Franchise Friday 215 with Joe Flanders and Manish Vakil of Tumbles Kids Fitness Gym

In this episode, Melissa Pang speaks with Joe Flanders and Manish Vakil of Tumbles Kids Fitness Gym

Joe Flanders is the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of Tumbles and is the go-to guru for streamlining processes and overseeing franchisee operations support. He manages the interior design and buildout of Tumbles locations, finds and facilitates third-party partnerships for equipment, designs our STEAM curriculum, maintains the integrity of our brand identity, and develops strategies to grow our program offerings and meet the changing needs of our customers. With 14 years of experience as a franchisee owner-operator, Joe brings a wealth of franchising and kid’s business experience to the Tumbles family. Joe has a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management from the University of Georgia, where he spent four years playing trumpet in, and as a soloist for the Redcoat Marching Band in front of over 86,000 adoring fans. Go Dawgs! For Joe, helping shape the minds and bodies of kids isn’t just a career calling—it’s a family affair. His wife, Katerina, is a biology teacher and educational specialist in curriculum development and has presented science and literacy topics both nationally with the NSTA and internationally through programs offered by Columbia University. And his three kids—Lexi (15), Nate (12) and Maddie (9)—are competitive year-round swimmers with Olympic aspirations. Joe and his family love to travel, especially if their trips incorporate active endeavors, including hiking, swimming and enjoying nature.

Manish Vakil is the founder and CEO of Tumbles and ensures that Tumbles’ success is about more than making money—it’s also about fighting obesity and making a difference in the lives of kids and families worldwide. Manish oversees all aspects of the company—from helping franchisees build profitable businesses to expanding our mission around the globe to ensuring our programs make every kid who walks through our doors smile. Manish has a B.S. in Finance from Rutgers University and over 15 years of experience in franchise sales, operations, marketing, price negotiation and accounting. In addition, he has a history of owning and operating a variety of profitable kid-focused businesses, including a tutoring center, kids’ gym and children’s STEM education program prior to founding Tumbles. When he isn’t busy helping Tumbles’ franchisees build successful businesses and bringing fun fitness and STEAM education programs based on developmental milestones to kids around the world, you’ll find Manish playing tennis, watching movies or experiencing new people and cultures while traveling the globe with his wife and twin boys.

Tumbles is a growing kids’ gym and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) franchise. Our mission is both simple and ambitious: Shaping the minds and bodies of the future. Based on developmental milestones, our proven programs encourage kids to get active, take measured risks, explore independently, and interact with their peers in a fun, safe and clean environment.

More... https://futureoffranchising.com/podcast/episode-215-joe-flanders-and-manish-vakil/

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

Hey everyone. Welcome to today's episode of franchise Friday. My name is Melissa Pang. I'm the member relationship strategist here at the entrepreneur source and it is my great pleasure to have these two gentlemen here with me today we have Manish vakeel. Did I say that correctly, Manish? Yes, you did. Great. He's the CEO over at tumbles kids fitness gym and steam. And I have Joe Flanders here the C O at tumbles kids fitness, gym and steam. So welcome to the both of you. How are you? Absolutely fantastic. It's 70 degrees here today. Well, great brag. It's 40 Something here it's cold. Yeah, I'm here in Connecticut. And it's I think like 20. So that's not the so at least man He's just having a good day. Joe and I were working on it. But and it was quick little overview here on on both of these fine gentleman. MANISH oversees all the aspects of the company. So from helping franchisees build their profitable businesses to expanding the mission of tumbles around the globe, which is ensuring that our not our ensuring that the tumbles programs make every kid who walks through the doors smile. And Joe is the go to guru for streamlining processes, overseeing franchisee operations support, is there anything this man does not do? He manages the interior design, build out of the locations, finds and facilitates third party partnerships. For equipment designs, the steam curriculum maintains the integrity of brand identity and develop strategies to grow the program offerings. So we know who's doing all the work here, obviously, just just a few hats, that's okay. But anything else you guys want to add anything you want to tell? Tell the people about what you do? Well, we can add a couple of areas. So franchising is one side that we have, right? We're our mission is combating childhood obesity, right? So finding the people you don't have everyone comes out and says profit that you know leads to purpose, our businesses more purpose that is leading to profit. And that's a key differentiator, especially when you're dealing with first time, you know, business owners that are coming into it. So when you have a passion when people tell you well get into business for the passion, with with tumbles it that's, that's very easy to find. Because I don't want anybody who doesn't like kids. Or you know, because people always spend money on kids. So even if you like profit either way, you're going to end up in our realm, you know, and it's fun, which is the cool part, right. So as our logo says you can do a cartwheel upside down, that's what this is, right? Or you can go like this and do a, you know, a muscular build body builder, if you want to do that as well. So, so that's the fun side of it, that a lot of people, I would love it, you know, for them to realize what we are. So that's kind of the under the underlying mission and all the different areas that we have that people don't realize just by looking at the brand and the clients love it the purpose before the profit, and but at the end of the day, you get all of it under under the tumbles umbrella. And I didn't know you got it all. Joe, anything from your perspective as CEO all wearing a lot of hats, anything from your perspective to add? pigment is covered that pretty well. Again, just just following that mission, trying to do what we can to move the needle on childhood obesity, making sure that kids know that they don't have to be on a device to have fun, they can have a bead of sweat rolling down their forehead is far more beneficial to them far, far more beneficial to the habits that they will form and carry into adulthood and have very, very healthy, productive lives. Love it, again, not leading with the profit side of it. It's something that really you are speaking to people on a different level. I think a lot of people can come into business ownership and franchising and say, How much money can I make? And that's the first question. And I love that there's not the mission. Here. There's something much much deeper than that. But and yes, sorry. But there is profit, and it does come. So we do want to say that because it is Yeah, agreed, otherwise we wouldn't be here. But I do think that's an important distinction and a differentiator for tumbles as well. And what I think entrepreneurs are is we talk a lot about franchising as a vehicle. So our clients are looking at self sufficiency, and they're exploring different ways to do that. A lot of them are coming from a job environment, that classic kind of nine to five You know, corporate oftentimes job, but we're saying listen, there's other ways to get to self sufficiency, whether it's a startup, whether it's buying an existing business, you know, some stocks or investments, you could, you know, make money there as well. But for you, and I'll start with human age, why why franchising as the vehicle, you know, creating and being the, the CEO of this franchise brand. Why was that something that you looked into and followed that path? So, you know, I've gotten this question a lot, but my answer has actually changed over time. Be honest on that, right. And the reason being is originally, you know, franchising was like, hey, you know, what, you find a lot of people to open the business, and then you support them. And then you make money this way, right. And that was the original idea. I mean, 1012 years ago, whenever someone who originally thought about it, now tumbles isn't around for seven years. And what I realized more and more is, in order for our mission, which is shaping the minds and bodies of the future, we need people who have a, a purpose driven mindset. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the idea of having this purpose allows you to enjoy what you do, and then a profits automatically follow because you enjoy going to work. And having those types of people coming in and they have a vested interest, because they have their money in the business as well, at a tumbles facility. Now they're going to go into their community, and actually reach out to the kids over there and run a program that is actually going to have an impact. For as Joe mentioned, you know, a lifelong impact, you build those habits, right. Now, in order to find these people, you have a vested interest, everyone's interests are completely aligned top to bottom. And there's no better way than franchising. Because when people are coming in, we get you get to train them. We have the systems in place, you get to work with people with like minded, same philosophy. And that just crazy enough to say it makes a hell of a lot of fun. Like, you know, you guys say Monday is my favorite day of the week. I mean, I literally and Joe's heard me say this a billion times, right? Because it literally it I believe it says it's my favorite deck, right? And because you're starting off, and Friday comes along, and I'm like, that's nice. But I'm always looking forward to that. Because of that reason. So yeah, franchising works well. And I think it's building entrepreneurs at the same time, and it's a stepping stone. So all these people who are coming in as franchisees, new business owners, we get to work with them. They're excited, the passion is there. And that makes it all worthwhile. even forget about the fact of making kids smile, your franchisees are coming in, we're actually smiling and having a blast. And I feel to like the franchisees, when you look at franchising, it's people who have, like, raised their hand to say yes, and I'm investing, you know, it's not, I'm just going to sign my employment agreement or whatever it is, like, I believe in this brand, I want to carry through the mission. I want to bring this into my community. I can see how much good this would do so you have those brand ambassadors that are saying yes, and I'm willing to invest time energy resources money into this as well which is awesome. Yeah, it's like that idea when you come on and say, I'm literally going to put my money where my mouth is. Yeah, and that's you're going Yeah, and you have these awesome invested invested franchisees, Joe for yourself and you come from an actual not many people may know this, but from the franchisee as an owner perspective, so you kind of see it on all sides. So what's your what's your take on it why franchising ministers to actually so we both have plenty of experience on both sides. I don't know that. That's a separator because as we've I've quite literally walked in the shoes of Everybody I talked with, right? Now my path. We're so cute. It's I stumbled into this. It is honestly just my initial story. I'm actually a commercial pilot, is the life I came from ended up in franchising to help my family out who had just entered into the business as franchisees of another kid's brand. grew that business thought it was very be really cool to bring my my STEM background, I'm a bit of a science and math nerd, figured that I wanted to bring that to the kids space. But I did not see that here in the North Atlanta market, created a business that didn't do as well as I wanted it to do as a little bleeding edge. Talk to a trusted advisor, gentleman right here. I ended up actually pivoting that business into a learning center model that I did for about a decade and then ultimately ended up wanting to do something a little bit more. I had a very challenging client base. I wanted to do something that brought smiles to kids faces I wanted to bring something that really had more of a valuable impact on the community. And the idea of tumbles was just so very appealing to me. So got out of the business of being an owner operator. And again, come came to the site as table with a lot of background, a lot of experience and quite a few chips on my shoulders from the lack of lack of support we got from the other franchise brands has really tried to do things a lot different than than what I experienced that I did and I learned something new every single time I talk to both of you. So and I know many of you want to speak to the franchisee side of it as well. But what I will say is Joe just listening to you, you've been in the candidates, the franchise candidates shoes, you bet in the franchisees shoes. Now you're on the franchisor side that brings a lot to the table. And the word that came to mind, you know, you have this commercial pilot background and nothing really even in the industry. Definitely not in franchising, and that's what I love about franchising is it's this community and like a melting pot. This is a space where you can have a lot of different people with diverse backgrounds. You know, whether it's different race, gender, it doesn't really religion, it doesn't matter. It's like franchising is this very, it has a really great, it provides a lot of great opportunities for a lot of different people, which I love. But mini chat if you have anything to add to that, you know, so you know, it works out really well. Right. So I mean, Joe's background as a commercial pilot, you underestimate that side of it. But think about it from the aspect of taking a plane, right? You want everything it has to go in order the system come into play, right. And that's exactly the reason why he's so good at his job in terms of what we end up doing is we want to make sure that airplane that you're taking off, which is a tumbles franchise, that it stays in the air and it's stable. Exactly right, and what systems and processes do you have in place. So I started as a single unit owner, then I went to multi units. And then I was an area developer, then I was a master developer ran a system for 10 years, and then sold a lot of those businesses shut down a lot of them as well, and then lost some of them as well. So multiple different reasons, opened up locations in 13 Different states, almost 6060 different locations, and then started my started my own brand. So it's a complete and then starting their own brand, I came out of investment banking. So from that side, I actually acquired a brand and then rebuilt it from scratch. But I didn't rebuild it by myself. It's not me, it's the rest of the team. So the team is absolutely fantastic technology to the systems that Joe runs. And then we have an entire Cypher curriculum and training site. All of that is built in house. So we did that because again, let's Joe said we didn't get a lot of great support from other brands. So what we wanted to do was we found out what not to do, right? So when when a franchisee comes into a tumble side, you can come out and say, you know, what should you look for? So it doesn't matter if it's a tumbles, right, any franchise you go into, take a look at the people who are running it, how long they've been, how long they've been there? How long do they plan to be there? And then that philosophy, has it changed over time or not? Is it going to change for the company? Is it going to align with your mindset, all that comes into play? Because in five years, if it changes, what's going to happen, that happened to me, that's the reason I say that. So when the philosophy of the franchisor changed, and it completely changed my business. So you want to make sure all those things matter, right? So we tell all the franchisees so it doesn't matter. It's not just tumbles any franchise you go into, you want to make sure you align with the philosophy of the company. That's actually really interesting as well, because I think to a lot of times when you have a franchise candidate who's going through and maybe looking at a few different brands, you think okay, I definitely validate with the franchisee validate with the ones who are in the business, they've gone through this, but the other side of it is validate with the franchisor. And their mission values. And it seems maybe a little bit like common sense. Like, obviously, we don't always think about that, especially if you're like, Wow, this is so exciting. I love what this brand is all about. It's the cool features and benefits. And then you do want to the franchisor is a partner. They're not just they're not like a big bad brother. They are exactly. There's a collaboration there. Right? So validate with your franchisor as well. And they're doing this thing for every candidate. Yeah, 100%. It's a symbiotic relationship, and people don't realize, and we want to make sure that you build that from the get go. And the idea is that the franchisor only does well if you do well. And you only do well if the franchisor does people. So it's not about the fact of just trying to be against someone. It's the idea of building something together. It's a lot more fun when you do it that way. Exactly. Which is why I think it was so much fun, because you're all just building it together, you know, some snags on the way but overall I love that that's what you guys really focus on 90% 10% You don't like the snags you take almost almost more information from those snags and failures than you do from the successes. Very good point as well. And we've been touching on this a little bit here when it comes to myths around franchising, so I want to kind of bring it back back to some of these things that people can think when they're going into franchising. And again, this could actually be on a franchisor side, or on the franchisee side, and you guys have both of those perspectives. But some of the myths that I commonly hear is, I don't know anything about blank industry, or I don't have any experience in that space in that environment. I can't be creative in a franchise, corporate has all the control, I'm giving up my independence. So have you heard these from current franchisees? Both are not a yes. If yes, how do you respond to that? And before I let you answer, because you guys know, I just love talking so much. No, before answer, I think both of you are great examples of coming from a different industry, but it's the skills that you can transfer into being an owner being a franchisor, you know, Joe, taking the skills and kind of his unique abilities as a commercial pilot, and you're using those now, just in a different way through franchising. So anyways, I'll let you, Joe, if you want to speak to that, first. You know, have you heard these myths from current franchisees or candidates? And how do you respond? If so? Absolutely. And everyone's a case by case. I mean, it's, I talk with every candidate from TDs. First, first off, I want to I want to make the first impression on them. And I need to know that I can have a great working relationship with them, as well, again, that two way street, but the myths are real. Myths are out there. There's a lot of preconceived notions about what a franchise is, and what we're not. Realistically Yeah, we have to set guardrails, we have to maintain the integrity of the brand that over IP, that's, that's extremely important to the brand we have, you know, for a food analogy, here we have a recipe, we have the directions to create that that food product. And it's it's proven, we know it works. But in all reality, there's some things that we don't know and we're going to be the first to admit that we will work through problems together and one of those is I can't be creative. You're right. We don't necessarily want a franchisee to be terribly creative, because then they're, they're going to veer away from that recipe a whole lot and change the core product of who we actually are. But real life scenario, one of our more successful programs within within tumbles is our ninja warrior programs, that was actually ideated by an employee of a franchisee that was that came from the bottom up. And what we had to do was take that idea, substantiate that idea, flesh it out, create marketing, create curriculum, create the ties with kinesiology and Exercise Science, make sure the science was there to back up what we were doing create a progressive curriculum, it took a long time. But that product, which again is one of our bigger moneymakers, within within the tumbles program came from the bottom. And that's, that's where you have to be flexible. And to your point, mostly you have to know to validate the franchisor, not just with other franchisees in the system. I had a call with a TDS client today, just a couple hours ago. And that was her thing. She said, if you were to recommend to your own daughter, you know, to go into the world of franchising, what questions would you have her ask? And that's precisely what I outlined for her, you got to understand the vision, you got to understand the longevity, you've got to understand the mission of the owners of that group if they're accountable to VCs or investment firms. You know, what, what is the lineage and the progression the path of this franchise? So yeah, it's there's a lot of preconceived notions out there. MANISH Allah to tack on to that. Yeah, so he, this part gets becomes very interesting, right? Because when you think about it, and you're like, you're scared, and you're like, I'm gonna lose all control, right? But the question that comes up is, first, you have to be honest with yourself, as going in. It's difficult to do. But you have to say what I do know and what I don't know. And if you say that, then you can actually go into the business and say, okay, as choosing an industry, like you said, Millicent, Hey, am I I don't know anything about this industry? I wouldn't even bother choosing the industry yet. I would actually just go and say, Alright, what are the skill sets that I have? What are those skill sets apply? Then you go in and say, What is my passion? What do I want to do? And then you go in and say which franchise businesses actually fit those molds that I'm looking for? And then based on that, and I think T us does a great job of that. Right? You guys have that nice was it got the disc right? The profile that you guys do, which is 2.0. Right? That's, that is such a good screening tool to get them to understand their skills, because a lot of folks don't understand their own skill sets, right. So when you're adding those things, take that as one tool that gives you information. And the biggest part, the biggest, biggest part, I tell for anyone that's coming in, keep an open mind Don't say don't be closed minded, the minute you're close minded, you stop learning, because you think you already know everything. So be open minded. And this is going to be absolutely nuts. I tell franchisees, when they come in, hey, do you have an exit strategy? And they're like, Wait, we haven't bought a franchise yet? Why do you ask them about an exit strategy? I said, think about it this way. You come into tumbles you're extremely successful, you get one location, you get two locations, three, fantastic, we'd love for you to stay for 20 years have 10 locations. Amazing enough, no issue at all. But things happen in life. You get another job, wife gets another job, you're doing this, something happens with the family. Anything can happen. You win a lottery, you never know, right? Now you're gonna go in and say, Hey, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do something bigger. I want to do something different. Anything happens? What is your exit strategy? What did you learn here that you can apply? Because now you're able to take on a bigger challenge. Right? So this is a small challenge that you're starting off with where as Joe said, we have guardrails, you might want to go into something with less, you know, a little bit wider gaps, maybe no guardrails, where you create your own guardrails, right, so the idea of coming into a franchise system, and the best part about it is you have leeway. You're going in, you're running, you hire your own staff, you do your own marketing, you're building your own relationships, you're running your own business, you have your own lawyers and accountants and everything else, you have people who can guide you in certain areas, so you have less bumps, you're gonna hit. And that's the goal. So that way, your success rate is higher. And then after that, once you learn those things, then you can go and take on bigger risks if you want to, or bigger challenges. That's the way I would look at it from when you're going into the business. Yep. And then like, it's a nice, it's a good building block almost to get you started, even in business ownership if it's something you've never done before. And from there. Who knows, you know? Exactly. I started with one little franchise. And then three area developer learned it, and then now the own brand and then building their own brand. Now we have a technology side to it. All the different teams. That's all over time that we've done. Yeah. I and I think to people, especially in us talk to them all the time, these franchise candidates, where they're only thinking we barely starting to think about just the one unit, right? So I love to talk about exit strategy, because like, Wait, you guys, you get started here, let's let's first get to that point, then there's just possibility upon possibility with what you can do. And you know, we talk about income, lifestyle, wealth, equity. I think a lot of people start in that income space. It's all about how much can I make my income? I want to match that I want to make a certain amount of money, then you start getting into okay, no way, there's more lifestyle, like how can I start creating a lifestyle I want, and then this wealth and equity piece that we actually don't talk about a lot. I think it could be pretty difficult, difficult for someone to start to look at wealth and equity, just starting their business by themselves. Correct. Because there's so much to work through. And going back to you, Joe, where you're talking about. You know, there's systems in place, there's guardrails. But you can be creative within that. If you're looking at just starting your own business, no shade, but if you're just looking at starting your own business, you are starting with like blue sky, there's you can be as creative as you want. But are those ideas gonna go anywhere? Do you have the capital and the resources to put those things into place? Once it gets going, you have no data, no market research, no industry knowledge, you're just going for it without really knowing how in a franchise. You can. Yes, there's guardrails. But like you said, you know, you can be creative within that and have this resource, these resources and support to back you up. So not saying every single idea you say is going to be like, Wow, but you know, I've done this I created my own proprietary company that was that stem business that I had? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had blue skies, I was using your transferable skills that I learned through the first franchise that I was I was part of. And with that, yeah, I mean, blue skies, I got to create my own curriculum, I had to find my own vendors. I had to create my own layouts. I didn't find my own furniture, either negotiate my own lease. I mean, it was, it was a process. It was a process. But ultimately, I didn't have that market research site. I was too early, and it failed. And that's why I ended up pivoting into another franchise brand. But, you know, it happens. I've tried that and just collectively just tumbles. I know, everybody has their own stories, but our C suite, just start C suite alone, we have almost 100 years of small business experience that we are willing to put out there. And we are accessible and we want these folks to learn from our successes and more importantly learn from our failures. One of the best analogies administrators out there all the time is we can put little flashy cones and everything around that pothole. We can't stop you from falling in that pocket. We can't you know, you have to learn from that process as well but we can definitely get you out of that pothole and figure out how to work around that issue way faster with all the all the experience that we have. And that's one of those true things with franchising is, yeah, it's a little cliche, but you have a team. And, you know, our team specifically, we're right there. And that's one thing that we pride ourselves on, which is why we are, you know, we're looking for more that that slows sustainable growth. We're not, we're not trying to explode, because we want to make sure that we are there for everybody, when they need us to make sure they get off the ground in a proper, again, sustainable for them and their unit as well. 100% I was terminated if you want to add anything to that, but this is why I love tumbles. Well, I mean, there's a million things we can add, right? The one thing I always tell all the coaches AT Ts is right, anyone, anyone that's interested in, in any business at the end of the day, if you guys want to send them our way, we'll be happy to chat with them, even if they're not looking at tuples. Right? Because at the end of the day, it's about business. And we have, you know, what we just started doing recently, which is very interesting is training. We took the training back not people go well, how do you do this? We do. So how do you use email? How do you? How do you use our systems that you have in place what software to use, right? We went back a couple more steps, we actually go in and say, Here's accounting 101, here's legal 101. Here is actually what is what it means to be an entrepreneur from a mindset, emotional mindset. So you know, tumbles always has the cognitive, the physical and emotional, we put it together. And we said, Wait, how do we do that for our franchisees? Because when we start off, it's the emotional side, right? It's very difficult to because you're saying, well, it's $300,000 to start is $200,000 starts that half a million to start, whatever number you're starting well of any business, that number starts going down and you're like, wait, I haven't made any money yet. Oh, my God, this number is dropping, and it starts to create an internal panic, am I going to be successful? Am I not going to be successful? How am I gonna be successful, your mind tends to go the negative more when you start off, and you're like, holy cheese, I'm not gonna make Oh, what do I do? Let me start cutting costs, right? Like, perfect example, first thing that people end up cutting in business marketing. Yep. Which is absolutely the worst thing you can cut. Because at the end of the day, if you're going to cut something, you start off and start calling ancillary costs that you have, and marketing is a necessary cost, it is a it should be a fixed cost, it should not be a variable cost, right? Because marketing is what drives your revenue. And when people start cutting marketing, they go, Well, we're not doing as well, we're not doing as well, let me start cutting costs everywhere, make sure you actually increase your marketing budget, not decrease it. So that's what we did during COVID. When everyone decreased their budgets everywhere else, we decrease some of the things our travel went away, hey, forced to, well, good enough, let's put that money directly into marketing. And hence now because of that, we've done almost five deals with T s in the last six months, seven months already, which for our size is doubling the size of our company. And now going into international side as well. So all of those things is franchise easy to understand that the mindset emotional side is the toughest part. And we want to train them from the get go On this area, we start retraining the day after they sign just because you got to get them into the mindset and start just it's scary, right? If you chip away slowly, slowly, then it's not as scary. It's actually fun. You got to enjoy the journey. Because if not the end place that you're going to it's going to be very anticlimactic. Yeah. 100%. And it is so easy to just sink into like, well, you're on this high because you love this business. You're like, Oh, my goodness, we're ready. We're going to be self sufficient for my family. And then you start getting into it. And it's um, yeah, there's a lot to it. I have not been on the franchisee side yet. But um, there's a lot to getting started, you know, you're only just taking those first steps after signing that franchise agreement. That's very new, you haven't even taken any steps, you know, you've made the made the decision. So also, also when you are a franchisee, or sorry, franchise candidate, starting to look at which brand you're gonna go with validating on the support? And where's the training? When is the training? What does that look like? And I love that you guys look at mindset, it's not just, here's how you, you know, wrap your vehicle, here's how you, you know, set whatever up, it's the one on one. It's the mindset. It's like, how are we going to walk through these different pieces and give you the tools so you can be successful? So education, and certification. This is where the mindset comes in where you say you have an open mind saying, Hey, I know some parts of this business. I know how to hire people. But do you know how to how I will hourly employees versus salary employees? And then you're looking at how do you actually empower them and to keep them invested in the business so they keep going over the long term? How do you actually build a team where you everybody comes up and everybody says we'd like to build from within? Our team has a Whoa, almost a completely 100% retention rate from our got from our from our corporate team since we started. And we've added people, we haven't lost anybody. Right. And that says a lot in terms of who we have. That includes our vendors that we work with, which is crazy. So, you know, we build those relationships over time. So it's the same thing. How do you teach franchisees to do that with their employees? Right? That makes a huge difference when it's your money on the line. Little bit different than when it's a corporate money on the line, and you're just saying, I'm just giving a performance review? Right? It's training, how much does it cost to train the employees? How do you keep them? Is it better to fire them? Or get rid of them? And then get a new employee? Are you going to start again, with a training? What is the time value of that, that you have to spend again, in order to retrain someone new? Things like that? Yeah. So it's, it's fun, you got to enjoy this journey stuff, and then we help them go through it. Exactly. Listen, if you can, that the efforts of franchising and fun is one of them, then you're in a good place. So what I want to just kind of wrap things up here with is and because this is all about future franchising, I want to get from each of you, when you look at franchising, whether it's specific to your brand, or industry as a whole, what do you see kind of happening? What kind of trends do you see happening over the next whether it's year, next few years? Like what do you see for franchising? Or AND, and OR for tumbles? Well give you both. So my background is actually economics. So I go into this. So, yes, I mean, looking at it from this side, right now, I know a lot of franchisees are worried actually about what's happening in terms of lending and all of these areas, interest rates being so high. Think about it from the aspect that today, yes, they're high. Where are they going to be in six to nine months or whatnot? What are they going to be like, in a year? You don't know. So you have to actually take a look at current economic standards and say, Alright, am I going to be willing to operate at the highest level with the cost being at this level with costs going down later on, which I think always in the case, when a recession comes along, or anything, get rid of the recession word, and come on and say any uncertainty that happens in the markets, if you look at it historically, this has happened so many times over from 87, to 94, to 2001, to 2008, to 2000. Now again, I'll skip the 2014 15 timeframe, and come back to 20 to 23 timeframe. Now, it's keeps happening all the time. It's very cyclical. So at the end of the day, one thing that's always survived, franchising is actually done well. So you want to take a look at it saying if you want to get into business at that point, look at it the historical viewpoint, not just in just the immediate viewpoint only, that will give you good insight into what the future is going to hold. Yeah, it'd be nice if I knew what's going to happen in the next few years. Moza? Yeah, yeah, I have a crystal ball. And I can come on and say this is what it's gonna be. But yeah, you can say you can say that be prepared from the aspect of saying, you know, plant as they say, you know, plan for the worst and hope for the best is one thing, no, no, you when you plan for the worst, at the end of the day, the best, this is gonna be anything above that it's going to come out to be absolutely fantastic. And franchising is a proven model. So it's not even planning for the worst. It's calculated and it's actually proven. So you want to get into a business, then go and franchise. Amen. Amen. From the economics major himself. And, Joe, what, from your perspective? Hello, FiVER, a lot's of luck out there. But even even short sighted, just dealing with clients who are a little short sighted, because a lot of them are, again, merely fixated on the collapse of the banks and looking at that big R word recession. But what they're not realizing is again, what we're looking at from, from a business perspective, from the time they start to explore with us, we're probably looking at about a year before they're going to open their doors through the discovery process through signing through the real estate process and opening and build out for a brick and mortar. It's a little bit so you really can't necessarily only look at what's happening right now and fear what's happening right now. Right, and you know, and thank you both for sharing that as well and that it's not all doom and gloom. And I think, yes, you hear a lot of that on the news. But to your point Manish of looking back at franchising as a whole, it has been around for years and years and years, very successful. And I think it's the beauty of the franchise as well is you are really not alone. You have full support of your franchisor you have other franchisees and there's just a lot of really great things there. And I think it all goes again, back to mindset and we talked about like, abundance mindset, you know, if you're in a scarcity mindset, it's probably not going to go that Well, no, you're gonna get that. But when you look at all the positives that can come from it, and that you can do, right, there's just so much. So there's a positive outlook for sure. Oh, wait, and now to end so I stole this from Steven Hobbs. He's the on podcast host of Diary of a CEO. And he asks his guests his the question that his last podcast guest left for you. Does that make sense? Did that make sense at all? So here's the question. If you could have any one superpower, what would it be and why? I've actually been asked that before. Yeah. Question from my twin boys. Actually. Anybody coming in from anywhere else? So we want so many Marvel movies? Right? You know, that's an interesting, interesting part. Right? So, you know, what is the one superpower? Is it existing? I asked, like 20 questions in return. So I'll be the worst person to come out and say, What are my actual guardrails as we talk about in franchising that allow me to choose what it is? Or is it anything right? It's anything for right now. Yeah, so anything goes Do you want to go first? I gotta like a million things on that side. Have to sit? Oh, yeah, my my definitely has to do with mindset to what you're able to do. It's not money or anything else. It's the idea of actually, it's not, I guess you call it a superpower at that point, that coming in, is the idea of understanding person person's emotions before they even happen. That allows you to counteract and have a lot more, you know, again, I always say enjoy the journey. I'm not worried about the end destination, because there is no end destination at the end of the day does that it's going to always keep changing as you say, we keep changing goalposts. So if I knew that, and what people are thinking, you just asked me right now, what's the future going to look like? How's it going to be? So if you can plan for it now, then if I have a head start on that every single time, that's gonna make life a heck of a lot more fun? See if I can actually just know what you're thinking how it's going to be. And if I can make that more fun and easier for you, then it's probably my past life or something. So I would I would I love that. All right, well, I'm glad you don't have that quite yet. Like you would know everything I'm thinking. Um, but anyways, thank you so much, you guys, for joining me on another franchise Friday podcast. I love our discussions so much. So we'll have to do like another round eventually. But thank you so much for taking time out of your day and sharing a lot of words of wisdom. Fantastic and all to all the guests. We'll see you next month again when Melissa hustles again, exactly monthly currency guys. All right. Have a great day, everyone.