Ryan Parsons (CEO, Evive Brands) - Real Talk for Aspiring Franchise Owners

A MUST-LISTEN for corporate execs exploring franchising! 🚀 Hear the full journey of Ryan Parsons, from co-founding Brothers Gutters to CEO of Evive Brands. Get REAL TALK on evaluating opportunities, leadership, transition challenges, scaling, the power of platforms, finding your 'why', and the rewards of ownership. 

DISCLAIMER: The information on this podcast is for general information purposes only. Franchising involves risk and careful consideration should be given before making any decisions.

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Transcript

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the number one thing that they should look at is themselves in a mirror. The biggest disappointment will be their own leadership. It really comes down to it. If you're thinking about a franchise and you're thinking about maybe part-time or it can kind of do it like this, if you treat your business like a hobby, it will pay you like a hobby. It's like being, it's like starving and going to a buffet. You fill up your plate, you think you're gonna eat all this stuff, and then, you know, most of it goes in the garbage. Same thing happens to franchisees when they want more territory. Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast, where you can escape the corporate trap through franchise ownership. Here's your host, Giuseppe gr, the franchise guide. Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Giuseppe Grammatically, your franchise guide, the show where we help corporate executives experience time and financial freedom via franchising. We have a very exciting show for you today. We have Ryan Parsons on the show from Evie Brands. Ryan, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me, Giuseppe. Appreciate it. Yeah I'm excited. We were just talking how long ago We met at one of the, holiday functions way back in the day. And looking forward to having you on. And I was really impressed. We were just talking about even just topics and ideas and things like that. But before we, we dive in tell us give the audience a little bit of background. Who is Ryan and you know, ha how well that, that may be has shown in and of itself, but who Ryan's, you know, your background and how you got into franchising. All right. I'll give you the short version if you're interested. There's other videos out there. But shoot. Starts back in 1999. My brother started a gutter company just by himself. In 2002, I joined him'cause I was working for a.com that became a dot bomb. And us two knuckleheads are on a gutter, gutter truck just slinging up gutter and trying to make a living. And the idea or the dream of franchising it was born. And we worked for many years that, that idea was born around 2007, eight. And we didn't feel like we were ready. Actually, in 2010, we launched two pilot locations and half of our systems worked and they broke the other half on the first day, I think pretty much. And then we realized we weren't quite ready for prime time. Spent a few more years building out the franchise system and this is the brothers that just do gutters and built it up got ready to franchise. We franchised it in 2015 and at, and then around in 2023. We had over a hundred locations or franchisees, over 300 territories we sold to Riverside. I'm in the platform called and Brothers is in the platform of Evie Brands and I was fortunate enough to be offered to be the CEO of the platform. So not only do I continue to get to work with the brand that we built and love so much, I'm getting to work with other franchisors, other concepts, and even looking to acquire other franchises to continue to build this out. So. I hope that was good for about a minute of a running start. That was awesome. I, and that's very interesting. So I guess, you know, fill us in. So, Evie brands, so tell us a little bit more about, you know, the brand, you know, what brands are associated maybe even some advantages of being part of a parent company like, like Evie Brands. Oh, it's awesome. It's, so the before, before brothers got there, it was three brands in senior services. Okay. So you've got assisted living locators who places people in assisted living facilities. We've got Grayson's, which is a state sale and liquidation, and then we have executive home care, which is non-medical in-home care. And so now with the brothers at just do gutters, we're building out the service side. So basically the goal of the platform is that if you're a homeowner. We wanna be able to have services for you, you know, from the time you purchase a home till maybe the time you're called home. I don't know if that's politically correct, but you know, that's the platform that we are building. And there, there definitely, we can get into it if you want, but there are a lot of advantages to being part of a platform and there's advantages of just being part of a franchise, right? That there's a ton of advantages there. And then there's another host of advantages of being part of a bigger platform as well. Actually that, you know, that, that is interesting and I wanna talk about that because a lot of the brands are maybe just an individual brand. They're not part of the parent company. So, two part question. I mean, you know, you know, we can focus on the parent company first, but what are the advantages of the parent company, you know, as, as far as in a franchise company? And then we could talk about the advantages of a franchise you know, to a franchisee that they'll benefit from. I mean, on the outset, I mean, obviously deep pockets, right? They have the money to invest in infrastructure, all the things that are on a young franchisor's, wishlist, all these technology things, compliance things, coaching help, anything that you could do to provide better service to your franchisees. Frankly, a lot of people who franchise their business, the brothers included, we didn't have. Million dollars on the side, right? We were scraping by to get this dream done. So you do have the resources and you have to know how, it's amazing when you're, when you just, things like your tech stack, what are you using for this and how are you doing that? Compliance, legal, you name it, whatever it is, you've got a host of people that have been there, done that and can help you and have a vested interest in. Helping you achieve that. And ultimately, what I love about franchising, it's a win-win. You know, if the franchisee is doing well, then their revenue's high. And that means royalties are high, right? Means we can continue to do more. And that's what's like really cool about franchising. It's you know, you can't really find a partner that's, you know, wants to do something to hurt the franchise. It's only to improve it. I like that. It's and it's almost like you're building from the franchisee standpoint kind of an ecosystem, right? You're in markets referring, you know, may, maybe you can leverage certain resources, certain employees, contractors, marketing. Correct. Talk to us a little bit about that, because that's something that, that came up in a previous episode you know, how to leverage the ecosystem and kind of everyone referring to one another. Absolutely. And that's so when my brother and I were thinking it was time to partner up and take this thing to the next level, we were not even interested remotely in anybody other than a platform. Type of a brand where we would be in a platform with other brands. We didn't wanna be part of a private equity that this is the only franchise or gutter company.'cause of exactly that. So at EI, you know, we have a shared services of marketing. So, you know, the size of the brands vary, but what's so amazing is there's like a team of 11 marketers, right on the EVI team, plus the subcontractors and the partners we have. Our smallest brand has access to all that knowledge. All that like, so they're getting like, you know, they would've not been able to afford. Being on their own to get the kind of attention and access to the type of marketing we're able to do. That's one small example. The tech stack utilizing a lot of the same things, driving down pricing for things that we all use, like, you know, things as simple as, you know, your Google Suite or your Microsoft Suite or use it monday.com or any of the tools that any of us use on any given day. So, really. Just scratching the surface there and then it gets to the bigger, more fun stuff. How can we cross reference, refer? We've got three brands in the portfolio that work so good together. Now you've got franchisees. Imagine having a franchisee in Houston, right? And we have all three brands in Houston, and now they can refer each other business. And on top of that, one thing that can happen in any business you do and in a franchise, let's say you buy one territory or two. After 5, 6, 7 years, you get it to like, all right, we're not growing 40, 50% a year anymore. We're growing five six. I might have hit a saturation level. I love the idea that our franchisees at some point could become multi-brand owners and they can continue to dominate their market and their area. They've made all these relationships and inroads. I hate when somebody can possibly get landlocked. Great. Grab another brand that, you know, has a symbiotic relationship. So now you can, you're referring yourself now and then you can co-market, co-brand. So many cool things on that level. I love that. Yeah. It's yeah, you're right. You're referring to yourself and your client acquisition really drops.'cause now the home, you go to the homeowner and say, now instead of offering these five services, we offer 15 services. So, you really can upsell just about every customer that you have and create that relationship and just and potentially add more brands and just correct eventually own the home. So that I like that. Taking one step back. I talk I talk about this all the time, and it's good to hear different perspectives from from individuals like yourself. You've been in the franchise world for, you know, 20 plus years, so what do you recommend for someone? You have a lot of corporate exec executives listening in. They're looking to. They wanna change they want to kind of, you know, take ownership of their future and look into their first franchise. So aside from the numbers we all wanna make money and that's obvious. That's one of the reasons to get into business ownership. We call it financial freedom, but, you know, what else, what do you recommend people should start looking at goal wise and things like that, because that's something where. I think people get the shiny object syndrome and they want the shiny object the product service they use. So yeah, the number one thing that they should look at is themselves in a mirror. The biggest disappointment will be their own leadership. It really comes down to it. It's it's been. Quite a journey. And it's really sad to see some people that they look at the item 19 that's published in the thing and they're like, oh, I can make this and this is great and this sounds easy. And you know, I've managed employees before and you know, they hire people and people quit because they're not a good boss that they don't know how to lead. You know, I'd say the number one thing they should be reading and devour devouring is anything on leadership. Anything on running a team. And it was, it's kind of interesting. A lot of people say, oh no, I run a team at work. It's like, okay, did you ever build a team from scratch? It's one thing to kind of walk in as a manager. You got all these white collar employees that, you know, have degrees and, you know, there's a level of it's different. It's much different than when you. You're selling the vision for it. Your first few employees, you don't necessarily have a grant depending on the franchise you're buying. Of course, you know, if it's brick and mortar and you got this, you know, pizza Hut, I mean, you kept something to walk into, but a lot of it, it's conceptual and you're selling your vision and it's your leadership. You know, you, you're not offering necessarily outta the gate 401k and health insurance and all these things that we have in this corporate life. I think that is the biggest smack in the face for some of some people that, and they always look at like the people that are doing the best, which you should, you know, I don't like when people look, people are doing the worst and they think, well, you know, if they can do it, I'm better than them. You know? Right. I've got this whole corporate thing and all these things I've been doing, you know, starting your own business, whether a franchise or from scratch. It's, you know, it reminds me of that famous Mike Tyson saying, you know, everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face. Punched in the face. Yep. I have a shirt that says that. Yeah. And you'll get punched in the face. And the gut, I don't care what franchise you buy, I don't care how buttoned up or perfect, you will get punched in the face. Yes. And other areas. Yes. It's a constant and you and you are right. A absolutely as a franchisee. I, when I had employees come in, you're always competing. Well, so and so gave me these benefits and we said we're a small organization. There's so much upside here as the business expands. We talked about phantom fan phantom equity, you know, you know, getting some, you know, percentage of the profits at the end of the day. And some people like that and it wasn't for others. And that and that was fine as well. But you're a hundred percent right. Most people, they, they'll grab on a vision. Yep. When you say, Hey listen, we're gonna grow this thing. And you can be part of that. And yes, I'm hiring you here today. You might be doing intakes for in-home care, but at some point you can be a general manager. Heck. You can buy your own franchise. There's six people in this system that started out at the lowest level that own franchises, right? That's what people grab to. And I think, you know, like you just said, in the corporate environment, we think we only have pay Healthcare 401k like that. We think that's tool that keeps people. Why are, why is everyone leaving corporate America that has those things? They all have it. Why are they raising their hand to say, I want to do my own thing. Right. Because there's, it's dead. For a lot of'em, it doesn't. So we definitely have to get that out of our head. That's not why people stay, and that's not necessarily why people come. It might be why they look at us. But at the end of the day, people wanna do something meaningful and they want to be moving ahead in their own life. And if we can provide that through a franchise, then that is awesome. But we gotta believe in it. We gotta have the passion and people will follow you. Love it. I mean, you nailed it. I liked that. I like that. And looking in the mirror is step number one. That's so true. And some people just get overly excited, you know, jump over all the important stuff. And it's like, okay what are the products that I use every day? I'm gonna buy a franchise there. And I go, well, that's probably not the best way to approach it. You can own any other business and buy all the coffee and burgers that you want, but ultimately let's figure out what it looks like. Let's figure out if it's even available. In your market or even if you can even run it part-time, if that's something that you're interested in doing. So, I learned a lot. I grew up in the family business. My, my family owned an Italian restaurant, but got into the franchise business. What are things that, you know, from when you're going from a corporate executive to owning a franchise? You know, what are the things that no one tells you? Because. This journey is really setting the expectation of what's to come. So can you talk a little bit about that? What is it that nobody tells you? So, you know, along the lines that I. This is not, just because it is a franchise doesn't mean, you know, you'll open up and the revenue and profits start flowing right away. May not get a check a paycheck, you know, the first week you're open. That's correct. You know, what are the things that, that really, and this really applies for, you know, any business, but that people don't tell you that, you know, it sounds like this is a great deal, but you have to understand there's gonna be some swings. You may have to find absolutely the right employees and things like that. Yeah I think one of the things that most people don't realize that, that buy a franchise is that when you look at the item 19 that's published, I can speak for the brands we have, but I believe most brands they only publish after someone's first full year in business. Yep. So you might have started in like February, you know, that year doesn't get published. Then you're, you know, that next year, so the first time you're seeing financials, these are people that, that are almost at the two year mark and people can get pretty discouraged. They might be in year, not year, month three or four and go, what the heck? I thought I'd be making more money. The item 19 said, this is like, whoa. Like you're looking at people that have made it over that, that crazy come to Jesus, like, you know, you're super high. I bought a business. You told all your friends, you go to training, and then you open up. And you know, get punched in the face maybe, and you go, oh crap, what the heck did I do? Right. Right. That crisis of meaning and then you get through that right. In the business. So I think that's one thing that's important. What I like about franchising, if the franchisors are doing it right, there should really be nothing that's not un, that's not said. Or that's a surprise I would say. You're validating. You're validating with franchisees, right? So you get to ask franchisee anything. If you were to ask me as a franchisor, how much money can I make, I am legally not allowed to tell you. But if you get on with a franchisee and say, how much money did you make last year? They are allowed to tell you whatever they feel comfortable with, and I highly recommend never skip that. Look at the item nineteens. A lot of franchisors can play games with numbers. You wanna make sure and validate with the Fran, the franchisees. And I think you hit it right on everyone. They know what's tough. People have said it. Oh man. Getting your first few good employees is really tough. You know, finding a shot might be tough. Right. It's a hard work I've heard this a couple different times. You guys said it was gonna be hard work. I didn't realize it was gonna be this hard. Right. So as much as you might be hearing some things, I would say just listen and, you know,'cause I think depending on how bad you wanna do it, it's a glass half full goggles that you might be wearing. Right. And I just because something's hard doesn't mean you wouldn't do it. It just means you're, you gotta prep like anything worth doing is hard. I think about like, people that wanna lose 50 pounds, you know? You know exactly what you wanna look like. You know what you look like now. I wanna look like Mark Wahlberg with my shirt off. Okay. Well. I got some work to do and that's a franchise. You wanna, that guy that you validated with, that's three, four years in, who's, you know, oh, I just bought a boat and we went on vacation. Like, that's why I want a business. Great. Don't forget the crazy time that he went through to go from where he was to where he is today and be ready. That part is so worth it. It's harder than I think people think. Yeah. I yeah I cannot agree more. I think someone said, and his name is escaping me who who said this, but he is like, I'm an overnight success. It only took me 20 years. So Yeah, 20 years. Have you people look at us like that? Oh, look at what you, oh man. You got it made. I'm like. Do what I do. You know, like there was a time in business as we were growing the gutter company that we missed 11 paychecks in a row to make sure that we could pay the Yeah. You know, this was before franchising. This was when we were trying to figure out just a one up corporate store, like the sacrifices that we made, the cars that we drive, drove or didn't drive. The way we lived, the way we sacrificed, I mean, it was. Ridiculous. There's a reason why not a lot of people franchise their business or why a lot of franchisors never get past five. Franchisees. It's freaking hard. It's very hard. And you're right, people just, they look at kind of the end result. But I tell everyone it's a lot of work. There's no such thing as a passive franchise, at least that I know of. Not truly passive f you know, that's what you call like, the stock market. You know, it's that's passive. You throw your some money in there and you hope to make some. And you have no really no set. You can I guess vote your proxies, but at the end of the day that, that to me, you know, to your point, is passive. A franchise is a lot of work. Yeah. And I will say this. If you're thinking about a franchise and you're thinking about maybe part-time or it can kind of do it like this, if you treat your business like a hobby, it will pay you like a hobby. Your business is a reflection of you and your leadership and of what you're putting into it. So if you're getting good results, you're looking good in the mirror. If you're getting bad results it's 99% of the time it's on the franchisee. It's very rare that you see, I wouldn't say rare, I wouldn't wanna say it that much, but yeah, some franchisors over promise, under deliver. You, they, you know, you thought it was gonna be more support. It's not. But for the most part, I've seen. You know, it's amazing. Like you can have, you know, five franchisees sign on the same day, go to the same exact training, being very similar markets and have completely different results. I see that all the time. We we work the entire country and it's funny to hear feedback, oh, it doesn't work in my market. You know, it, there, there's a difference here. And it's like, I don't think that's the case, you know, really. Are you putting in the time and the effort as you mentioned, is this. A part-time hobby. And I will say from personal experience and luck luckily my wife was working at the time, so we did have an income coming in. But as a young, you know, basically my mid twenties, I quit my job to run it full-time. I. I don't think anyone else is gonna run the business like, like yourself. You may find a great general manager and I don't knock that and there's plenty of people that are successful, but Correct. Run it on your own with on your own dime. You're gonna learn that business fast, you're gonna launch it even faster. And you're just gonna get a better appreciation because you're gonna wear every hat. You're gonna figure out the role that you wanna play in the business and then fast forward a year, then decide kind of the direction you wanna move in. But I think there's some, it's not. I'm not saying it's mandatory for many brands it is, but there's definitely some advantages of running it full-time. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Talking about, and we touched on this a a little bit, a little while ago, but even you know, you buy the one, just assume you buy the a territory, invest in a territory, and you decide you wanna expand it and there is some opportunities. Talk to us about some strategies to scale some things for people to think about. Do you recommend they look at more than one oppor one territory upfront? What are the advantages there in something maybe that is you know, service-based non non brick and mortar type of business? Yeah, it's, you know, I always look at it like, you know, if you were to buy a piece of property and put a house on it. And, you know, and there's a piece of property for sale right next to it. You know, you're gonna always regret not buying it because someone's gonna put up a house at some point. Like, oh, I wanted to buy that. And I was, you know, it would've been great for this or that. If it's in your budget, you know, and you gotta look at the franchise. Some franchise have big territories because they don't want you to not, like, I don't, they don't want you to get landlocked. Only hit like, oh shoot, I can only do$500,000 a year in this franchise and crap, I'm in my third year. I'm all surrounded and I'm not putting the money I was hoping to in my pocket. So you gotta look at that. You gotta look at historically, what are people in that franchise doing with one, two, or three territories? But you do want something to be able to grow into. So that is something to look at. So yes, if possible. Yeah, always, you know, go for another territory. However, it, you know, as a franchisor, I've sold somebody too much territory. Great franchisees doing plenty of business for one or two, but that third one's not doing anything right. They put a completely new franchisee in there and quadruple. The revenue and output of that. So there is limited space when you're selling it and when you're buying it. And a lot of franchisers put clauses in there. It's called a clawback. If you don't develop, you know, your second territory by X date, then we can, you know, you end up forfeiting or they buy it back or something. And that could, you know, that can cause unnecessary pressure for the new franchisee. You buy two territories and you're like, oh yeah, year two, I gotta get another truck. And that should be no problem. But year two might come and year one was really hard, right? And now you're paying minimums, or you gotta buy that truck that you're not even using to fulfill some sort of an FD, D requirement and it could actually make it harder for you. So I, I don't know if there's a right answer. It's gotta be right for you. But I've got some, the one thing I do know is most people hardly ever saturate their territories anyway. Correct? Yes. So I'm a big believer in deep verse wide that you think you need all this. It's like being, it's like starving and going to a buffet. You fill up your plate, you think you're gonna eat all this stuff, and then, you know, most of it goes in the garbage. Same thing happens to franchisees when they want more territory. And a lot of franchisers are happy to sell it to'em. Oh, we sold a three pack, we hit a goal. Right. But it doesn't necessarily mean in the long run it's good for either one. I I like that. And you're, and you are. Right. You know, some people come to me and say, I just wanna own the entire state. And it's like, well, depending on your state, that could be 2030 different territories. How are you actively gonna, you know, how can you possibly manage and really go as deep as possible in all these territories? You don't need. All these territories to make a good living, really figure out, you know, what that investment looks like, the total investment, what, you know, what the development schedule looks like. Correct. Kind of what are the expectations. So that's a great conversation to be had as you're reviewing the territories to see what's available. Yeah. You know, there's a word out there, responsible franchising and all that stuff. I think most franchises they want you to make, be able to make a good living on the one territory. You know, that it's designed so that you can hopefully, again, everyone's financial goals are different. Some people are like, I wanna buy a franchise that I put a million dollars a year in my pocket. Okay, well I'm sure there's brands out there, but those probably cost four or 5 million, you know? Right, right. But there, it's all different depending on the brand. So one territory, I would say, if you can get the second go for it, third and fourth, you better be exceptional. Make sure, you know, and look at the financial requirements. Some franchise will say, you know, you have to double the net worth number, the liquidity number in order to be approved. And that's part of the approval process getting approved and what that approval looks like. So, yeah, it's definitely a conversation to be had early I. Kind of figuring out what the next five to 10 years look like, but a great conversation to be had and not waiting till the last minute to figure out what you know, what the strategy looks like. So, and most franchisors will not do, and they shouldn't do, like, first refusal, the right of first refusal. Well, hey, let me know if you're gonna sell it. It's completely unfair to the Fran Dev people and the person that went all the way down the line was ready to buy a Fran, like the territory next to you. And then right at the end you're like, oh no, I'm gonna buy it. Right. So most franchisees should not be offering that to franchisees. Unless it's like you're the first three or four franchisees, then Yeah, right. They could probably say something like that, but I'd be weary. Of, I would never say that. It just gets you in trouble. It's a good No, that's a good point. You know, you don't you don't know, you don't know what's available. Then basically, if everyone has these right of first refusal, so, I agree. What other advice? There's a lot, there's a lot of people listening in. You know, we talked about three or four weeks ago, there was a the IFA president. Talking about why, you know, three quarters of people, three quarters of people out there, so 75% have thought of owning a business before of the, of that 75%, that 75% of that 75% basically did not move forward because they didn't know where to start. So we talked about kind of, you know, strategies and things like that. What did, what other advice what didn't we talk about today that you would offer to someone looking. To make that leap to, to leave the job. Maybe they're expecting a layoff, maybe they're just not happy. They want, they wanna get outta the, out of the W2. What advice would you give to that person you know, looking to make the leap have a really strong why. I mean, at the end of it, because you're gonna need grit to get through starting a business, whether you start your own, you buy a franchise, your why has to be bigger than the pain and the, and the difficulty. Right. So if it's, I want a legacy for my kids, I wanna make a better impact in the community. You know, what's great about, you know, executive home care and assisted living locators, these are passion plays. I'd say 90, 95% of our franchisees literally start in EHC or in a LL because like. Their mother or dad had a really bad experience, you know, in within home care or, you know, in that stage of their life. And they're like, I wanna help people and how cool that this business can help me do that. Right? And so at the end of it. You know, a lot of people wanna get outta corporate America, but corporate America can start looking pretty good again. When you know, you had a steady paycheck, you had healthcare, you had 401k, but there was something missing. And I think for a lot of people, like they wanna be able to control their destiny. Business and business ownership gives you the illusion of you're gonna have both time and money. Right? Oh my gosh. I own my own business. I can do what I want, my buddy does. He's away all the time. He golfs every day. Take, there's a big gap between where you are when you start a business and to get to that and having gotten to that side of the business, it's so much fun, right? To build a business that can run without you, that you've got great leaders in place and you can tap that flywheel. You can be, you know, Robert Kiyosaki defines a business owner as somebody who can leave their business for six months and it runs without them, you know, so there's a, you know, a cashflow quadrant. Read that book. That's a highly recommended book by Robert Kiyosaki. It talks about the difference between, there's four quadrants. We find ourselves in either an employee, self-employed, business owner or investor. Any of us, you know, if you're listening, you're an employee. Any one of you by tomorrow can be self-employed. You can just wake up in the morning, quit your job and say, I'm gonna walk dogs and go knock on doors, and you are now self-employed. Right. And now to go from self-employed where you're doing and running all the system to business owner, where you've built something that can run without you, that's a big difference. And then investor, now you're investing in businesses and things that you're not part of. So I would highly recommend that book. I think it's a really good place to start. If you're thinking about this journey, it really helps you understand if what you, what part of the quadrant you wanna be on. I. What are you willing to do to get there? Right? And that's, you nailed it. That's the piece, right? It's, this is not an overnight thing. It's gonna take years. You gotta build, nothing is ever perfect. Nothing is, you know, they talk about a straight line. You go, you start here, you end up there. Well, it's kind of a squiggly line. There's some setbacks. There's some people that leave. There's customers that cancel. But ultimately, if you stick with it, but I think that's the missing piece. I feel like. I don't know if it's this day and age, if I could, if I should say that, if that's appropriate. But it's the quick, you know, I start the business and all of a sudden I'm on I'm doing this six months away and the business is on autopilot. Yeah, maybe that exists rarely, but I have not figured that out. I've only met like one or two people in my life that just like, it just came to them. Right. They didn't even read a lot of books. They didn't have mentors, they just figured out business. They were exceptional. But for everyone else. It was a longer journey, and that's what I love about franchising. You know, it, it took my brother and I to, it took us like 10 years to hit a million dollars in revenue. The average franchisee in Brothers Gutters, you know, is hitting that. I don't wanna make any kind of earnings claims, but very quickly. And hit that type of revenue. So you're leveraging somebody who's done it forever and now you're getting those results faster. It doesn't necessarily, I feel like it's. It's not as painful as long, there's still pain. Sure, absolutely. Yeah. Any business franchise or not you gotta put the time in, you gotta put the reps. So, I always like to end these shows. The show is awesome, by the way. Fun fact you left a fun fact. It was family related. I'll give you a clue. I dunno if you remember. Oh, is it the one that I have six kids? Yeah, six kids. Oh man, that's a, yeah that's a house full Wow. From one and a half to 15. Oh, wow. It's quite, quite the active household. So you got, all right. So the 15 year olds could watch the the one and a half year old, so, right. So yes. Yes. We all pitch in and help, and I'm very amazed that not one of them had barged in today. Yeah, I was looking forward to that. We set you up. So that, that, that's awesome. No I appreciate that. Now, this is great. I think you know, these are the conversations to be had. These are, the conversations sometimes aren't. Talked about, right? You get so excited, you kind of start ignoring certain things. You really have to have the right mindset going into it. And my personal recommendation, and this will save a lot of marriages is that whatever you do involve your spouse, your, you know, whoever's gonna, whoever in the household should be involved. My kids were. Actually, my son wasn't even born. We found out my wife was pregnant a few days after launching my first business. But yeah, you know, I hear people saying, well, I have teenage kid. Let them know what's going on. Because that first year in business. Depending how you're running it, if it's part-time or even full-time, there's gonna be maybe tightening of the of the wallet. You know, maybe no. Correct. No vacation that first year, or you're gonna be working around the clock to launch it. But the reason, going back to what you said earlier, is that why I'm doing it too, I. What what my why was to become a soccer coach and never miss a game. And I was I got that, yeah, it was a little bit late a few times, but I had never missed a soccer game and became a coach. So my son is 17 and ready for college. So, those are the things, you know, to prepare for and those will get you. Pass the ups and downs in business ownership. Oh, yeah. Like anything else, there's some highs and there's some lows and Yeah. You need that to get past the low. And don't get me wrong, I know we talked a little bit about the, you know, what to look out for. It is the most rewarding thing you'll ever do. Is to grow a business, have it running and successful, and create opportunity for other humans to strive and hit their dreams through what you're doing. It is the most rewarding thing that you can, that I've ever done, you know, outside of, you know, getting married, having a family, but when you, I think of my professional side, there's nothing I'm more proud of than building a business that people. Thrive in, and I've changed thousands of lives at this point. And that, that is not many things can top that feeling. That's a great feeling. So by the way, you have seven kids, right? This is your seventh, this is the the other baby. Absolutely. That's awesome. Listen, Ryan, I, I really appreciate it. This was fun. I'm glad we we got to chat today. Really appreciate all your feedback. We're gonna share all Ryan's information website right on the blog. We'll be sharing every Saturday morning we launch a new show. And again, I really appreciate you coming on the show and looking forward to chatting soon. My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks again. Thanks for tuning in if you want to learn how to make the transition from corporate to owning your franchise. Join Giuseppe on the next episode. You can also follow on all social media platforms and achieve financial and time freedom today.