The Franchise Insiders "Inside Scoop" Podcast
Jack and Jill Johnson are two of the most experienced franchise experts in the industry, and their podcast The Inside Scoop is a must-listen for anyone considering investing in a franchise. Here are five reasons why:1. Jack and Jill have over 20 years of experience in the franchise industry. 2. They sell franchises, so they know which ones are actually making money. 3. They're not afraid to tell it like it is - you won't find any boring interviews on this podcast. 4. Every episode is jam-packed with financials and data that you can use to make an informed decision about which franchise is right for you. 5. Their insights and observations about the franchise industry are incredibly valuable - you won't find anything else like it out there. If you're thinking about investing in a franchise, make sure to add The Inside Scoop podcast to your must-listen list.
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The Franchise Insiders "Inside Scoop" Podcast
Top Performing Rolling Suds Franchisee Nick Heye joins the show.
🚀 How Nick Heye Became Rolling Suds' Top Franchisee 🚀
In our latest episode of We Bought a Franchise, we had the privilege of sitting down with Nick Heye, the top-performing Rolling Suds franchisee of 2024. 🎉
Nick’s journey from a high-end personal finance professional to a record-breaking franchise owner is nothing short of inspiring. Here's a sneak peek of what we covered:
👉 Why Nick chose franchising over starting a business from scratch.
👉 The importance of resilience and adaptability in building a successful franchise.
👉 His secret to scaling Rolling Suds to the top while building a strong foundation for long-term growth.
👉 The realities of managing blue-collar teams, maintaining cash flow, and balancing risk.
Whether you're exploring franchising or already own one, Nick’s story is packed with actionable insights, hard-won lessons, and a refreshing dose of real talk about what it takes to succeed.
🎧 Listen now and get inspired to build your perfect business!
Text: 305-710-0050
Hi everyone, Welcome back to the we Bought a Franchise podcast. I'm here with my lovely co-host, Jill Johnson.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone.
Speaker 1:And I'm Jack Johnson, and we have a really powerful guest for you guys today. We have Nick High. He is the franchise owner of Rolling Suds in Northern Virginia. Nick, welcome to the show. How are you today? Great Thanks for having me. Welcome to the show. How are you today? Great Thanks for having me. So the whole sort of premise of our show is to share our experiences as franchise owners, growing a franchise and we've been talking to franchisors in a lot of the last few episodes and then we'll kind of mix in an episode where we share our experiences and people are like dude, I'm already talking to a bunch of franchise salespeople. I don't want to talk to more of them. I don't want to talk to franchise owners. So, nick, let's dive in. Let's hear your story. Why franchising? What led you down this path?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my formal education is in personal, high-end personal finance. As much as I love the industry, didn't love how I was getting paid in my case. So I left, got into product distribution and the setup worked a lot like a franchise. I had a overarching manager that I really never talked to and then kind of just had sales and a separate company. So I had autonomy and was basically left alone and go try to survive Kind of a deal Took that from just under a million dollars to about three by the time I left.
Speaker 3:So I kind of had to figure out what I wanted to do. Looked at buying a business I was 32 at the time I left. So I kind of had to figure out what I wanted to do. Looked at buying a business I was 32 at the time, definitely barely looked 32. So buying a business seemed like a different type of risk and if a deal falls apart you could easily be out a couple hundred grand. So it didn't seem like the best idea. But I was open to it. So franchising kind of came about. Probably looked at 40 brands, maybe 10 discovery days somewhere around there, made a bunch of friends who bought different stuff. So I have a decent little network out there with that and ended up settling on Rolling Suds.
Speaker 3:I'm from Northern Virginia, so one of the first territories gone is exactly where I purchased, regardless of the brand. So I had to take a little bit more risk. I knew that and I like the concepts, I like the downside as well and one of the things that's most important for me is kind of trying to figure out who the leader is and kind of if he's going to make good choices when things go wrong because they are going to go wrong. Is he going to kind of get out of the way when he needs to get out of the way? He'll make the right choice when it's required for the brand and the business to be successful, and I think Aaron Harper is that. So that's kind of how I got into Rolling Suds, how I found it Just a lot of discovery, took my time.
Speaker 1:Also knew I just kind of had to go for it so I think you you said two things there that really resonate with me and I'm do you remember when we had the conversation? So Jill and I had been looking for a franchise. As franchise consultants we kind of get a front row seat to everything, um, and there were lots of brands over the years, right, right, there's brands Jill liked, brands that I liked, but we couldn't agree on anything. And then Pinks came along.
Speaker 2:We really, really took us a long time to agree on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's you know. Listen, everybody has a different process. But we kind of said a similar thing to you in that we, first of all, we bought a lot of territories and I don't recommend, if it's your first franchise, don't go buying like five territories, because ultimately what will happen in any franchise system is that you'll have neighbors and not all your neighbors will be successful. It's just a shocking statement. Not everyone succeeds as a franchise owner, so your best bet is to buy a couple, one to two territories and then wait for your neighbor to want to sell and buy for pennies on the dollar.
Speaker 1:But the one thing both Jill and I agreed on was that we know we're going to spend X amount of dollars on this business and if it doesn't work, we're going to survive. We wouldn't do anything that would stretch us to a point where pinks could affect our other business or our life. If it works, awesome, but if it doesn't, it's okay. We can accept the risk and I think that's something every franchise owner needs to sort of be prepared for is that, yes, we're going to work our asses off and we're going to hustle and we're going to do everything in our power to build a great business, but not every business is successful, and so you have to weigh that risk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the brand can be wrong If you're in boutique fitness, which at the time I was an orange theory addict, so boutique fitness kind of was just like right up my alley. And then I realized that there was a large portion of that risk was nothing to do with me. It had everything to do with the brand and you know, fitness people are a different type. So I was like I don't know about this one and outside of Orange Theory.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry to jump in, but outside of Orange Theory, so many of those franchises, their numbers suck their numbers suck or they're up for a year or so.
Speaker 3:That's one of those games where you have to continually be selling. It looks like you have all this reoccurring revenue, but your average is like 10% loss and churn rate. So you're really having somebody on the phones all the time and those margins are going to get squeezed at some point. So, yeah, it's an interesting space, so I moved away from that. But it is true, like every once in a while they ask, or someone wants to talk to me or whatever, and I'll tell them.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure if this is your thing, man, and it has nothing to do with how smart you are or whatever. It has everything to do with how you're going to attack this. You have this type of need to be suddenly successful your first year, whatever it might be, and it's just not the case more often than not. Like, there's a. I was the highest, I had the most revenue in rolling suds last year by a decent margin. I don't expect to do that again. Um, we've quadrupled in size. There are people that are bigger than me.
Speaker 3:Uh, my joke is continuously that it's just a 34 year old self and a dog. Uh, these guys have partners and huge teams, and that's the fun part of franchising right is you're going to see somebody execute the model better than you. You can steal their ideas and kind of move forward. But it's a very specific type of person who can handle a lot of. Everything's going wrong all the time and this is fine and tomorrow's another day and we'll live. And if you can't do that, it's just going to eat you mentally like it's nothing to do with you personally, it's just everything to do with. Can you keep getting your butt kicked and just feeling all right, well, that's fine, we move on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you obviously did really well last year and you're still saying those things. So I think that's really important. Jack and I always talk about. You know the first like year 18 months is really hard and you know, coming from you, one of the reasons we're talking to you is you're a top performer and I know with pinks, you know we're typically in the top two but it's still hard. You know, and it's understanding that reality that it's not all butterflies and you're just going to. You know, jump in and be the best and make all the money. You know you can and you will if you keep doing it. But, like you said, there's hurdles. There's other people that come in that do a little better and you have to be a person that can take that. I think that is the number one thing it's understanding that and not letting it get you down.
Speaker 3:Well, it's interesting. So the franchise. When I joined I was the fourth person in the systems. Nothing that exists now existed then. It was a joke comparatively, and my first month, think, I made six thousand dollars. The hell, am I supposed to do with that?
Speaker 2:you know, like what did?
Speaker 3:that pay for absolutely nothing. So we now have franchisees that are you know doing 80 uh, their first month, and that's great. We also have people doing six again, just like me. But a year later, everyone wants to know what systems I'm using and it was consistent the whole time.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a great point. Let's stop there because I think that's for franchise owners. What systems? What are you doing different, you know? To me, I think the answer has always been that implementing the systems that the franchisor has. What did the pilot location do? Following those systems has been the key to success, while also putting your own stamp on it. So, as the top performer with Rolling Studs last year, what is your answer to that question when those franchisees ask yeah, so obviously I'm like decently outgoing, so that helps.
Speaker 3:I've been in B2B sales, which is basically what this model is. I think I'm very honest with what I want when I'm talking to my leads and also my personnel. I'm not the best communicator over certain aspects and I've hired to try and solve that issue for me to a certain extent, but what I really do is just tell people I'm under market price and I'm doing that so that you and I can be friends. I don't want to really do stuff once. I prefer that you could just call me when you need me and we'll move on. I don't view our business all that different from the lawnmower. People only care about you when they see you. Other than that, just go do the job and go home and kind of stay out of our way Kind of a deal. We perform a service that's cleaning stuff. Stay out of our way Kind of a deal. We perform a service that's cleaning stuff. It's not at the front of mind all the time, so I'm not out there hounding people like crazy. We have franchisees that do that. I'm very anxious to see the results. I hope they're awesome, but I'm more of along the lines of like here's what it is. I think we're awesome at this. This is our price. It's below market. If you want to come, awesome. If not, that's great.
Speaker 3:My sales techniques are very old school. I kind of mentioned things that I think make sure this is done really well and, other than that, I'm here if you need me and I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys might have. We have people that have systemized cold calling and all that and are just hammering them away sales-wise and I'm very, very relationship-focused. So my reoccurring work is heavy. I think we're about 300,000 reoccurring a year now, with one true season through, and we're starting to get in with the metro, the hospital system around here. It's a whole bunch of cool projects. It's just I'm more obsessed with doing a million jobs than making a million dollars right now, so that I can build a foundation of this and I can sell it one day, and I'm very much a foundation builder as opposed to shiny object chaser. So that's my method. That's what I'm doing just to slow, try to make friends, try to make a network and see what we can get out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I it sounds like you're. You're doing it right. It's really mission-based, it's wanting to do a great job. I should also mention for any of you all of you listening out there that any numbers we discuss on this podcast, if you're interested in rolling suds, you will need to refer to their franchise disclosure document, their item six or item 19. Nick's results are they are very good, but it doesn't mean that that's what you're going to achieve. If you're going to be a Rolling Stones franchise owner, okay, now that that's out of the way. No, you're exactly right. It's like, as we, we've noticed with our pinks franchise and I think we've got a similar recurring jobs on the books for for the next, for the next year, as you do. So many of our jobs are recurring. I would say like we've got. We've got a as I, as I look at our revenue, we're right now about 60% commercial to 40% residential. You guys do bigger jobs than us. What's your, what's your split?
Speaker 3:In terms of revenue it's going to be similar to that. It's more of a 60, 40 commercial to a residential the residential part of our business and I will hammer this to death and people will argue with me forever and that's fine. But from a model standpoint and from a cashflow standpoint, residential is king in this business and what I mean by that is until this business is quote unquote stable, meaning I'm not worried about that reoccurring revenue going to someone else, I'm not worried about what's coming in because our SEO we've been around the block Until that's stable, I need that cash flow every week to pay payroll quicker, to pay sudden bills, whatever we broke, all the things that go wrong owning these things. I need that cash flow to pay for.
Speaker 3:The reason I said that it takes time is when you're in a service business, especially a large ticket one, and you're dealing with multiple vendors or multiple general contractors. Getting in their AR system and getting that bad boy to execute in any reasonable amount of time is tough. I've got bills outstanding from 120 days ago and they're like oh well, you haven't signed up for X, y and Z AR system. I'm like dude, you're killing me, man. And that's how Nate got terms and conditions in his contracts.
Speaker 1:We just had the same thing with our. We're about to close a big HOA deal to go clean every house in the neighborhood and big deal. We're a money but and of course, our gm's really excited. But the trouble is this is that it's going to take a truck of ours, a van of ours, off the street, put it in this neighborhood, put a full team of guys and I'm like what's the accounts receivable? Because I got a full crew now that's working. That costs me. You know, at least you, I want to be, I want outside I don't know where you sit on this, but put my GM aside, outside of him. I really want the crew to account for about 25% of our revenue. We're still a growing franchise. We're not there yet. So let's say we're 50 right now. So I'm like dude, this is going to crush our cashflow. So we have to make sure, with these terms, that we're getting at least half up front, because they have to know they're going to take a full crew of ours out of commission.
Speaker 1:So for all of you out there, nick brings up a great point as new franchisees, the residential jobs they pay you with credit card. Sometimes they pay you with cash and I hate that. The check's easy we can do that with the app but the cash we have to go to the fricking bank and deposit it. Anyways, we love the credit card payments because they happen instantly, whereas the AR on the bigger commercial jobs takes forever, and then we've got to float the payroll. So all things you guys need to think about, and this is why when we're guiding someone and I'm sure Nick, your consultant, said the same thing this is why you want to have more cash available, whatever their high number is on the investment, have that in your pocket because you're going to need every penny of it. Even if you got profitable by month 12, you're going to have a month setback and you're going to need to have the cash to help your business survive.
Speaker 3:Well, and what's interesting about that is so Rolling Suds switched how they were asking for capital. Obviously, it increased a good deal, and I think that's a great idea. It is necessary. It really depends on when you start too. If you're starting in the slow season, you're going to burn more, you know. And, by the way, you're a little bit more mentally beat up if you start in the fast season, because everyone else is going to be rolling and you're going to be taken forever, and so prepare yourself for that too. But yeah, the AR is a nightmare to a certain extent. I had $150,000 outstanding in November and I'm like, all right, well, I would love this money, I don't need it, you guys. So luckily, it's pretty much all come through, but it takes a lot of time, and not having those deposits, like you said, was a rookie mistake. I was just excited to keep, you know, keep it rolling. But I absolutely have that policy now going into the spring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to have it. You know again, it's like and you know what else is interesting too is we're on these. You know Pinks Weekly conference calls. So our slow season in South Florida is the summer, because like half our population goes up to New York and so, while everyone else is like crushing, like you know, it seemed like every other market was having their best months. We were just getting hammered and Jill and I are just sitting there saying, screw this, we want to win, Because we had come out of the gates as the highest performing franchise and then all of a sudden, we fell way back down to earth. Well, now our weather for the most part, is good. We've been crushing it since October and some of the Eastern States, you know, like you guys, are getting hammered with snow and right, yeah, they're not enjoying the sun today.
Speaker 2:The cold front coming through here is very different than what you guys are saying but yeah, it's, the seasonality is really interesting and it's not always the same for all businesses, so you know it's it's also keeping that in mind too, businesses. So you know it's also keeping that in mind too. And just you know, understanding that, like our peak season is everyone else's off season and vice versa.
Speaker 3:I actually will find too I'm really sure of this that my quote unquote off season will not be so off as we continue. A lot of what I'm being asked to do is just kind of emergency work or like trash cans in the morning and if it's 40 degrees, we can do that. People want their random things, people call for that, they have issues with that. We can fulfill because we carry a lot of water, a little market advantage for now. So it's one of those things.
Speaker 3:And it is also when we were talking about a runway for the love of God, cut your expenses. You probably don't need that VA, I promise, especially in your first year. It's one of those things where you see a lot of people who are from private equity or somewhere where they were working in operations and they burn that money that I think they're going to need for AR with miscellaneous expenses, because they had this huge bank account to start with, you know, and you're just buying frivolous things and I'm like, oh my God, I barely have any furniture in our warehouse. And like the whiteboard's like a little rough, everything is so meat and bones still, and like the whiteboard's like a little rough, everything is so meat and bones still, and it's just kind of how I prefer it, until we're stable and stable is a lot less of meat.
Speaker 1:That's a great question. And I would also say this I mean, jill and I keep a. We keep a sort of running P&L years. We look weeks, years into the future and so every decision we make financially for our businesses, we see now, but we also see how it affects us three months from now, and that's something all of you prospective business owners it isn't just living in the now. Every decision you make. So you've got to build a good, you've got to be focused on how you're spending your cash, not only now but in the future. It's very important. So let's talk about your time in the business.
Speaker 1:I made a comment on LinkedIn the other day that some people misunderstood. I said I spend about an hour a day in my business, in my pinks business. That's because we have a really good GM. We are big believers in delegating and he does a very good job of delegating to our lead tech and the team. So we right now and as business owners, look the shit can hit the fan and it can change at any time, but right now we have a nice system of delegation. But also it is how much? When we say an hour, let's think about what goes into that. That is the morning check-in call with the GM, that is the monitoring of the CRM, that is looking at cashflow, that is making sure that we're looking at the first resumes that come in. So there's a lot that you can squeeze into a short period of time. Tell us what your experience is and how you're sort of leading the team.
Speaker 3:Well. So this was my first time scaling while we were working, so it was interesting. I ended up harshly burning out in August and the reason for that is I was also actually working in the business not very many hours working on it, a bajillion hours, a lot, a lot, a lot of getting my sales and stuff and marketing figured out, but actually working in power washing and working on the trucks and stuff like that very minimal amount of time. And then a small business happened and my second driver I had two trucks at the time broke his arm. I was thinking back to last year and I said, okay, well, august, october, september, they were okay, we can just handle it with one team. No, we had a record month in October. Of course, we did like 135,000 and I worked another at least 80 hours a day because I was working in and on, because I made a novice mistake and I also hired a sales guy and did not have a process in place, so I also burnt too much capital on my wages. So I wanted to fix that. So I worked. Could I have hired another team and trained them and did the whole thing? Sure, but the other answer to this is I was cleaning a building. That I call the best propaganda I'm ever going to have, because man is the before and after good, and so I also wanted to make sure that was absolutely excellent.
Speaker 3:So there are different objectives involved, but, yeah, I think exactly this year is a lot of what I'm game planning around, and I have a whole whiteboard next to me on stuff that needs to be done and a lot of work in progress, um, but a lot of it is designing the systems now to make sure that that doesn't happen. I don't get sucked back in like that needlessly, um, and we can continue to push. That's very important. If we're actually going to get where we want to get, I need to stay out as much as possible. I'll still probably fix the pumps and stuff like that, but honestly, I'd like doing that and I might just go late at night.
Speaker 3:So you know, it's a huge thing and it's one of those things that you start to get as you start to form a base of the business. But, man, please don't try to scale too early, for the love of God. You're just going to burn cash and you need to know what's going on. I fundamentally believe that, but no, you guys are on a similar trajectory as I am. It's time to start to push ourselves up a little bit. And that's every process in the business.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point. It's an excellent point because when you add more layers of infrastructure, you are going to spend a lot more money on the business. So when we talk to prospective franchise owners for pinks, they're like are you profitable yet? And my answer is no. But I didn't build the business to be profitable and you're you're one. We built it to have to do right.
Speaker 2:As you were saying, like we knew that going into it, we knew that it wasn't going to be that we made the choice to hire a gm. You know, knowing that, that was going to affect our overall numbers, but for what we could contribute and the time that you know we had available. It made the most sense, um, but yeah, you have to build that in and have the right expectations and we bought the second truck before we needed.
Speaker 1:I mean, we, we made, we made these decisions. Um, I've never looked at you know, I haven't. We didn't look at it with franchise insiders that way either. When we started franchise insiders we didn't make a penny for the first six months but we advertised, we, um, we were in Southwest airlines magazine spending eight grand a month on a on a print ad that nobody called us for the first few months.
Speaker 1:So we sort of have a playbook where we're always, we understand, investing early on in a business, but we could do it. If someone's coming to us and saying, hey, I want to own Rolling Suds and I've got 250 grand, we're going to say one territory you better be working on and in the business yourself, you better GM that thing yourself. And I think we're seeing now people kind of coming back to earth in terms of, okay, I don't need to own 10 territories to start. Why don't I start with one or two and get good at this and get profitable and then use that money? And here's the thing, and maybe you can share what you think of this.
Speaker 1:I think part of good franchise consulting and what Jill and I do with helping clients. I always say this to people it's not just about the investment in the business. It's about introducing you to people that can teach you to be a great entrepreneur. Right, because so many people come from corporate America. You might come from the most fabulous private equity firm on earth and have a Harvard degree, but running a business is a very different thing, and so if we compare you with a franchise, that actually will teach you to be a good entrepreneur, it opens up your future to everything, whether that be buying other franchises or now you've got the confidence to go buy that mom and pop for pennies on the dollar. It's beyond just the dollars and cents of the unit. It's about turning you into an entrepreneur that can build a much bigger portfolio.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I 100% agree, and I don't know if it's legal or not or whatever it might be, but I think that a consultant should try to kind of map what you were doing prior and trying to find that in some version of it entrepreneur-wise. So what I mean by that is Rolling Suds is, at the end of the day, a sales and marketing company and it's focused on b2b sales. I'm here because that's what I was doing. I was selling maintenance stuff to car dealers, making friends and increasing my penetration on whatever you know. So what do I really do now? I make friends and then try to sell them as much as possible and I'm pretty dang good at selling them on more once they've already done it all.
Speaker 3:I got it all gets so excited and then try to sell them as much as possible and I'm pretty dang good at selling them on more once they've already done it. All I got is, oh, I'll get so excited, and then you just bam right, and I think that that's true for the consultant is like if they were doing something that has a direct application in some type of QSR, for example, or fitness or whatever it might be, if there's some type of skill set that is very obvious about them trying to match. That will give them the highest probability of success, because they'll feel like they're slotted like a railroad, as opposed to just trying to go over every bump and being lost. I think that's very important. You can teach sales skills, but man is it easier if you understand where you're going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can teach sales skills, but, man, is it easier if you kind of understand where you're going. Yeah, I mean, that's it. So we partnered with a company that does franchisee profiling, namely on top franchisees. We're big believers in when you become a franchisee, go find the most successful franchisee and make friends with that person. Underperforming franchisees can kind of you know, they glom together and they complain and it's actually killing their businesses. But anyways, this company profiles top performing franchisees and builds profiles on them. So we have our clients take this assessment and then it comes back and it says, hey, they compare to franchisees in these. You know 10 different franchises and then here's their where they best match. And so we're able to say, okay, here's where your strengths are in a business, here's the industries where you compare to top performers. And now we're going to show you franchises based upon that. And it's not just that, you know again, you've got to have human conversations too, right, but it's, it's, you're right. We want to take a real holistic look at all this.
Speaker 2:Right. And I think, like what you were saying before, like with orange theory, right, a lot of people come in and they I love fitness. You know I'm a fitness junkie. I go to Orange Theory every day. I do this, I do that, I want to, that's what I want to do. And then they take this and it comes back that, yeah, they're like more like you, they're very sales oriented.
Speaker 2:That's not a good fit for someone like that, you know, and so sometimes it can feel a little bit like a letdown, like wait a second, I really wanted you know whether it's like you know food and beverage or fitness or something like that. But no, you're better suited for something like you said. And then, looking at rolling sets, you wouldn't think sales, right, your first thought is I've got to be good at you know blue collar and cleaning and you know. But it's that's not what. It is right to run that business. Like we've always said, we're not going to wash windows, so it has. No, there's no difference whether or not we have any experience with cleaning windows. Pinks is more of a branding and sales and marketing as well too, so it was a better fit for us.
Speaker 1:Okay, but that brings up. You bring up a really good point, Nick. I have a question for you. How has it been for you managing blue collar workers?
Speaker 3:How has it been for you managing blue collar workers? So I had been around blue collar folks before, hark really hard Because I'm mad at them for not doing something right or just not caring enough or making a mistake. And in reality, that's an issue with my training, right, it's an issue with my policy, it's an issue with all these things. I didn't tell them and I assumed that they would know, and that's just bad communication. At the end of the day, it's being a novice, right. So we're building those systems now, but it's it's. It's not easy.
Speaker 3:I'm paying a general manager in the winter right now I think it's 12 degrees outside and but I'm paying him because I'm going to need him to manage all these people. He was a restaurant manager in a nightclub so he can handle the stress and he can also speak these people's languages in a way that I can't. When they're upset, I'm not going to understand all the time or I'm not going to understand their stuff from home. So having that interface and making sure that that's fulfilled is extremely important. It wasn't that I wasn't able to do it. I just am sure I'm not going to be able to do it at scale and I'm also sure that it will eat all of my time, because we did have employees that were awesome Until they had to work with a team and then, all of a sudden, they were a nightmare and I had to let them go. And the guy I'm talking about was the best power washer I had by far. He was awesome. Customers loved him, couldn't work on a team to save his life.
Speaker 3:It just is what it is. It's not easy. A lot of the times I just wouldn't say anything because I know where this is all going. I'm in my first year. You won't be here in three months. It's not a dangerous activity. You just did. You're just being a goose and that's I'm.
Speaker 3:I'm prepared to move on. We just get through the end of the season and go forward. That is why I do love our seasonality. Man, did I need the break? And also it's it's. It's nice to have the clarity to rethink all these things. I have a whiteboard and go forward. That is why I do love our seasonality. Man, did I need the break? And also it's nice to have the clarity to rethink all these things. I have a whiteboard of stuff I'm knocking out. I'm excited again to go back after this and I can tell you, at the beginning of December I was not, but I am now and I'm ready to go. I'm working on all of our stuff. I'm excited to see if it works and I'm terrified to see if I can at least repeat last year's numbers. It's welcome to doing this, you know, like that's what this is. At the end of the day, you're like yeah, I can do it. I don't know where I'm going to get it from, but we'll find out.
Speaker 1:That's. That is entrepreneurship. I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3:I don't know how the hell I'm going to do it. We're going to try like hell. I bought a third truck with a whole bunch of bells and whistles on it, so you know, I pay for that and it's early. Just like you did it early, I bought the second one early, the third one's early. You know, we'll see, we'll make it work. Figure it out.
Speaker 1:You learn by doing. I mean it's like with us our first GM we hired. We hired him two months before we opened. We thought we'd found this great guy. I'm sure he's a lovely guy, but for us it wasn't the right fit. We get him to training and fortunately we had sent him to training with our lead tech. So at least we did that.
Speaker 1:And it becomes apparent in training that the lead tech should be our GM. So here we are. We paid a guy, probably 12 grand, by then maybe 18. Too much. So here we are. We've paid a guy probably 12 grand, by then maybe 18. Too much, yeah, and we make the decision before we even hit the field that we need. We're replacing our starting quarterback and we're cutting him.
Speaker 1:And look, that's part of this. I mean it's you have to make these decisions and we're glad we. As it turns out, our GM has been. You know he's been a great fit that, the one that we elevated from lead tech. So you know, this is it, guys. I mean this is part of the fun of being a business owner is that we get to make these real life decisions. We get to to to live and die by the decisions that we make, and I just think there's so many people that call on Nick. You said something before we started the call that when you were exploring franchises, some people made it sound easy. Some people talked about a word that has now become taboo in our industry, which is absentee. Look, I say to people who ask me about absentee and investor model, I say don't you want to be the reason why your business is successful? Don't you want to be the leader of that business? Of course you want to empower other people, but the franchise owner makes the business special.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you run into people who think they just like the idea. They, yeah. You run into people who think it's a, they just like the idea. You know, they just like the idea. And they have a bunch of money and they're like, yeah, and then they're always the one. By the way, who's the maddest? I serve as president on our, on our advisory council. To the actual brand and the stuff that these guys tell me. I'm like dude, you're not even here. Yeah, I know you haven't called your leads.
Speaker 3:Why are you mad at me, man? We're doing the best we can. This is it's still a startup. I think we're now on like small business realm as opposed to startup, but still. But yeah, you have to figure out who these people are.
Speaker 3:To a certain extent, with these brands, I found the majority of them to be full of it and I cannot stand the concept of being in one of those big conglomerate kind of whatever. When they own the roofing, they own the gutters, they own the power washing, they own the painting man, does that sound miserable? Why are you ever going to care about me? I am the definition of something that hopefully it fits in the item 19. You know that stinks. You're not going to help me. I know you're not going to help me. You're going to sell it and you're going to do this weird churn and burn thing that is in the industry and you know it's interesting. Every time I'm on a podcast in this and I always share the same. You know, please make sure that you know what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Speech and like people will be negative or they think you know you just don't want me to scale and beat me and I don't care if you beat me, man, I just want to survive. And the second part is is it is so easy to blow this. Choose the wrong guy that you know, choose the wrong team that didn't match up with your personality, choose the wrong franchise that doesn't match up with your skills. You really have to be very careful and then go for it. That's really what it is. It's some type of decision-making process and then you just got to go and that is what it is. But, like you're saying, you got to try and figure out and ask great questions, go all around the different parts of the franchise, the worst guys who are going to give you the worst opinion ever, the middle, which is you know and then then you're up right here and see what these guys are like, see if you fit their personalities. Are you somewhere around what this guy is? Yeah, and then you can probably figure out where you should be, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, you quickly realize, look, I think there's a lot of franchise salespeople out there. I don't think they're out there to do harm, but it's just that if you haven't run a business before, if you haven't run a franchise, you just don't know. And I do think that's where you know working with. And again, it's a shameless plug, but there's more franchise consultants than me and Jill, full disclaimer, nick. Nick worked with another franchise consultant. That was not Jill and I, but that franchise consultant also is a business owner. And I do think as you pick your franchise consultant, the question you should ask is are you a franchise owner? Were you a franchise owner? And I think, because they can really help you understand the road that's ahead for you.
Speaker 1:And look, this is really, this is America and this you can. I mean, look, I didn't go to Harvard, I didn't go to Stanford, I didn't work at a fancy private equity firm. You know, jill has a great resume, she's much smarter than I am. But we were probably each what were we making in corporate America? Like 150 grand, something like that. And we got so fed up that Jill and I quit. We both quit our jobs. Summer of excuse me new year 2000. We sold our house because we had no money. Literally, we had like 30 grants. We had to sell our house, but we were so desperate for change we had to do it. We had it. We needed to do this because we were just sick of working for somebody else. So for us there was no other way. And again it it's the same thing. Like you said, we didn't have a direct path, we just knew we were going to do it well, the thing is too is.
Speaker 3:I know I have a weird personality, I'm a little bombastic. I'm out there, uh, I don't know how well I fit in corporate america. I don't know if it's for me, man, uh, I could try, but you know, yeah sure, I'd get rapped, reprimanded daily we're talking to a guy who is selling his who's selling his company.
Speaker 1:Yesterday it's not a franchise and he was talking to the buyers and the buyers asked about his transition plan right, would you stay around? And he said I would be the worst employee ever had. You don't want me as an employee? Yeah, no way, no way. So it's interesting. So, nick, okay, two last questions for you. Thank you for being so generous with your time. I know how busy you are. Okay, what haven't we asked? That's important, that we haven't asked that you think it's important for people who are thinking about becoming franchise owners to know, based upon your experience, I think that the biggest thing is you just need to make sure you can put the time into this.
Speaker 3:I I mean that in the best way possible. You really especially if you're married and you have kids make sure that conversation happens about. You know, I'm going to have to leave sometimes to go fix this, and when I think about a lot of business it's not so much as like, can you do it? Yeah, anyone can do it, but can you mentally handle this? Like the extreme disappointments, the lowest of lows, the highest of highs.
Speaker 3:I'm only prepared for this because I got my butt kicked in my knees in selling insurance, cold calling, when I was just outside of school. I remember thinking I had these policies sold and then they'd pay me and then it gets stripped away from me like a week later because someone didn't make a payment or whatever. The most pain I think I had felt emotionally. You know you thought you were doing well and then it's taken away. And that is what this is. For a long time you think you're doing well and it's taken away. So what I was getting at with, like, do you have kids? What's your deal? Have you guys talked about this? It puts such a strain on all your relationships that are within the inner circle of this, just because they're going to have to live some of your complaints. They're going to have to hear about this, they're going to have to miss you when you have to go fix something or whatever it might be, and it's just a whole team effort and you just kind of have to make sure that whoever's on your team is also ready for that. And I think that's probably the biggest thing that we haven't kind of discussed is just make sure everyone's aware of what's going on, Because it's such a big deal.
Speaker 3:I was working till 12 o'clock at night and woke up at 7 in the spring last year and it was 100% necessary. It wasn't like I was messing around on my computer, it was just, you know, doing the quotes, send it out. Do the quotes send it out. Was I thinking about it too much Cause I was new? Yeah, Would I do it in 10 seconds now? But it's, you know it's. It's part of the progress, part of the part of the deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a really good point there. I mean, look, there's going to be times. There's going to be times there's going to be times where you feel alone, where it can be scary, and that's where I think you know, if you're becoming a franchise owner in a system, seek out you know, people like Nick who've been in the system. Learn from franchise owners who were persevering, who are succeeding. Not because we want to sugarcoat it for you, but it's the same guidance we give to our son, which is you'll learn a lot more from the A students than you do from the D students.
Speaker 1:It's not hard to figure out what a D student did and underperforming franchise owners. Let's face it. They make every excuse in the book as to why they're not succeeding and in my mind, when we buy that business, it's on us. And ultimately, yes, are there ways that a franchisor could better? I'm sure all of us could critique the franchisor who's doing the best they can and say, well, they could do this better. Well, we all could do things better. So to that end, last question Nick, would you do it again?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, Specifically this one too. Yeah, I would. To be fair, I've had a lot of influence over Rolling Suds. A lot of the systems are mine, or they are some version of mine, but I was also the fourth person in the system, or they are some version of mine, but I was also the fourth person in the system. I'm also the president of our advisory committee. Like, we're about to get custom springs made out of for our pumps that were costing us a hundred dollars and I think I got them down to like three. Yeah, I know I'm pumped. Look at you, we'll see you know. But yeah, this fits my skillset. I think power washing is a pain in the butt it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1:I'm. The stuff that's broken is a lot of work.
Speaker 3:I also think it's always breaking. Yeah, it's a, it's obnoxious how often these pumps break and you're just like why, man, I just fixed you and you're such a pain in the butt to get back out god anyways. And then your parts are rusted and you're like I'll kill all of you. But yeah, no, no, I would do it again, 100%. I think I have something here. I really do.
Speaker 3:I think we're fulfilling a need in the market that is there, and I have the same anxious, worried we'll see what happens feeling butterflies like I did this time last year and it went okay, we see. You know it's. It's exciting and scary and my expectations are high and we'll see how I do, but it's it's the challenge that I'm excited for more, more than anything else. Um, the people that are in our brands are very good people and the people that work at rolling suds are very good people. I don't really have an adversary or anything like that. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong.
Speaker 3:Could things have been set up better? Yeah, they can always be set up better. Could we fill some gaps with some of the stuff that doesn't work on their side? Sure, will we figure that out in time. Yeah, so it's one of those things where my bet was that these people would be who I thought they would be right, it's my gut and that's turned out to be true so far, and we'll see what that looks like in the future. But for now, you know, my assumptions have been decently well on and that was the most I could really ask yeah, well, I mean kudos to you and and congratulations on your success and, you know, enjoy it.
Speaker 1:And and I think you have such a good perspective because Jill and I have been where you are, in both Pinks and with our. We're affiliated with I don't know 700 other franchise consultants and you'll be a top performer and then there will be another top performer and my advice is don't hate on the other top performer, learn from them.
Speaker 2:Let them challenge you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes you better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just you guys. I don't really need anyone to know my name, I just want to be the rich dude that like no one really understands what he does and he has two houses. And, again, no one bothers me. That sounds amazing. Being the top dog in these systems is so difficult and varying. For example, you could win a contract in this industry and all of a sudden, you're the top person. Are you building the best business? Probably not. That's why what I was stating is I don't really care whether I'm the top person next year. I want to do a lot of jobs and make a lot of friends. This is a long-term game. I'm pumped that I was the top person. Next year, I want to do a lot of jobs and make a lot of friends. This is a long-term game. I'm pumped that I was, you know, the first year. Everyone's off the races and I I had the most revenue.
Speaker 3:I'm more obsessed with setting this foundation and getting ready. I want to buy another location, a physical location in the Western part of my territory. I want to turn this whole bad boy on and make some money. There we go, wins, wins, great. What kind of ideas do you have that I can steal my dude. I love that Great. There are people who are going to kick my butt at this and I'm well aware of it. I can see it. Awesome. You guys have different experience than I do and I'm going to win in different areas.
Speaker 1:We'll see. I love it. It's been great talking to you today. Thank you for sharing your time. We know you're very busy and for all of you out there who want more information on rolling sides or on just exploring franchises in general, easiest way text Jill and I 305-710-0050, or visit thefranchiseinsiderscom. Nick, thank you so much for being our guest today. We really appreciated your time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you, sir, take care.
Speaker 3:All right, bye.