Ever considered trading the 9-to-5 grind for the keys to your own business empire? Our latest episode features franchise expert Greg Mohr, who guides us through the nuts and bolts of franchise ownership, funding, and why this might just be your ticket to financial freedom. Greg's own transformation from fast food management to a guru in franchising reveals a world where the blueprint for success is ready-made, financing is more accessible than one might think, and the support systems are robust. We traverse the landscape of franchise opportunities, from those tailored for the semi-absentee owner to options perfect for the active retiree, unearthing the potential for both supplemental and primary sources of income.
Are you ready for a more balanced life, where community, support, and a structured approach to business are the standard? That's what the franchise world offers, and we discuss how the model presents an alternative to the unpredictability of starting from scratch. Greg highlights the unique advantages of high-retention business models like telecommunications franchises and how the franchise framework fosters collaborative growth, exclusive territories, and a network of supportive peers. Whether you’re looking to set your own hours or earn a six-figure income, we navigate through the myriad ways franchising can align with your personal and professional goals.
Rounding out our conversation, Greg shares his philosophy on sales and franchising education, rooted in the joy of continuous learning and helping others. For those intrigued by the idea of franchising but hesitant to take the first step, we explore the Franchise Maven's process and the resources available to ease into this world, without the pressure of immediate commitment. Join us for this eye-opening discussion, packed with actionable insights and the reassurance that your journey into franchising can begin at any stage, with support at every turn.
Website: https://www.franchisemaven.com/
Greg's Phone Number: (361) 772-6401
To Reach Jordan:
Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/
Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.
Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call
Ever considered trading the 9-to-5 grind for the keys to your own business empire? Our latest episode features franchise expert Greg Mohr, who guides us through the nuts and bolts of franchise ownership, funding, and why this might just be your ticket to financial freedom. Greg's own transformation from fast food management to a guru in franchising reveals a world where the blueprint for success is ready-made, financing is more accessible than one might think, and the support systems are robust. We traverse the landscape of franchise opportunities, from those tailored for the semi-absentee owner to options perfect for the active retiree, unearthing the potential for both supplemental and primary sources of income.
Are you ready for a more balanced life, where community, support, and a structured approach to business are the standard? That's what the franchise world offers, and we discuss how the model presents an alternative to the unpredictability of starting from scratch. Greg highlights the unique advantages of high-retention business models like telecommunications franchises and how the franchise framework fosters collaborative growth, exclusive territories, and a network of supportive peers. Whether you’re looking to set your own hours or earn a six-figure income, we navigate through the myriad ways franchising can align with your personal and professional goals.
Rounding out our conversation, Greg shares his philosophy on sales and franchising education, rooted in the joy of continuous learning and helping others. For those intrigued by the idea of franchising but hesitant to take the first step, we explore the Franchise Maven's process and the resources available to ease into this world, without the pressure of immediate commitment. Join us for this eye-opening discussion, packed with actionable insights and the reassurance that your journey into franchising can begin at any stage, with support at every turn.
Website: https://www.franchisemaven.com/
Greg's Phone Number: (361) 772-6401
To Reach Jordan:
Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/
Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.
Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call
Hey, what's going on, guys? We got a special guest here today. We have Greg Moore, the franchise maven. Greg, I was sitting here thinking about it. If we have an individual who's working a full-time job, been in the job for 10 years, wants to go off and start a franchise, but they don't have the funds, would that even be possible?
Speaker 2:You know, jordan, that's a question that people don't always ask me right away. Very interesting in that, with franchising, getting funding for a franchise is actually very easy. A lot of people think you know, I want to go down to my local bank and do it, and that's just not always the case because local banks are very you know, you might have a good relationship with them, they might do it, but they're really picky about what they invest in. I have a few groups of people that specifically do funding for franchising. So funding for franchising is actually very simple for even for a new business like that, as long as you've got some decent credit on your end, then the franchising already has that proven model of success.
Speaker 2:In my funding people, the people they work with, they know those franchises have that proven model of success and that's what a lot of the business funding people are looking at. They'll be looking at that business how well it's doing. So when you go into a private business and you want to fund something like that, they're going to be looking at the past records of that private business. It might be a little bit more challenging to get funding for something like that, whereas for a franchise, that model of success is already there on that result. You've got good credit. I've got funding people. You can go SBA loans. You can do other kinds of loans. I've got a couple of different people that we can talk to for, you know, roll over for businesses using your 401k money, using your IRA money all sorts of different options for people out there that they're not necessarily aware of when they're mostly dealing with their local banks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is why you're the guy, this is why you're the maven. So, greg, where did your journey begin with all this? How did you grow up? And then, how'd you even get exposed to franchising? Because it's a unique area, it's not something that most people go after.
Speaker 2:That's true. My first boring into franchising was actually back in my high school days. You know, back in back in the late 70s when I was in high school kind of dating myself there. Most everybody got into. You know, their first jobs was fast food. It was just a really simple, easy place to go. He made some money. So you go out and party on Friday and Saturday nights Simple as that.
Speaker 2:I got into Taco Bell and I moved up in the Taco Bell world after a while there and started managing some restaurants. And I didn't even know it at the time. But I was actually working for a master franchiser who she had about 50 restaurants throughout the Woodland, california, davis, sacramento, california area and I started managing her restaurants. That was my first foray into franchising and I thought it was great because when I was managing her restaurants I was helping her build up the sales and build up the teams on many of her different restaurants and I could go into any one I wanted to and it was always exactly the same process and procedures, very simple to operate it. So you weren't, you know, wondering okay, now, what am I going to do here? That was my first foray into it and I moved up into managing other restaurants. I finally got bored with that, got a degree in electrical engineering and physics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, no, no, absolutely. I just want to hop into that point right there where you brought up that with inside of franchising. It's already got the playbook for you. It's already set up for success, because a lot of times when people start businesses it's blank slate, no idea, and you're just like, all right, we're going to hop in, got a franchise, they have the backing, they've done it before and they show you how to make it successful. So I just wanted to jump right in. But you keep going with your story, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is very true. So I found out later how important that was. Well, I was. After I became a manager and I got into engineering off one of my fellow engineers myself, we bought our dry cleaners privately owned dry cleaners. We ran that. I've attempted to. He got a lot better at it than I did after a while, but we ran that one. That was like we had no clue as to what to do, so we had to go out and find out for ourselves. How do you run a dry cleaners with drop off locations? We bought some storage units, bought some rental properties and we ran those together and it was like we're on our own. Unfortunately, we had each other and we kind of helped each other out.
Speaker 2:But after I got out of the corporate world, that's when I thought that franchising thing was really good. I don't have the latest, greatest idea, so I need to go out and find a franchise to get into, because I tried that private business thing and it was like I go out and buy one. But it was a real challenge doing everything. You know you're completely on your own, nobody there to help you. There's good and bad points about it, don't get me wrong. Some people are best with going to a privately owned business.
Speaker 2:Franchising isn't for everybody, but I decided I wanted to get into franchising. So I went, click happy and haul over the place clicking on all sorts of different franchise opportunities. I got franchises of them, people calling me all over the place, very confusing, and finally I got a hold of a franchise consultant. Never knew they existed and he said okay, put everything on hold, let's take a look at what your goals are, what your aspirations are, where have you been, where are you at now, where you want to be, and let's narrow that down. With his help, I got into a franchise and then ran that one for a while. It was wonderful, good franchise. And then I decided that this is such a good thing. I wanted to help other people do it. I liked what he did, so I told him show me what you do, it's me where you do. I was about 10 years ago and I have not looked back since and it's just been a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 1:That's incredible and when I think about it, because we're heading into 2024, the new year is starting off in a couple weeks literally next week actually and the thing is a lot of people there's a lot of talk about buying businesses up because there's people who are getting older and there's different opportunities. What was the thought process when you bought that? I want to take you back to that point where you bought the laundry mat. Were you working a full-time job and then you tried doing the laundry mat on the side? How did that work? Because I know a lot of the audience is sitting there right now going this guy's done it a hundred times. How could I do that? I'm just working my job and I'm trying to figure out what side hustle to jump into.
Speaker 2:Good question, jordan. What I did was actually when I was an engineer, I was also getting my master's degree in business and I read Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, poor Dad. So I was getting my master's, I read that book and that pretty much ruined the corporate career and I thought there's got to be something better out here. So a friend of mine, even a fellow engineer, we were just talking once and we just said let's get into a business together because we got to have something on the side, because people are getting laid off all the time in our business Michael Electronic circuit and the semiconductor industry quite a bit. So we got into that. He just found that somebody that he knew was selling the business. So we thought, hey, we're engineers, we know how to do everything, we can do anything. So let's get into this business directly. And it can't be that bad, you just leave the clothes right.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we did that and we learned a lot by ourselves along the way on that one. But we bought in that one. We did it on the side. We were running our day jobs doing that. So with a private business, having to do it all yourself and not knowing exactly what's going on, there was a little bit I would say a lot of extra work going in there. So there were times during lunch that I'd take off and go check on the dry cleaners and go stop by the drop off locations, make sure everybody was doing good and everybody was okay, keeping in touch with my employees, and then after work I might stop by there and see what's going on, help them out and read some of the customers occasionally as well, just to let them know that I was the one doing it. My partner was doing it as well, but it was something that we could do on this side. We were probably putting in another 15 hours or so on top of our day jobs on top of that. So it wasn't too terribly time consuming on that one.
Speaker 2:Just a little bit of a stress, not knowing where to turn necessarily when things were wrong, like machine breaks down or something goes wrong, it's like all right now, where are we going to find the parts? Who do we go look for? Where do we find this? What do we do here? So that's why I like the franchising, because when I got into the franchising world, all those questions you get answers to because the franchiser was right there to answer them and the other franchises that you made friends with. But between the two of us, yeah, we ran those drop off locations, had some storage units as well, had to figure out how to do those on the side, but it was something you could do on the side and it was something that was long term. My buddy Robbie, he took them over after we both left the corporate world and he ran with it and I said no more private businesses for me. I'm going to go do that franchising thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's fascinating because I think you brought up a really good point about how you were working. A job scary market needs supplemental income, because we all sit here and we're like, oh, a job, so safe. But a job is just one income source for one activity. If you don't have other activities, it becomes a scary place where it's like you could get laid off and then things could go sideways and people don't realize that. Yeah, because it happens so often, it happens all the time and with you, when you consider that, let me explore the franchising world, it kind of made me think about it, because you're like, oh, there's a lot of mistakes people make. It's the same thing when people buy a house for the first time or a real estate. They're like who's the plumber, who's the this guy, who's the that guy, who's the electrician, who's the this? You build out your teams eventually, but if there's a pre-built team, it makes things a little bit easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely was a whole lot easier doing the franchise world and getting into the franchising thing as opposed to doing it yourself. And the job? You're correct. I mean, we had people getting laid off constantly over there at the semiconductor industry and that's actually why me and Robbie left, because we both finally got laid off on that. I think one of the managers finally realized what I'd realized a while ago is that my heart just wasn't into the job anymore. Yeah, they're going from seven to five every day.
Speaker 1:That was it's a lot of hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did restaurant management for 15 years and 50, 60-hour work weeks were normal. And then I did the semiconductor business for 15 years and they wanted you at your desk at 7 am and they wanted you at your desk until 5 pm, and that's Monday through Friday. And then I had a team over in China that I was working with, so I'd work some hours in the evenings and after a while you start thinking there's got to be something better out there. It's getting old. And after reading Robert K O'Sauce's book Rich Dad, poor Dad, I realized I was corporate career government Manager, said you're gone, robbie was gone.
Speaker 2:Robbie took over all of our other businesses for us and I said I'm going to go on another route. And that franchising it was just the guy that I first started with, then a schoolie for school. He Mitchell Telecommunications and something he set the stage for what franchising was all about. He had all the training down completely on that 100 different ways to get clients who to talk to, how to talk to them. He had people that will go and make phone calls for you to set up appointments for you. So you didn't necessarily have to do that part.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, everything was just right there in place. And then, in addition to that, as I was investigating the franchise, I talked to all those other franchisees. So I had those people as friends, as partners, that would help me grow as well, so I could call upon them if I had any questions. You know we got a phone caller. How's the phone callers working for you guys? You have a specific one that you like to do, so all of that stuff was there. Just like with the dry cleaning, if you need to fix something or do something we didn't know, but if you went into a franchise dry cleaning well, that's easy enough. You call the franchiser or call one of the other franchises. Hey, who are you using for this in that area? Where do you find people to hire? What do you do this, what do you do that? All was right there, and always have an answer immediately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's kind of like that community, but it's also an ease of access, correct? So the majority of the time, as a business owner by yourself, you're like I'm on an island. Who can I trust? Because you're not going to go to your employees and say, hey, I have no idea.
Speaker 2:This is true. And yeah, you have a whole team, you have a whole tribe of people that are helping you grow on that, because most franchises about probably about 98, 99% of them have territories that are just for you that no other franchisee can come into. So you're never competing with any other franchisee. So everybody's helping to grow the name and the business and build that up together as a team. Great team, team carotere camaraderie on that one, if I can say that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and I've known a few people who did school in Mitchell because it's an interesting area to be in and it's an interesting space and there's a lot of a lot of it comes down to that monthly like recurring revenue when you start looking at the different finances and how the models work, because you know this and I think it's an interesting thing for the audience to realize is that there's a lot of businesses that run differently, like, for example, a dry cleaner. Let's use that for the model you talked about before. People will come and they'll go and as long as you do good work, they should return theoretically, but they still have to do the activity. With the telecommunity, with the telephones, I'd imagine the retention on when you get someone using their telephones, they're not going to switch too often. So there's just some businesses that have better models. Did you find this?
Speaker 2:as well. Yeah, true, very true on that. The telecommunication consulting is what Dennis Schooley, schooley Mitchell, started off with back when I was doing it about 10 years ago. And when you're thinking, oh so you know, you can help me save a few dollars on my phone bill, well, you got to think about the fact that businesses like automotive dealership think of all the phones and all the extensions there.
Speaker 2:Those are huge business lines and those businesses are not going to think about their phone lines or their transportation costs or the paper costs. So it's more of a cost reduction type franchise. So you take over as the person that is going to be doing that for them on that, so you give them the same or better service or find them the same or better service for a lower price and you share in that, in that cost savings for them. And then you are their trusted partner, you're their phone guy or phone girl, as the case may be with a transportation person on that one. So it's a great business model and there are different types of business models out there in franchising pretty much franchising in the industry you can think of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And the other cool thing about it is that when, once you become that person, they can depend on you for other things, where you can refer things out or refer people in, it becomes a win-win environment when you're working with good people.
Speaker 2:Exactly right. Exactly right Jordan, you are their trusted person. Everybody likes to have someone that they can trust. That will make their life easier. It will make their business operations easier, make things run smoother. So they have as the owner of the business. They are one less thing for them to have to worry about, and they love it.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, because there's so many different things as a business owner. So what were the major differences that you found between being the business owner and then being the franchisee later on?
Speaker 2:Being the franchisee. I really like being part of the team, being part of a tribe of people that will help you out. We got together once a year on that and had a big meeting. Oh cool On that. Most franchises will do that. They'll put all the franchises in a room and they'll go for anywhere from a couple days to a week where they're going to go over what's happening in the industry, what's happening with that franchise, how they're going to grow, what's next, what's coming up next year, how to grow the business.
Speaker 2:Or with doing it all by yourself. You're just there by yourself. You have to think about what am I going to do next? You have to investigate where the industry is going. What are the trends in the industry on that? Are people going to continue to come to my location or do I need to set up drop-off locations even more places of different types? You have to think of all those things all by yourself, or you hire other people to help you do that and try and find the ones that are good for you, which is a challenge With the franchise system just having that whole team of people and getting together on a regular basis, always collaborating with them on where do we see this going?
Speaker 2:You girls have problems with this. What are you doing for cost savings? On this one, it's great just having a whole team of people being part of a group and having people that are going to help you build up that business and grow. It's really a good feeling. It feels a lot more comfortable, a lot more secure when you know that you've got a lot of people that are doing exactly the same thing you're doing trying to grow the business, exactly the same as you are. You can count on them and they can count on you to help them build that business.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. With Edwards Consulting we have five pillars Mental health, physical health, community service, philanthropy, spirituality and relationships. That relationship pillar is usually overlooked because when you're just working a job, everyone's like my job is my family. All these corporations want to do that and that's fine. When you're really a partner in the business, you see that more side by side, because you're making the money but you're also working together, but you're also building the team and you're seeing the true impact of what's coming out there. Also, you mentioned a few times that your work-life balance kind of increased or got better with the franchising model. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, jordan. When you're working in the corporate world, they want you there. Like I indicated, they wanted you there at a certain hour With the manufacturing facility in the semiconductor industry. It was 24 hours. You had to keep that going. They weren't really concerned too much about your work-life or anything like that. They wanted you there, they wanted you producing, they wanted the output of that manufacturing plant to increase better yields, all that good stuff. Even if I could do the work at home which I could a lot if I wasn't sitting at that desk at 7 and until 5, you got dinked. It wasn't a good thing. You would probably get a lesser review if you weren't at that desk.
Speaker 2:Then also in the corporate world, what you ran into is that you ran a different engineering tiers. You had a max on the amount of money that you could make within that tier. You moved on to the next one. Now back to the franchising 36, especially with what I do. If I want to as a telecommunications consultant person and as a franchise consultant person, if I want to make more money, I just simply put in more hours or I work smarter or I have other people help me do some things that I don't want to do. If I don't want to make as much money, I work less hours. It's entirely up to me as far as what I want to do and how much I want to make. And that's with a franchising world. When you get into other businesses, we have employees. You never want that business to evolve around you you, because one day you may want to sell it. It's easier to sell if that business doesn't evolve around you. So we have many semi-absentee franchises where you don't have to do it full-time at all. You can do it semi-passive, semi-absentee, and then some franchises prefer that you go in there and you do it full-time. However, they don't even the full-time ones don't necessarily want you into that office or in that retail establishment or whatever. It is all the time they want you working on the business, building that business up and not in it. So you've got time throughout the day now to do whatever you want. A lot of it's gonna be building the business yourself, working on it, meeting and greeting, shaking hands, kissing babies all that good stuff to let people know that you're the one that's out there running it. You're the local business owner. But I found that now I have more time to do what I want because I don't have somebody breathing down my neck, over my shoulder or whatever that it says you have to be at this spot and you have to be at during this hour or so in the day. I can work whatever hours I want. Same thing with most. Any franchise that you get into, you get to work whatever hours you want. As long as that business runs and operates well and you're keeping it up, then you can come and go with you please. So now you've got time and I've got time to do what I want throughout the day as well.
Speaker 2:Some of those things you don't necessarily like doing yourself, you have other employees do it. You don't want to do the marketing, you hire a marketing person. That's what I do On that one. You don't want to do your website? You hire a website person. That's what I do.
Speaker 2:Less time that I spend on the business, I put people that know what they're doing, that are experts in those fields, doing that for me. So now I get to spend the time doing the things that I enjoy best, which is talking to clients that I'm best at. That's what I like doing, and I don't have to do it for eight to 10 hours a day still make a really great living, and neither will any of you in the franchising world, because you'll have other people doing that for you. So now you want to go out there and do things with your kids. You want to do things with your family? Now you've got the time to do that because you've got a whole other team of people that are running that business and working in that business for you, and you just work on it, putting everybody in the right direction and keep them going down that path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and Tony Robbins talks about it a lot where it's working in the business versus on the business and as a business owner, many people struggle with that transition because at first you're just trying to build enough to have a job, like trying to build enough to have enough income so to do that franchise you're skipping steps, but it's already been established so it helps you along the way and I think that's so powerful that it's on the business, not in the business, because the transition's got to be significantly easier on the individuals, because most people it can be overwhelming, like there's a lot of stuff going on and to take it on on the first time you're like I don't know what I'm doing, how does this work? So how has that experience been with you seeing clients go through that process?
Speaker 2:It's been great. The clients I've worked with have just been wonderful. They see it Now. Keep in mind franchising is not for everybody and I'm not gonna push it on franchising that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. For some people it's not and that's just fine. But for the ones that it is, they had really seen the light. They just really loved what the franchise does to help them get the people to do that. Now some of the businesses are gonna be pretty simple. You have skilled employees, non-skilled employees, non-skilled employees a little bit easier to get them. They go. You go through them a lot quicker.
Speaker 2:But what my people really liked was when they got into the businesses. The franchise businesses were skilled employees. They liked how that franchise always helped them find those people. They wouldn't necessarily expect them to go out there and know how to do it themselves on that, so they helped them get those people that'll run that business work in that business for them and one of the ones that have the retail establishments. Those were just. They really enjoyed that Cause a lot of my people have been like investors in the past where they had to go out and find their real estate.
Speaker 2:Investors had to go out and find real estate properties themselves and had to do the analysis. Well, now you've got a franchise that's gonna go in there for you If you have to get a retail establishment. So if you're looking at a brick and mortar one, where you gotta have a plus real estate, you've got a whole team of people that are gonna go look for the best real estate, do the least negotiation for you, have the plan for the build up. All you do is pay for it. On that, they've just really enjoyed the fact that that franchises are to do most of the work that they weren't experts at, necessarily want the best at on that, so they could concentrate on what they were good at, which is running that business.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And what's the major difference between a skilled and non-skilled Like? What would a skilled employee be considered? They may have some examples.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question, Jordan. Sorry for interrupting these skilled employees. So if you're looking at, say, a plumbing franchise, you're more than likely gonna need a master plumber for that and then other plumbers for it, Though it's a more skilled employee. If you're looking at a, something like a Minotki or an Amco, where you're looking at working on cars and mechanic, those are more skilled employees, so those might be a little bit more challenging to find. Once you get them, you don't get that turnover. The non-skilled employees are gonna be the ones like I was when I was working at Taco Bell when I first got started on that Non-skilled employees don't necessarily have a skill.
Speaker 2:Easily trained you, it's easy to find them, but you have a tendency to have a lot of turnover there, just because of the nature of the business itself.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And when you think about your transition and your process because I was sitting there thinking about it I'm like you went remote significantly earlier than majority of the world. When I feel like the world that kind of came in the last three years. You've been sounds like remote for the past like 20 years, between the School of Emitial and the franchise consultant. What was that transition like? And slash, were your friends being like, what are you doing? Like, how are you? What was that transition like for you?
Speaker 2:That transition, Jordan, was a big challenge at first. So corporate world you go to a desk, you got to show up at seven o'clock, you up at five, you've got everything right there in front of you. So there's no distractions. Pretty much you're just right there working. Now switch over to that where I decided I didn't want a business where I had to go into that business, where I had to drive to that business. I wanted to do it from home.
Speaker 2:Or I tell you, there is a lot of distractions at home when you first get started. So when I first got started with School of Emitial, I'd sit down. I get up early. So I was down there sitting at my desk at eight o'clock or so doing that and things would come up the dogs needed to go for a walk, the house needed to be cleaned, and I was. Then I'd sit down for lunch and I'd say, okay, let's take a look and see what I did throughout the day so far. So I worked on the business for half an hour between eight and nine. I'm like, okay, we got to change up there. This isn't going to work Because you're at home. You usually do things around the house.
Speaker 2:So working from home is not necessarily for everybody, but what I had to do was then put down a plan schedule for myself. I had to write out my schedule. This is what I'm going to do at this time. This is what I'm going to do at this time. And I had to go by that schedule so I wouldn't be distracted by everything else. So that part was a learning curve to really get it. It probably took a good couple of months for me to really get that schedule down. And now I've got it down, Pat. But my friends thought I was crazy. My dad thought I was crazy. He said you got an engineering degree. Why would you need to do anything else? Just keep a job as an engineer and go with that? But it actually turned out pretty good. It's just that you're right during that transition from sitting in that office, sitting in that cubicle as an engineer and then going to have to discipline yourself to write down a schedule, follow that plan, follow that schedule. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to call this many business people, I'm going to put these ads out, I'm going to work on this, so on and so forth, and follow that, and then you're an hour for lunch and then after a while you then it just comes natural. It's just start flowing.
Speaker 2:I did everything to begin with and then, as I did everything to begin with, I found that there's a lot of things I was spending time on that I didn't need to spend time on because I wasn't necessarily the best person at it and it wasn't the best use to my time. So at that point, time after I learned how to do everything, I started portioning out different sections of it. So my best time is spent talking with people one on one, whether it was the school in Mitchell or whether it was a franchise, consulting is, getting on the phone or going to those businesses and talking with them All the other things that were involved in that business. Even though I did them to begin with, I found people who enjoyed doing those sort of things working on the websites, making the phone calls, setting the appointments. There's a lot of people out there that just enjoy that.
Speaker 2:I did not. I wasn't the best at it. So I portioned those out to other people so that I could spend the time where I was best at, where I made the most money at. It worked out, but it does take a little while, especially when you're doing it from home to really get that schedule down. But you got to be disciplined write everything down what you're going to do, have a schedule throughout the day of what you're going to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what age did you end up starting your own? Starting the school in Mitchell and going off on your own? Because I want to give you a 50 years old Yep my goal. Well, I just say that because it gives everyone so many. There's no limitations. We can be whoever we want to be and we can create that life whenever we want to create it. So that's one of the things that really inspires me about you, greg, is that you went out there and created the life you wanted to create, because there's so many of us that live in this fear of oh my God, I can't do this, I can't do that, I can never work from home, I can never do this, and it's like these are all limitations that we place on ourselves, and you are an example of someone who's proved that, and in our first call, you were telling me about your day. You're like I walk the dogs. I got my calls for a few hours. I do some other stuff. I'd work another few hours, but it's the ability to have the routine that you want to create, and it's not this bound. I have to be in my chair for 10 hours a day. I have to skip birthdays. No, there's lives out here that we can create through this franchising.
Speaker 1:Now, with the franchising, how much are people, how does the income on that work? Are people actually making money? How does that really work? Because I know there's so many different options and there's so many different ways of going about it. So how do you think about that? And then, another thing that we'll dive into is how active is it? How passive is it? Is there semi-active? Because you talked about that a little bit too. But let's start off first with what is the earning potential of one of these franchises.
Speaker 2:Great question, jordan. So when franchises were started out many, many years ago, there was, of course, some nefarious players in there on that, as it turns out with most industries, where they said if you buy this franchise, invest in this franchise, you're going to make this amount of money. And, as it turned out, not everybody did. Last week's happened. Federal Trade Commission steps in, says if you do not collect the data for how much people are making, you cannot tell anybody how much people are making. So, specifically for a franchise, one of the questions I get asked a lot is how much can I make at this franchise? I can't really specifically tell you that. However, what the franchises are going to do and it doesn't matter whether you get into the brick and mortar franchise, whether you get into the service industry franchise on that they're just different types of business you could still make a good, solid amount of money. Most of those franchises are looking for you to replace that corporate income, so they're looking for you to bring in a good six-figure income. The services industry, where you're looking at an investment around $150,000 or so they're going to it's going to be territory-sized, based on demographics. So if you're looking at something in a home improvement. They're going to be looking for homeowners that have income levels of 100,000 or more and they're going to be looking at a couple of 100,000 people for that, because they want you to get into that six-figure income range. Senior care industry same thing. They'll give you about 30,000 seniors Something like that with the senior care industry in general. You bring in, so they give you 30,000 as your territory size. You bring in, say, 50 seniors into your business. You're probably bringing in about a million dollars top-end revenue and you're probably dropping about 20%, a couple hundred thousand, to the bottom line on that one. Wow, so it is a good business.
Speaker 2:The brick and mortar businesses are a little bit different on that. Their territory radius is generally miles because people only drive so far to do it. But it's the same thing with those. They're still going to give you a large enough territory size to where you can bring in a six-figure income. And that goes with if you want to make your turn your business into a franchise as well. It's easier to get clients in if you are making net figures of $100,000 or more, because you get more people that are attracted to you.
Speaker 2:Now there's some businesses that don't Some of the hair salon businesses. They bring in less than that, but they're simple to operate and people generally get into more than one of them if you're going to do that. But with the services industry there are still some of those that don't necessarily bring in $100,000, but they're pretty close to those. You just need more than one territory for some of those on that one so I can steer. I can't tell people how much they can make, but I can steer people towards what I know. I got an idea of what you're going to hear from the franchisees. So when people tell me what they're looking to do, I can steer them towards the franchisees or I have a pretty good idea of what they're going to hear on that. So we'll have a pretty good idea of what you want to make.
Speaker 2:But it's all really good business. It just depends on how much you want to put into it. Same with me. If I want more, then just put in a little bit more effort into it, put a little more marketing into it and you get some more money. If you're good with three, four hours a day, like I am, then maybe you don't do all that work and you spend more time like I do. You know, take a walk, dogs for a walk in the morning, work for a few hours, bring in enough money to where you're satisfied and you're happy. It's a lot of freedom with the franchise doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the fascinating thing is you go, okay to get in, it might be $150,000, right, some people might go, what? How does someone even have that? How does that even work? But, as we talked about in the beginning, there's loan programs. So how much would these people alone? Would they loan up the entire amount? Or how would that work? Was there a percentage or just?
Speaker 2:Great question, jordan. If we stick with just the SBA loans and just look at those, then if you're looking at the service industry, for instance, they're around $150,000, give or take. You're looking at an express loan, sba express loan. So you put in about I think it's about $20,000, I think it's $19,500 or something like that, put in about $20,000 down for it, then the SBA you get a loan through them and when you're a loan people again that will do that for you. Within about three or four weeks They'll drop $150,000 into your business account and then you just pay yourself back out from there on that one.
Speaker 2:When you're getting into a brick and mortar type business, you generally, if you go to the SBA route, it's going to be a 7A loan, that one's going to be a little bit more. You generally put it around 20% down on that and then they divvy it out as you're doing the build out. But there's other loans that are all available as well. You know doing a rollover for business, your 401k or your IRA you can do that as well. But it's easy to do. You've got a lot of different options and the difference between the 401k and the SBA and the conventional loans is if you want to use other people's money or if you want to use your own money.
Speaker 1:So I use my own money.
Speaker 2:I did the 401k rollover because I don't might personally going into debt, but a lot of my investors actually prefer to use other people's money as long as the investment services, the debt, they're okay with that because then they can grow and expand as much as they want to.
Speaker 2:But we have many different loan people that get into a French. They do franchising, so that part's relatively simple and they put most of it again $20,000 for an express loan for service industries, about right, and then probably about $20,000 for something that requires sorry, 20% for something that requires more of a build out on that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the thing I find fascinating about this is, if you sit there and think about it, $150,000,. Maybe you could buy a house in the Midwest, rent it out and you'll make a couple hundred bucks a month, right. Or there's this opportunity where it's similar, if not better terms, depending on the house payment, and then you can make upwards of six figure and just the cash on cash return is significantly greater than a standard real estate investment, which I find pretty fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's nice. Getting our rental properties is all well and good, but I had a couple of those. There was a few challenges involved in those as well getting the renters and keeping it up on that and keeping it up on the maintenance on those. But if you want, I would say business definitely runs a little bit differently but it's definitely was a greater return my business was than my rental properties.
Speaker 1:The other cool thing is that as people retire and I don't know about this, but from what I'm seeing is like some people are retiring like that whole conventional you're going to retire at 65 and then never work another day in your life is like. It's true for some people, but most people you'll find another way to make money, whether sometimes they work like a regular job or sometimes they find different businesses to get into that produce that income. And I know that can be very difficult for a lot of people who have never earned a dollar outside of their normal job. So how do you handle those people? Because it might be like I want to retire but I want to make sure I'm also producing income. You know what I mean? It can be a little bit stressful.
Speaker 2:Most of the people that are like 65 and older come to me I don't want to retire from the corporate world, but they don't have something to do on the side, they don't have a hobby, so they get bored. They said I just want to do something, I want to have some fun, I want to make a little extra money, you know, to have it, something like that and they've got experience. I mean by the time you hit 65, you experience doing all sorts of different things, and so there's many different things that we can get people into at that age. But most of the people that come to me when they're that age, they don't want to stop going out and doing something. They enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Just a lot of them just enjoy running a business or running an organization and they just want to keep doing that. They don't necessarily want to do it 10 hours a day, five days a week. So then that's when we look at things that are semi-passive 10 to 15 hours a week. So now you've got you know a little something to do on the side so that you're not bored, but you've got a lot of experience by the time you hit that age on there. So there's a lot of different things that we can get you into.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's super good to do, because there was this study done saying that when people retire I think it's like six years after whenever they stop working they're likely like pass, and it's due to this fact of not keeping your mind going. So this idea that you can do a franchise, kind of be in and out of it and have your team running it, that's a really positive thing for a lot of people, because a lot of people don't even know about this opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had as much as 80 years old come to me and say that they're looking forward. My age range has been extended out in both directions here in the past few years. It used to be like 45 to 65. Now it's like 25 to 80. On that one that I've had various people come to me look for franchises. But yeah, like we're talking about they, just keeping your mind active is probably the number one thing that the ultimate goal down there is just that they don't want to sit around. They're not golfers. They don't want to sit out there and play golf all day long. They don't have any other hobbies. They just really enjoy doing that for a limited amount of time throughout the day. Keep them thinking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and you produce more income. So what are some of the different ones? Businesses that might be like a passive business, what would some of those be, and how passive are we really talking here?
Speaker 2:Well, passive we define as passive or semi-passive is generally 10 to 15 hours a week. There are four franchises that we can do almost completely passive, that they have a team of people doing it for you. That's foam insulation, peck rooming, peck care and redoing doors, reconditioning doors on those. So those four from one of our companies has a team of people that will run the business for you on that, which means that you don't necessarily need to have the business in your city. You can have it anywhere you want, since you've got another team doing it for you.
Speaker 1:So the peck rooming one, let's use that one for example. How would that work?
Speaker 2:So that's a mobile peck rooming on that one. So what you would do with that? You would just have a team do it. Now you can either hire the manager yourself with a franchise to help and do a semi-passive and have it in your area, or, if you want to do completely passive, then they'll have a management team that'll run it for you. So they'll create that business, they'll get that van, they'll hire the people for you and what they do is they just go out and then they do the advertising and marketing, and then you have a van or two that services your territory and you go out to people's homes so that they don't have to load up their dogs.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've seen this.
Speaker 2:But they don't have to load up their dogs, take them down to their groomers, drop them off, do what they're going to do, come back and get them Now. You just go straight to their home. Get all the grooming done. Right then Bam. One last thing for the homeowners to do. They love it.
Speaker 1:Easy of use. It's basically like the Uber. So how would that work? Do you know the numbers on that one? Like what would something like that look like? I just want the audience to understand what are some of the potential options. Obviously, everything's to define to whatever the person's goals are, but I was just curious about this one.
Speaker 2:So you're probably looking at if you do one territory with them, you're probably looking at probably $150,000 to $200,000, depending on what the van costs are, because you just want to then get the van done. The franchise fee for any franchise almost any franchise in the US it's going to be around $50,000. One-time franchise fee to get you trained and get you everything you need to know about running the business. One-time fee. Total investment is what really comes into play here. So the total investment, including the franchise fee, between about $150,000 and $200,000 is what you're going to be looking for there and that's going to take care of.
Speaker 2:You're getting somebody hired and trained, you're getting the van, you're getting the van or, yeah, the van's, the van wrapped, all that, the necessary equipment for all the dog grooming and then all the advertising, marketing and all that, including the franchise fee, is what you're looking for there on that. And if you get more than one territory, then it's going to go up. The total investment will go up a little bit, but they generally give a discount on the territory fees as you go up. So for the franchise fee for one territory, maybe $50,000. For two territories then it may be $65,000 altogether. So the only another 50,000,. It's going to vary a little bit, but generally it's going to be less than the original. So the franchise fee is basically for the territory, for all the new training.
Speaker 2:So, if you want to get into more right.
Speaker 1:You just add them in.
Speaker 2:You just add them in and it's at a discounted rate, depending on how many you get.
Speaker 1:Interesting, very interesting, because there's a lot of this that people are not even exposed to, which I think is why it's so important when you're doing what you're doing, because a lot of this is completely missed. So for you, being someone that was so valued education and still does value education, but valued the conventional education what's the education been like? Host, starting your own businesses, starting your own franchises Because I know you mentioned that you got the college degree, the master's, the engineer like a lot of education. What was that transition like for you? Because you seem like a lifelong learner, who's someone who's open to new experiences and new ideas.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, Well, when I first got into it that was the one thing I probably haven't mentioned yet Jordan is that the education on that? So I was a restaurant manager for 15 years and then I went to school, got my degree in electrical engineering and physics, then was an engineer for 15 years, got my degree in master's degree in business and then I went on, after being an engineer and trying to be a school of Mitchell, telecommunications consultant, which required selling. So, being an engineer when I first started off, that was one of the challenges of starting that business is that we had a presentation that would give people to let them know what we could do to help them with their telecommunications needs, and people would tell me when I showed them the information, they'd tell me no. So I said, well, cool, Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. See you later.
Speaker 2:Dennis would just get all over me. He said they're always going to tell you no. Greg, what you're doing them is a service. You're helping them out, but they're always going to tell you no because they don't want to change. It's not broke, why fix it? You got to show them how you're going to be an integral part of their system. So the thing I need to do is not only get my education through Dennis and through his mentor that he gave me to help me out, but then I got some other books on selling, on that and how to sell, so I extended my education with every sales book I could get on that.
Speaker 1:Oh, really yeah.
Speaker 2:So back on my shelf I don't think you can see it, but a lot of bottom two shelves are all covered with books and those are all books on different kinds of different kinds of selling books on that. Who's that guy? I can't remember right off the top of my head, but sales is something you do with people, not to people, is a general thing. So I look for the people that were more, probably a little bit more oriented towards helping people, not trying to sell isoscomos, but just helping people with their lives and making their lives and improving their lives better. You help enough people, get what they want. You'll get what you want. It's the basic thing. Who was that guy? It's going to come to me eventually here on that one of my great books, but he was good on that and so that's what my education has been as far as being able to get in front of people and show them, educate them. So my it's.
Speaker 2:I think the sales books I read is more about how to educate people on what it is that you have and how it can help them, and not necessarily try to sell them like, okay, you know it's going out of sale, you know it's a certain price and it's going to go soon, so we'll get it quickly. We're not going to manufacture any more of these. You know, like you hear on TV these days, you know manufacturing has ended. Get it now before manufacturing. None of that kind of stuff. It's all education how to help people understand what you do and how to help them understand how you can help them on that. The other part of my education, then, since I'm into franchising, is, of course, learning about all the different franchises. So we have many different franchises about what? About 500 franchises in our group.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have a lot of webinars that we intend to. So I tend to their webinars where they show us, teach us, tell us about their business, how that works, and then I go out and visit with a lot of them as well. So I'll go out and visit with them at their headquarters. I'll go through what my clients will go through when we have what they call a discovery day, which is learning about the business, the franchise business itself at their offices and how, what their training facility looks like. So I'll educate myself about that, how the different industries are looking, where things are going in the franchising world. So it's always a continuing education, with learning about the different franchises, how they work, and to some extent I try to learn some about like we were talking about the funding and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Not my area of expertise, not something I necessarily go into real in depth On that. That's why I have great people that do have that in depth knowledge franchise attorneys that have that knowledge. So I'll know a little bit about the franchise law. I'll know a little bit about the, the fundings and the funding aspects, but I won't go into too terribly in depth into those. My education is more on the franchises themselves and how they work and how how well the franchise, their franchise, he's like them and how well they're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's pretty interesting learning about like. For me, it's something that I always look for, trying to find a holistic perspective, right. So it's how do you see something from all the different angles? So you have a guy here, greg, who's traveling, not just listening to a webinar, but traveling to all of these different businesses seeing what they're doing, learning about what they're doing, so that by the time you go and speak with him, it's a hey, I already have 30 businesses that I'm thinking about that could work with you. It eases the process.
Speaker 1:So how does that process work with someone working with you? Because, when we originally spoke, when people come on the podcast, one of my concerns is always like, please don't sell. Like, please don't sell too hard, or even try to, because people can feel it when, in reality, a podcast is a value-based transaction with the listener, where the listener goes, wow, that guy, greg, taught me a lot about franchising. That was really interesting. Thank you, jordan, for hosting something of that regard, which, when you came on and you said you're like Jordan, educational only, I'm like Greg is my guy, greg is my guy. So how does someone learn about the franchising? If they wanna get in touch with you. What does that process look like? Because I don't want someone to be intimidated by the oh my God, it's $150,000. I don't know. I don't wanna waste Greg's time, I don't yeah.
Speaker 2:Great question, jordan. So I get that. I don't wanna waste your time. I get that. Sometimes, no worries, okay.
Speaker 2:So I got four people that I introduced to franchises. One person will invest in a franchise Absolutely normal. I'm actually one of the top 1% in there in that, and still three out of four people will not invest in a franchise. But it's fine. I'm here to educate you on franchising. As I indicated earlier, franchising is not necessarily the greatest thing, since life's bred to everybody and it may not be to you. The only way to find out is to look into it, investigate it. We'll investigate it together. I'll be with you every step of the way.
Speaker 2:You can get ahold of me at franchisemavencom that's franchise M-A-V, as in Victor E-Ncom. There's a link in there to my book. Pick up my book, send me your. Oh, by the way, it's a Wall Street Journal bestseller book. How the heck that happened, I don't know. So many people loved it.
Speaker 2:That'll be this process that I walk you through, with real life stories of people that I've worked with. So you can get started with that. Get to know me. You can get my PDF version just right off my website, I think you just click on that and I'll shoot you over a PDF version on that. If you want a hard copy. There's a link in there too for more information. Just give me your address and I'll send you a hard copy of that.
Speaker 2:You can also schedule a time with me on that. You can pick up the phone and give me a call at 361-772-6401. As you can tell, where Jordan had to kind of cut me off there a few times because I get really into it, that I will talk it off, but I will answer any questions you have. It is all about education on my part. I'm not here to try and convince you of anything. As indicated, three out of four people that I introduced to a franchise will not even get into it because it's just not the right time. They just don't want to write the check. It doesn't feel good. So don't worry about wasting my time. I love talking about it.
Speaker 1:And I want to thank you for coming on, and I also want to leave everybody in the audience with that mindset of how Greg's handling it. The way Greg handles it is I only. I know that people are going to say no late in the process and my time's going to be utilized, but I want to get the reps and I feel like too many of us are like my time's not worth it, my time's not. It's not about your time, it's about you getting more reps and you getting better at understanding the process. And when you're in that place it doesn't come off as desperate but it comes off as an understanding. And it's not that the door is closed, but the door might open on later down the line. Who knows?
Speaker 1:And I just want to share that with everyone because that's a very good sales tip for anyone listening if they want to have a takeaway of oh, maybe that's a way I could approach my business a little bit better. So, greg, I'll put all that information in the show notes. I really appreciate the time. It's been fantastic, thank you.
Speaker 2:Jordan, it was an honor being here. I appreciate you having me, sir.