Franchise Friday - Episode 210 Roger Ewart from America’s Swimming Pools

Franchise Friday - Episode 210 Roger Ewart from America’s Swimming Pools

Experience in emerging to multi-brand International Franchise Operations, Support, Training and Development. Brick and mortar specialty retail to home service concepts.

America's Swimming Pool Company (ASP) is America's leading home-based Pool Service Franchise. I am directly responsible for the development of the brand nationally. Franchise Development Strategy, Broker Relations and Candidate Cultivation are the main functions of my duties. For the parent organization, Authority Brands, I mentor new Franchise Development team members and advise leadership on the multi-brand franchisor's strategy and tactics.

ASP - America’s Swimming Pool Company was founded in 2002 by Stewart C. Vernon in Macon, Georgia. He started ASP out of a desire to provide high-quality, honest pool services at an affordable price. Over the last two decades, ASP has met this goal (and then some) through our incredible franchisees. We’ve earned the trust of customers and have established locations across the nation. Our customers love our service because we make their pools look beautiful, last longer, and stay cleaner giving them more time to enjoy life poolside. Today, our brand is servicing pools throughout more than 400 American cities.

At ASP, our mission is to find honest, hard-working people who want to own their own business, ensuring they follow the standards that have made hundreds of business owners successful nationwide. After all, success for our locations begins with our quality as a brand. We provide our franchise owners with reliable support and offer the best resources in the industry. As a result, our locations are always ready to show customers why ASP is the most trusted pool service company in the country, and we can empower franchisees to fulfill their dreams of becoming successful business owners!

Since opening our doors in 2002, we haven’t settled with being anything but the best pool cleaning, repair, and renovation company in the nation. We’re dedicated and passionate about our work, and this translates to happy customers! Our quality service has helped our business expand out of Macon, Georgia. Since starting to franchise in 2005, we’ve gained over 100 franchisees that serve over 400 cities!

Franchise Friday, where you can watch or listen as we explore franchising, entrepreneurship, and small business ownership, speaking with the franchise industry thought leaders and subject matter experts that shape the Future Of Franchising. #FranchiseFriday – For more about our podcast, visit our website: https://futureoffranchising.com/ Produced by Franchise Source Brands International and The Entrepreneur’s Source.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:14

everyone welcome back to another franchise Friday podcast. I am Melissa Pang here at the entrepreneur source. And I am joined today by Roger Ewart from America's swimming pools. Welcome, Roger. Thanks for this, I appreciate you having me on. I really appreciate it. This is, this is a lot of fun. I'm very excited for our conversation today, you are a wealth of knowledge, always providing value, and just overall great to work with. So thank you. Before we jump into general, you know, before we jump into talking more about franchising, and America's swimming pools, and all of those good things, can you give us a little bit of background on where you were before your current role? And you've had a lot of different roles in a lot of different industries. But what are maybe some of the things you've done that have really led you to where you are today and really allow you to bring a lot of value to your current, your current role. All right. Well, that's that's, that's a that's a long story. So I'll keep it as brief as possible. Thanks for the question. So I'll just start about 11 years ago, when I was in corporate America, as a director of operations for a company, I kind of saw the Titanic getting ready to sink. I was that guy who had a little bit of foresight, I had saved up some money, my 401k decided to cash it out and start a business. That business, which is in sunny Florida, broke even on month two never looked back since that was 11 years ago today. But in in that same time period, I entered franchising. I kind of fell in love with the franchise model although that was not franchised. I developed and created that business from scratch ground up and launched it everything from marketing, you name it, website development and physical build out of the actual retail store. You know, because I just happen to have those skills and I enjoyed working in those capacities. And then also, all the buying etc pricing, materials, vendors, you name it, and got that up and launched and running. And it's just doing great ticking along to this day. In entering franchising. About 11 years ago, I was brought in as a director of support, because I've done some business owner coaching at about 300 owners that I've coached in the previous career that I was in as a director of operations training. And so I use those skills to help bring in new franchisees and to train them and get them up to speed franchise University, onboarding and coaching them to success financials, you name it. The whole schmeer of director directing staff support team as well as supporting franchisees directly then went into promoted into a business development role as well as strategic partners. So help them negotiate all the vendor resources rebates and so forth for the franchisor as well as developed a future future business for the franchisees moving on offered a role that was a vice president of operations over France 800 franchises in 32 countries that was probably the most responsibility I've ever had and it was a lot a lot of great lessons there. Some hard ones but mostly all good and I've really learned what to and what not to do in franchising My. identify what's so special about your brand. It's not just about your systems. It's not going to be just about the fact that you've got more whitespace Send the other person. It's about your operations team. It's about your support, your training, and all these other things that you have implemented along the way that really create flawless execution for your franchisees, right. So if you're, and I'll go through a little bit of the, what I see as trending in franchising in a bit, but how you build up that franchise and how you compare yourself to other franchise ors, which is a direct comparison model. If you're working with a TTS coach, which are absolutely wonderful to work with. Obviously, they're perhaps showing multiple brands and hopefully not in the same vertical as yours. But that may happen and you have to have some differentiators. So identify your differentiators right away, your strength will come from that in the financial performance of your actual franchise owners, period, everybody wants to make money. If you can't prove that these people can make money, you've got a pretty tough road paved ahead of you. So you've got to figure that component out, you have corporate stores, if you're just starting out is a fledgling franchise system just getting into franchising, you're gonna have to prove those corporate sort of profitability back out anything that would be owner related and include any fees that franchisee would have to pay. So their profitability is a net truth of what you're going to produce. So, long story short on that one, so going, I'll go more into depth on that later. What makes what I do at ESP America, swimming pool company, unique in this industry. I think it's my approach on the process. I am obviously recently at heart and ops guys, I don't approach franchise development the same way salesperson would but have the sales skills, obviously. So I look at things and I was that guy who, when I had a lot of franchises, you know, I was handed from the development team, people who are not as a director of support, etc, operations ended people who are not fully educated or are woefully unprepared to actually launch their franchise. And that was kind of disenchanting, of, you know, getting those people from the sales team, off the logistics, real estate, whatever they may be doing. It was frustrating for the team and the franchisees struggled, my team struggled, and the salesperson got their commission. Well, that didn't sit well with me. So I decided when I was going to get back into development, I'm going to do it right, or I'm not going to do it at all. So incredibly well prepared, my candidates will end up being they are coming up with full business plans, pro formas, the whole gamut. And I set them up the challenge, many, many challenges along the path, I think one of the hallmarks of what I'm doing differently, and my ops team will say it out loud to anyone, they appreciate everything I'm doing to fully prepare because they're launching so much stronger and faster. And you know, somebody said at one point, I don't know that it's scalable, you can't really keep that going. And I said, Well, you know, I'm a quarter Scottish, so you don't tell a Scotsman you can't do something or he'll prove you wrong every time. And the Italian comes out, and he's really passionate. So, you know, I looked at that and said, This is a great challenge. So two years running now, we've seen double digit unit economic growth. Using my plan of that full preparation. The operations team, of course, loves me because they're getting a franchisee who's really ready to go. And they're saving them a lot of time and a lot of heartache and in trouble. And honestly, that's a great feeling to me. So that's what I call responsible franchising. We'll talk more about that later as well. With ASP in particular, this brand is an essential services brand, so it won't be shut down. Number one, if anything ever happens, again, like has happened in the last few years of our lives, which is horrible gutter, we'll see it again, don't want to participate in that again, as anyone wouldn't want to. And also it's recession resistant. The attorneys say we can't say recession proof. And that's true. Okay, it's recession resistant. And so we went through the last economic downturn at Oh 809. And our franchisees were not horribly affected, adversely affected by that on a financial basis. So with that, it brings me great competence in order to say hey, you're, you're presenting something that's really a terrific insulated brand, the most that I can possibly present to you. So it's a central service brand that will continue to feed your, your, your clients, if you're a DTS coach listening to this, or if you're a franchisor. I think about your model and how effective it will be to you know, if you're working a franchise, you have this partner who's invested a ton of money in your business, or they're going to survive a downturn, right. And that's your responsibility as a franchisor to ensure that they're going to see it through. So ASP is the leading pool franchise maintenance, cleaning repair service, renovation and construction franchise in our space. We've got approximately 389 units established with over 140 owners at this point, I see it as having about 200 more, maybe 250 more units to go and then I'm going to take the brand internationals, the goal so we're looking forward to doing that. And that's, that's coming sooner than later. You know that the unique thing about this brand, it's on two and a half acres, you know 13 pools indoor training is a massive facility with a ton of trainers, people support for people marketing at the brand level alone, not even speaking about authority brands power with their, you know, very powerful marketing machine that they have, which is our parent company. And it owns 12 brands, which are all home service brands, by the way. So our franchisees can also look into partnering with our other local franchise companies that we own, and, and trade those customers back and forth. So I think that's a another thing that makes us stand out from the crowd. Systems, of course, you know, we have our own proprietary software, we don't use a third party. So we control completely what the software does, there's no third party that's selling the same exact platform are being used by our competitors. So that's not a one to one. And so, you know, carve out your uniqueness, I think is what the story is here. So, I think that helps define a bit more about ASP and why it's, it's unique. And I also want to reflect upon what I love so much about working with TDs, and, and so forth. And number one, Melissa, number two, Jackie, number three of the coaches. And, Melissa, you can you can, you know, buy me a glass of wine next time we see it, but no kidding, I just think you folks are terrific, I love the approach of the coaches, the educational approach are, you know, you really want to educate them thoroughly. And as an ops guy that kind of speaks to my heart, because you really, truly want to serve the best interest of the client, which ultimately will serve the best interests of the franchisor. So with that being said, you know, when I see for franchising, coming forward, obviously, the direction of franchising in general, I like to talk about, first of all, the lifecycle of what I'm seeing a trend in the last 1015 years. So what's changed in franchising over the last 10 years, 4000 5000 more franchise concepts, that's the big thing that's changed, right? We've also seen, you know, franchise sales organizations, we've seen private equity insert themselves into franchising referral networks, such as t e s, coming in, and so forth. And so, you know, as that relates to, really, when we're talking about the lifecycle of a franchisor, let's just pretend for a second, you're a company that wants to franchise and you're a fledgling, as I would call it, you're literally just out of the egg. And you've got maybe a few corporate units, maybe a couple of franchise units, and you're really getting on to okay, I want to get serious about this and then you turn into a micro emerging, you may be scooped up by a, a private equity firm or not affirm themselves, but multi brand franchisor, who is looking to help develop develop you, more than likely you'll probably in the emerging area, if that should happen. Some pros and cons there, obviously founder, so I'll speak to you about that, obviously, you're gonna give up piece of your equity or your equity position, and most likely have a buyout, right, and so you'll get about half of your money, and then half later when you hit your goal, and about two years or so. So keep those things in mind when you're negotiating those kinds of terms and conditions with any any multi brand franchisor, who's looking to acquire you, obviously, you know, and as you grow through that emerging area, you then start to mature and I see that as about 50 to 60 units. And you're you're not depending upon any franchise fees any longer for hand to mouth to keep your franchise system going, you ultimately shouldn't be looking at needing franchise fees, really, other than for building the business, and so forth and getting more people more operational past about 40 units. And that's my sole opinion. By way, everybody has a different opinion on that. When you get to about 100 units, that's when you become unsure. In my mind. Most franchises don't make it past 20 units. So if you can get past 20 units, you're on the right track. If you're struggling, you can't get past a 20 unit point, that's when you need to reach out to these multiband franchisors to see if there's somebody who may be interested in partnering with you if you've kind of run out of gas, if you will. And you need that expertise in that help to get to the next level, whether it be operational, you know, the sales systems, they've got systems in general, vendor relation, negotiation power, because that's a big thing that authority brands offers is that ability to have 12 brands 1000. You know, franchises under our belts, we can negotiate terms on things that most people can't and the single small franchise. And then past that point, I think about two to 300 years in what's called in my mind a legacy business in a franchise. That's when you're kind of the bee's knees and business and you're like what's next. And that's when you can look at going to multi International, whatever you want to do, you know, Master licensed partners and in foreign countries etc, which can be very tricky. And I know enough about that if Amy wants more details reach out to me privately, I'll share the good bad the ugly there. And Area Development, which there's also pros and cons behind those things. So I hope that helps to to paint a little bit of the what I see in franchising in the trends. And you know, as far as the future what I see, you know, 135 10 years down the road, I actually see potential PE held brands possibly going back private, and or perhaps going public. Interestingly enough, why is that? I think it's a trend right now. And I think I think that there's going to be some breaking off of that, I think that other interest groups are going to start seeing that conglomerates don't always work, to the best interests of the whole, right. And that sometimes more focused energies for that one company to develop maybe best, its pros and cons behind it. Because you know, the larger an organization gets the hairier things get no matter what organization you're talking about, whether it's IBM or GE or any of these big companies, and people just get lost in the mix, right? When there are 1000s of people. So there's that component, whereas a founder listening to this who's just started, his franchise just emerged, and he's got up to two 300 units, or whatever he or she may do. They feel like, you know, where did this thing come from? And why what did we lose along the path? What do we have to sacrifice or acquiesce on or give up in order to get to that next level? And oh, boy, do I want these components back. And a lot of people have that. And it could just be an exit of a founder at that point, say, okay, adios, you guys have this and take my baby and go go married off to somebody else at this point. Right? That does happen. There's all different paths. Questions. So I have, again, like I said, at the beginning, you are a wealth of knowledge. And I would love to pick your brain about all of these topics, a few things that I wanted to touch on. You mentioned responsible franchising, which I think should become a trending phrase. Because in that vein of you know, we're talking private equity and different groups, and there's a lot of different paths that I franchise can take a franchise zoar can take to grow, but which one is going to be right for the brand? And also within that franchise? How are you taking the responsibility to grow the right way, because at the end of the day, it's not just a franchise and a company, you're bringing in individuals who are putting oftentimes life savings on the line, and you're asking them to invest in your brand. What are you doing to again, responsibly grow, so they grow with you? And that's where you see the success stories come, but where can you how can you have more of that so on if you want to say anything more about that responsible franchising piece, but I want to mention to just the fact that we work so well together our two networks is you take that the first call that you have with the candidate is education, you're prepping that like it's not like the relationship as a franchisee starts when they get passed off to the operational team. It starts with the sales team, the development team, and then I would take that a step further and say that relationship starts with our coaches. They're starting to nurture them figure out their why their pain points, their motivators, where they are, where they want to go to, and then they bring them to you you continue you know, so it's this whole it's not just these starts and stops and transactional things. I understand you're spot on Melissa, them and people need to listen to that more like frankly, and I'll just reinforce everything you said with maybe a little different color added color to it if you if you're okay with that. Perfect. So, again speaking to franchisors man develop your franchises responsibly. I coined that phrase here at authority brands and you want to go and repeat it feel free. I don't care. I mean, I'm proud to have to have brought that to any any franchise that I've been with. You know, and my, my, my golden rule or quote that I'll give you is don't ever Chase $1 Or a person chase the right thing, and the people and money will come to you. That's my advice. So education is the key. Okay. Couple different levels I'm going to talk about at the franchisor level and at the candidate level All, you know, I do a heck of a lot of preparation on the candidate level from the development team demand from your development team that this goes on. It's not complex, get them into the ops people's roles, make them go through what the day in the life of an ops person at the franchisor level is like and send them out into the field and work with the franchisee make them understand a day in the life so they can truly bring people along to your ops team that are going to be the right fit, number one, number two, they're gonna be really fully prepared and have complete buy in there's no meat your team of the day will be decision day not meet your team date for giggles. Right. And and you know, then on the franchisors side, in the light of education is key here and Melissa franchisors, go get your CFP, if you're a Franchise Executive, I am not being paid by IFA to say that I'm telling you right now it was a life changer for me in my career, pay for it through your company and pay for it for your people, in anyone in a management role in your company, you're gonna see a great transformation make that investment in your people. That's my advice. I love that I am disclaimer on this. You're hearing it here, I still don't have my CFP and I have like completed it partially, and I need to do that. So thank you, Roger, I'm now gonna go finish that up. But education being key. And I like that you split it into the two parts. It's not just candidate education. It's also franchisor education. So going back to ops and development ops and sales, oftentimes developers are just work in silos. It's like, Hello, yes. All like all the time, probably in our own company. You know, you're saying sales team is saying this. And ops team is saying this. And caught in the middle are often the candidates or the clients or whoever it is confused. And so that's an excellent point. Right there. And then also on the franchisor side with education, I would add to that in light of what we're talking about the future of franchising, how brands are going to be growing, where that's going. Take time as a franchisor, to educate yourself on the different ways to develop your brand, again, the right way. Every brand is different. It's not you can't just look at one franchise that's taken off, and, you know, sold 300 units in one year and say whatever they did, I'm going to do that. You You just don't know everything else that's going on in there. And I don't want to speak any more to that. But educate yourself. No, it's it's very poignant. And I can tell you right now, you know, you hit on a key note with me, which was ops versus sales. Remember, I've been both guys. Yep. Okay, so isn't that fun? Right? You're not going to find a freak of nature like that. You are Steve both right, which is why I'm encouraging everybody to go do both roles. Right? Or make your teams play nice together. So there's a very important point here. And by the way, have your operations people try to sell a franchise right? Okay, good luck with that right? Now everybody in operations sells for a living why they have to convince them somebody to do something that they typically naturally wouldn't want to do ie a franchise following a plan and doing this meticulously, right? So they're really all are all in in influencer roles I call not sales, but influencer roles. So the reason for young franchisors in which you're failing to develop, if you are failing to develop is the that you don't have an understanding of how to make that dot Connect. Right? You're not forcing your team members to play along nicely. Without somebody complaining so badly that they want the other person gone. Whatever else No, you kids will play in the sandbox together, we're going to build the same Castle gathering this is what's gonna look like. And so it's, it's you have to look at them like, like, children in not a child sense. But in that the you're grooming, you're mentoring, you're guiding you're coaching, you're training your people and I think if you start there with your people, that will lead right down to the people that TTS bring to you as they enter your system. And that seamless transition from and off from ops or from sales or development ops will occur. You're gonna be much happier franchisor I hope everyone was taking notes because just in this like, what 20 minutes I feel you've dropped some some gold nuggets here. And what was the other thing I wanted to say? I lost it. Hold on. Hold on while I bring it back. It's gone. Oh, man, um, but when? Okay, so I'll just To reiterate this as well, and again, why you, Roger, and America swimming pools and the entrepreneurs have worked so well together is when you were talking about unique differentiators and what sets you apart in your industry in franchising, you didn't talk about features and benefits you didn't talk about, well, we use this type of equipment, we use this type of uniform and this type of vehicle, and all these things. That's important. But those are the details. It's about those the differentiators were your support your training, how are you helping your franchisee? All these are things we have something that we say L we income, lifestyle, wealth equity, what are your brand differentiators around income, lifestyle, wealth, equity is just another way of looking at it. But what are your differentiators around those four key components? Because that's what we talk to the clients about what are your goals? So if a franchise can then say, these are my differentiators, this is how I can help you meet your goals around these four things, then it really does like, match up. Right? And what are we doing here? Long term, right? That's, that's the big reason we're doing this. They're investing in this to get a return. They don't just want to be your franchisee for the next 150 years. Right? That's not realistic. We're doing 10 year agreements, typically here on average, and, you know, and two things. I don't want to forget to talk about processes, clear processes. That was very important, right? So something I'm a checklist kind of guy, right? Dad was navy. So I grew up with checklists on the fridge. I joked with you about that earlier before this, and you know, every boy had a chore and you did it here, you checked it off here and you got dessert if you've finished right? Every day. So I present every candidate with a checklist that's like super clear, they're educated adults, and not gonna insult their intelligence they self grade as they go, right. But it's a great indicator, if you don't have that, that you're probably not very organized in the first impression you're giving from your your development person is not a great organization. So how does that translate into the future of your franchise? So have clear processes that you lay out? I think that's a key component. Excellent. Again, I'm going to wrap this up, but so many good, just pieces of information for a franchisor I think in any stage and I know we only touched on, you know, the different stages of fledgling to micro merging to emerging and of course, we can get more into detail people can reach out to you. Individually, I have to have my two final questions for you. One, where can people find you? And to what would you recommend what's like a book or podcast or even just if you want to finish off with a quote for the people you have throwing? See? You want to? I don't? Not sure if you have um, I think one of the best books I am a CFP, as you know, and I give back to franchising in that I actually help oversee the CFP courses now the testing and I think one of the best ones that I that I had taken was actually I think I had the book right but for those who aren't watching Roger has a massive bookshelf behind him. SUPing finest. He's going to find the book this life changing book that we will all be ordering off Amazon Greg Nathan, great guy, awesome Australia accent he was a rather bitter franchisee that turned into a franchisor great guy. Profitable partnerships. I think that's a good one for all franchisors to read a little bit leaning toward the franchisee perspective, but that's okay. Right. You got to you got to, you know, see all sides of it. I think that's a really valuable one. I've got so many books up there. I don't know where to where to begin with it. As far as franchising is concerned. I think that's one of the better ones that I think every franchisor should read. In their, their path to it. That was a book What else was what was the other question? I'm sorry. The other one was just where can we where can people find you? website. They can look me up on LinkedIn. I have two profiles. The one with a million connections is the one that's my real one. I just have one that is for folks that want to abuse me on LinkedIn. So if you're Roger, go if you want to see what he's actually done and and follow along with his accomplishments go to the the million follower one. Yeah. And if you do want to send a connection request, please put a note in there. Don't just send the request. If I don't know who you are, please just send me a simple note saw you on the podcast with Melissa love to connect and I'm happy to talk with you anytime. Yeah, Roger Stone I answered my connect request. So good luck out there, everyone. I know that's not true. I'm just kidding. You're an absolute joy to work with Melissa. You really are. I really am your relationship. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. Roger. America's swimming pools is lucky to have you. Thank you so much for joining me today. All right.