Franchise Freedom - Escape the Corporate Trap & Find Your Perfect Investment Fit (Franchise Coach)

Franchise coach Giuseppe Grammatico guides corporate executives on how to escape the corporate trap and achieve time and financial freedom. In this full episode, we tackle the flawed "Best Franchise Near Me" search, expose the truth about semi absentee franchise ownership, detail the 4 key funding options, and reveal the proven funnel for choosing the perfect business from 4,000+ opportunities. This is the complete guide to investing in franchise ownership. 

Choose the right path at https://ggthefranchiseguide.com 

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


00:00 Introduction to Franchise Freedom
00:46 The Flaw in Searching "Best Franchise Near Me"
01:19 Listener Engagement and Today's Topic
02:00 Understanding the Best Franchise Near Me
04:16 Brick and Mortar vs. Home-Based Franchises
05:00 Territory and Location Considerations
06:51 The Reality of Semi-Absentee Franchise Ownership
07:44 Full-Time vs. Part-Time Franchise Ownership
09:57 How to VET Your Local Franchise Market
16:49 4 Hidden Franchise Funding & Investment Secrets
17:53 Financial Planning and Funding Options
23:33 Final Thoughts and Listener Support
26:00 The Best Way to Find Your Franchise Fit (The Funnel)

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The Franchise Freedom: Discover Your New Path to Freedom Through Franchise Ownership, Book by Giuseppe Grammatico https://ggthefranchiseguide.com/book or purchase directly on ...

Transcript

Giuseppe Grammatico: 0:00

Google doesn't know what's the best franchise, obviously it's utilizing SEO and various search terms and things like that to pull up what it feels will be the best franchise. But how does it, how does Google know? you wanna see what, you know, how you can differentiate yourself in the market. So there may be a lot of competition, which is not a bad thing. You know, I look at it as a good thing because there's obviously demand in the market and how you can do it better. Be careful of, of the searches. SEO people are paying to get on top of those lists. Even some of the top lists are, are curated by sponsors.

0:32

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.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 0:46

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Giuseppe Grammatico, your franchise guide, the show where we help corporate executives experience time and financial freedom via franchising. Thanks for joining us today. Hopefully you've been enjoying the last few episodes We've been doing highlights of talking about different areas around funding, advice given by franchise companies, franchisees and everyone in between. So hopefully you've been enjoying those. We've been trying to mix it up a little bit and, uh, for today, really wanted to get on and, and talk about a topic, a question I get quite a bit. And before I get into that topic you know, for everyone listening, thank you for your support. If you have any questions, uh, if you have a topic you'd like for me to cover or a topic you would like for me to revisit. Send us a message. You can email me directly, at GGtheFranchiseGuide.com. Uh, leave a comment. I don't check them every single day, but I'll get to all those comments and make sure to cover a topic, revisit a topic or anything you'd like for me to review. Sometimes I'll combine a few topics on a future episode and if you just wanna have a chat, go right to the website, GGtheFranchiseGuide.com. Book a call. More than glad to dive in and figure out if franchising, uh, may or may not be a good fit. So today's topic is a question I've been receiving literally two, three times a day. And I also just for fun was looking at Google trends and searches and things like that and noticed that this trend or this question has been coming up quite a bit and that trend or question is what is the best franchise near me? It's been a very popular search term or question. And I wanted to really tackle that today. What does that even mean? So by adding what is the best franchise near me, it's taken into consideration where you're located, your IP address. Hopefully it's using a local IP. And when people are asking me, they're essentially asking me, what is the franchise that's gonna work the best in my market? Uh, there's a lot there. And the way I wanted to kind of tackle this one was number one, Google doesn't know what's the best franchise, obviously it's utilizing SEO and various search terms and things like that to pull up what it feels will be the best franchise. But how does it, how does Google know? How does AI know what's gonna be that best franchise? You really need to dig deep, figure out what this ideal business looks like. So, near me, you know, in your local market, that's a big one. I don't discount that and it's important depending on what that franchise is. So, for example, if you're looking at a senior care business and we just had someone open up here in the Phoenix market and you wanna explore the territories available, you wanna make sure you have that population of that 75 plus in age community, or else it will not work. It's kinda like opening up a pool franchise and no one has or owns a pool, anywhere near your territory or both indoor and outdoor. So these are things when, uh, looking at a franchise, the franchisor obviously wants to give you the best territories in that local market. You know, the best locations, but there's gonna be a lot of due diligence on your end, making sure that you feel like it could work in your market. Obviously speaking with the competitors and things like that. Going back to what's the best franchise near me, that's an important topic, it's an important question, but let's focus on the best franchise and the characteristics. The near me is gonna be one of those characteristics, and that near me is gonna be based off of two things. Number one, brick and mortar. Do I want a franchise that maybe isn't a shopping center, uh, or a standalone building? Or do I want it to be home-based or a business I can run out of a small office? Uh, keeping the expenses really low. These are questions to be asked. Now brick and mortar, you're looking at a physical location. The franchisor does not know what that exact location will be, but they'll come back and say, you're in the Austin, Texas market. We have room for three locations in that market. If you're interested, then they would hire. And you would work with a third party to figure out what that ideal or what are the ideal locations in that market? Uh, via some analysis. They're gonna do some third party analysis there. When you're owning a non brick and mortar, we'll call it a home-based business or something that requires an office, you're gonna be more, you know, territory base, 50, 60, couple hundred thousand people in population, and they're gonna vary based off the brands. And you may want an office centralized to that territory. If your goal is to own three territories, maybe you have that office centralized, assuming you don't eat an office in each territory. Which typically is, you know, is, you only need that one location. You wanna be centralized, keeping that future growth in mind and then saying, okay, I'm own, I own this market. Maybe it's 200,000 in population per territory. I bought three territories, that's 600,000. Maybe that's 3, 4, 5 counties in your state. How centralized do I want to be, you know, to to, to make it work? And also what is gonna be my role in the business? So it may be an hour from where I live, which is not ideal, right? You want to be as close to home as possible, but realistically, how much are you traveling into the, to the actual office? If you're doing any type of travel networking, chamber of commerce you can hire someone in sales, someone in business development, maybe to tackle the north end or the east side of that territory. And you handle the west side, the south side of that territory. So really kind of dividing up the territory and you have time to figure that out because you typically tackle each territory individually. Uh, as that franchise company, the franchisor is giving you this development agreement that's giving you the idea of we need you to develop and open up and, each and every one of your territories every six months, or if it's a location. Every six to 12 months, we need you to open up your new location just so that you're not sitting on those territories locations and not developing and actually getting those open. So, these are things territory, physical location, and then how you're gonna go about it. These are extremely important. Your local market may not be the ideal market. It may be a market that offers home services and you leave live in a very rural area. And, uh, homes are really spaced out. It takes 10 minutes to go from home to home, uh, not as much population density as you'd like. So sometimes the market, your local market is not ideal for that specific franchise, and that's a decision that you have to make in that, okay, do I really value the opportunity? Do I see myself in the role and am I okay and willing? Uh, to go into another market or territory sometimes maybe even covering that rural area as a bonus, but really focusing on a market that may be, 20, 30 minutes in the opposite direction. So these are things to think about, but the one thing that, that comes up quite a bit and it just, it continues to come up and there's confusion and there's various terms for this is. This idea of running the business full-time or part-time, what does that even mean? Uh, part-time, semi pass, semi-absentee executive model. There's so many terms and they're used differently from what I've noticed, both from the franchisor hearing it when I get those questions and essentially, you know, can this business be run part-time? The way I look at, at that is, can this business still be run, uh, while I keep my job and kind of run this business? As, as many hours as possible on top of the job I already have. And the short answer is it depends. The franchisor number one has to allow that. Part-time ownership, semi-absentee ownership not passive. I, I don't know of any franchise that's truly passive, but you know, we'll call it semi-absentee. So do they allow that? Secondly, you have to be okay hiring that general manager or at least a key employee to run the day-to-day, because if you're in the office, nine to five. You know, when are you available? Is it just around lunchtime, via phone, via email, and then you have full lines of communication, open up after hours. Those are things you need to figure out and then need to communicate with that general manager and key employee so that they know when and how to communicate with you. So that if an issue arises at 9:00 AM on a Monday morning, they're not waiting until 5:00 PM to set up a call or, um, hours and hours later to get an email back. So these are things to consider. You have to be okay. Number one, the franchise has to allow it. Number two, you have to be okay relinquishing some control, giving some authority to that general manager to make decisions. Not saying every decision and some of the bigger stuff that's still falls on your plate, but allowing that general manager to perform at their job, giving them responsibility. You not becoming a bottleneck, which is what I did in my last business early on, at an early age. And I learned that the hard way, you know, I had to allow my, my general manager do his thing, uh, had a lot more experience than I did in, in the space we were in. And allowed him to make those decisions and, you know, talked about it afterwards, even though maybe we didn't agree on a decision, he was in full control. And, uh, we talked it through and maybe talked about different ways of handling it or maybe it was the perfect way of handling it. So, you know, these are things to consider. On occasion, the franchisor will allow you to have a, um, that requires full-time ownership. A general manager with, uh, some ownerships, an equity stake in the business. And that's case by case. You need to ask the franchisor if that is allowed. Uh, if you're working with a partner, your spouse whoever that person is, and you're both putting in, just say 20 hours a week. Now that, that's really considered more full-time because a lot of husband and wife teams will do that. Maybe, uh, a wife is, uh, handling during the day, husband at night or vice versa, or alternating days, whatever the case may be. And these, there are various ways to make this work in the event the franchisor does, uh, require full-time ownership and involvement. And this is not something that's permanent. This is really to get that business launched the first year, what we've called on previous shows, the builder year, right? Learning that business and hiring the staff and, uh, sometimes rehiring and, and wearing all the hats to figure out what role you wanna play in the future. So going back to what are the best franchises, well. Again, Google doesn't know AI doesn't know. You really need to do a lot of soul searching to figure out what are the important things. And in many cases, if you never owned the business, you may not know. So it's working with someone like myself or you know, researching what is your a comfort level in the investment. So someone came to me and said, I, I don't know if I want a brick and mortar location, customers coming to me or a service-based business where we're going to the customer. And I said, great. Well, let's look at your financials. We looked at the financials. Uh, we looked at a comfort level on the investment they wanted to invest up to, you know, 150,000. Well, that's gonna be really difficult in any brick and mortar. So we agreed to look at something that was home-based service, something that could be run from home, uh, that did not require an office, and that made that decision a lot easier. So that's where we add a lot of value. We, we kind of go down the list making sure, number one the comfort levels there. The expectation is set on the, in the investment. Also, that person was leaving their job and wanted to, uh, be open up right away in a brick and mortar location. I always say six to 18 months or more, uh, depending on the location. Finding the right landlord and how much of a build out is actually needed. Those are all things to take into consideration, uh, your local market as well. Are they short on people doing inspections and permits and things like that? Uh, so these are all things to, to really consider. When looking at a business going back what works near me, you know, you wanna do some homework. So if you are looking at a specific business, and that happens to be in roofing, you wanna look at, uh, the other roofing businesses, both franchise and non franchise. Uh, maybe get a quote, uh, for your own roof. You may actually need some work done on the roof, see if they even respond. I, I know personally I've reached out looking for a handyman, reach out to five. Uh, people years ago, and I think I got one eventually a second response back. Uh, holiday lighting, we did the exact same thing. Out of five, I think I got three. One never showed one was a, a sloppy just text message. I was kind of all over the place, didn't even know what I was getting. So you wanna see what, you know, how you can differentiate yourself in the market. So there may be a lot of competition, which is not a bad thing. You know, I look at it as a good thing because there's obviously demand in the market and how you can do it better. And you'll notice that. Uh, and I'm not saying in every case, but the response time isn't there. At least the acknowledgement, Hey, we are, this is the peak of our season. We'll get back to you within, uh, 48 business hours. Uh, things like that go go a long way. And, um, you, you'll notice that. From the franchisor with their turnkey CRM marketing and call centers in many cases that, that they'll be providing all those additional services for you. So, going down and figuring out again, is this the right market? For me, are there other optimal markets? And you'd work with the franchisor. Franchisor will give you available markets. The sold markets, the markets, um, that, uh, will be developed at a later point in stage. And that goes to the example you bought three territories. You're gonna develop territories one or location one, and then second and third later on, so you have a clear understanding of what franchisees are near you, who you can. Partner with they may be your, uh, eventual exit strategy when you go to sell the business. Uh, or they may, um, and vice versa, they may be your expansion strategy, uh, should they wanna sell their business. Uh, that's something I highly recommend. Just contacting your neighbors and it'll save you a lot in costs, uh, less of a, a learning curve and so many other, uh, different advantages. So, uh, definitely recommend that. So we, we kind of, we really covered near me part. If you're open to, you know, uh, moving, I'm working with someone right now. In northern New Jersey, they're ironing eyeing, I can't talk today. Maybe moving to, to Southern New Jersey. That's great. Let's look at both markets. Let's check on their, uh, availability and timeframe. That's another thing. Will this work within my timeframe? I'm moving in five years. No reason to look at the brand if you're gonna be waiting five years to figure out where you're moving. But if you wanna develop something in anticipation, uh, or even in your home market. To eventually sell or have a key employee takeover while you move different part of the country. That's also a great option. Uh, we could definitely discuss that in, in much more greater detail. Going back to the types of businesses, what's working, what's not, again, it, it goes back to what is a priority for you? What you're looking for in a characteristic? So are you full-time, are you part-time? What is that skillset you bring to the table? Working with someone right now that has a sales background, so we're looking at some opportunities that are sales driven, right? Franchisee is really heading up sales building a team of other coaches and salespeople to really run that business. Opportunities fall in the business coaching space B2B. Working with the Chamber of Commerce networking events, uh, it also applies to executive recruitment. Uh, it also applies to expense reduction. And one of my favorites, around fundraising, working with schools and sports teams and clubs you know, at your local schools and in your organization. So, you know, that's gonna be high level sales. They tend to be a lower investment, but heavily sales driven. That's something you need to figure out as an owner, as a role. Are you able to handle the sales and eventually build out a team? Or do you prefer a lot of the marketing and call center handle for you? So you, you are going on much more warmer, uh, appointments. It's gonna be a higher investment something in home services. There's gonna be a larger monthly marketing spend. Call center fees, things like that. So all things to consider, uh, in figuring out, you know, what you're looking to accomplish, how quickly you wanna grow and scale, and things like that. Staff is another one. If you've never owned the business, W2 versus 1099 contractors, uh, there's, there's some differences there. We'll leave it at that. But W2 a lot more control. But you're paying, people are on payroll, so if you're general revenue, you're not, you're still having to pay your staff a ten ninety nine contractor, uh, we'll call it in the roofing space. They are agreeing to a percentage, they are agreeing essentially to get paid after the job has been completed and paid for. So that definitely help, helps with cash flow. Uh, you're gonna have less control in those businesses. You're gonna constantly monitor, making sure that they're representing the brand, using the approved product in many cases, potentially, uh, you know, actually getting the product for them to pick up. And, uh, you're gonna have to check with your state. Each state has different rules and laws when it comes to 1099 contractors. As far as what works you know, best near me, that's a conversation to be had with the franchisor and looking at different state regulations, licensing, contractors, licensing insurance, uh, and things like that. So those are all things to absolutely consider in that market. Uh, what else? You know, investment. We wanna get clear there and we put you in touch with a funding company. They're gonna do a full review. So this is a holistic approach, guys. Uh, we're doing a lot of this. It's like buying a home and getting pre-qualified. We wanna get you pre-qualify for an SBA loan. It's free, it's a soft credit check. That way you have an idea of, of your lending power what type of loan you can get. And then look at all the other options, maybe that there's not enough there, or you prefer not to have a loan to paid back. So you look at a Robs, uh, a rollover business startup, uh, where you're utilizing retirement assets to fund the purchase of your business. Sometimes I've seen people use a combination of an SBA loan or a retirement rollover. You know, that Rob's plan. Home equity lines of credit have been extremely popular with the boom in real estate and, uh, prices of a homes going up, building a lot of equity for homeowners. That is another popular option. And then I would say a fourth, not as commonly used, and I'm surprised by this is a security back loan, a loan. On your investments, non-retirement investments because going back to that retirement loan, you have to qualify for that. It's a traditional IRA, not a Roth IRA or a 401k with a previous employer. With this, uh, security backed loan, you can use your existing non-retirement investment portfolio. You don't have to sell any securities. There's no commissions, no cap gains or losses. You're simply taking a loan on a percentage of, uh, of your investment portfolio. So, uh, a loan on your own money keeping the money in the market. Hopefully that's growing. The interest rate's lower. Hopefully you're still making a, a positive spread. Uh, but that's something that, that we, uh, obviously can't predict. We don't know what the markets will do. So, yeah. So these are other options to really consider. These options really kind of start narrowing this, I call it the funnel, figuring out, you know, what is, um, of these 4,000 franchises, what could be run part-time what is available under a 200k investment range that I can be open up relatively quickly and not need any staff. You know, these are all characteristics, these are all requirements that we're looking for. So when we're speaking with the brands, these brands are checking off all these boxes. We're doing local market analysis. What does a competition look like? What other franchises are there? How saturated is the market? Is there a lot of competition but no one really standing out? Those are things that you're gonna do at a local level. I advise also some brands provide white papers. If you're looking at a restoration franchise, there are white papers out there about the restoration industry. How well it's doing, how quickly it's growing, how many jobs you're getting, all that kind of great stuff. So, you know, these are things to all kind of, uh, consider and to think about. And, those are equally as important in your search. And then we look at the availability. Okay, great, we have this model. We have 15 brands that maybe, check off all the boxes that are, that could be potential great fits. They're different industries helping you compare and contrast. And then we look to see that 10 of them are not available. Maybe, uh, the, the closest available market is hours away or in a different state that won't work. So now we narrow it down to five, uh, and figuring out, okay, well. Three is really the maximum I recommend looking at the same time, and maybe three of them are home service. So you pick one home service you pick another one that is, um, you know, B2B. So maybe it's business coaching keeping it different so you can help you compare and contrast a, uh, a lower investment that has higher sales outbound sales provided by the franchisee. And then we look for, for something that, you know, given back. To the community, uh, something that, is really recession resistant, that kind of falls in between. And we look at senior care. We look at a company's helping, helping, um, mom and dad you know, stay comfortably at, at home, offering both medical and non-medical care, depending on the franchise and really helping them maybe after a surgery physical therapy, dementia. Or maybe it's just helping them with daily tasks around the house. You know, those are great opportunities to take a look at. And again look at the market, both of the customers, right? And how they create the territories and the saturation and competition and things like that. And, you know, maybe you offer similar products, but you do in such a different way that it stands out. Uh, you're with a, uh, you know, not an emerging, but more of an established franchise that has the economies of scale to really. Get you, uh, a better pricing overall and really able to cut down on, on costs and things like that. So these are all great things, but you know, when you're, when you're going back to the, the original question, you know, what are the best franchise opportunities near me? I get it. You know, we, we do that. What are the best restaurants? Uh, what are the, what's the closest or best Italian restaurant near me? You want it to really get closer to where you live, and that's, that's very important. But just be careful. Be careful of, of the searches. SEO people are paying to get on top of those lists. Even some of the top lists are, are curated by sponsors. I'm not saying all of them, but even the top franchise lists, again, not all of them, but some of them. You know, what is that? What is, uh, the rating, what's the criteria? And the criteria could simply mean growth number of franchisees. You know, and that's usually what it is. It comes down to growth and that's all important. But how does that. You know, how is that a good match for you? You want growth in the system, but uh, more importantly, you want happy franchisees, you want franchisees that are doing well, that are scaling, that are growing their businesses, that are getting the support from the franchisor, not just in the initial training, but the ongoing support, which is what you're paying for in that royalty. So there's all this, uh, really great stuff to to consider. Um, I'd love to help you. I'd love to save your, uh, save you from. Uh, the next search and the overwhelm of all these results that come up. And I encourage you and every one of my listen, uh, listeners, to reach out GGtheFranchiseGuide.com. You can book a call. It's the top right hand corner, I believe, and it's gonna ask you some questions. Those questions are intentional. We wanna figure out, you know, not what the right franchise is on the first call. Let's learn about each other. Uh, wanna meet you, wanna learn more about you and your family. What your goals are. Uh, let's figure out if a franchise is even the right fit before going down that rabbit hole online. In some cases it's the perfect fit, but the funding situation needs some improvement or the credit score needs, uh, need to hire a credit repair company. Let's be proactive. Let's put together a plan. Sometimes everything is looking good, financials are great. Credit score is great, and dive right in. And that's great. You know, we essentially meet you where you're at. Uh, we're very thorough so that we don't miss anything. And if, if credit is off and financials aren't there, or there's no money to be put down towards the business let's figure out a plan, uh, to do that. How can we go about putting some money aside, finding an investor, maybe finding a partner that you can utilize, but ultimately there's gonna be some skin in the game if it's alone. It's gonna be a 20 to 30% down payment on the SBA. If it's retirement, well, it's still your money. You're just allocating from the stock market to this. So, we're very proactive so that you're not talking with brands, getting really far to find out you don't qualify. Uh, believe it or not, you know, I always say tell people it's not just what you're open to investing, but what you can get approved for and a loan, what you have access to, but also the franchisors. Have financial requirements, they have requirements when it comes to liquidity net worth, I always say net worth, which is all your assets. Minus any, uh, liability. So if your home is worth a million and you owe half a million on it, you have 500,000 in equity that goes towards your net worth, but you're looking at least 150,000 net worth, 50 to a hundred thousand liquidity. You want enough to put down on the, on the, um, on the note for the SBA, uh, or cover the franchise fee and get funding, but also have that buffer have access to additional funds. So. You wanna set yourself up for success? What happens if that business takes a little bit longer to get up and running or there was just some delays or whatever the case may be. You wanna make sure you have the funds, you have that buffer to get you through there. If you're leaving your job and you own a home, who's paying your mortgage? Is it your spouse? Anyone else in the household? Are they contributing? Who's paying the or the rent or who's paying the student loans? These are all things to consider, and we tackled all this on a. Previous episode we had Mike Minelli on, uh, from Benetrends, kind of re reviewing that in the different options, but really getting, you know, crystal clear, what are my skill sets? What does this business look like and what's my financial situation? I think that's the best starting point. If you had to kind of create three columns and fill in the blanks there, uh, I can help you along the way, give you ideas. Again, if the funding is close, but, not necessarily there. What does it look like with a partner? Um, you know, getting'em on calls and speaking with the franchisor. So, uh, I hope this was helpful. You know, just a shorter episode, uh, covering, you know, the topics, the questions I wanna share as much as I can and to help as many people as I can, uh, throughout the US and Canada. So I encourage you, um, hopefully this, uh, resonated. Hopefully this was helpful. Hopefully this saved you a Google search. Uh, but if I can help in any way with a question or topic, again, email me, send me a comment on any of the platforms. You see this through and, uh, more than glad to tackle that on a future podcast. So thanks again for your support. Looking forward to hearing from you until the next show. Talk soon, guys. Take care. Bye-bye.

27:23

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.