medical field. You were
(01:26):
a sales rep in specialty medicines
and know tons about marketing.
Ernesto you too are in medical sales, but
a couple of interesting things I pulled out
of your biography is that you ran for
Congress in 2012
and you realized you needed a headshot.
And this was fascinating to me because headshots
are probably my least favorite. So same with
(01:47):
you. You purchased a camera and you became
a photographer.
You're also a writer. You're an artist development
and you were on air with the financial
quarterly weekly.
But what was really interesting was I heard
on another podcast that you both had the
dream
to never
have a real job and to be independent.
And I found that fascinating.
(02:09):
So there's a lot here, and I'm gonna
ask you all to take a moment to
highlight your career. So Barbara, let's start with
you. Can you tell us about your professional
journey through medical sales and now to being
a co founder of Calari and Wardell?
Sure. It's a great story. So I got
into the medical field. First, I was in
insurance, and then I ended up going into
the medical field in specialty medicines where we
(02:31):
do compound.
And, yeah, so basically,
my job was to handle figuring out
what medicine would work for the doctors'
patients that actually
were having a hard time figuring out what
would work for these patients. They were trying
all the medic medication that was on the
store shelves, you know, from the pharmaceutical companies,
(02:53):
but they weren't working. So what could we
go a step further and figure out how
to make a medicine that would actually work
for that client, whether it was autism.
I had a big autism in Long Island,
which a lot of the medicine that are
on the shelves have so many chemicals,
and those chemicals would interact with those patients
(03:15):
and have a averse reaction. So we ended
up making,
medicine that had some natural ingredients as
well with them because we had that ability
and it just it worked with them. They
had less side effects from those medications. Because,
you know, there are certain things that they
have to have. And when
you do, you want the least amount that
(03:36):
would affect that that patient.
So from that, I did,
urologist.
I mean, I
a broad spectrum because, you know, in compounding,
it's specialty, so you're not having the patients
like if you were onboard
and just the regular pharmacy and getting your
medication.
So I started there. I had 250
(03:57):
doctors on my route. It was exciting,
and then COVID happened.
And
I couldn't go see my doctors anymore.
I was doing 2,000 miles a month Oh
my gosh. You know, for a while. And
it was hard because I was so used
to being in the offices, talking to the
office people, the doctors. It was always exciting
(04:19):
because at least I felt like I was
helping. There was a lot of handcuffs on
you though. The doctors really can't do as
much as they want to do, and you
could see them struggle with it, but I
still wanted to help. But it got frustrating
after a while just for the fact that
you could see that they wanted to, but
they were limited because of the insurance obligations
(04:39):
and stuff like that.
But from there, during COVID, I was only
calling them, and I didn't really have much
to do. And I was trying to figure
out what to do, and I ended up
meeting Ernesto.
And during COVID, he was having some issues
with what he was doing from home because
he was doing all, like, Instagram work and
doing amazing stuff. I'll let him tell you
(04:59):
that story.
So we ended up,
I was wanted to open up a business
on the side, passive income, which you think
is passive, but it's not. Correct.
You know, laundromats. I was looking up three
because I found out that that was, like,
the sweet spot of opening laundromats.
So I had asked him to help me
look at areas to see where would be
(05:22):
the best area for those laundromats, and he
was doing a laundromat boot camp. He was
explaining the technology of geofencing.
And it ended up I did not go
to that boot camp for the fact that
I was looking to have information on the
laundromat, but actually we collaborated
together
building this business and went together,
(05:44):
actually to promote geofencing.
Interesting.
That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing all of that.
Ernesto,
tell us a few highlights of your career,
please.
Sure. So I went to college
for biology,
minored in Spanish, and minored in
philosophy.
And, at first, I thought maybe physical therapy.
(06:06):
I thought medicine.
And, ultimately, I just didn't wanna be in
school anymore after almost seven I hear you.
So I got into medical device sales, and
I worked in orthopedics and plastic surgery,
general surgery, doing orthopedic devices and xenografts.
So in 2015,
I actually got fired from my job as
(06:27):
a med rep. I had a patient with
necrotizing fasciitis,
which is flesh eating disease.
And, I didn't realize that we couldn't apply
this product, bedside, we had to do in
the OR. Make a long story short, I
made a mistake, ended up saving the patient's
life. And then materials management gave me a
hard time. And this is when I realized
that the medical industry was changing, sort of
(06:47):
like what Barbara was saying,
that doctors can do what they want in
terms of helping patients.
And now I was just a med rep.
I wasn't a doctor, but still infinitely more
experienced than a hospital administrator
when it comes to patient care. So I
ended up getting fired because I was like,
what do you know, lady? No. No. No.
So I get fired and then start doing,
in 2012,
(07:08):
I, you know, I ran for congress and
had that camera. My friends were like, you
should start shooting for makeup companies.
So I get fired. Day one, I start
shooting for makeup companies because I'd I already
had people reaching out to me through Instagram.
So that was great. And then fast forward
four and a half, five years later,
COVID shuts everything down. Barbara and I meet
(07:29):
at a Halloween party. She was always helping
me develop my business. We became friends and
she was always had great ideas, great input.
But, really, our collaboration began out of defiance
because we were like, screw the government. Screw
people telling us what to do. We went
to illegal parties now. Yeah. We, like, we
did go to illegal parties. That's how we
were like. Our attitude is if we I
(07:50):
always die. But that should be our attitude.
And if you're you know, this is for
your students who are listening. If you wanna
live in a free world, you need to
keep pushing the boundaries of what your government
says you can and cannot do. And if
you wanna make any money, we're self employed.
And it's all it's this is all headed
somewhere. Trust me. So
if you wanna be self employed, you have
to be willing to take risks. And Barbara
(08:11):
was gonna take a risk with laundromats, and
I was like, I'm a creative person, but
I am not a person who can run
a business.
So Barbara knows how to run a business,
and we mixed our two analytic sci scientific
backgrounds and
my creative background and her organized background, and
we formed Polaria and Wardell.
Now we have laundromats. We're an ad agency,
(08:33):
a geofencing ad agency with clients all over
The US, Canada, and Australia.
So while we specialize in laundry,
our background is way worse. You know,
working with makeup companies, I shot for the
Indigo Hotel.
I directed TV commercials with Larry Thomas, you
know, the suit Oh, yeah. Yeah. Seinfeld.
Yeah. So our content background is very diverse,
(08:55):
but we specialize in geofencing
because it is a data driven
form of advertising that gives the highest return
on investment,
specifically when you focus on foot traffic. And
what we do is we're focused on foot
traffic.
And then secondary, we look at online conversions,
which are also important.
But if you think about it,
(09:16):
foot traffic and foot traffic data and location
data is extremely important.
It impacts our local economies. And this is
exactly why we started
going back to COVID, is because a third
of small businesses closed.
And at the time, if you look, big
business, big box stores
really did well. Right? They were the only
(09:36):
places allowed to be open, but look how
that pendulum has swung. You have the auto
zone
closing
all their locations
in California.
You have a lot of franchises
and big box stores now closing, and guess
what remains?
Small business.
So small business is the backbone of our
country. That's why we decided to collaborate together.
(09:59):
And, if you're gonna do that, if you're
gonna franchise or if you're gonna open just
one location,
location intelligence is of the most utmost important.
And you know what's great in the franchising
model is that
franchisees can do their own local marketing, and
you can definitely have a hand in that.
So let's talk about your company. It's a
full service agency. You provide ad creation, photography,
(10:20):
website design, and foot traffic reporting, and this
geofencing,
which is the biggest differentiator.
So we're gonna talk about geofencing,
but I heard on another podcast that you
do foot traffic analysis, and I think that's
quite unique. Can you explain what that is
and why it's important to a business owner?
Sure. So what foot traffic data is real
(10:42):
time
location data,
and it is it shows you a a
history.
We can go back as far as two
years. We're a Unincast partner. We're actually
sponsored to unicast. Our podcast presence,
we're here because of unicast.
Unicast is a leader in location
intelligence, and what they provide users
(11:04):
is insights
into
who is coming to your place. How big
is your trade area? What hours?
But what's really important is not just what's
going on with your location,
but what's going on proximal to you. So
we were just talking about AutoZone
in California and how they're closing every single
one of their locations down. So why is
(11:26):
that important?
Well, when we looked at the other businesses
in proximity
to AutoZone,
we can see that at this location in
San Jacinto, California,
you have another automotive parts store down the
street.
And what you wanna look at is what
will be the impact of footfall
when this AutoZone
(11:48):
goes away.
So you can look across the street. Starbucks
will be impacted.
Burger King will be impacted.
Just Wiener Schnitzel or whatever that is will
be impacted.
But
then let's take a look at how their
foot traffic is doing at Starbucks. So this
is interesting.
When we start talking about if you wanna
(12:09):
open up a franchise or if you wanna
open up a small business
and you wanna talk about where to put
our occupation,
we start to look at what is the
health
of this area in which we're interested in.
So now we see another major business,
Starbucks, and we look and see that their
foot traffic is just Just plummeted. Weird.
Now there could be different reasons for that.
(12:31):
You know? Locally, the economy
could be very bad.
Particularly, if Starbucks is going down,
they had a restructuring of their real estate
holdings a few years ago where they opened
up certain locations and closed down a lot.
So we have to wonder, like, if this
was one of the remaining stores and they're
down 11%,
that's a big deal. That's gonna impact us
(12:52):
if we decide to open up a franchise
for ourselves.
So here's Burger King. We take a look
at that.
So now we're starting to see a full
picture here. Mhmm. So we see AutoZone is
down. Starbucks is down. Burger King is down.
Let's see what Wiener Schnitzel is. Again, wow.
That is a big It's a area that
That is a big blight right there. That's
(13:12):
a blighted I would say, at least, initially,
that's a blighted spot.
So now let's look at this is a
little strip mall down the street.
So
say we want oh, here's an O'Reilly's. Let's
see what O'Reilly's Auto Parts is doing.
So this is a serious this is a
serious issue here. This corridor right here
for foot traffic is very bad.
(13:34):
So let's go over what the science is
of what we're actually looking at. What we're
looking at is a measurement of a trend
of all mobile devices
in and out of these applications.
Smartwatch,
smartphone,
this is where all this data
is derived from. And because none of us
leave home without our phones,
at least for the last decade, we can
(13:55):
be sure
that this is highly relevant, highly accurate
data.
So why this matters is because what in
most cases in our country,
you're faced with the prospect of people opening
either a franchise
or a small business, and they're doing so
without really realizing
(14:16):
what the health of the foot traffic is
in that area.
You can look at any shopping district in
the country,
and you will see businesses
that are mismatched
to their location.
So you see that they've invested in real
estate. They've invested in branding.
Now when you're a franchisee,
(14:37):
there are a lot of compliance things that
you need to do to stay a franchise
member.
So you go through all these steps.
One of the first steps you need to
do is a due diligence to make sure
that your desired location or location, a franchise
location that you're gonna take over, is properly
placed. And one of the best ways to
do that is to look at the demographics
(14:58):
of a foot traffic study,
look at holistically how that neighborhood's doing,
look and see if the income and makeup,
demographic makeup of that population matches your business.
So and if you look at other businesses
that are supposed to be doing healthily and
they are not doing healthily,
then you might wanna choose either a different
franchise or choose a different location.
(15:20):
So why geofencing is so important
is because
sometimes
the stars do not align for you. And
when the stars don't align, you need to
realign those stars. What is the best way
to do that? Is to then use a
technique like geofencing,
which is the use of satellites to draw
(15:41):
virtual fences around areas of interest.
If we're AutoZone
and we're looking at getting into the auto
parts industry, we need to see who our
competitors are, and we could even target our
competitors
to gain business from them. So we draw
virtual fences around areas of interest. We could
then send everyone who entered that location and
(16:01):
add to come to our business. And when
they eventually do, we're able to measure that
foot traffic
back into our store. So that's how geofencing
works. You draw satellite fences,
people enter that fence, you capture their device.
It should be based on location intelligence, like
foot traffic studies.
And then, you should track those devices for
(16:21):
ninety to ninety days or more. And then,
you wanna be able to measure that foot
traffic. And when it's the highest return on
investment,
because unlike most forms of advertising, we're not
really concerned about clicks
or impressions. What we're really concerned about is,
did we drive a visitor
to location? And that's our main concern here.
That's our main concern. There was a lot
(16:43):
there, and Esther, let me see if I
can impact just a little bit of that.
So would you say the foot traffic analysis,
you say that's the first step. Is that
inside selection or in the beginning of creating
your geofencing plan or both?
It's both. Before you even think about opening
a business anywhere,
it's almost like a relationship of any kind.
You know? Where you're from and what's that
(17:04):
song by the back Backstreet Boys? Who you
are, where you're from, what you do as
long as you love me. Well, that's not
the case. Love love is not enough to
flow Correct. Business or marriage or any kind
of relationship.
Love has nothing to do with it. Loving
a location has nothing to do with it.
You need to do a foot traffic study
to understand the health of the entire region.
(17:25):
What Unicast, our provide our pot our our
partner at Unicast, what they're really great at
providing
is trade area information.
So why this is so helpful
is you really wanna see where do your
people come from that come to your customers.
How far is your reach?
(17:45):
So what this tells me with this is
California. And if you look at how far
away some of their customers come from this
auto zone,
this tells me if they had a decent
advertising budget,
that they actually would be able to get
that foot traffic trend from a negative
to a positive. They have really good reach.
It means
(18:05):
that people are aware of this location,
but if they were more top of mind,
if they were more persistent in their advertising
and marketing,
then they would be able to have a
greater impact.
So
you need to do this before you start
advertising.
Then once you start advertising,
then you can start looking into the first
(18:26):
thing you wanna do is dig deeper
so they get 24%
of their business
from the first
two miles of their location.
And so I would invest more money in
this area here, and then the next amount
of money I would invest is in this
ZIP code right here, 92544.
So
(18:46):
you gotta do this before you open a
location, and, certainly, you need to use it
after
because you need to make the most of
your ad dollars. What we see in every
single business
is that there's either a mismatch of the
location
or the dynamics of your trade area have
changed.
(19:06):
That's one. So we see a mismatch between
the location and the business.
And two, we see businesses that open, and
they're
mismanaging
their
advertising
dollars.
You know what else it would do is
I could see an emerging franchisor who's trying
to establish territories
for their franchise locations.
It would definitely help them with that to
(19:28):
understand, is it time to offer a new
territory
so many miles away?
So it could be very helpful there. Well,
the other question from the common consumer
is, do you think consumers feel that this
is invasive, this geofencing?
You know what's invasive? When we get off
this call,
Facebook is going to be sending us ads
for for things we spoke about. True. True.
(19:50):
No. To think about
what's interesting about these people is they sell
our secrets to China. Right? This is something
that's in the news right now.
There was an article that I was reading
before we got on the call how Meta
was willing to sell,
you know, basically demographic secrets about Americans for
access to in into China. Geofencing
(20:11):
is the exact opposite of that. What geofencing
does is we capture a device and we
anonymize the device. We don't we don't spy
on your We don't know your name. We
just Right. No identifier
from your cell phone or your laptop. Or
Yeah. Awesome. So it's completely different. You're anonymized.
Your privacy is protected,
and we're not spying on you. But
(20:31):
what's great about geofencing is we can draw
certain
inferences
based on your Mhmm. Location.
Chances are if you go to one Starbucks,
you'll go to another kind of coffee place.
If you go to one laundromat, we offer
you a better value proposition. To go more
likely to come to us. If you're in
one car dealership, we send you a better
offer. You're likely to come to our car
dealership. So we don't have to spy on
(20:53):
you
to offer you something of value.
Your behavior is indicative of your actual where
you go, not on your online. That's true
too. I can see that. That's a good
point.
So also
the other question is what about people that
have multiple devices? Doesn't it confuse all the
systems? Like, if I have an iPhone and
(21:13):
I have an Apple Watch and I walk
in with an iPad,
what happens there?
So specifically when you go home and you
log all your devices off your Wi Fi,
now you're unifying all our our apps.
And then it's called the hitchhiker effect. We
need it. Your devices, but every device in
your household would then
be impacted
(21:34):
for us to be able to send it
out to.
But, again, even though it sounds intrusive, it's
actually
the most benevolent, least intrusive
of all advertising because we're truly not a
spy
technology like Facebook is. It's the exact opposite.
We're just making a good guess.
And, actually, the foot traffic data says it
(21:55):
for itself.
When we first started off, we were getting
400 visits a month for some of our
clients. Some you know, they have, like, say,
ten, twenty different locations.
We're doing three, four, 700, some a thousand
visits a month
for their locations. So I'll give you an
example.
We had one group of laundromats in Missouri
(22:15):
when we first started, one group of laundromats
in North Carolina.
And on any given month
through their geofencing ads, we would measure
700,
a thousand.
If you're going to be a franchisor,
you really wanna use geofencing. Say you're gonna
open up a chain of furniture stores.
Geofencing is invaluable
(22:36):
because we're able to tell you which locations
we're driving visits to, which ones we're not.
We're able to tell you how many people
you're getting as a result
of not doing ads, meaning we can tell
your natural number who's coming in, who never
received an ad. We're also able to measure
who's a unique person and who's a repeat
visit.
(22:56):
So
it's really cutting edge technology,
and it's only getting better.
And
we are very mindful of privacy. As I
said, we don't spy on the mic or
the camera on your phone. How it's even
legal for the biggest companies in the world
to do this is beyond me, but it's
been proven. It's proven every time. We talk
(23:18):
about a product, pantyhose.
Now it'll show up.
Now everyone's phones are gonna be What the
hell? No one even wears pantyhose.
But, yeah, we're gonna get though. You're gonna
get ask for pantyhose.
Warm. So Do you know? That is funny.
It's so true because you often wonder how
did that happen, and that is creepy. But
I'm really glad to hear that, but that's
(23:38):
why I had to ask the question. And
then you've chosen the laundromat industry to focus
on. That is so interesting to me. Why
did you choose that? Of course, this can
go anywhere,
but you really focus on laundromats. Why is
that?
A friend of mine and Barbara's, his name
is Charles. He owns his own he actually
owns owns his own ad agency, but uses
us for geofencing, and he owns multiple laundromats.
(24:00):
And he said to us during COVID,
he's like, foot traffic is an issue for
anyone right now. If you can solve the
foot traffic problem with this technology called geofencing,
I'll refer everything to you.
And I was like, alright. Well, let me
check this thing out called geofencing.
I really didn't know any more about it
than the next person. You know? I've been
(24:21):
shooting makeup and ads and food ads for
different companies, and I was like, well, let
me see what this thing is about. Mind
you, I was on the marketing side,
not on the paid advertising side. This was
purely
content creation
and coming up with content campaigns, not paid
ad campaigns.
So I looked into the technology. I was
(24:42):
fascinated by it, and I really loved that
the learning curve was hard. So that just
told me that if the average person
is gonna struggle to understand this technology, then
that's what I wanna be in. Right? We
were solving a problem and something that we
had to learn to do it. Not everybody
could do it.
So that the hurdle to entry
was hard.
(25:03):
But if you can wrap your head around
the science, the data analytics, plus match it
with creative,
then you're doing things that most agencies can't
do. Because
on the creative side,
you have designers
and maybe some web developers, and they sort
of have been the modern agency for a
long time now. You have people who are
analytical, who are like, oh, now we're web
(25:25):
design designers. They're really not the same people,
but they assume the same role.
So we happen to have a very good
marriage of convenience where we have the analytical
all wrapped up with the creative.
And being able to design the ads in
a logical Right. And having it resonate with
people. Did we answer your question? I feel
like I Yeah. You did. I think that
(25:45):
one of the reasons for laundromats is that
it was an easy access, but then it
makes sense. And I have not heard anyone
focus on that industry, and I'm sure it's
quite large.
It is. There are 33,000
independently Oh my word. In The US. And
they need foot drops. Yes. 100%.
So That was the best space to Sure.
To ever do for what we do. Sure.
(26:06):
And what's important to understand about laundromats is
if you can really make that ad spend
go far
for a small mom and pop company or
if, say, they have 30 up to 30
or a 100 locations. But if you could
do it for one laundromat,
you can scale it to any Sure. Business.
So you can work with the Chipotles of
the world. You could work with the Burger
(26:28):
King's, which use this technology against McDonald's
a few years ago. They used it to
great effect. Chipotle actually used it to drive
their curbside pickup during COVID. Australia used it
to keep people off of the beaches and
in their houses. Yeah. Australia used this to
spy on the streets. So
yeah.
We we took a big industry
that
is only used by the major corporations
(26:51):
and
literally dumbed it down so that the small
businesses could use the same technology
and get results and cut the bigger one,
but he's with little cuts
and get that business.
When we say dumb down, we don't mean
the small business owners done. We Me. Mean.
We Correct. Dense it down. Well, you dense
it down. Yeah. Because obviously, the smartest people
(27:11):
at home are small business owners. These are
people who don't need to be a doctor
anymore. Oh. They don't need to be a
lawyer anymore. They don't need to be an
engineer anymore. They could be self employed.
So people who are small business owners
by default
are more successful more But you made but
you made it available for them, which is
something that probably wasn't before because it's such
big technology.
You know, I also heard you say I
(27:33):
think, Barbara, you said this, that you're in
the trenches with your clients. What do you
mean by that?
What do you mean by that is that
we're in there every day looking at what
the ads performance is and doing all those
things that need to be done. We don't
let our clients' ad spend run for thirty
days. We're in there making sure if a
tactic is not working and we're not seeing
(27:55):
the results for those tactics,
we move that money to an automatic. We
just don't let it run. That's the biggest
thing for how
we have had so much results because the
bigger companies, you know, they have ad spends
of $30,000.
They don't care. It's running
we drive our platforms crazy. Mhmm.
Because we're because we wanna see results, and
(28:15):
we know what we're looking for at this
point.
So at a certain point, we know that
that tactic's not gonna work, and we're not
gonna waste our customers' money in that section.
And the best thing about us is
all the knowledge that we have gained,
we are implementing that into a system
that others can actually go in and use
(28:36):
now as well. That's great. It's almost like
you're a day trader. You're constantly watching what's
working and adjusting, which is important. Yes. And
I probably learned that from that because I
used to train my own stuff. There you
go. There you go. Always transferring the skills.
That's for sure. So what other industries do
you see that could really use this? And
with that, do you work with any franchisees
(28:57):
now, and how has that worked?
No. Not at this moment. We have a
few that's in the works yet.
We're working with that because we developed a
platform that's aggregated, which has a dashboard and
data driven, and that they can plug themselves
into that and then see
what their actual franchises are doing. So if
(29:19):
there is a franchise say they have 10,
and they can actually go into the system
themselves
and look at it and say, okay.
This North place over here is doing really
well, but the South one is not doing
as well. Okay. What do we need
to bring to that to get them more
foot traffic?
So we've developed a system with labor of
(29:40):
love and
a whole bunch of technology
and to put what we know into this
system so that we don't have to be
hands on for some of the people who
don't want us to manage, and they have
someone who can do that, can use our
system data to do that. That's great.
The future really is data driven. It's no
longer that you can run campaigns, a marketing
(30:01):
campaign, and talk about
brand equity and name recognition. That's fine for
the first
thirty to ninety days, but really what's important
beyond that is having good data.
So our platform, this is actually the beta
version of our platform.
We're rolling out the one point o version
of this very soon in in the next
couple days. But this is gonna give you
(30:22):
an idea of just how powerful
our methodology
and the technology is in general. So here's
a client who has multiple locations. I believe
off the top of my head, they have
eight. So over the last thirteen months, they've
spent $12,831.
So here's what's interesting.
We've measured 2,919
(30:45):
visits.
So that's,
ad delivered,
ad impression delivered, and a foot traffic visit
received.
The average cost to acquire each visit
is $4.40.
I want you to ask yourself a question.
What can you afford
for $4.40?
(31:05):
So $4.40
to acquire
a new customer
is incredible value. Our national average
is actually around $5
a visit. So we're actually under that with
this particular client. But there's another way to
measure this data because, again,
data is what really matters. A client doesn't
really care about brand equity. They already built
(31:26):
their brand. Usually, they feel very comfortable about
their brand. They don't need you to pat
them on the back and tell them that,
oh, everyone knows your brand. What they wanna
know is who showed up and who's new
and who's a repeat customer. So we have
a separate system
that measures who is a new person and
who is a repeat person. So the totals
will differ a little bit because
(31:47):
this is a separate system that's only tasked
with measuring news and repeat. So with that
same ad spend, 2,798
satellite verified in store visits were re observed.
Almost 1,900 of them were unique people,
and 899
were unique visits.
So this is tremendous.
(32:08):
This is a tremendous value to the client.
We're able to look month over month. So
month one, we sent
them 228
visits.
And it got tough throughout these months, so
we changed some tactics up. But as you
see, like, even a bad month, we sent
them a 186
and a 116.
So we rebounded because we changed the ad
creatives.
(32:29):
So that's some of the things that you
need to think about impacted. With franchises. You
know, you wanna keep the branding Mhmm. The
same,
right, all throughout all your locations. So while
this is not a franchise, it's one group
of stores owned by one person.
So it's not a franchise because it's their
family business. They have multiple locations. But, look,
02/1954.
We're not done with the month of March
(32:50):
yet, and here we are at a 178
visits so far leaving February, and we're already
into March. So here's what's also important.
This this convenience store, this is the nitty
gritty of shoe fencing. We're able to attribute
visits, so 45 visits to this
that we received from targeting this Dollar Tree
(33:10):
in Des Moines, Iowa.
And you can see the competitors here. We
took
33
new customers from our competitor, which is line
three,
and another one, line five, thirty. And look
how much money it cost us to take
30 customers. You see this one, $3.11.
So the return on investment is crazy. $6.60
(33:34):
spent to get 45
new customers from this location.
So
the technology
is there.
It's very exciting.
I recommend
not getting into
any business unless you do your due diligence
understanding the foot traffic.
And then once you do, you know, you're
gonna wanna make sure that boots keep crossing
(33:56):
the threshold.
And what and our from our point of
view, we do believe in all forms of
advertising,
but we just happen to
know through empirical data
that geofencing is the most powerful of all
the technologies
because you're going after people who are proven
based on their behavior
to spend money
in businesses like yours. And if all you
(34:18):
need to do is just give them a
little tap on the shoulder and let them
know that you're down the street from the
business that they're already frequenting,
then it's that much easier. Like, you saw
some of those, like, spent $3 to get
x amount of 30 people, $3.11,
because that $3.11
was spent in the right Right. With behave
with the behaviors demonstrating that. That's awesome.
(34:40):
Well, this has been so fascinating. I certainly
have learned a lot. So thank you very
much. But as we are ready to close
this out, I'd like to ask both of
you because you've had great careers and you've
done some really interesting things. But what are
you most proud of? Barbara, you wanna start
first?
Well, I gotta say my children, because I
think being a mom is probably the best
thing you could be. But other than that,
(35:01):
I think this
actually
starting this company
and working as hard as we do and
have so many hats,
it's ours. It's like another baby, you know,
for us. It's growing. And
I think with the challenges,
it puts you in
out of your comfort zone,
and
(35:21):
you figure out things that maybe you would
just walk past or not even notice. And
you're
actually growing and fulfilling a need
for the common good because
the smaller midsize business is the fabric of
our country.
And those are the ones that actually grow
our country.
So if you're not helping them grow, where
(35:44):
are we
as a society?
So I think we are blessed to be
able to do this, and
I, you know, thank God every day. And
I think that
Ernesto and I have this passion to do
this.
And I think if we didn't,
then maybe
I don't know where we would be, but
I think this is my second greatest accomplishment
(36:05):
is building this business and giving the technology
to them because
it's so hard when you're running businesses and
doing your everyday and being a family.
You can't
watch all this technology
and implement it all the time. And what
we're being able to do is data driven,
and we're using all these different technologies,
(36:25):
Amazon,
Weatherbase,
all these different technologies that we can use.
We're putting in in one area
for our customers to be able to use
it all Awesome. If they need. Ernesto.
I would say that this is probably the
hardest thing
other than running for congress that I've ever
had to do in my life. If anyone
(36:47):
ever out there runs for something like the
US senate, US congress,
president, governor,
you'll see that you're tested.
You'll understand what kind of character you have.
I would say this is the second
greatest challenge I've ever had.
But while it's one of the hardest things
I've ever had to do,
I would say that it's the most rewarding.
And part of the reason is because
(37:08):
I think as people
you know, when Barbara and I both had
careers as med reps, and it was great.
You know? It's great when someone else is
taking the risk for their business, and you're
just you know, you're the salesperson. You're getting
the you're getting these nice rewards.
No one calls us after hours usually. Like,
no one calls us. No.
Like 247.
(37:29):
Well, the personal development that I've seen,
Barbara, both bar myself and Barbara undergo,
just
becoming
a business owner
and to create something that's super, super unique
and brings great value to people. Filling needs.
Yeah. I I'm proud of I'm proud of
(37:50):
what we do. You know, not to knock
on people who do things like real estate
or or sales or things like that. It's
hard. It's self. It is hard, but
Barbara and I are selling something that we
need That's right. And we've created.
And whether it's an Apple cart
or whether it's geofencing
or whether it's a doughnut shop or a
laundromat,
this is our baby,
(38:11):
and we're bringing value
to
The world. Our community. And we're in three
countries. So One different many parts of the
world. So right?
So I think,
I'm most satisfied with this, certainly the most
challenging.
And you personally get challenged. You know, we
pay ourselves or we don't pay ourselves. Ourselves.
Right. It was more like where we don't
pay ourselves. But and the client comes first.
(38:33):
But it's been an amazing journey. I'm definitely
some really
challenging times, but mostly uptimes.
But I'm proud that, you know, we can
sit here side by side,
slug it out to bring the best value
for our clients,
and it's only getting better from here. And
for people, your students,
who wanted to get into franchising, I would
(38:54):
say be a franchisor.
I would say,
come up with the idea.
Be the Chipotle.
Structure it for that franchise to grow. Make
it a solid foundation
and make sure that
when you're studying franchise and you're doing all
these things, build it to be a franchise.
It's great advice.
You know?
(39:15):
In fact, we have our own platform
that we came up with. You know?
We can talk about it now,
but Noah, who is Martha's son,
is the developer on this, and we came
up with this is the one that's special
for laundry, but we came up with our
own platform.
As you could see, we have an enterprise
option. So this enterprise option is for
(39:38):
people who have franchises
Wonderful. And multilocation
businesses.
This happens to be the one we branded
for laundry,
but Barbara we took our own advice. Barbara's
advice was
build it so that you can be a
franchise, build it so you can scale it.
We take the right
size. So now we're putting ourselves in the
position where anyone, even the other ad agencies,
(40:00):
can come and use our platforms, you know,
to hub for a lot of technology. Fantastic.
We'll still support it.
And, yeah. So now we're in the position
to scale our business just like a franchisor
would where we own all intellectual property. We
own the algorithms,
and, we're at the second level of our
own journey of being self employed. Smart. Smart.
Smart. Well, what a pleasure it was to
(40:21):
talk to the two of you about fascinating
concepts. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, Kathleen. Thank you so much for
having us. FranchiseU is brought to you by
the Yum Center for Global Franchise Excellence at
the University
of Louisville.
For more information on the center, visit business.louisville.edu/youngcgfe.
(40:42):
Thank you for listening to Franchise U.
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