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
Building a Children's Salon Empire with Sharkey's Cuts for Kids Owner Lacy Altenhofen
What does it take to build a successful children's hair salon franchise? Lacy Altenhofen, owner of multiple Sharkey's Cuts for Kids locations in Texas, reveals the unexpected journey that transformed her from marketing professional to thriving entrepreneur.
Driven by a desire to bring valuable services to her hometown communities, Lacy discovered Sharkey's Cuts for Kids through what she calls "serendipity" – receiving an email from the co-founder himself while simultaneously having the franchise recommended by her consultant. This perfect alignment confirmed she was on the right path, despite having no prior salon industry experience.
Her timing, however, couldn't have been more challenging. Just three and a half months after opening her first location, COVID forced temporary closures. Yet through strategic marketing, community partnerships, and unwavering dedication to company culture, her business not only survived but began thriving shortly after reopening.
What makes Sharkey's Cuts for Kids unique in the competitive landscape is their commitment to inclusivity and age-appropriate experiences. From fun cars for toddlers to Xbox stations for tweens, they've created an environment where children of all ages and neurodiversity levels feel comfortable. As Lacy explains, "We grow with the family," serving children from their first haircut through their teenage years.
For aspiring franchise owners, Lacy offers this golden nugget: "I would rather be understaffed with the right people than appropriately staffed with the wrong ones." Her focus on creating a teamwork-oriented culture stands in contrast to the traditionally competitive salon industry, where stylists often work against rather than with each other.
Ready to explore if franchise ownership might be right for you? Text us at 305-710-0050 for honest advice and guidance from experienced franchise owners who can help you navigate the process with confidence.
Text: 305-710-0050
Hi everyone, welcome back to the we Bought a Franchise podcast. I'm Jack Johnson, I'm Jill Johnson and today we have a special guest. We have Lacey Altenhoffen. Oh, I said that right, lacey, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Lacey is a Sharky's Cuts for Kids franchise owner and we've been so excited, lacey, to have you on today, because you know, sharky's is one of those franchises that we have worked with forever. We've been franchise consultants since 2017. It's just one of those categories that just is so smart. We'd love to hear your story and maybe a little bit about you. Oftentimes, how we like to begin is what got you started, what got you into franchise ownership? Maybe we can take it from there. Sure, absolutely, how we like to begin is what got you started, what got you into franchise ownership, and maybe we can take it from there.
Speaker 2:Sure, Absolutely so. Originally I knew that we wanted to open a business in Midland and Odessa. I'm from Midland originally, have a lot of pride over the community and wanted to bring something in the entrepreneurial space to my communities. But I just didn't know what that was. So I began the process of looking into opportunities. I really hoped that we would find something in the children's industry, because that's where my heart and passion lie as a mother, and I felt that there were a lot of other families that would benefit from that in our community. But I didn't know what that looked like. And then I came across Sharky's and just felt like it was a perfect fit for the needs of our community, for what I wanted to be part of and just a very exciting brand to partner with, and so did you find Sharky's on your own?
Speaker 1:Did you work with a franchise consultant? How did that happen?
Speaker 2:I was actually working with a franchise consultant and she had gone back to the drawing board to kind of see what opportunities might be a good fit for my husband and I. And while she was doing that, I got a direct email from Scott Sharkey, the co-founder himself, and I thought well, how interesting, because I'd already become familiarized with the brand. I met with her the very next day and she said I think that Sharkey's might be a good opportunity for you. And I said well, that's funny because I've got an email in my inbox from the founder himself. So it was just seem like it was meant to be.
Speaker 1:It's funny how that happens sometimes. Yeah, no, it's. That's great, how serendipitous and so okay. So now, now you become the owner of this, of this great franchise One of the things that Jill and I talk about. We're franchise consultants ourselves. The first 12 to 18 months of franchise ownership can be hard. I would argue that it's the hardest point, right. Maybe even the first six months. Some people shoot right out of the gates and have tremendous revenue. Some people start out slow. What was your first 18 months like?
Speaker 2:Well, I've got two locations, so with my first it's coming up on its sixth year anniversary this November, but we really came out of the gate very hot. My degree is in marketing and so I had a large focus on marketing, community development, all of those things that I think really gave us a great start in the Odessa market. However, we were hit with COVID at three and a half months into business, so that really provides a completely different take on things. We were rocking and rolling and then all of a sudden our doors were closed for two months. So a lot of challenges that come with that.
Speaker 2:But I also think that that says a lot for the community that we serve and for the brand that we're partnered with, that we were able to not only survive that but very shortly after start to thrive. With Midland we had the brand presence of Odessa because we'd been open nearly two and a half years at that point when we opened that location. So we had a little bit of that. But then it's a different take because you take a little bit of your clientele from one market into the other and then you have to build both businesses up. So I do think that there are challenges, certainly within those first 12 months. We were fortunate enough to be able to shorten that time frame from a profitability standpoint, but that doesn't mean that we were excluded from any of your daily operations or staffing challenges that everybody typically sees.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that what Sharky's does flies under the radar, and I suppose we should probably talk about what Sharky's does, which is haircuts for kids. But what makes you guys different? What do you see in terms of competition? You know, tell us about what. What is Sharky's?
Speaker 2:The Sharky's is the number one kids hair salon franchise in the U S. We're growing at a rapid rate. Even um from the time that I signed on in in 2020, 19, my husband and I to today, the brand is nearly tripled in size and it was already growing at an exponential rate then. But I think what makes the brand itself different and what really drew me to it, is the availability for kids of all ages and kids of all neurodiverse backgrounds. Right, so not only do we have the fun cars for the little ones, but we've got the Xbox stations in the tween lounge for the older ones. We really do grow with the family, and so I think that that separates us from really any competition.
Speaker 3:We have it. Our son was challenging with haircuts when he was younger, so the distractions were welcome, so lollipops and the cars and whatever we could do. You know, you guys are professionals at this just made it so much easier because it was, um, it was a nightmare and it's not something you think about. You know, I never thought that we would have you know, just solely get a haircut, but it ended up being like a very stressful yeah, and now he's so much better as he's gotten older.
Speaker 3:But the value of places like Sharky's is huge, because I mean you probably know this more than me, but I mean a lot of kids have a hard time in there with the noises and the you know, all the sensory things.
Speaker 2:It can be a scary and intimidating thing for someone who's either not done one before or maybe had a bad experience elsewhere. Intimidating thing for someone who's either not done one before or maybe had a bad experience elsewhere. My son actually had the same experience before we opened Sharky's, which is a lot of the reason why it resonated so heavily with me. I just said we have to do better as a community for these families. There has to be a better solution so the stylists are trained to be able to handle all different situations. They're just loving and patient. So the kids know when they come in, this is my space. It's fun, I'm going to be welcomed with patience and love, and that's a real game changer.
Speaker 3:I love that, and I love that you go through the teenage years too, because I think so many of these places are still younger kids focused, and then the kids age out, you know, and they don't. They don't want to go there anymore, but you know throw a video game in there, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know my son is excited because that's really the only time he gets to play video games, so he really loves going up there and playing while they do his haircut and we have a hard time getting him to leave, which is great.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, and so this is one of those brands that you can start as like a toddler and and like what's like the oldest uh uh range of kids that you see come into your salon.
Speaker 2:We'll never turn a family away. So there's really no absolute age um age out there, but zero to 14 is really our niche. So that first haircut all the way up into those teenage, those beginning of the teenage years, is really where we find the most value for these families.
Speaker 1:And do you see, like, like my, like Trey, our son and I went into a barbershop and we got a haircut and we could book like a father son thing this weekend. Do you guys do anything like that?
Speaker 2:Yes, a lot of locations do it's. It's up to you know, we're franchised, so it's up to the owner on whether or not they want to include those packages at their location.
Speaker 1:But yes, they do whether or not they want to include those packages at their location, but yes, they do. You know, just sort of thinking about the first year of franchise ownership and Jill and I have been involved now in two franchises, one in the senior healthcare industry and one in the home services industry, I'll tell you, I think that there's always things that you can kind of see coming and there's things that surprised, like for us I'll never forget with our pinks franchise and we landed this great big hoa job and it's like, hey, great news, we just landed this thirty thousand dollar account. But yeah, you think it's the dream. And then they take 60 days to pay you and it quickly becomes a nightmare. I mean, we were literally on on a trip and we're like having to, you know, chase this account every single day. That was a huge lesson learned, especially with sort of managing payroll and things like that For potential Sharky's owners out there. Was there anything that you kind of caught you off guard as an owner, that you weren't prepared for?
Speaker 2:Well, I mentioned that we dealt with COVID, so I wasn't prepared for that. But that aside, I think just finding a balance with making sure that you're focused on the business, growth and the overall picture of the business and not finding yourself in the day-to-day operations, really empowering your team to do that, is a huge lesson that I learned and a challenge that I think any new business owner is going to go through. You want to make sure that you've got the right staff in place, they're trained appropriately so that everyone can do their best job in their space. So for me it's marketing and making sure that the business is growing appropriately, making sure that we're fully staffed and everybody's getting paid on time and that sort of thing, and for them it's providing the experience. So it's a give and take. I think if you try to do everything yourself and you try to over um manage, then the business suffers. So I think that was one thing that I learned at the beginning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, working on the business, not in it. Um, and Sharky's is actually advertised as a as a passive franchise. Uh, jill and and I most experiences we've had in this we don't believe passive franchising is a real thing. Um, what would you, what would you say to that? Is the sharkies fit a more I don't want to say passive more sort of semi-involved uh model or what's been your experience there?
Speaker 2:yeah, I I would say it's a semi-passive brand for sure, and I think that's something that we talk about within the organization all the time. But if you can set the pillars up correctly and really have your ear and your heart on the pulse of the business but be able to stay out of the salon as much as possible and focus on that business growth, yes, you can set it up in a semi-passive way, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a. So the whole mantra of our company, Franchise Insiders, is franchise owners helping future franchise owners. So all of our consultants are franchise owners, either current or former, with a successful exit. And we do have one of our consultants who owns a home services franchise and he has a GM and his GM does a tremendous job running the business for him, Except last week that GM was out on vacation and then I think he was feeling a little stressed out. But I think that's really more of the exception, not the rule. I do think that for the most part, owners better be prepared to dig in, really get involved, especially when you consider and I'd love to hear your take on this I think so much of running a successful franchise, it's really getting that piece in terms of managing the staff, motivating the staff, keeping the staff. What have you seen there? What's been your experience? What's been successful for you? What sort of lessons learned have you had there?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you're exactly right In the beginning you know it's not going to. It's not a turnkey where you're just you open the door and people come. There are a lot of things that you need to set up and have in place in order for it to run successfully. So I do think there was a lot more involvement on my part. You know the first six to nine months of the business to get that running properly.
Speaker 2:But from a staffing perspective, I have found company culture is my number one goal. We have to have a good company culture in order to be successful. That means teamwork, which in the salon industry is not. It's a faux pas A lot of times in the salon industry the stylists are competitive with one another. They're kind of at a conjuncture with trying to make sure that they can get as many clients as possible and whatnot. But in our business we want to make sure that we have an environment of teamwork, environment of training and environment of communication and if those things are functioning properly then the staff is happy as a whole. We tend to find better retention, just overall performance being better and experience being better. So I have found that I would rather be understaffed with the right people than appropriately staffed or overstaffed with the wrong ones. That is a big headache, I think, for an owner when you don't have the right company culture. So that would be my greatest nugget of knowledge that I could pass on to any potential franchisee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's great, that's great guidance and that is, you know, and I guess, my next question for you, getting clients, like how does that happen for a Sharky's, Like what do you do to get clients in? Are you guys advertising online? Is it word of mouth Like how does that?
Speaker 2:happen everything. So obviously we've got our traditional methods of social media advertising meta ads, both Facebook and Instagram there, google ads those things making sure that, as moms are going about their daily life and they're scrolling through Facebook, that they're now aware that we're there and that we're ready to serve their family. So that's the traditional method. But for me, I'm a big advocate of community involvement, grassroots, local marketing. I've passed out many a flyer. I know every other kid-centric business in town. We're doing flyer swaps, we're doing co-branded contests and all sorts of things throughout the year to really make an impact on the community and I make sure that I partner with brands that I trust that I know are also providing great value to families. So that's important. I think if you're missing the local piece and you're only doing social media or Google, you're really kind of missing a big piece of the pie there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that dependent more on you to figure out the local or just share yourself with that, or is it sort of like 50-50? How does that work?
Speaker 2:A little of both. So there are resources in place that owners can access that would allow for partnerships to be easier to be made in their local communities. There are national partners that exist that have resources that are pre-made all those templates and whatnot and then just good introductory emails and flyer distribution, talk tracks and things like that that you can certainly utilize and even train your staff to be able to make those connections too. So it's not just all on the owner, it's kind of a cultural thing again. But yes, I find that if I put the effort in to make those connections happen and it's pretty minimal effort, it really is A lot of times it's places that I'm taking my kids the dentist, the gym, the kids' gyms and things like that where I'm able to connect with other owners to start to really kind of further those local marketing efforts and the school system and things like that kind of fall in line with that as well.
Speaker 1:You know it's so interesting thinking about the advertising for Pink's, which is a very I don't know how much you know about Pink's window cleaning, but it's actually based out of Austin, texas, when we would run Facebook ads and Google ads. What we found was is that on Facebook people see our brand, see the guys, so we had clients that would convert for higher paying jobs because they sort of became brand fans, versus people who found us on Google. You know that was more of a knee jerk sort of a thing. And then all of a sudden, as you watch ChatGPT coming into play and people using ChatGPT for so many more things now than Google, we've seen that dramatically impact the effectiveness of Google ads. I'm wondering if you've seen some of those same trends with your advertising in terms of your conversions.
Speaker 2:I advertise on both platforms and they are different. You're exactly right. No-transcript Google you get a little bit of that, but I think both have their own impact and their own value in their own specific ways. From an AI perspective, with SEO and converting and whatnot, we have to make sure that we've managed our reputation appropriately on Google, that we're encouraging people to leave their reviews and talk about the experience that they had, because if those pieces aren't there, then we get left out of the AI puzzle. So I do see an impact there. I advertise on both platforms and I find value in each. Sometimes Google performs better for us, sometimes Facebook performs better for us. It really just kind of depends.
Speaker 3:I know Depends on the day Like you hit with one and then all of a sudden it's like you know silence yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're able to measure our creative internally, so we can kind of see what resonates with families. And then too, I am the target market. I'm a mom, my kids are young, we're clients, and so I kind of know, I think, what families want to see and what moms find value in, and so we try to market to that, so that they can really see what we're all about.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think you have to sleep better at night knowing that you've got a business, speaking of AI, that is not going to be impacted by AI anytime soon. There are franchises. Well, not not franchises, but businesses like franchises. For example, kava, um and chipotle we talked about this last week on our podcast that are implement, will be implementing uh, robotics into the kitchen, meaning that the the, instead of having a person put together your burrito, it will soon be a robot within the next five years. Hair cutting is probably a long way off from that, not ready to interest To its nature. So I mean, you've got something if you wanted to that I would imagine over the next 10 years, if you guys wanted. There's usually a 10-year franchise agreement, but let's just say over the next five years. You guys were like you know what? We're really good at, this Sharky's thing, and we want to grow to 20 locations On any given day.
Speaker 1:10% of a franchise system, from Crumble to Midas to Sharky's, is for sale, and so one thing a lot of people don't think about when they're starting to build a franchise is you know, get through the first 18 months, Start with like one or two units, just like you did. Then if you're good at it, you've got systems that really can scale. Then talk to your franchisor and say, look, are there other franchisees? If there are other franchisees in Texas within driving distance of us that might want to sell, that's a way for someone to start kind of adding more units because they know how to do it and there's economies of scale there because the business is already open and someone who knows how to run a business well can come in and turn another performing unit into a overperforming unit. And I think it's an advantage that franchise owners have.
Speaker 1:That isn't talked about a lot, because right now people want to buy existing businesses and they want to go on to biz by cell and find that magical business. And what we tell people is franchise owners tend to sell to franchise owners. Um, before it ever hits biz by cell. So I don't know that. That's really just more me sort of sorry spitballing. You know the beauties of franchise ownership, presenting both sort of acquisition and even exit partners, like, like, if someone gets in they just said hey, you know what this franchise isn't for me. Let's say there was a neighboring city. They didn't like it. They call you and say are you interested in buying? So that's something that again I think people as they start to think about this and they want to own 10 franchises one day that's a great way to do it.
Speaker 2:You don't have to start that way, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've seen a lot of that um within other owners that I've got road to know over the years where they now maybe they were one unit or two unit, now they're five units. So I do think that that's a strong story to tell and I get asked that question all all the time. You know, when are you going to open your third, when are you going to open your fourth? And for me, the way that it's worked for me is I've taken a little bit of a different role and now I'm assisting with corporate and helping other franchisees to grow and to market appropriately and to do all the things that I've had success with in my market. I live in the desert about five hours away from any major town, five hours away from Austin, houston, san Antonio, all of those um, those towns. So I'm quite happy playing in my own backyard. But I certainly see the value in scalability and I'm seeing that with a lot of the other advisory board members and other owners that I that I know and conversate with within the brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the retail concepts like Sharky's, that's the way to do it. Um, there are other franchises, like I'm sure when you work with your consultant they probably showed you like senior care, where you can literally take one and grow it into a pretty big business on a you know, say, investment of 150k. It doesn't have an artificial cap, but it's just a completely different type of business. But the real estate plays. What people like is that you've got pretty consistent cash. You've got a lot of clients that are going to be repeat clients, which is tremendous. That makes a business much more valuable.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think that's. I just think it's such a smart business and it's just to me it's the beauty of franchising that you know most people, when they pass by a shark, he cuts their kids. They might not even think twice, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Just you know it is what it is. But the smartest investments are these sort of quote-unquote, boring businesses that are just in heavy need and that's what you've got. So, on that, on that note, and given all the things that you're doing, what advice would you have? Someone's listening to this podcast right now. You're saying that's a great idea. I love donor sharkies. What advice would you have from them, from from sort of both you know sides of the coin, sort of tempering expectations but also letting people know what the possibilities are?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's a lot of things. I think that can be said from an advice standpoint, but ultimately I think it comes down to what I mentioned before culture. But ultimately I think it comes down to what I mentioned before culture. So retention and marketing Really and truly, when the paint's on the wall and the doors are open, that's what it boils down to in a Sharky's Cuts for Kids. Do I have the right staff and am I marketing the business so other people can see it?
Speaker 2:So I think if an owner comes in with that mindset and they're really seeing their marketing and their staffing as an investment to the business and not an expense, then your mind shift starts to change and you start to think, oh well, if I'm getting these sort of costs back on my marketing, then I should probably put some more money into my marketing.
Speaker 2:That's working very well. Let's do that. So if you can come in with those mindsets and then you have a level of patience, I think it's going to soar. If you've put those pillars in place, things are going to take off and it's going to do what it's supposed to do and it's going to thrive. But there is a level of patience to it. You can't just open it and say they will come and I'm going to be making $100,000 this next month. It just doesn't work like that. You have to have a realistic expectation in business about the growth and what that looks like and just be prepared to make adjustments over time. But it's a pretty simple business model and it's definitely duplicatable if you put the right things in place.
Speaker 1:I mean, growth and business ownership is never linear, it's always this. But I think you've got great perspective. So so I guess the the really the last question is just sort of, you know, looking ahead, but as as a multi-unit franchise owner, what, what are your goals, when, where do you see this, this going?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think we ever stop. I come from a sales background, in addition to marketing, so I'm very sales like-minded and I will always want to grow the business. Every year, I have business goals. Okay, we're going to, we're going to do this, we're going to grow this way, whatnot? So that's always first and foremost is how can we get new clients, how can we see new families, how, how can we continue to service the clients that know and love us already?
Speaker 2:But in addition to that, just more of a community impact, what I love and what pride I have over having businesses in the communities that I grew up is that I'm able to grow and have a positive impact on the place that I live and the people that I know and the people that I don't know yet. So continuing to do that, continuing to make charity partnerships and business growth and partnering with the schools, I think, is a big thing for me, and then, on the other side of the coin, from a Sharky's franchise perspective, helping other owners do the same. I really love to be a sounding board for growth, as a representation of what can be, and so I think that being able to continue to do that.
Speaker 1:It's pretty powerful and on my priority list. You know, I've always found that our most successful years is when we put a goal up on the wall and we look at it every single day and asked ourselves are we, are we on the way to hitting that goal?
Speaker 2:I do that as well. Yeah, if you write your goals down, you're way more likely to achieve them. There's a lot of data in and around that, um, so I completely agree.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned something you know, coming from a sales background, but you you didn't come from a haircutting background.
Speaker 3:Oh, so is that a requirement?
Speaker 2:Most owners do not, um, come from the hair salon industry. So in the beginning, um, I found that as a weakness, right Even though I knew that a lot of other owners had not come, um, from that background. I really kind of viewed it as a weakness, and so I tried to inflate my knowledge when I was talking to the staff in the very beginning and try to really let them know that I knew what I was talking about when I took a step back from that and I said I'm really good at business development, at marketing, at sales, at personal relationship management, and you guys are really good at what you learned and studied in school and personal relationship management as well. Let's do that together. Then it changed everything.
Speaker 2:So, no, most owners do not come from a hair background. I know a little now I'm still not an expert, for sure, but it's funny because my daughter we go to school and tell her friends all the time, and her teachers, my mom is a hairstylist. So she didn't understand the concept of exactly what I do, and so I just asked her Harper, when have I ever cut your hair? I'm not a hairstylist.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, but you know, it's like when we had home care assistants in the beginning, which was our home care franchise, we were like, hey, we should target nurses because they'll be familiar with this type of thing and, as it turned out, they were way too clinical. They would be, you know, recommending someone have like two hours of home care. And then what we found was that the people who were more sales had a, had a sort of stronger sales background. They were helping people get much longer cases, which they needed, by the way, got someone with dementia, and so our franchisees that had no health care background were just wiping the floor with the ones that did, because they knew the fundamentals of marketing and sales and customer service.
Speaker 1:And so I've always said when people have asked, do I need to have a background in this? And my answer is no, I mean, what you need to do thing um, and this is something that personally I struggle with is that I think you need to be a really, really strong systems person. You need to be able to play within those systems and follow those prescribed game plans and be very much a team player. The Patriots won a lot of Super Bowls with a unspectacular cast of characters outside of Tom Brady. It was all about the team and the coaching, whereas some teams have like a star player or two and they never win the Super Bowl because it's more about the star. It's football season, let's go.
Speaker 3:No, but that makes sense. You know, again, someone comes in with salon experience and they want to run it a certain way because that's what they've done and that's not necessarily the struggle, you know. So it's it's. It's interesting to see that. You know that you, you have to have somewhat of an interest, right, but not necessarily a skilled background, and then, as you said, you learn along the way.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's a case by yeah, exactly, it's a case by case scenario too. If you hire someone with an amazing personality and who's really willing to learn, and then you invest in that person to make sure that they've got the proper training in place to really thrive, I think that that's better than hiring someone who really just wants the job and doesn't understand the culture and what we do and the value. Because really and truly, these families depend on us. They want their children to feel confident and they want them to have a good and smooth experience, so we need to make sure that we hire appropriately for those that are interested in that.
Speaker 1:You know what I love about hearing you talk and we'll be wrapping this up now, in a minute but, as I hear you, what I love is this is franchise ownership done right? It's a good thing, this has been a good thing for your life is. What I love is this is franchise ownership done right? It's a good bet? This has been a good thing for your life, is what I'm hearing? Yes, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Today, on the way to school, I was driving Trey to school and he had heard me speaking with a client. And listen, one thing I know about franchise ownership is you can't paint this rosy picture that you're going to be used in a bathtub with millions of bucks. It does take time, it takes hard work and it can be the most rewarding thing you've ever done. Our life would not be what it is without franchise ownership. So I get off the phone and he says you know, dad, I finally figured out what you do. You stop people from messing up, and the reason he said that is is I'll be sitting there saying to someone look, it's not going to be absentee. You might not even be drawing a salary until month 12. Okay, you know, if you think it's just going to be getting into the business and easy street, don't do it.
Speaker 1:And it was just so cool how he was like you help people from you, help people not mess up. And I really think, as franchise consultants, that's probably one of our number one jobs is to to temper expectations, cause you wouldn't. I don't, I don't know how you were with with your franchise acquisition, but we sometimes see it where people are like I want to buy this franchise now, after two phone calls and it's like no, no, you have to go through a diligent process. You got to talk to five to seven franchisees. Um. So again, just to bring it around, hearing you, hearing your enthusiasm for the business, your knowledge of it, lessons learned, I just that that makes me happy to hear. What a great yeah.
Speaker 2:And I have, you know, a very positive outlook. I'm I'm tend to be that type of person, but it doesn't mean that we haven't gone through difficulties. You're exactly right. What I, what I've told people, is that you know, the definition of an entrepreneur is a problem solver, which inherently means that there will be problems. So you really kind of have to look introspectively to determine am I fit and equipped to be able to handle these problems in a healthy way for myself, for my family and for the business? And if the answer is yes, it's probably a great fit for you.
Speaker 2:But there have been times over the years now we're six years in almost where I'm like gosh, did I make the right decision? This is really difficult, this is really hard. Is this the right thing for me? And I think just being able to put yourself back in the mindset of why you did it and what you believe and know about the brand will get you through those times. Then you see the rainbow on the other side where, okay, yeah, this makes sense. I've learned a lot through this. This happened for a reason. Now we're growing and thriving.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Any books or podcasts you'd recommend to a prospective entrepreneur?
Speaker 2:Gosh, I wish I had time to do that at this moment in life. This season of life is so busy for us. I say I have three jobs and then I've got kids and travel, ball, sports and all the things. So to pick up a book these days is very difficult. I'm really only getting time to spend in my Bible, but hopefully in the near future I'll be able to get more acclimated with those things.
Speaker 1:I think your life experience, your business ownership experience, speaks volumes enough, and I appreciate your straightforward approach and thanks for spending some time with us today. We really appreciate meeting you and hearing your story.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for having me. We really appreciate it as well.
Speaker 1:You got it Well, everyone. Thanks again for tuning into another episode of we Bought a Franchise podcast. If you're interested in franchise ownership, getting just a general idea of what this is really like, getting some honest advice and feedback, you know what to do Text us 305-710-0050. For this episode, I'm Jack Johnson, I'm Jill and we'll talk to you next time, take care.