Is Franchising a Fit For Your Next Career Move

Often people consider leaving corporate life and part of that may be determining is franchising a fit for your next career move.

Show Notes

Tim Kubiak 0:07
Have you ever thought franchising is more than just a fast food eatery you see on the corner or in the strip mall. Today we’re going to learn about the world of franchising. There’s literally thousands of options, everything from service companies, to instructional companies, to the eateries we all know and love and maybe you’re like we eat too much. Giuseppe Grammatico is a franchise veteran and he’s our guest today. He’s a coach and consultant who simplifies the process of franchising. He excels at guiding his candidates to the business model that best suits their desired lifestyle. His greatest joy is helping realize the American dream and sharing the freedom that can come from franchising. He’s the author of franchise freedom, a new manifesto for your financial and time freedom, as well as the host of the podcast franchise freedom. franchising is a powerful vehicle for success. But the franchising world can be overwhelming. And Giuseppe takes the guesswork out of the process. listens, teaches and helps you determine if it’s the fit for you and what is the very

best fit.

His favorite phrase is freedom favors the bold, those bold enough to take the action on their goals are the ones that realize that freedom boldness can deliver. You can get all of the information as well as franchising, guidance and in contact with him at GGthe franchiseguide.com of course, the links are in the show notes. So as soon as we tell you a little bit about Red Zone, we’ll welcome Giuseppe to the show.

It seems every week salespeople their managers and business owners stare at their CRM systems and hope they know what’s going on in their must win game changing gears, the red zone sales opportunity management app it’s helped me transform several businesses by increasing revenue and driving incremental gross margins to learn more about how it can help accelerate your success. And to get a special offer. For listeners of the show. Visit TimKubiak.com/bowties and click the red zone logo.

Giuseppe thanks for being here. And welcome to the show. Do you mind take a minute Introduce yourself please?

Giuseppe Grammatico 2:07
Thanks, Tim. I appreciate it. Very excited to be here. Yes, I am my Giuseppe grammatica. That’s a mouthful. I go by GE or GG whatever is easier. And I am a franchise coach and consultant and what that is is it’s similar to an executive recruiter where we help individuals figure out if business ownership is the right fit for them and figure out which specific companies match what they’re looking for. So then in franchising, about 15 years now, I’ve been a franchisee, a master franchisee kind of been on both ends, and I’ve also own non franchise businesses. So my background drop I always jokingly say is the is the New Jersey Shore. You know, picture I don’t even know where the picture was from. But we use that picture because we obviously like many other people miss vacation this year. So it reminds me of where we’re possibly going next year.

Tim Kubiak 3:08
So do you have a shortlist for possible vacations next year?

Unknown Speaker 3:13
We’re thinking we have a wedding in the in the UK and never been there. And we’d love to see family in Italy. So that’s a shortlist. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen next year. But in the next two or three years, we’ll say.

Tim Kubiak 3:31
We’ll cross your fingers at the Pfizer information we saw earlier this week is true. And maybe next year is a possibility.

Giuseppe Grammatico 3:37
Yep, absolutely.

Tim Kubiak 3:41
So before we jump into franchising, and really cover that and how you work with people talk a little bit about your show.

Unknown Speaker 3:50
Yeah, so we have the franchise freedom podcast, and we interview individuals that have basically gone from employee to business owner, not necessarily franchise owner, but have done the journey. So they talk about some recommendations as to you know, people looking at their first business, what recommendations when you go from an employee to business owner like myself, there’s definitely a journey and there’s definitely some advice and things that we can make, I guess some advice we can give that makes the transition a little bit easier. And we also speak with franchise companies that talk about you know, you know, benefits of franchising what their specific companies do, we deal with a lot of franchise companies where the parent company may have five or six, for example, home service brands and they just talk about the benefits of that type of business where you can go in and essentially offer various products and services directly to to the homeowner. So and you know, we also deal with work I’m sorry on interview business coaches that just give general coaching advice. To people looking at the transition and existing business owner, since we have quite a few existing franchisees listening in on the show, and they’re always kind of looking for ways of improving their business and what’s next as far as another business and other franchise.

Tim Kubiak 5:19
So, can you talk about your journey into the space because it’s not like you woke up, you know, as a five year old and said, I want to be a franchise expert, you kind of took a trip to get there yourself.

Unknown Speaker 5:31
Yeah, so, you know, you learn everything, you know, it’s all it’s all work experience. So I was on wall street for many years, I had a very long commute from New Jersey to New York, it was, I remember was about five hours round trip door to door and just did not like didn’t like you know, working for a big company was compensated Well, I can’t complain there but just didn’t like being a number didn’t really see a future was looking at other jobs, other positions, other firms and I always came back to this really isn’t the right fit for me. So own family business, we were in the the restaurant business. And in the restaurant business, the hours were tough, you know, a lot of holidays, weekends, evenings. So you know, realize, although I love the restaurant industry just wasn’t a right fit for me. So in my search, deciding, okay, don’t want to own a restaurant don’t want to be an employee, you know, which direction do I go to, and I had started working with a business coach. And I’ll never forget her name was Pamela done. And I highly recommend her and she said, basically, from from what I said, I am, you know, want to own a business but want the systems in place, don’t want to reinvent the wheel. So one, one, essentially a turnkey business that I can run with, and not have to figuring out not have to figure out the product or the service and things like that. So we figured out franchising was the right fit. So I put in a an application online, did some research, and I had a franchise consulting company, contact me. And several months later on my first franchise, business, so was a master franchise. So that’s essentially where I started my journey, we essentially purchase a territory from the franchise company. And I developed it found franchise owners in that area, and the corporate office and myself split any royalty payments. And so, you know, as a master franchise was able to find qualified franchisees and coach them through through the whole process. So purchased the couple of master franchises, sold that business recently, and just learned a lot got to network with consultants and CEOs and presidents of franchise companies and learned a lot along the way. So what I truly enjoyed was the the process and the the meetings and conversations with the original franchise consultant. 15 years, 15 years or so years ago, and decided that’s the path I wanted to go. So started consulting about two years ago, and I work with a company by the name of Fran choice.

Tim Kubiak 8:20
And one of the things is you get a lot of people today, right, leaving corporate careers by choice or by force with the economy. Have you seen an uptick in interest of people looking at what their next step is? within your business?

Unknown Speaker 8:35
Yeah, absolutely. So you know, we work with corporate executives, looking to achieve time and financial freedom that’s on my LinkedIn that’s on my website, that our our mission is very consistent as to you know, who we’re out to assist. And but the reality is, yes, you’re getting, we’re getting calls from just about everyone that people that have been laid off or furloughed, or quite frankly, don’t want to go back to their jobs, maybe it’s in the city, because they don’t have the opportunity to work from home. So people have It’s been one of those years where people said, Okay, you know what, I’ve always thought about business ownership. You know, now is the time to you know, I have the time I’m working from home or I’m unemployed, sitting at home, now is the time to look into it. So I have just, you know, it’s it’s seven days a week we it’s either through email, I have a podcast, as I mentioned, the podcast, people will find me. We do webinars, I have a book franchise freedom as well. So people find me and, you know, our services are free. So we’re similar to an executive recruiter, we’re paid directly from the franchise companies to send them qualified candidates, that would be a good fit for their franchise. So I encourage people to call me this is one of the biggest decisions one of the most expensive decisions next to owning a home. So contact me and we figure out if number one If business owners have in general is the right fit in a losing a job and thinking the grass is greener with a business is not really the best way to, or the best reason to own a business. So we sit down to figure out if business ownership is the right fit. And then from there, you know, it’s it’s either starting a business from scratch, and what we call, the second option is the unfair advantage as I coined the phrase of owning a franchise. And the benefits of both of just entrepreneurship. And to be very clear to your audience, one is not better than the other. I know, it’s shocking. And I know I’m in the franchise space. And I shouldn’t say that, right. But it’s true, it’s based off of what is the best match for you. So franchising system is in place, you can run with a day one, versus starting from scratch. And there’s a lot of pros and cons to both. But ultimately, most people in my experience of doing this, and prior to doing this, they want to start a business from scratch. And they sit down, you know, pen and paper, and it never gets further than that they have a bunch of ideas on paper. And it just never happens. Because of time life gets in the way or you know, travel for work. So you know it, franchising is not the right fit for everyone, nor is business ownership. So I love helping people figure that out. And as I mentioned, that free intro call that we do, as I mentioned, all our services are free. But that intro called really shed some light, and allows people to really, you know, think about if they really want to go down that path, and I can assist them from from A to Z. So I really, really love what I do very passionate, and it’s a lot of fun get to get to meet a lot of cool people.

Tim Kubiak 11:51
So I think a lot of us have an idea in our head of what a franchise is, but it’s probably much broader, right? It’s not just the fast food joint on the corner in your town. So can you talk about the breadth and range of franchises?

Unknown Speaker 12:03
If if there’s an existing business, there’s, there’s a franchise probably available or will be available soon. So I don’t I don’t, I don’t classify franchise as an industry, right. It’s just essentially a business. It could be residential cleaning, it could be swimming lessons, and it could be a subway, you know, restaurants and things that so employment services, restoration services. So essentially, it’s a business that has that system in place, and you’re buying essentially the the the right or the license to use the brand name, you’re getting support, you’re getting set up in their system. There’s many benefits of franchising, but essentially you want that that turnkey business in a box, it could be home based. And what that means is that not that you have customers coming to you, but you can run it from a laptop from your, your home office. And you know, you may go, you know, b2b, maybe it’s a coaching service where you’re going from one business to the next and meeting them at their place of business, or it’s a residential service, such as cleaning or painting services and things like that. So essentially, it’s that business set up for you. So you’re not figuring out everything from A to Z, and you’re essentially running with a proven business model proven system

Tim Kubiak 13:31
is part of that business model and part of that system, a marketing plan to generate business, create customer demand, you know, because that’s where a lot of new businesses fail, right? They can’t drive the revenue.

Unknown Speaker 13:45
Yes, yes, absolutely. So, you know, you pay the franchise fee, there’s typically an ongoing royalty that you pay sometimes, depending on the business, the royalty will include will be all inclusive of everything, others will break it down and charge a royalty maybe a separate marketing fee. But ultimately, yes, a game plan is put into place, not every franchise is built the same. So the better companies will really give you a clear idea as to what they can do. So some So to give you an example, some franchise companies will put together all the all the print and all the ads, and then it’s up to the franchisee to go out and place those ads on social media, maybe it’s a newspaper, you know, LinkedIn, Facebook, things like that. And others will have a turnkey system where you basically they’ll basically recommend the spend, it’s going to be X amount per month, and we will promote your business. We’ll create your website, we’re going to push out to you know, form social media platforms, we’ll do set up your CRM, we’ll capture everything and then we’ll do email blasts once a week or once a month. So definitely talk about, you know, we talk about business development, how are we going to get your customers so you have the marketing aspect, and then you know how How are the sales going to be handled. So just to maybe dive into that part sales may be someone you know, once the lead comes in, they have to go out and get it. Whereas other franchise systems will actually have either outsource or in house call centers without the call center will actually answer questions for a potential customer, they will upsell them on various products that the the franchise offers and even accept payment. So, you know, depending on what you’re looking for, there are real true turnkey solutions that will assist in every step of the way. And, you know, with that solution, that means possibly being able to work from home because you know, that that call centers based in another state elsewhere, and that they’re even doing sales for you. So that means, uh, you know, that you’re paying a flat fee or percentage every month, it also means that you have less expense and you know, less office space and or less employees, since you have that call center working, you know, in many cases 24 seven.

Tim Kubiak 16:07
And that’s part of the benefit of franchise ownership, right? Is that infrastructure support, and you talk even and you think about quality of life, so what can you expect, just generally speaking, as a franchise owner,

Unknown Speaker 16:22
so, you know, depending on the franchise, and in, as I mentioned, a franchise is a business, you’re also going to assume risks, I always like to be very clear there. But as far as quality of life, you know, I call it the unfair advantage, I call it where you’re able to build that system much faster. And I just say that business much faster than a standalone business. So what happens in many cases, you invest in the franchise, you know, you pay the franchise fee. And while you’re in training, the corporate office, depending on the franchise, and their marketing system will go out, for example, in health and fitness, you’re in training. And as you’re in training, they’re going out via their marketing efforts, trying to find you so many members, you know, they, they kind of figured out, you know, what your breakeven is, what your rent is marketing costs, and things like that, and you know, what you’re paying and payroll. So they have an idea, for example, and maybe 50 members that you need to break even on a monthly basis. So they will go out. So day one, before you even open just a retail location, they’ll know exactly how many members you need to break even, and they will work on getting you as many members as possible while you’re while you’re going through the training process. So, you know, as far as lifestyle, why, why are we owning any business, and I always talk about time and financial freedom, money is great, but ultimately, you know, we all share and have 24 hours a day. So what are you doing with that time, so, you know, the goal is to own a business and basically have that time freedom to travel and do the things that truly, that you’re truly passionate about, you know, you don’t want to necessarily buy a business, and now you’re essentially trading, you know, an employment job, maybe working 5060 hours to a business where you’re working the same amount of hours. So you’re doing it to obtain that freedom, I think, generally, you can do a little bit quicker with a franchise and, you know, the first year is always a learning curve, you’re finding the right employees and learning the systems. And, you know, if it’s retail, you’re building out the space, so, you know, we’re fast forwarding to the second and third year, we’re looking at a business that could essentially be run without you, whether that’s with a general manager or employees in place, so that you can do the things that you’re truly interested in. So it’s, it’s that unfair advantage of really being able to launch that business and that business being up and running at a, at a relatively quick, quick rate.

Tim Kubiak 19:01
So one of the things you talk about in your book is one of the advantages of franchises is economies of scale. Right. And so we’ve talked about marketing, right, we’ve talked about systems, so part of that is, you know, you list out supplies, products, etc. Right, um, and being able to leverage that in a big way. But is there back office accounting benefits and insurance advantages to owning a franchise? To versus an independent standalone?

Unknown Speaker 19:32
Yeah, sure, um, you know, some, some will assist with that process, some, some will have certain vendors in place. So with insurance where they can offer discounts, because it’s one company offering this, you know, the same level of insurance or the same insurance to all their franchisees. So, absolutely, it’s insurance, supplies, supplies and chemicals. You know, you’re in a painting franchise, you’re buying at a significant discount. But you know, when We talked about economies of scale. And one of the major benefits is that, you know, most people don’t buy or start a business because of fear. They’re worried about the the risk. And I always say, well, what’s your fear? What’s your, your concern? And essentially, they have a lot of questions that need to be answered. And I think, you know, the major advantage of a franchise is that you’re not just saying, okay, a standalone painting business, you know, you can do you can do rough numbers and do some research, you know, what’s, what’s the success rate of a, you know, a standalone painting company, a mom and pop company, versus, you know, now you join a franchise system, we’re number one, though, they’ll support you, you know, any questions you have, they’ll come to you and train you. But they’re also making sure that, you know, they’re they’re following up and saying, okay, you know, you know, this is how we’re going to train, you know, you may have these certain challenges, and this is how we’re going to assist you, we’re setting you up with this canon painting. Also, with those same companies such as the Sherman Williams and Benjamin Moore’s of the world, we’re going to set you up with a network. So you have continuous labor, subcontractors, painters, and things like that, that you can network with. So a lot of benefits, but more importantly, and I know, I’m kind of jumping around here, but the benefit of any franchise is validation. And that’s, that’s what I what I talk about just about every single phone call is that you now have, depending on the size of the franchise company, you may have access to, you know, maybe 50, maybe hundreds, maybe even thousands of franchisees that you can speak with, because, you know, at the end of the day, you want to know, directly from the franchisee how well they’re doing the million dollar question is, you know, knowing what, you know, now, would you do it all over again. So you can talk to franchisees that have been one year in the business three years, 510, even 10 years, or even more. So that’s one major advantage is that you can speak directly with the franchisee you know, I always recommend talking to the new guys, the more established franchise owners and people outside your market, just to get a really good good feel. And typically, that helps with the fear because now they’re being given this knowledge, the answers to their questions to say, was the investment truly 100 220,000? Did you go over? Why did you go over? What are the margins? I’m hearing? 30%? Are you doing 30% and things like that, so they can truly validate, and speak with 510, even 15 I gotta fly in here, 15 or more franchisees, and really get their true feedback as to you know, are the are the numbers accurate? And what can I expect my first year as far as support?

Tim Kubiak 22:52
So when you look at companies that sell franchises, meaning, you know, whether it’s that top line paint supplier or the fast food establishment or anything in between, right, um, did they set out to sell franchises in the beginning? Or did they just build a business and find it as that they had a niche, and it’s a way to scale?

Unknown Speaker 23:15
Yeah, I think I mean, ultimately, a franchise is a proven business model. So there’s various routes on expansion, it could just be you owning multiple stores, if we’re talking about painting, there’s licensing licensing plays, as well as franchises and I think once you get the I don’t know if that’s maybe their grand plan because there’s a lot of uncertainty as to exactly how you want to grow and there’s no right or wrong way of doing it. It’s based off of preference and what works best for the owner. But I think ultimately, as a business owner, your goal is to be successful to like what you do and if things are going well and you have multiple locations and you’re like you know what, I’m not in the business often. The business kind of runs on its own I have great training, great support, if there’s an issue my employees can quickly access information, ways of troubleshooting or dealing with issues I have a universal accounting system that any office you can use or location can use and it can be replicated across the country then you know, that may be a good candidate to to become a franchise but I don’t know if they necessarily thought of franchising the very beginning. I you know, I always recommend having that proof of concept because when a potential franchise owner comes to you and says Well, I want to talk to other franchisees and you don’t have any it just makes it a little bit a little bit more difficult unless you have a great story and you know systems in place which can definitely be the case you know, I know when I when I started my journey I did look at a newer company so did not have really many franchises to contact but always recommend you know, just for getting those answers get you know for that, really get rid of that fear. And being more more comfortable, you know, definitely having that benefit of speaking with those franchisees. But going back to your question, I’m not I’m not certain they have that plan, the very beginning. But if it’s working and you can replicate it, yeah, what a great candidate. And we do recommend, there’s a few companies that we do recommend our individuals to when they’re ready to make that a ready to make that move.

Tim Kubiak 25:26
So one of the things is we’re getting to know each other before we recorded, you had told me about territory in your very first franchise and thinking you needed more territory than you ultimately took on? Do you mind sharing that with the listeners? Because I think that’s, you know, everybody always thinks more is better. And sometimes that’s actually not the case.

Unknown Speaker 25:47
Yeah, that’s a question I get all the time. It’s people ask, and there’s nothing wrong, obviously, with buying more territory, that’s going to give you obviously more market share. And with more market share, you know, just say, one versus three territories, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll need three offices or three bookkeepers. So you can maybe have one office service all three. So definitely some advantages there and some discounts when buying multiple territories. But the big question, as a coach, each and every one of our candidates is, you know, figuring out what, what what company, you know, what’s part of this territory. So if it’s a home based business, offering, swimming lessons, for example, I just spoke with a company that offers swimming lessons, essentially, all aquatic lessons. So from swimming lessons to what happens in a rip current, and they just tell you, no, I’m out boating, I fall off the boat, what happens or there’s an emergency, they cover it all in very small classes. You know, it’s figuring out, I lost my train of thought, I’m sorry, oh, for the territories, it’s figuring out okay, what does a territory consist of, so, in this particular case, swimming lessons, I don’t know the exact cost per month. So they’ll say, you know, we are looking for households with a minimum household income of X amount, 70 500,000, whatever that number is. So, in my case, it may be in our area, maybe one county, and the next state, you go into New York, maybe it’s half a county in a third state, it may be the entire state. So, you know, not looking at sorry for how many territories you could buy, but what does the territory consist of, and a lot of times a franchisor will have to look and say, Okay, we got to do some research, which they typically have done. And this is, you know, how many zip codes or this is the territory you’ll get. So, figure out what the territory consists consists of. And if that’s doable, maybe start with one or what a lot of our candidates do is they’ll purchase three territories, and then they’ll develop them on a calendar. So they’ll invest in three territories where they’ll get a significant discount on the franchise fees on the second and third, they’ll develop the first territory year one, the year two, the second territory year three, the the third territory so but the big part of of the service and the the value add that I bring to the table is making sure they ask those questions about territory, what it consists of, because every franchise is completely different. Some of the retails may have a smaller territory with a radius may only be five or 10 miles whereas some of the homeless home service businesses, you may you know, maybe three or four counties that comprise of that territory.

Tim Kubiak 28:41
How do you even begin to decide who to look at or who to drive someone that you’ve done those initial calls with? That is a good candidate for franchising towards

Unknown Speaker 28:54
Yes, I in my book, we cover this, you know, in great detail and essentially I tell everyone to whether you’re using a consultant like myself or doing it on your own is don’t don’t put together a shortlist of franchise companies to start having you know, you start looking at subways and things like that, you know, why? Why are you getting into this business? Do you realize it’s seven days a week you realize there’s a lot of lot of turnover and things like that so I’m not just looking at looking at it as wow subway, there’s lines out the door and I’m not picking on subway just that’s the first franchise that came to my mind. That was actually the first franchise I looked at. So I kind of made the same exact mistakes. I look at it kind of you reverse engineer and look at the franchise companies towards the end. So kind of to go back what we call our franchise freedom process. Figure out if business ownership is the right fit. then figure out if franchising if you want that system in place versus the standard, the standalone where you’re doing it on your own, and then figuring out what your role is. What’s your role in the business? Do you want to be semi absentee where maybe you keep your job and you’re working few hours in the business kind of overseeing a general manager? Do you want to be hands on? Do you want to be? You know, maybe it’s a tree service, and you’re going out doing some of the work? What are the hours you want to work? What are the days of operation? A lot of our business to business franchises are Monday to Friday, nine to five, because that’s when the business is open? what’s the what’s your investment? You know, realistically, we look, you know, we recommend funding companies to do a full analysis to give you all your options, but, you know, What, are you comfortable investing in? The funding companies will give you the options, but how much do you want to invest all in?

Unknown Speaker 30:47
You know, do you have enough cash to cover your monthly expenses? So we go through this in detail, you know, would you prefer the business, you know, work being open and operating 24 seven, that doesn’t mean you’re working 24 seven, but the restoration services of the world water and smoke mitigation and things like that, you know, it’s 24, seven, it’s a it’s a lot of emergency work. So only after gathering all that information and figuring out, you know, this is your ideal business, we create a model. So this is kind of without naming any franchise names. This is what the business looks like, you could do this experiment on your own, or this, you know, practice on your own and just kind of put together that list and answer those questions that we just kind of went over. And then only from there, we typically recommend two or three franchise companies. And part of that is, I’ll speak directly with the franchise, the VP of franchise development, and maybe the president or the CEO, who I speak with, I’ve had a few on the on the podcast as well. And we’ll have a discussion number one, does this candidate sound like a good fit, they want to run it semi absentee, and many will say now, we are looking for owner operators, minimum 40 hours a week in the very, very first year. And then from there, if they want to step back a little bit, and others will say, yeah, we are built for semi absentee, you hire the GM out the gate, you’re involved, but that GM is going to be at the, just say, the health or fitness club on a daily basis. And then we look at territories is their territory available, because in many cases, people get really excited and to find out their territory, maybe there’s not a business open today, but the terror the territory, the zip code has been sold. And they’re going to be hoping, you know, in the next six months, or maybe you know, up to two or three years from now, since it was someone that bought multiple territory. So we do all that backend work for you. So you don’t have to. And then as I mentioned, you have that model, we find two or three companies. And we ask, you know, the the value we bring are the questions. So in many cases, if you say to someone or you’re on a, you’re doing an online search, and you say I love restaurants, it’ll show you restaurants in in the investment range typically. And then I’ll tell you, maybe if territory is available, or they may have you send in a form, or you have to send an email. And if you tell me if anyone comes to me, after doing all the work we do and say I want to own a restaurant, I’ll I’ll why you to death, I jokingly say, and I’ll say, okay, you want to own a restaurant, but you want your role to be Monday to Friday, and you want fewer employees and you’re open to retail location, but you do realize that a lot of the restaurant food franchises are going to be multiple employees, high turnover and things like that. And then that’s when they’ll step back and say, Oh, I didn’t, you know, I didn’t realize that I just for whatever reason, thought it was, uh, you know, I see the I see the signs every day on my way to work or on my walk. So I always had that interest. So, we, um, you know, the values in the question. So, you know, we’ll ask those difficult questions, you know, figure it all out. And typically, the two or three companies are relatively good fits. And then from there, it’s up to the individual to contact the franchise companies, the franchise company will set up the first phone call, they’ll have kind of a right fit, intro call to see if it’s a good fit, and then decide from there if they’re going to set up a second call, send out the franchise agreements, but ultimately, the you know, the people that come to me the candidates, as we call them, they have to figure out what their ideal not necessarily business but ideal business and role will be in the business and see if it meets meets their, their lifestyle needs. By the way, there’s over 4000 companies, franchise companies in the US I definitely get to be overwhelming when you’re looking at a list of that many companies.

Tim Kubiak 34:49
So one question that comes to mind is not everything works in every territory, right? So we’ll say something that works in California or something works in you know, jersey and the city. might not work in Iowa. Right? So if you’re looking at it, is there consideration as a potential franchisee that you’re looking at and going, Okay, this is East Coast centric, this would be their first launch into whether it’s the south or the Midwest or the upper Midwest or wherever? Is there additional risk profiles that maybe you should be considering?

Unknown Speaker 35:21
Yeah, and that and that’s part of the, the franchise companies role to, you know, figure out to make sure there is a market there is, you know, that medium income, median income to you know, of households, right. So, whether it works in that area or not, or if it’s if it means a larger territory, so that the franchise companies will do that due diligence prior, you know, some examples that I get, and we call them lifestyle brands or companies, for example, I’m in New Jersey, companies that do mosquito abatement, mosquito control. In New Jersey, the you know, the the season, maybe six or seven months, and some people may come back and say, that’s a disadvantage, I have nothing to do over the winter. And those businesses are built, so that you are their high, you know, high profit high margin businesses. And they’re sticky, as I call them, because people are, you know, you’re spraying every three weeks. So you’re making the income for the year in seven months. So you can do what you what you want, you know, those other four or five months, or you can look at other other businesses. You know, if you’re dealing with homeowners, you may want to upsell them, maybe invest in an additional franchise, since you’re already working with the homeowner. Now you can say, okay, you know, we also offer, and maybe it’s investing an additional franchise where we can maintain your lawn, or we can powerwash we can paint, we can do holiday lighting and things like that. But to go back to your question, yes, the franchisee definitely wants to make sure that they’re, you know, that there’s enough market, in the territory they live in. And that’s a discussion to have with, with the franchisor. The franchisor does a lot of that due diligence, prior to make sure it is a feasible territory. And if not, they’ll they will say, hey, this doesn’t work in this particular area, unfortunately. And typically, I know that before our conversation, because I will have a conversation, I have a call before recommending or referring any franchise company, we will have that conversation directly with the franchise company. So we will know before then. So but if you’re doing the investigation on your own, it’s one of the important questions to ask, you know, in the very beginning stages.

Tim Kubiak 37:34
So in your book, you talk about discovery day. Can you just for people listening quick summary and maybe a little bit of what you might expect on a discovery day.

Unknown Speaker 37:45
Yeah, discovery days that have have changed with with COVID It seems like we’re getting a little bit more back to normal, but a lot of them have been virtual, but typically, it’s one or two days directly at the franchise company’s headquarters. Typically they will pay for your trip, or reimburse you for your trip. And you go out there you meet sometimes a CEO you meet you know, all your the entire office support centers and things like that you may meet other franchise candidates people looking same boat as you looking to invest in a franchise and obviously a different territory, different area. They may have existing franchisees to also give their feedback as to you know, what their journey has looked at look like their experience. And big big recommendation to people with discovery days, it’s two days obviously if you’re working a full time, full time job, it’s going to be two days you’re going to have to take off they are only for individuals that are 90 to 95% sure that they are wanting to move forward with the franchise you will not learn anything new on a discovery day necessarily mean you may learn one or two minor things but for the most part, you’re going there to just validate and say okay, I want to shake hands with the owners I want to meet other other franchisees in person or virtually now and other candidates but it kind of solidifies This is the franchise for me let me Let’s meet in person or virtually and, and finalize this deal it is not where you’re 50% you’re kind of on the fence uncertain thinking you’re going to learn a lot. That’s that’s just it’s a waste of time, in my opinion. Be 90 95% there, go there speak with everyone at you know, you’ll you’ll ask some good questions, though. They’ll give you kind of a overview and you’ll get to meet maybe some of the people that will be supporting you whether that be phone support or maybe one of your trainers that will come out to your territory but it just a great opportunity to meet the franchisee but don’t waste your time unless you’re really really close that that you’re going to be moving forward with that franchise company.

Tim Kubiak 39:57
So early on you talked about you do that. first call for free, right? If you don’t mind, share how your business model works. So people understand that if they get in touch with you, and they’re really having this conversation, and maybe it looks like it’s gonna be a fit, you know, how do you make a living?

Unknown Speaker 40:13
Great question, right? We all we have the right so. So we pointed the franchise freedom process. And essentially what it is it starts with that right fit intro call. And if you notice I’ve said right fit intro just like, like I said, with the franchise companies, we it’s a similar process. It’s an interview process, and I am open, I enjoy helping people. So sometimes I’ll get people, for example, in college, I just did a webinar for some students here locally here in New Jersey and answered a lot of their questions. You know, they’re in business school, they just want to learn a little bit more about franchising. I have no problem answering questions, but typically, it’s for that individual that is except thought thought about business ownership. So we do a 20 minute right fit intro call to figure out if we’re a good fit, personality wise, I mean, you have to put up with my, my crazy humor, my my my jokes, as I joke, say, but uh, if you uh, you know, if you’re, if you’re willing to put up my jokes, you know, and, and go through the process, and we, you know, we feel you’re, you’re a good fit for business ownership, we schedule a second call. And in between those calls, I send out a questionnaire, it takes about 15 minutes to fill out. And that questionnaire digs a little bit deeper as to the type of business that you’re looking to invest in, it requires a little bit of thought, that’s why we email it out. And we don’t do that over the phone. So on that second consultation call, which is step two, it’s about 60 minutes, we review the questionnaire, and we do a deep dive as to, you know, where the candidates are now, where they want to be kind of what’s holding them back, you know, what’s their reason of owning a business have they own businesses before. And, you know, we look at a lot of the characteristics of what their ideal business looks like. After that call, I get to work and I create a two page franchise model what their ideal business looks like, we send that over to them, I always also send a copy of my autographed copy of my book. And we set up a third call. And that third call is, you know, we look at the model again, that’s call number three. And we look at three, franchise, two or three franchise companies that match, you know, specifically what they are looking for. So that’s called three. But I’ve done a ton of work in the process. And I’ve contacted the franchise companies, I made sure territories were available, that the candidate may be a good fit, I do that kind of all i do that on my own, I make those phone calls. So that’s called number three. And after call number three, typically after that, if everything goes smoothly, and they’re excited about the franchise companies, I tell each candidate, I’m not my job is not to answer every single question about every franchise, you know, what, what’s the royalty? What you know exactly? What’s the investment, how many franchisees? Those are all great questions, and I and I assist with that process. I tell them to jot them down, you’re going to have the same questions for each franchise company, jot those down, I’ll send over your questions, your model, your questionnaire and any notes I have directly to the franchise companies so that they can follow up, set up that right fit intro call, you know, going back to the right fit that we set up initially. And then they will also do an interview making sure that they’re a good fit, which for the most part they are. And then they’ll send over a Franchise Disclosure Document which outlines the exact business it’ll answer most of their questions, investment ranges, royalties, and things like that. So how I get compensated? And you know, and what I bring to the table. How do I get compensated is, the franchise companies typically will pay us a referral fee. It’s a, it, it varies, but it’s a there’s a percentage of the franchise fee. That’s it. If a candidate uses our services or not the fee that they pay the franchise fees exactly the same. So if you invest in a painting franchise through me or go direct the fee is exactly the same. Why franchise companies would pay a fee to us is that we bring them qualified candidates. So someone that we sit down, we’ve spent hours on the phone, we’ve worked together, we’ve made sure that you know we put them in a business that’s a good fit for what they’re looking for. And to be quite honest, if we send a candidate over they basically get pushed the top of the list because unlike an internet lead, which is I’m interested send me more information. We work with them extensively. And not only do we say they’re a good fit, we put we give them the questionnaire, the model, these are all the reasons so that’s that’s the best part of the business. The best part of the business is doesn’t cost the candidates anything they’re getting free coaching and advice, both, you know, in the beginning of the process, even if we feel like we’re not a good fit, or, you know, maybe they should hold off do do financials, I still will email them weekly, my podcast, I will follow up at minimum every other month, just to check in. And even after investing in a franchise, you know, we’re touching base and how are things going? has the experience been? You know, what you expected? And, you know, have you thought about growth? Have you thought about investing or buying additional territories or locations with the existing franchisee, or other companies. So, we assist in the process. So, you know, I could be working with candidates 20 years from now, just because I’m always offering something, whether it’s a value add idea, maybe it’s a vendor recommendation or referral, or showing them different ways. franchise, franchise companies are, you know, in many cases getting hundreds if not thousands of leads per month. So they utilize our services to really help them bring qualified candidates to the table. That’s essentially it. Similar to an executive recruiter.

Tim Kubiak 46:13
We’ve covered a lot of ground here, tell everybody where they can find you. And what Didn’t I ask you that I should have?

Unknown Speaker 46:21
A good question. So where they can find me, is my website. So it’s GG, my initials, the franchise guide, g UID. e.com. So Gigi, the franchise guide calm. You can listen in on my podcast, we have a webinar that we a live webinar that we pre recorded that talks about business ownership, franchising, being an employee versus a business owner, which is great. You can also click on the book link. And you can get a free download today of the entire book franchise freedom, which talks at length about everything that we talked about in this in this podcast, and shows you how to do the process on your own. And if you need some assistance. As I mentioned, no fear contracts, you can contact me. So on the website, there’s also a contact tab, click on that you can book a call directly on my calendar, if it’s our first call, just booked a right fit. Intro call once again, at GG, the franchise guide calm and everything is there. As far as anything we didn’t cover, I mean, ultimately, I go back to the basics and the basics are have a vision. You know, I asked a question all the time. You know, where do you want to be in three years? You know, what has to happen? In the next three years for you to be happy both personally and professionally? It’s a it’s a question that I stole stole from Dan Sullivan, it’s called the R factor question. So think about that, you know, where do you want to be? You know, business ownership isn’t for everyone. It’s not easy, whether it’s a franchise or not. You know, what, what are you looking to accomplish? If it’s at that time and financial freedom that we talked about in the book, and that we talked about today, you know, I could definitely assist you in making that decision. But really think about where you want to be why you want to do this. And I don’t think anyone wants a business. You know, they need a business for that for the lifestyle that they that they’re looking for. So I could definitely assist you. Give me a call. And if you’re uncertain or just have some general franchise questions, give me a call. You know, as I mentioned, I’ll spend I’ll spend the 20 or so minutes on the call and if you want some additional info and we’ll we’ll put you on our email campaign so that you’re notified every time a podcast or webinars is being presented and you’ll get all that information and it’s it’s all free. And it’s you know, we deliver that through email.

Tim Kubiak 48:48
That’s beautiful. Giuseppe, thank you for the time. Thanks for being here today.

Unknown Speaker 48:52
Tim, I appreciate it. Thanks again. Take care.

Tim Kubiak 49:17
What a wealth of information Giuseppe provided for us today. For those of you that still want to learn more again in the show notes or go to GG the franchise guy.com to get all the bonuses he talked about. Learn more about franchising, and if you’re at a point where you’re considering that your career, get in touch with them again, it’s a no obligation no cost thing. As always, thanks for listening to bow ties in business. You can find us on our socials at bow ties and business on Facebook and Instagram and bow ties and bi z on Twitter. If you haven’t already done so please like and subscribe to the show. And finally, if you’re not a member of the weekly sales letter newsletter, go to Tim Kubiak right.com right now Now and sign up. Every week we’ll deliver the latest episode into your inbox along with a link to the show notes, some insights and some exciting information about how to make more sales with the red zone sales opportunity management app. Thanks again for listening. talk to y’all next week.