Franchise Friday – Episode 217 with Albert Hermans of Floor Coverings International

In this episode, Melissa Pang talks with Albert Hermans, Albert has been a member of the Floor Coverings International team since 2015. Albert served on our Operations Team for years until 2020 when he began working with our Franchise Development Team. Having worked in Operations with our most experienced franchisees, he brings practical field experience as he coaches prospective franchisees toward business ownership. For his entire career, Albert has owned small businesses and has worked with small business owners. He and his family have been able to personally experience the benefits of small business ownership and having the ability to control your own destiny. His first foray into entrepreneurship started at 18 when he launched an online e-commerce business. After exiting that business, Albert then started a second small business at age 22. That second small business began as an individual location and then grew into a 60+ location franchise company. Since then, Albert has been involved with many other small business ventures. Albert is passionate about entrepreneurship and how it can help individuals create a lifestyle of freedom and wealth. He is a graduate of Rutgers University. Albert lives with his wife, Teressa, two daughters, Emory & Lainey, & dog, Nacho, in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

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 out there. Welcome to all of our listeners. Welcome to today's episode of franchise Friday. My name is Melissa Pang. I am the member relationship strategist here at the entrepreneur source. And I'm so excited to have Elbert Herman's here with me He's the VP of franchise development over at floor coverings internet. The flesh live guys, this is real big deal if you're listening. Yeah, Alvarez here. We're sitting next to each other. Yeah, and this has this has so many COVID jokes I can make right now. But I'm staying away. Yeah. We're moving on. We're moving on from those. And I shouldn't This is the first time we've done like a live franchise Friday. Yeah, so congratulation. Yeah, absolutely. Happy Friday. Yeah. So everyone, Albert's a serial entrepreneur. He'll tell you more about it. But he found his way to floor coverings international as part of the operations team. And then he shifted over to the franchise development side. And now Albert and I have worked together for about three years now. And the upfront resource floorcoverings International, we've built up a great relationship. I do give big kudos to you for for doing that. Which we can we can talk through but introduce yourself to the people. Sure. Well, hi, happy Friday. So let's see who am I? I am Albert. I lead our franchise development team here at floorcoverings International. I've been with this particular organization for a long time, over eight years. So like that's like high school and then college. That's like two four year clips of what it takes to graduate get diplomas, to diploma use two diplomas. And that's a long commitment these days. I don't think I've I've never made that much of a commitment, the longest time I've ever been doing one particular thing because I've only ever owned my own businesses. That's kind of what got me into franchising. So I started a business when I was in college. I was dumb and lucky to start a business, but then to learn what the power of business ownership was when I was 22 years old, and I had somebody want to buy a business that I started. And so then I realized, Okay, well, in my career, I don't have to be on a bus or a train, like so many people that live in our neck of the woods, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, like, you don't have to go into Manhattan every day, and you have to spend four hours killing time. So I started my next small business after that, that's how I got started into franchising. So myself and a partner grew one particular location, a fitness brand, to roughly 65 franchise units before I joined floorcovering. So franchising small business ownership, that kind of local business ownership is something that I've only ever really done. So I don't really know much else. So like you maybe just end this conversation now. Entrepreneurship, and franchising is key. All right, people, that's all you need to know. But I do think it's really interesting that you kind of fell into the startup entrepreneur space, and then found franchising. What was it about franchising? What was it about your your prior experience being a small business owner? You built something that became a franchise? And then you found for Cummings International, like, what was it about franchising that sparked? Well, I think so. So the, there's a couple different ways that I could maybe answer this, but I'll do it two ways. So number one, the fitness brand that I started was all about helping people change their lives through fitness, nutrition, and motivation. And it was all about giving a great experience to the client. And actually helping them change the way they looked and felt about themselves, which that business was doing so well, the way that we chose to scale it from reading textbooks and going to online webinars and whatever was bought through franchising. And then immediately once we started learning about what it would take to be a good franchisor there were so many parallels to coaching and fitness and caring about somebody's goals and what makes somebody a good fit for your program versus not kind of a similar to a good franchisee in a franchise organization. So, that was one thing that kind of just clicked in automatically. And then the it's interesting, the the path that led me to floorcoverings International is very similar to what I think a client of a franchise development person would go through. Because somebody's leaving their job or leaving something that they found security in or maybe not looking for a business that they can own because they want to follow systems that had been laid out before them. And for me when I joined floorcoverings internationals. This is I was in my late 20s. So even though I started a couple businesses, I was looking to join an organization where I can go and learn and follow in the footsteps of people that have been there done that before have had chop half chops in the industry. And I mean, certainly floor coverings are actually being part of a publicly traded organization, the same people that, you know, built brands that we all know as consumers like California closets, and CertaPro, painters, Paul Davis restoration, I mean, they're leading this organization. And so that's why I chose to come here, and I still kind of am able to work with my passion to helping people get into business. I know well, that's what I love about franchising is it, it takes so many different pieces of from older, it's not just like an industry. It's not just the quick service, restaurant industry or profit and revenue and all these different things. But I think people can look at franchising and think about that, it's you're talking about, okay, you take client experience, you take helping people giving back, which is part of your former life, you weave that into franchising. Now you're not in fitness at all your flooring, your in home services, but you're still taking the pieces, from prior life, knowledge skills, all those things and putting it into practice, in a completely different industry. For sure. Yeah, I know, to be dangerous about flooring and home improvement. Now, we don't need to put in a new floor here, don't want me to do anything, or even change the light bulb earlier. But like prior to joining like floorcoverings International, I didn't even own a home. So I didn't know the first thing about what it was like to have a contractor come to your house and deal with the, you know, the who's showing up late and who's not showing up and just the kind of the standard image that people have when they get their home remodel. Like I didn't even have that to relate to. But the thing that I latched on with floor coverings though was again, it was franchising. It was helping people it was helping small business owners. And whether you're in a flooring business or you know, a different business. There's local marketing and lead generation and conversion and it just the maybe the the widget might change. Yep. But those skills I had learned really well. And here's the thing too, and this is what's awesome for club potential franchisees is you didn't need to know about the flooring, because the systems processes products are already in place. So even as you know, as a potential franchisee someone exploring any franchise concept, but let's take floor coverings International, it's fine. You know, it's it's probably was better that you don't come with all this prior knowledge. It's absolutely better. Yeah, we would prefer folks. That's, you know, I wouldn't say prefer, I say what would be more normal would be somebody that becomes a franchise owner. floorcoverings International has no industry experience whatsoever. They might have like remodeling or they might like to do projects in their house, but they wouldn't consider themselves an expert at all. And so that that's a good thing, because the whole old dog new tricks. That's real. It is real, it is real. And yeah, it's and I think it's exciting when you can have people from all different walks of life, all different backgrounds, it doesn't matter. They can all come in and follow the same system. And you know what's so interesting is we are in this franchising community. We're in the franchising world. So we love it. But I talked like I just had a conversation with one of my friends yesterday. And he was like, Melissa, like what he really he asked the same question why franchising? And for me, I'm like, Well, why not franchising? Like, it's just make sense. But I love the education around being able to educate people about what actually are the benefits. And this leads me to like the myths around franchising. So there's a few that we hear all the time, what are maybe some myths that you hear, I'll throw out a few. Again, I don't know nothing about the industry, I have no experience. I've never put down flooring in my life. I can't be creative, because it's a franchise, and they're going to tell me everything that I need to do. Maybe those are some myths, you hear maybe there's some other things, how, what are they? And how do you have a discussion around that? How do you deal with that? So that they are myths, the things you said, so I like the whole no industry experience, like I mentioned, like, that's, that's a good thing for a lot of franchisors, they're actually looking people that don't have industry experience that have more skill based types of things. Right. So for us, you know, and I'll speak for us, but I know every brand has their own. You know, we want people to have leadership skills that are comfortable building a team of three to five employees minimally, and then leading that team as well. So that's more so important than if you know what underlayment goes underneath this particular hardwood or not, right? I mean, it doesn't even matter. We could teach that that's the widget, right? And then the, the other myths that you'd mentioned, which was what was the other myth that you mentioned, which was, you know, not being creative and owning a franchise like so. I think it's people have that myth because they think of McDonald's, like and honestly and what I'm about to express about McDonald's could be not true. Okay, but I have I have this perception about if I own McDonald's, like everything is so tight, that if you turn over your left shoulder instead of your right shoulder to take Get the fries from the fryer into the little fried bin where they pour all that salt on it. Like that's wrong, like so like, that's my perception of McDonald's systems like it's right or wrong. In most franchise brands, it's not like that. Here's the playbook, here's the technology, here's the product, here's the selling system, here's, but based upon your particular skill sets that you might have entering into whatever brand it is that you choose, you might operate a little bit differently than I operated. And that's okay. And because we all have different backgrounds, experiences and skill sets, and that does allow you to have even though it's the same system in business, your own flavor, yep, 100%. And this is why I think it is so important for franchisors to have great validation amongst their franchisees and for potential franchisees to take time to validate with the current franchisees because that's when you hear all these different backgrounds, let's say and I've heard stories where you have a single parent, single dad, with with a few kids, he's worried about doing the business. And having been able to spend time with his family, he's able to go validate with franchisees who are who are in that exact same spot or who were in that exact same spot that we're getting with in the creativity part. But you can do the same across the board. I'm, I have a degree in engineering, how am I going to go into this? And you know, how do I put my own flavor on it, you go and talk to the franchisees who have done it who are with that background? You know what I mean? And I think it's, this is where I don't think we talk enough about community when it comes to franchising because the franchisees become a community and the franchisor does rely to a certain extent, obviously, they are the franchisor but on the franchisees for feedback and new ideas, and that's how your business grows. So I don't want to speak to that and how floorcoverings has been I think that's like the most under so if I was in investigating a franchise brand, the average person that would be in my position if I was investigating a franchise brand right now they're looking for what am I going to get as far as training goes from the franchisor? How are they going to help me how are they going to help me how are they gonna help me what oftentimes they don't look for which I think is a big mistake for somebody researching a franchise brand is of course the corporate support and involvement is very important. That's why you go into franchising, but also the franchisee network. So beyond the corporate team, the 100 shoe and a 300 however many franchisees a particular brand has how are they all interacting with each other how are they all helping and supporting each other but then also to your point how we're how we're then that that franchisee base, how are they interacting with the corporate team to help shape the systems processes and procedures and we're we believe that the best practices come from the field like and we build platforms for the franchisees to have little incubator opportunities to kind of iterate and come up with new ideas. So a floorcoverings national we have what's called a franchisee Advisory Council and the franchisee Advisory Council is an elected group of seven or eight franchisees annually they're elected by the franchisee base that represents the franchisee base on behalf of the base to corporate clinical corporate right I hate using the word no we don't we don't use corporate around here but but to the corporate office the head. Yeah, exactly. But the the franchisee Advisory Council has regular meetings with the corporate team to advise and you know, be a sounding board for new initiatives. But also some of the things that I that we do that I think is really unique and awesome. Is it for each of the deeper areas of our business. So whether it be marketing technology that particular merchandise to the products that we sell out in the field. You know, retention of salespeople at the franchisee level was a really important aspect of our business. We have some committees. So the subcommittee is involved more franchisees than just the franchisee advisory council so they can rapidly iterate and talk through common issues and dealings with that the franchisor having the field come up with better practices based upon their touch points with others in the field. And then we could bundle it up into a standard best practice across our training systems and things of that nature. So yes, best practices come from the field. And I feel like this all goes back to why franchising because I don't really know where else you're gonna find so that's so collaborative and again this comes down to validating with the franchise brands because not all are created equal I think floorcoverings International is a great example of a brand and a franchisor that values values very highly the franchisee perspective insights boots on the ground bringing that back to an encourages that. So not all are created equal. But I just really again comes down to like yeah, what are you looking for with the brand? Kind of lost my train of thoughts? Now, but anyway, I want to I want to just add to that, because you're that the power. So just like think about it numbers wise. So it a lot of people have the perception of franchising that the corporate office, right, the bad corporate corporate is going to tell me what to do, right? Which, okay, if you say a franchise organization of 200 franchisees, they might have 20 or 30 people in their corporate office. So those 20 or 30 people working 40 5060 hours a week, in this bad scenario, they're going to come up with the systems and the best practices for the field. Okay. Well, think about how many hours that adds up to have experienced that they can dictate upon to the franchisees whereas, if a franchise organization says that best practices come from the ground up, you have at least three or four or five, maybe employees at the franchisee level X number of hundreds of franchisees you have their years of experience, right, so multiply all those working hours. And that's exactly what those best practices are coming from so much more depth and time of experience when they come from the field, as opposed to a corporate franchise entity trying to dictate everything that happens out in the field, it's just so much better. And not to mention for all the franchisors out there for buy in from your franchisee base. It's so much more impactful when you're able to share that we got this from Mr. And Mrs. Jones, who's performing at XYZ level, as opposed to here's our initiative that you must do. It's not yet proven, or maybe we proved it. And once instance, it changes the entire dynamic and culture. Because we do at the entrepreneur sources. Well, we have a franchise Advisory Committee, and it is and it's also it's that back and forth. It's that collaboration between your franchisees and the franchisors, we say without successful franchisees, we can't be a successful franchisor. So you have to work together. And we bring initiatives to them, and they bring initiatives to us. So it goes both ways. And that I believe is a very healthy franchise brand. So we want to facilitate more than we dictate. Yes, we like to see more round tables than we do, you know, facing forward tables, right, like those that's really important. No, that's a very good distinction on that and question for any franchisors again, who are listening, and maybe they have this in place where they don't How did that start with a floor coverings International was very intentional. A franchisor franchisee Advisory Committee is quite common. But and then those little subcommittees was that more organic. counted that Yeah. So that so So I joined floorcoverings international over eight years ago. And when I first started, we had a franchisee advisory council. So that was in place, but then the subcommittee thing I want to say started maybe four or five years ago. So it was before COVID. But when COVID hit, we had a COVID taskforce that was part of a subcommittee, right, it was a really important initiative in our business. But um, that that was born out of I mean, we're part of a larger organization of brands, like I mentioned earlier. So I believe it was one of the better practices that another brand was was doing. And we brought it over to us. And that's where it came from. But I mean, again, it was just another opportunity for us to expand the way that we were facilitating learning and facilitating input. And I think the wider you can go and the more franchisees you can get involved in cohorts, let's just call them and opportunities to kind of roundtable the better off the franchise brand is. Yep. I like the analogy of more brown tables, as opposed to like the front facing kind of directives. Yes. For all people watching this video. If you're investing in your franchise brand, I want you to ask the brand, do they have round tables or front facing tables? And that's everything you need to know. And that should give you your answer. That's all that's all. No, it's very, very important piece of the puzzle that sometimes gets lost in profits and features and benefits. It really is like looking at culture community and that and that collaboration between franchisor and franchisee when you go okay, around myths sticking on this topic a little bit longer. And we're talking about, you know, future franchising, and all these different things right now. Economic the economy comes up, I'm sure a lot in conversations comes up at our main office with our franchisees across the board. What do you hear from potential franchisees? And how do you work with that? So right now, I mean, you hear a lot of uncertainty, right? I think it's if you fall, anything, the news, Twitter, you know, whatever channel you put on, or even just people in the grocery store chatting, right? It's just it's uncertainty. Is it good? Is it not good? What can we expect? Like then that's, and I think that for a candidate, that's a that's a more confusing time to be in. I think that in a rocket ship roller coaster in a kind of Upswing economy, obviously for somebody investigating and business opportunity That's a great thing. And then they wish they'd be, you know, in great position to invest in something. But also, if it's a for certain we are in a downturn, certainty actually is okay for people because they know what they're getting into. So the two one way, certainties good middle feeling that a lot of people are having around the economy. It is a topic that comes up a lot in a validation process. And the way that we handle it is, is just by saying, Listen, I think it was Jay Z that had this quote, men lie, women lie, but numbers don't. Okay. And so we just say, let's look at the data, let's look at let's look at the economic indicators that are really going to impact this particular business over the next three to five years, whether it's real estate trends, macro, or micro, what interest rates have done to the real estate market, but also what's happening home and home equity, how people might be more apt to spin in their home versus not like these are all things that are important to the remodeling business. But when you put the facts in front of candidates, they actually go, oh, there's certainty. And I can move forward, right. So you have to take the uncertainty and make it certain and facts do that. And then allow them to make decisions based upon that. So I think, again, right now, for everybody and friend, as you know, you're talking to candidates that are that are in uncertain economic times, and whatever you can do to make them more certain based upon data, the better results you'll have, I think weaving that the data with the client experience, it creates just this certainty on all fronts, where and this goes back to, we talk a ton about client experience, and you kind of meet the client where they're at. And right now, so many clients are in that area of feeling the uncertainty of economy, employment, jobs, financial security, like all these different things. If you can provide that client experience that meets them, where they're at right now, sort of pushing them through sales process, pushing them through, do franchising. This is just doing it, it's going to work. You provide the data, you give them a little bit more information a little bit more time, some space, you do coaching, we were talking about this before, but you you're coaching people on talking them through mindset and their perspective and their perception. And you're able to help them get through that. And I think that's really unique, because other people are just going around just in blind uncertainty and have no idea what's going to happen, or they're not addressing the issue. Right. Right. Right. So you have to address it, right? It's Yes, it's we're all living in the same world, we're all working the same headlines, we're all exposed the same social media. And so I think that the more that you can paint issues, read and call it out and be willing to talk about it and have data and facts to talk about. I think it also as somebody in a you know, in the franchise development position, it also gives you credibility as well, which is a good thing, because the brand credibility as well, not afraid to approach these things and talk about them. And I think when you just look at the big picture as well. And I know we keep coming back to why franchising, but I think you look across all these different sectors and periods of time, where just naturally you have ups and downs. It's just part of what happens. And you see, franchising has just grown over the long term. And yeah, and really is on there's no decision making it's learn like franchisees, you are candidates, you just take what you need, what do you want to learn? What do you want to ask? Ask it, that's totally fine. And as a franchisor be okay with people asking those questions and wanting to know and being uncertain, and it just takes all that pressure off? I feel so questions are a sign of engagement. Yes. And that's what we want. We want people to be engaged with us so that's a good thing. So bring out the question absolute bring out all the question about uncertainty. So but But overall, and bring us into again, on that positive note. When we look at future franchising, I think they just sent out like an economic report, but it's it is growing and I think actually coming out of 2020 and 2021 people are seeing a lot of growth from from before. Listen, I think people I think the American dream is to own a small business Yeah, but it's generally scary to invest life savings and not knowing about an industry you're not going to operate. So to go into a franchise business where you can have all the benefits of small business ownership plus have all the systems tools processes procedures network that we talked about, you know, throughout the course of this conversation. Yeah, franchising will always continue to grow Yeah, of course. Yes, franchisee will grow. And I do and I love that and was reiterate what you said were people they want certainty. So how can you take someone's uncertainty and create something solid for them and again, knowledge so we were talking about economy, but you take anything uncertainty around business ownership, uncertainty around an industry, uncertainty around how much money can I make your business right You give them and you you're able to give them certainty about it. Maybe they choose it, maybe they don't, but at least they have knowledge that they didn't before. Exactly. And that's, that's what helps they make an educated decision. Okay. So you have an interesting background where you started in operations, with work offerings. I mean, you have very varied background, but with floorcoverings, started in operations, and I've shifted over to franchise development and that more sales, I think that in just on the franchisor level, those two teams sometimes can work in silos, because there's a lot going on your franchise development, we're bringing in new people, we have to, you know, we're constantly wanting to bring in new people. And then you have operations team who now take on those people that the salespeople have signed on, and they're working on training and support. Those are very closely, they're very tied together, but I don't think they're always talking together. I don't know what your experiences with that and how you've kind of leveraged or if you've leveraged your background and operations to weave that into the sales experience. That was a lot. Oh, no, that's good. I mean, yeah, I think in general, in any business, manufacturing, business, sales, and the manufacturing people in the facility, they like they they're at odds, right, because the sales team is making promises, that's not necessarily founded on what the manufacturing team could do. So in franchising, it's just the development team and the operations team. But it really is sales in manufacturing, right? It's, you know, we're selling a dream, a vision, a product, and then the operations team really is delivering on it. So ultimately, whatever business there is, there's this natural kind of butting of heads, but I think, so as far as my experience goes, one of the things that I'm most proud of, of floorcoverings International is we really work hard to weave the two together, because at the end of the day, in the long term, not the short term, which sometimes it's easy to sacrifice, long term benefit for short term gain. But in the long term, and we try to get everything long term, having high performing franchise owners makes the development team job easier. So if that's our goal, then we have a lot of incentive to work with the operations team to understand who exactly is our right candidate? What are we willing to say works in our system in our model versus not, and then holding tight to that and the development process? So a couple of things that we do tea that, you know, kind of a light, but first and foremost, we don't. You know, it's not like when we get together one time a year at our annual conference, like it's like, I don't know, like that when the aliens meet the humans like, it's like, Oh, there's the operations team or the sales team. Like, we look for opportunities at least eight times a year where we get together live human to human with the operations team, because even though sometimes interests can be competing, at the end of the day, it's good for the teams to know that we're all still human together. And we're all on the same team working to achieve the same outcomes, right? So we have eight times a year at least, where we bring teams together on a bi weekly basis, our team of operations folks that works with our most got our less least tenured franchisees, the people that are going through the training program, and are about one year in business. We meet every other week, the sales team and the operations team meets. And we talk about, okay, what's changed in a training program? What are we seeing that's good in the training class, not good the training class, and then at the same time, kind of what is our funnel look like? So they can be prepared for, you know, people say, who's signing agreement next week, who signed an agreement two weeks, so it's every other week, it's it's built in process internally, so that we are we are talking and communicating. And then you know, myself and a couple others on our team, plus a couple others in the operations team, we also meet on a bi weekly basis as well, but in a separate meeting, to talk through across the system. So now, it's just not about the earlier franchisees, but across the system, somebody 30 years in business, again, what's working, what's not in the field, that way, I can bring that back to the development team. So it's, yeah, the more you get roundtables again, but the more you can have talking and communication to break down the silos is better and at the same time, kind of just keeping that end goal in mind which the end goal is high performing franchisees and the sales team understand the benefit of that. That's what's helped us know, I love its long term, because you look at it and we say it's like emerging franchisors emerging brands, you're you're not gonna make money off your franchise fees. It's your long term royalties, and if you have super successful franchisees, those royalties are going to be even better and just across the system, they talked about validation and all the stuff. So I love that you talked about how you do it. Because like on our side, we have Meet the Team days so we do it virtually now, which is worked out fantastic. So every single member of the at least from each team is presenting during meet the team and has a chance to interact with the candidates. And then we always do a pre Meet the Team day and we do a post Meet the Team day. And everyone who participated has a chance to say what they thought about the candidates. And if it's a, it's an it's basically an awards approval. But it comes from not just okay franchise development, we checked off all the boxes, good, we're done, we're sending them through, they sign the agreement down, here you go operations, it's very much a conversation. And we do have discussions where the operation seems like, I don't know that this person is going to be able to do XYZ, and we have a discussion about it. So everyone's on the same page, and it's not operations team and training going, Why is this person here? You know, or down the road? So I love that. Did you guys do the did you? Did you start implementing that? Were you they have floor coverings been doing that for a while. So a lot of these things, a little bit of both. So we've always had some type of cadence, and then I've refined it and kind of tweaked it and, you know, you know, we, at one point, it was very loose, and now we have more of a tight agenda. So like, you know, it's, it's just, you know, one of our core values is to practice continuous improvement. And that's just something that, you know, everybody talks about core values, and they just kind of say it, but it's something that we really try to live love it. Another reason why we love floor coverings International. Okay, and I will ask one more question. And again, this is more for franchisors who are listening emerging brands. stuff today, it was good. I know, I know it was, but that's just where it went. That's where the conversation went naturally. How do you we talked a lot about like your franchisee community, you got to bring in the right people. It starts with the franchise development team, long term, all of those things. How do you find the right people for your brand? Like? And is that something that changed over time, like when you first started working in franchise development, or the company had an idea to where it is now. So how do you attract those right people? And how do you figure out who your right person is? Man? Okay, so it's a lot there. I know. I'm queen of asking like 70 questions. I was like, 19 questions. So has it changed? Has your house okay, so how do you find out who your ideal candidate? How do you? How do you know? Right? Has that changed over time? Yep. And then how are you attracting that person to your room? Sorry, I had to raise that, because writing it down, everyone. All right. So so ultimately, so how do you know? So how do you know is go back to the field, right? And so I think it's in when you go back to the field, my encouragement would be you don't just pick the top guy or gal, or, you know, you have your top I like to say top third or top 25%. So, you know, of the top third or top 25% of a franchise network? What not, what's their background? Because to me, that also was not very important, but what skill sets do they have? What experiences do they have? What do what energizes them in the workplace, what doesn't give them energy in the workplace, like, so those are the types of things like that I would want to pay attention to. In for us, it has changed over time. So our model. You know, we've been around for 30 years. And you know, the friend home from a franchising has changed a lot in 30 years. And there are a lot of brands that are still like this, but called Legacy home improvement, which was our which is kind of a we call it main advantage, chuck in a truck, which for some people, that's the right business model. It's not a derogatory term, but you're buying yourself a business that, you know, you're the sole operator in which that's fine. And over time, you know, our vision is to build multimillion dollar businesses. And in order to do that, we need somebody that's comfortable building and leading teams. And so it shifted from, hey, I want to be in home improvement and have some autonomy, but really no direct reports, you know, keep this really simple to somebody that says, No, I want to build a team of people so that I can have lifestyle, freedom, equity, things of that nature, in the business that I'm building. And so that has changed for us over time. And I think that attracting these individuals has a lot. I mean, I said it very plainly, just now it's like, you have to say it, and then you have to stick with it. And then you have to communicate it if you know if you're a franchise development person, or you're a franchise brand, and you're working with coaches. And you have to be very clear, like, Hey, this is the type of individual we're looking for. And if somebody doesn't fit that mold, that's okay. Say they don't fit our mold and then have the conversation and have the conversation with the candidate. But I found that actually, the more we've been really clear about the right person for our business, the better candidates will get that more match that description. Then as we're saying, Oh, hey, listen to where this great home improvement brand says anyone that's interested in home improvement. Well, that's not really helpful to us or to even the candidate, right because The candidate looks at what our model is and goes, it doesn't resonate with me. So I, I think it's a, so if I just sum it up top third, but not background, kind of likes, dislikes, qualities, things of that nature has changed for us. And you just got to be really clear about it and stick to it. Yep. Okay. No, I think you, thank you for sharing that. Because I think it is evolving over time, especially if you are a newer brand. You're listening to this. And you're saying, Okay, I don't want 30 years, well, take start, you can take pieces of that, like, what kind of person are you looking for, that's going to fit in with the culture? Are you looking for some what the leadership skills are looking for these different things. And again, I'm not talking about qualifying out, when it comes to that, like, I'm just talking to like different qualities that you would want to bring into your organization. You can even look at, I would say like your home team, like what are some of the qualities there? And what do you really like what has worked and how can you bring in more people like that, and it is going to change over time, especially as you build build it up, your first few franchisees are going to be like your blue sky thinkers are going to be able to take risks and use it for things that might change over time. As you bring in more and more. I also like that you're using you're taking data from your, you know, your existing franchisees and you're putting some certainty into the, into the who you're looking for people like to be around people that are like them generally. Right? And so, you know, franchisors should look at their corporate team does that depict what they kind of would want out of a franchisee they just take a look at their current existing base of franchisees and realizing that the people that you're bringing into the organization that you're slapping their logo on their chest, they're going to be the people that will attract or repel the potential next wave of folks that join your organization. It's really important, because it all comes down to your franchisees. A lot of different fronts. Okay, if you were granted the choice to have more money, or more time, which would you choose? And why? Hmm. Let's see. I'm probably gonna get the unpopular answer, I'd say more money, because with more money, you can invest in assets to create more time. So that's, that's what I would say. I love it. That's like the three more wishes. Yeah. But that's what it would be. It would be I would be, I'd say yeah, if I had more money and more financial resources that I could invest in more opportunities to create more time for me and my family, so I would get the time. But start with the money and that's also a chicken or egg thing too. But yeah, that's my philosophical, but I'm good with that answer. There's no right or wrong, Albert. That's my substantiation. Well, thanks so much, Albert. This was fabulous. I just love that we got to do it in person. So that sounds real high five. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. And again, this is Albert Herman's with floorcoverings international