Big Talk About Small Business

Check Your Ego: Building a Global Franchise from a Frat House Kitchen

• Big Talk About Small Business • Season 1 • Episode 138

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Downtime is a profit leak, but over-complicating your systems before you even prove your market is an absolute cash killer. Many aspiring founders stall out because they believe the modern myth that you need an elaborate pitch deck, automated tech stacks, and millions in venture capital just to open your doors. In reality, real business traction is built on local, unglamorous consistency and operational clarity. We sit down with restaurant veteran and author Matt Friedman to break down how he took a simple concept and scaled it into a massive international brand.

We get into the tactical grit of launching a business from a fraternity house with a five hundred dollar investment, navigating the shift from single-unit operations to a massive franchise model, and the strategic framework of his "Wings to Wins" philosophy. Matt shares how early grassroots marketing tactics like door hangers outperformed complex strategies because they targeted the consumer directly. We also unpack the critical importance of finding a business partner who brings an opposite skill set to the table rather than cloning your own strengths, alongside the vital role of "innovation through learning" to protect your core product from shiny object syndrome.

The unglamorous truth of entrepreneurship is that you will make hundreds of mistakes, and perfection is a moving target you will never actually hit. True scale requires you to check your ego, acknowledge what you are bad at, and actively build tight relationships with your team, your consumers, and your vendor network. You will walk away from this conversation with a blueprint on how to run a lean operation, structure healthy partnership sandboxes, and leverage your supply chain partners to fuel long-term expansion.

Subscribe and tune in for new episodes of Big Talk About Small Business with Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Each week we focus on practical insights and real-world strategies to grow your business!

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Egos, Strengths, And Leadership Gaps

SPEAKER_03

As a CEO, a leader, an entrepreneur, you are not going to be great at everything. Sorry, you got to check your ego. Like I knew what I was really good at, but I knew what I really wasn't good at. And so I really, when I coach and work with some executives and founders and franchisors I work with, I really try to help them kind of establish, you know, what are you passionate about and what are you great at? And then let's fill in the gaps of what you really need to really build this company.

SPEAKER_02

All right. Welcome

Meet Matt Friedman And The Myth

SPEAKER_02

everybody back to another episode of Big Talk About That Small Business. And my co-host, Marcus Zwaiig, is slacking the day. And so he won't be here. He is moving his residential house yet one more time. Literally, I've never in my entire life met anybody that moves more than Marcus C. Zweig. I think this is the second time he's moved in about 12 months. And he acts like that's no big deal. But he's he's in the middle of boxing everything up and getting going. So I have uh once again carried the weight for the show uh and and keeping us going. But have no fear, folks, because I have a fantastic guest with me today. His name's Matt Friedman. And for anybody that is starting a business or is in the middle of a business, and you have taken the bait of that you have to raise a certain unsurmountable amount of capital to get going, or that you've got to have a bunch of investors, that you've got to have all these things happening to get going. You are about to have that completely countered with Mr. Friedman's story. It was a fantastic one, and I'm really excited to have him on the show. Matt, welcome. Welcome to the show, man.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Eric. And please don't call me Mr. Friedman. I mean, that's an insult. Maybe Matt the wing guy. I don't know. That's fine.

SPEAKER_02

Matt, listen, man. Just because you started your business out of a frat house doesn't mean you don't grow up and become a respected professional sir.

SPEAKER_03

You know? Well, I appreciate that. I think I have a wonderful story and hopefully a lot of great nuggets of information for the listeners. Uh, I'd love to give you a little background on my story if that's okay, Eric.

SPEAKER_02

Please do. Please do. Looking forward to it. Go for it.

SPEAKER_03

So

The $500 Frat House Start

SPEAKER_03

uh I went to the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, back in 1990. And I was a very typical college student, right? Lived in the dorm, joined a fraternity, then moved to an apartment. And so I understood the college consumer better than anyone. And back in the day, you could get Domino's pizza delivered, you could get maybe a local Chinese joint delivered. But I always felt that there was an opportunity to deliver additional items. I grew up as a massive wing fan, I still am today. And so I came up with this incredibly simple business plan going into my junior year of college, which was 1992. Uh, and the premise of the business was to be a delivery-themed wing restaurant that would be open late and service this lazy customer base, typically without a means of transportation. And the business model was really built on a Domino's pizza foundation, except we were doing authentic buffalo wings. So everyone, or there's a lot of people that come up with phenomenal business ideas, but how do you take that idea and actually get it to a beta test or to really test whether this thing has legs? And so one of the most resourceful things I did as a young entrepreneur is I lived in a fraternity house. That fraternity house had a full commercial kitchen. It housed 50 brothers. There were 150 fraternity brothers in the fraternity that were served breakfast, lunch, and dinner five days a week. And so I made my best sales pitch to my fraternity president and said, Man, I I've created this business plan and I need a place to test this thing out. And I said, you know, we've got this kitchen, it's got the walk-in cooler and the freezers and the fryers and the grills and everything. And so I love to tell the story of that Wing Zone started with a $500 investment back in 1992, and that is a true story. People always ask me, you know, what'd you do with $500? Well, number one is we had a telephone line installed in our fraternity house kitchen. I like to say that we were the world's first ghost kitchen, meaning people didn't know where we were. They just knew they could pick up the phone and call us and we'd, you know, deliver authentic buffalo wings to their dorm or frat or sorority or apartment. Then we had some simple menus and flyers printed, and for the remainder of the money, we went to Sam's club and bought some of our ingredients the wings, the packaging, the sauces, the french fries. And so with a very simple business idea, the premise of Wing Zone started in 1992 in our frat house kitchen.

SPEAKER_02

That's

Delivery Before Apps Existed

SPEAKER_02

crazy, man. So when how did you deliver it? Talk us a little bit about the delivery because that was ahead of its time.

SPEAKER_03

Really interesting question. Uh we used our fraternity brothers, right? Pledges, brothers. Uh, we used to pay them $1.50 an hour and $1.50 per delivery. Plus, they'd keep some of their tips. So we had a built-in labor force from that perspective. I was the one in the kitchen. I had a business partner, my fraternity brother. Interesting note, Adam Scott and I were business partners for 27 years as we went through the voyage of Wing Zone from the frat house to our first location to seven company-owned stores to franchising this model with 140 plus locations. So for the audience, this was not a simple road, right? There were bumps and and bruises and some of those things that I hope to share with everyone today. But uh 27 years from the first ideation to the exit in 2021.

SPEAKER_01

So he was a uh fraternity member with you when y'all first started?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, Adam and I are fraternity brothers. Adam was a year younger than me. Funny story I like to tell is I went to several of my fraternity brothers with this idea of starting this wing delivery brand or concept, and I got shot down by like the first five or six, and I finally went to Adam. I'm like, this guy seems like a smart dude. And, you know, I went to him, he's like, Man, I I'm delivering pizza for a local pizza joint. I can help you with kind of some logistics and how it works. And I was like, I always laugh because I'm like, Adam, how much money do you have to invest in this business? He goes, I don't have any money. I said, Good, I don't have any either.

SPEAKER_02

That makes you equal partners right out of the gate. That's right. So when you just a real quick question on that, whenever you would sell to your customers, would they pay for the delivery fee on top of their order, or was that kind of baked in?

SPEAKER_03

Remember, this is early 90s. The whole idea of charging for delivery or a delivery charge really wasn't there. Everything was free delivery. So we baked it into the product. I always like to share with people like we used to sell 10 wings for $3.99. And after midnight, we used to run 20 cent wing night. So every night of the week after midnight to get that bar crowd. So think about it that you get 20 wings for $4. I have some old receipts from back in the day. It's so funny. It's like you you you manually write their phone number, their address. There was no GPS. You you know, use a calculator to add it up. And you know, a lot of the orders were like $6, $550, you know, the orders were not like they are today.

SPEAKER_02

You know, man, I mean, I know this isn't the topic of our conversation, but I do think it's something to be said about it, especially in today's time with tech and AI.

Manual Ops And Flyering That Works

SPEAKER_02

Man, I mean, writing down orders, like you had a relationship with your customer, first of all, that was a lot more authentic. Second of all, you kind of understood what was going on in your business because you would hear it, write it down, like the physical writing it down versus all this automated stuff that might happen online. Like you knew really kind of at the end of the day, did you actually do pretty well or not? And then you could hear direct responses, you know. I mean, and there and not to mention there's just something a little bit more gratifying. It's like mowing a yard, right? You can see work getting done, you know, especially for the young folks out there that might be in their first business. Like, I mean, don't don't feel like you have to automate everything under the sun. Like, there is you're you have an innate desire to work with your hands and to process things hand to mouth. You know what I'm saying? Like it's I think and there there was something rewarding about that, like what you're just talking about, looking back to those old receipts. Like you can recall writing those things down.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I it's such a great point. I love the voyage we were on because we started in kind of the stone age and eventually evolved to all of the technology now. But you're right, taking that order with the with the customer over the phone, you knew, oh, Beatty Towers, you know, we got four deliveries going there, or we got this fraternity or this apartment. You knew where the business was coming from just because you were taking the orders. And it was just uh, I tell my son and and younger, the younger generation, like, wait, hold hold on a second. You took the order by hand, and how did your delivery drivers even know where they were going? I'm like, well, we had a map on the wall, and they'd say, Oh, I'm in, you know, uh I think it's over here, and they'd get in their car and hopefully get there.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean, but but on the same principle, this is like I think the big point to this is like if you're starting a business, like you don't have to get so technologically advanced. Because I mean that yes, there's a lot of value to that, especially on the scaling side, but that usually happens later. To get into a business, start a business low budget at $500. You can start very manual and work and find out your market. Because I bet you, whenever you knew, if you got three or four calls and you're writing down, you know that it's going to that hall that you were talking about, right? That certain dorm. And it's kind of like, well, we need to put more flyers out there because we could probably juice that. They love wings. Totally agree.

SPEAKER_03

And I'll tell you, one of our most effective marketing campaigns that we did for years was flyers and door hangers. So we'd go to a particular apartment complex that maybe had a hundred apartments, and we'd go hang door hangers on people's doors. And I will tell you, it was like clockwork. I knew that night we were gonna get five to seven orders from that apartment complex.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And it was like grassroots marketing, but that's all we could afford. Yeah. And I think that was just, I mean, I I love the story of Wing Zone and what we did because it was just such a remarkable story from incredible humble beginnings. I mean, the truth is this thing probably had a less than a 1% chance of actually making it. And I think that, you know, listen, through a lot of trials and tribulations, you know, we made it, but it was not an easy path.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. No,

Turning A Pop Up Into A Store

SPEAKER_02

that's right. Um so fast forward a little bit, you guys end up kind of really scaling out. Tell us about your scale-out story. Like how did that start happening? Where did you what did you get to?

SPEAKER_03

It's a great question because everyone or a lot of people can open a single business or a single location, but how do you really scale that business? First of all, I want to share with the audience that our business model was incredibly simple, right? We sold original bone in wings, french fries, and cans of Coca-Cola. We didn't even offer Diet Coke or Sprite. Just straight Coke. So we, you know, that's it. And so, and we had one of our unique things was we had seven different sauces, which we eventually called flavors. So simplicity to me is one of the cornerstones of a business, especially in its infancy. But after we ventured into the fraternity house, we knew that it would not be a long-term play. We weren't going to open wing zones through fraternity houses all over the country, right? So we were there for about a semester, and then I realized that we were going to need to take this leap to actually opening a real storefront, right? So we thought that we had this amazing success story. We had great revenue numbers out of the fraternity house, we were profitable. So we went traditional route. We went and marched into a dozen banks and said, we'd like to apply for a business loan. And here's our business model, and here's some of our financials. And ultimately they said, Well, that's wonderful. Can you fill out a financial statement or an application? And all we could put on there were zeros, right? We didn't have any cash or very little, we didn't have any assets, you know, we didn't probably even have any credit at that time. And so the dream of opening our first real storefront really kind of fell apart. Adam and I were both going into our senior year of college and we were going home for the summer, and I said, Adam, the only way this is going to possibly work is that if we find someone to invest in us, and those people are typically the ones closest to you, the ones that believe in you. You can say they're friends, but in for the most part, it's family. So we both went home for the summer and I said, Adam, you pitch your parents on lending you $25,000. I'm gonna do the same. And so we were it was not an easy set sell, so to speak. Uh my parents, I Adam and I both grew up in middle class families. $25,000 in 1993 was a significant amount of money.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And they set three stipulations for us, which I think really made us who we are today. Number one is we had to stay in school. We were a year away from graduating.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

We had to graduate. That was stipulation number two, because the reality is this business probably wouldn't make it, and we needed to fall back on another career. And the third thing that I thought was really important was this was a loan, not a gift.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

This was not something that was like, hey, go do this, and if it doesn't work, don't worry about it. It's like you're gonna pay us back at some point. So with

Family Loans And The Three Rules

SPEAKER_03

$50,000, we get back to campus that fall. And fortunately, we found uh an old restaurant that had closed steps away from campus. I mean, it was beat up, but it had some of the bones to it, right? It had the bathrooms and the air conditioning, and it had a hood exhaust system, and we went in there and kind of made it our own. And we opened in the fall of 1993. And, you know, I like to say the rest is history, but when you go from a fraternity house to operating your first real location, it was really an amazing learning experience. We were very fortunate that, you know, the term lightning in a bottle or, you know, you gotta have a little luck in business, but the consumer base really liked what we were doing. We had a great location. People saw the building and the signage. And uh, I know I'm dating myself, but we were doing about $12,000 a week, which is about $50,000 a month in business. And I will tell you that that was more money than we ever thought we could generate. So the business became a very profitable business. Adam and I worked that business day in and day out. We stayed in school. We paid ourselves $200 a week for the first two years we were in business. So think about humble living, right? Yeah. And we didn't just take all the profits. But in 1995, we went on a, we both had graduated and we went on a an aggressive growth voyage where we had opened six new locations, one per year in major college markets in the U.S. Um, and so that was really the the proof of going from one to seven. We built an amazing relationship with our core banker, and so they would lend us money for the store, and then we move to the next one, and so on, and so forth. I think for the audience, you've got to establish these lending partner relationships, and I talk a lot about that in my book. Without that relationship, we would have not been able to scale. And then

Scaling To Seven Stores With A Banker

SPEAKER_03

2001 rolls around and we decide to venture into franchising. You know, a little plug for you, Eric. I know you're about to get started into your own franchise business as a franchise, or I didn't know a lot about franchising. And so I did a lot of research and reading, and I really felt Wing Zone was a phenomenal franchise model. A couple checklists I look for, like, was the business profitable? Could we teach it to others? Can it work in different markets? Um, and so for me, that was the beginning of the franchising side. I will tell you and the audience that operating seven restaurants and running a franchise company are two very distinctive models.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

So I had to learn the franchising business, but we were in franchising for 19 years and you know opened over a hundred locations in the U.S. and in six countries. Well, I think I learned a lot about franchising. I'm a huge proponent of the model. Last thing I'll just say about franchising is it's not a guarantee of success, it is a probability or likelihood of success. You've got the model, the training, the supply chain, the technology, all the foundational tools instead of just starting your own. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, man, that's a uh a lot to unpack there, Eric. I know. No, it is it is.

Why Franchising Is A New Business

SPEAKER_02

I don't I'm I want to go back to that first store real quick and uh give give a sense about so you and and it's Adam, right? Who's your partner? Y'all you have basically 50,000 bucks collectively from your folks. You come back to school after the summer after raising that capital, and you said that you opened up in the fall of that year. So that like what that puts in my brain is is you came back to school, you found a location, you negotiated a lease, you moved in, you cleaned up, you polished it up, you got your supplies, materials, all this stuff. And within a couple of months, you were open for business. Fact. 100% fact.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and it's funny because I laugh sometimes when we leased our first location. I think the landlord said, you know, I'll you know, here's a lease, and you know, and I'm like, just I just signed it, right? I didn't read it. I'm like, just give me the keys and and we'll figure it out, right? And you know, it was lipstick on a pig. Like it was like it still looked like this old restaurant, but it had a wing zone sign on the building.

SPEAKER_02

You know, Matt, what I love about this stuff, right? Is I I've been reading uh Sam Walton's Made in America book, like over and over them for the last 60 days. I bet you I've read it 20 times in the last 60 days.

SPEAKER_03

One of my favorite books. Another great book, by the way, is um Tom Monahan, who's the founder of Domino's Pizza, wrote a book many years ago called Pizza Tiger. And it's another phenomenal story of I mean, Domino's has 15,000 locations throughout the world. Like what a what an amazing brand. But it reminds me so much of Made in America.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know what I love about that, and you're and you're we're talking about the dirty details here, is like, I mean, Sam Walton running around in the 50s and 60s. I mean, everybody thinks it was perfect, well orchestrated. I had attorneys all the time, I had all this capital, things were figured out. I'm a merchandising genius, you know, from day one. It's not like starting a business is grinding. It's getting in, you said lipstick on a pig. It's always lipstick on a pig. You know, this whole paradigm shift that we've had in business in the last decade that I've watched is trying to make a business beautiful before you even kick it off the ground. All the learnings happen in the grind in the grind of the business. That's how you know, and it just kind of stacks and stacks and stacks, and it gets better and better and more refined. You know, and and what I've had a problem with, Matt, over my course of years of business is that I'll have folks that might join a small business that come from established companies, and their expectation is that we've got things figured out, but they kind of come into a lion's den, you know, and it's like and I'm and there's like such a disconnect, you know. I'm like, no, I mean, like, what do you mean you're you're you're worried about our direction of the company? I'm like, we're living the direction of the company. There is no grandiose.

SPEAKER_03

You gotta make payroll.

SPEAKER_02

That's it, man. Yeah, you know, obviously.

SPEAKER_03

You gotta pay your food distributor. I I think I think analysis paralysis sometimes is accurate too. I I think

Perfection, Focus, And Learning First

SPEAKER_03

as as young entrepreneurs, you strive for perfection. And let me be honest with you, you never get there. I I had built 140 locations and we never got to perfection, ever. Right? I I will tell you that the first three stores we opened were oh my god, what a learning experience. It wasn't until we got to store four, call it almost four or five years after we opened the first store, until we really said, okay, we have the model, we understand how to do this and replicate it. And so that was, you know, I I talk in my book that we'll mention, I have an acronym called WINGS to WINS. And I talk a lot, the WINS has an acronym, but the I is what I call innovation through learning. Too many business owners try to innovate from the beginning without learning a lot about what that innovation takes from your consumer, from you know the outside world and some of those things. Like we didn't just rush into you know online ordering or a loyalty program for our customers or um you know a multitude of different things in the business. Like it was a gradual play as you grow the business. Uh one of my weaknesses, I'll say it as a weakness. Uh, maybe some people think it was a skill, is I was an innovator. I was constantly looking at changing the model, tweaking this. And I think as I look back, that was a mistake many times. I I lost focus on what the core business was. I was trying to strive for perfection when I'm like, just do what you do really damn well, yeah, and don't worry about some of that outside noise.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So I think that's a another great learning experience. I think for me, I I I do love to share this story and and with people like yourself and your listeners, because man, I I can tell you the amount of mistakes that were made in in my career were were in the hundreds, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You you have to try to learn from those mistakes, but really lean on a mentor, a coach, an advisor, someone that's gonna kind of push back and say, you know, is that really the best idea for you? Is that really the best decision? Because as entrepreneurs, we think we're like the smartest people in the room and our decisions are always perfect.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I can tell you that they are not.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. You know, that's a that's an I don't know, my personal experience on that. It's

Gut Decisions And Real Advisors

SPEAKER_02

it's a it's an interesting balance, right? You kind of go back and forth as an entrepreneur because you also have to trust your gut a lot of times. But that's the the kind of the thing here, I guess this is a way good way to put it, kind of going deep with this. There's a lot of times that I have a gut instinct that I know I need to do something. Then I will reason my way out of it or I'll talk to other folks and you know, that aren't really what you would call what you just said are advisors or true advisors. They're just people that are in in my uh ecosystem. And then I'll reason my way out of it, or I'll emotionally get my way out of it, right? By by fear or fear of criticism is always usually my bigger blockade than anything. And then I'll talk to, you know, then I'll talk to an advisor and like resets me back to my gut, right? Or something to that effect. And so um, you know, but you that toggling back and forth is a is an interesting paradigm as an entrepreneur. Like you're always kind of at war with that. Should I, shouldn't I, should I, shouldn't I?

SPEAKER_03

You know? I think I think it's an interesting point, and I I like this conversation because as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a leader, one of your core responsibilities in leadership is to make decisions. I think these people that like toggle between do I do it, do I not do it, like sometimes you just got to take that leap of faith. And you're not gonna be right all the time. I think, you know, in general, I feel I'm a good leader. I've I've made a lot of good decisions. Of course I've made some bad decisions, but you stick with it. And one thing I always loved about Adam and mine's relationship was we did something incredibly different in in our daily roles, right? We were

Picking A Partner Who Complements You

SPEAKER_03

completely different in our skill sets. But and I was I was the idea guy, I was the decision maker, and he never beat me up about a bad decision. I think partnerships are really an interesting conversation for entrepreneurs. I happen to have loved having a partner. Uh he was more of the financial CFO type, legal technology. I was in operations and sales and and marketing, and we kind of in a way stayed in our own sandbox. But to me, it was a really great partnership.

SPEAKER_02

Mark and I talk about this a lot, and what you just said is exactly kind of what we see as a strength in a partnership. You you're yin and you're yang, right? You have uh strengths and weaknesses on both sides, but you you mentioned something really important that Adam did was he trusted you to make those decisions, and you trusted Adam about his decisions, like and you stay in your lanes and respect each other. You know, I mean, to be honest with you, like uh uh my previous business, the one that we exited, I had partners that entire time. There's zero way under the sun that we've been anywhere remotely successful had it just been me. Like I know that as a fact. There's been a million decisions. You probably do this with Adam too. Like you actually over time you want them to make that decision. Like you're talking about let Adam decide because A, it it's a tremendous amount of stress relief for you, you know, as a business owner, to be able to depend on somebody that you trust and that you know and you have confidence that they're gonna make the best decision that they possibly can, and you don't have to deal with it.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, and I think selecting the right partner is critical. I think if you have a bad partnership, then of course it's not gonna work well. Right. But when you do find the right partner, and I do really recommend that people don't clone themselves and say, I want a partner just like me. You need to find someone that has different skill sets and different passions and bring something different to the table. As a CEO, a leader, an entrepreneur, you are not going to be great at everything. Sorry, you got to check your ego. Like I knew what I was really good at, but I knew what I really wasn't good at. Right. And so I really, when I coach and work with some executives and founders and and franchisors I work with, I really try to help them kind of establish, you know, what are you passionate about and what are you great at? And then let's fill in the gaps of what you really need to really build this company.

The Book And Founder Takeaways

SPEAKER_02

It's great, Matt. Hey, Matt, I want to make sure we have enough time here to cover your you your book, right? You wrote a book. What's the title of your book?

SPEAKER_03

I mean, what else could it be, right? From frat house to franchising, the wing zone story. It's beautiful. And I think if people chuckle and they kind of hear the title and say, man, cool title, that's what it was, right? Yeah. We started in a frat house, we ended up becoming a fran successful global franchise. And I I will say this, I'm really proud of the book. I think it's it's the feedback I've gotten from people is man, you were really open and honest in that book. Like it wasn't just like, oh, it was success, and it was like the easiest thing in the world. It's like, man, you were really real about the voyage and business. Uh, part one is really the story of Wing Zone, right? From the Frat House to franchising to going international to the exit in 2021. And the second part are really the stories of what I learned. And I think anyone, whether you're starting a business, I definitely think it's skewed a lot to a younger audience because they can relate to those days when you were in college and had this idea, and maybe you don't have a lot of capital. But uh, and then last thing I just want to mention, just as a simple plug, is um I'm a big audiobook uh listener, and I I did the audio version myself, and I think it's just really genuine in how it comes out. And so I think for a lot of people, they like listening to the story, especially being told from a founder perspective.

SPEAKER_02

100% agree, man. I'm I'm a big listener, right? I mean, I I just I don't know, I feel like I can absorb it, you know, subconsciously even a little bit more. I mean, I, you know, as I'm doing whatever activities, it's like really convenient. But I always do appreciate when the author is reading the book because you can get the genuine expression, like you can really feel like that that you know, there's a better connection there and more authenticity behind the words.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So talk about, you know, interesting. Like I had to, I spent 14 hours in a recording studio over a course of many days and you know, recorded it. And, you know, it's it's just it's another cool experience. I think I guess one thing that I just as I reflect back on my career a little bit is I really had fun doing it. Like it was just a really cool experience, and I always liked so many different aspects of the business, the relationships you build with your vendors, your franchisees, um, just some of the funny stories that happen through it. And I think that also resonates well in the book about the fun times as well.

Teams, Customers, And Vendor Allies

SPEAKER_02

You know, Matt, uh, on that part, I don't think we've ever really talked about this, but I have a firm belief, you know, from my perspective, I'm starting up no new businesses because genuinely I like to be part of a team. I like to build things with a group of people. And work to me is is much more it's it's about your life experience with these groups of people. I mean, it's kind of like you know, I was in a fraternity too, back in college, so I can relate, right? But that group of people, when you did things, you did philanthropic events, you hosted parties, you know, you hung out, you were chilling. All that stuff builds these tight relations. It's the same thing to me when you when you start a business or when you're at work. You know, like there's people that I worked with my previous company 20 years ago that are just like some of the greatest people I've ever met, and they've impacted my life, and we have stories together. But I mean, is that kind of I mean, that's what I feel. How I mean, what do you do you feel the same kind of way about your experiences?

SPEAKER_03

I do. In fact, I keep in touch with a lot of the people that were core to our company's growth, right? The 17 people that were in my corporate office. I mean, we're having a reunion this summer to kind of get everyone together. And you know, listen, they're probably like Matt wasn't the easiest boss, and I get that, but you know, they're listening they they still respect me, and at the end of the day, I treated them as well as I could. But even the relationships with some relationship with a lot of key like vendors and suppliers and and those things, like those are really I I I talk about this in the book. There's three legs to the stool in kind of the the business model. You've got your team, right? You've got the consumer, and then you've you're always gonna have some key vendor partners. And they they they believed in us, and so they really bent over backwards to help us grow. And some of those relationships, whether it was our food distributor, our point of sale supplier, our sign company, our equipment company, the guys that sold us french fries or fresh wings, like I was all into like we are one team and we're gonna do this together. And they loved it, right? And I think that was really something that I still to this day feel like those relationships are lifelong relationships.

SPEAKER_02

Man, I really just took that in, Matt. I mean, you you gave me something to that I've that I'm immediately gonna change a little bit my perspective my perspective on as far as like the the value that three the third leg of the stool in that. I I really appreciate that because I haven't really seen it like that. Now, I can recall key vendors and partners back before in my business, and they were key, like looking back, but like existing today, I don't I haven't really thought about making sure that I've invest energy and time as the founder and entrepreneur into those vendors today, right? I do with my team and I do with my clients 100%, but there's another part of energy that I should really be contributing to that. That's really great. That's a great piece of advice, man.

SPEAKER_03

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02

I learned something, brother. I learned something.

SPEAKER_03

Hey, you learn something every day. I I promise you, I've been in business for I was in business for 27 years. I've been helping other founders, leaders grow their companies for the last four years, and I've enjoyed it, and I learned something every single day.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so

Coaching Founders After The Exit

SPEAKER_02

speaking of like, so you you had do you still like you wrote your book? When did the book get published? When did it get released?

SPEAKER_03

Just uh March, like a couple months ago. So it's brand new. I I spent uh a year writing the book, and really what I'm doing right now is I have my own advisory. I hate to use the word consulting, but I'm a coach, right? I'm a mentor, and so I love working with uh founders and emerging companies, primarily in the franchising world, right? But not just restaurants, right? There's home services, there's health and wellness, there's kids' enrichment, there's pets. And so I've built a nice little business where I'm doing something that I'm passionate about. I feel like I'm really helping other leaders and founders kind of uh grow their company or their brand. And so I think that's a little bit of kind of what I'm doing right now. I always like to reflect back. I didn't have a mentor, a coach through my through my career. And I maybe I would have been too hard-headed to even listen, but I really believe that every great entrepreneur, founder, leader, executive needs someone to kind of help them make the right decisions or avoid the wrong decisions.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And so that's really what I'm doing right now. It's my opportunity to give back and uh hopefully see a lot of these companies succeed.

SPEAKER_02

That's excellent. So that's what you're doing now. You and not to mention now you're a bona fide author. Right.

SPEAKER_03

Which is which is probably not a profitable business venture. It's more like, hey, I wrote the book and you know, and I want people to read it. But it's it's kind of a, you know, it it was also written because I think, you know, at some point my grandkids, I I have kids that aren't ready to have kids, but you know, hopefully they'll read it and say, Oh, my grandpa was a cool guy, and you know, he had he had a good story to tell. But yeah, I I enjoyed it and I'm yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's cool. Where

Where To Buy The Book

SPEAKER_02

do you get the is the book available at all the main channels, Walmart.com, et cetera.

SPEAKER_03

It is Walmart.com, Barnes and Noble. I even went to some independent bookshops, so and it's available in uh audio, you know, ebook, Kindle, and that sort of thing. And uh, you know, I think people will enjoy it. And if you read the book and you want to reach out to me and you know have a conversation about the book or your business, I am an open book, no pun intended, but I want to help people. That's really my main focus. I'm even gonna help you, Eric.

SPEAKER_02

I know, man, and I'm gonna take you up on it. We were talking right for the show. I mean, and I'm I'm I'm as greedy as they come. I mean, I will absolutely take you up on it, man. You have to. That's what you're looking for. You're looking for somebody that's kind of shameless and greedy and wants to ask questions, and maybe I'll listen to something, you know?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

You know, all right. This has been, I'm sorry, I didn't want to cut you off, but well, yeah, but one one thing is at the very beginning of the show, you said a key word for me here in northwest Arkansas, where we're at. You said Sam's Club. You and Adam went to a Sam's Club and you'd buy the ingredients. That's their their home base is here, them in Walmart, right? And so just shout out to Sam's Club, samsclub.com for all your small business owners' needs. Just like Matt. If you buy at Sam's Club, you can have a major franchise and have a successful exit as well. You know, I bet Sam's Club loves that promo, you know. I mean, that would be great. I mean, you can't even spend enough on advertising to get it shout out like that. By the way, they're not in the.

SPEAKER_03

And it was also just because I was ignorant, I didn't know how this whole business worked. I thought every restaurant went and went to these warehouse clubs and bought their, went down the with their buggy and filled in their carts and everything else. But for me, it was perfect because we could, and it's funny, we would like we were crushing it back then. Like we would sell out a product, close up shop. The next day we'd go load up again, sell out, load up again. So it was a true, like we were living on the cash on hand type of model. Dude, I love it.

SPEAKER_02

Writing stuff in paper, taking cash. You probably got hard cash too, right? Because that was a little bit before credit card swipes were around. Cash and checks, run to the bank, deposit, go to Sam's Club in the morning, stack up on your one drink of Coca-Cola, you got some frozen fries. That's beautiful, man. I mean, that's simplicity. I love it. I actually, you know, my my next exit, I might just get a little get a little bit uh dirty again as far as like just raw kind of business. It's just there's something fun. Like I clean the windows. It's just me and maybe one other person, right? And just just grinding at it and see what happens, man. I love it.

SPEAKER_03

I love it. Simplicity. So I've really enjoyed this, Eric.

How To Reach Matt Friedman

SPEAKER_03

You're you're a great host.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, man. How do people get a hold of you, Matt? What's the best way?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so I have my own website, mattfriedman.com. I'm on LinkedIn. And obviously you can you know check out my book, but I'm around. I live in the Atlanta, Georgia market. And uh please, any of the audience, feel free to reach out to me. I'm not one of these people that'll be like, nope, I'm not answering you. Um, so I think that's a little bit of where I am in my life right now.

SPEAKER_02

I hear you, man. I love it. Uh, and that's Freeman F R I E D M A N. All right. Well, check them out, folks, on LinkedIn. Get a hold of Matt. He uh, man, it's been a great, great guest. Thank you. Congratulations on your success. Congrats on your book. I know that's a big lifetime achievement. Your grandkids, your kids are going to appreciate that for sure, as well as other folks that are looking to drive their business. This has been extremely helpful. Aspiring entrepreneurs, small business owners. Again, you don't have to be the best pitch deck raiser and raise $2 billion to get your business going. Just start getting at it. Get some advice and some consult from folks like Matt that have been there and done that. They can help you along the process. This has been another insanely excellent show and episode of Big Talk About Small Business with Eric Howerton, No Marks Wag. Thank you very much for joining us today. Matt, thank you so much, man. It's been a great, great, great, great time.

Listener Questions And Closing

SPEAKER_00

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk About Small Business. If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com, and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business. And be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes, and ask questions about upcoming shows.