The Franchise Edge | Jeff Dudan

Join us for the latest episode of The Franchise Edge! In this episode, Jamie Adams, Chief Revenue Officer at Scorpion, talks with Jeff Dudan, CEO and founder of Home Front Brands. They discuss Jeff’s background in franchising, his experience with private equity, and his family’s value system.

Dudan has more than 30 years of experience founding, building, operating and exiting national franchise brands. He founded the restoration and environmental services franchise AdvantaClean in 1994 and grew it to 240 locations in 37 states before exiting in 2019. He is also the Chairman and CEO of Dudan Group, a catalyst for enterprise growth for franchised brands.

We hope you enjoy the show!

Transcript

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(upbeat music)- Hey, welcome back to the Franchise Edge Podcast, brought to you by Scorpion. I'm your host, Jamie Adams. And this week conversation with Jeff Dudan. Jeff is the CEO and founder of Home Front Brands. Previous to Home Front Brands, Jeff founded AdvantaClean. He sold that to Home Franchise Concepts. At Home Front Brands, Jeff wears a lot of hats. He runs a podcast called On The Home Front. They have a lot of interesting guests. Be sure to check that one out and subscribe if you haven't already. In addition to being the CEO of a franchise, Jeff is also an author. He's written two books, the first, "Hey Coach,"

the second, "Discernment: 0:40

the Business Athlete's Regimen for a Great Life Through Better Decisions." And we talk about a lot of things in this podcast. We talk about how Jeff got started in franchising, how he raised money and eventually sold AdvantaClean. He's got a great methodology on how to approach private equity opportunities. And then finally, we talk a a little bit about Jeff's family and the value system that they created together, which is how they make decisions as a family. I think you'll really enjoy the conversation. Jeff's a legend in the franchising space, and I really appreciate the fact that he took some time during IFA to sit down with me and have this conversation. In the meantime, if you wanna check out Scorpion, you can do so at www.scorpion.co. And we'll see you this upcoming spring at several conferences. I know we've got the next one, I think coming up between now and when you'll get, this is Young Conference. So in the meantime, enjoy this episode of the Franchise Edge, and we'll talk with you soon. Yeah, Jeff, thanks for being here today, man.- Oh, Jamie, happy to.- We're at IFA. I know there's no shortage of things to do and people that need your time. So for you to carve out 45 minutes or an hour with us is meaningful. We appreciate it.- Yeah, excited to do it. You know, this IFA event is something where you really get an opportunity to see what's happening in the industry, emerging brands, first timers.- Yeah.- You work these round tables and you see yourself 20 or 25 years ago.- Yeah.- And there's a lot of value.- [Jamie] Yeah.- In those conversations.- So how many, is it 20, 25 years for you at this event now? How many, how long have you been coming?- You know what? I have no idea how many I've been to.- Okay.- I've probably been coming consistently since 2009.- Okay, yeah, okay, got it. Now, you are, for those of you that aren't here in the room or never met you before, you are not a small guy, right? You're a little intimidating.- You know, I have big features.- Yeah, yeah.- I scare babies and stuff like that, so you know, but it's all right.- Now, you're a football player though, yeah? You were a football player?- Yeah, I played football in college.- [Jamie] Okay.- I got a wonderful four year degree in five and a half years over three colleges, so.- Okay, all right. I walked down to the University of Northern Iowa.- Okay.- In 1986 in Cedar Falls, Iowa. And there was some sort of a meeting at the end of the year between the academic and the athletic people, and they all decided that I shouldn't come back. So I, yeah, so I.- Like every great entrepreneur story, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The failure in the classroom. And eventually, like it didn't matter anyway.- Yeah, when you're out of all other options, you have to start your own business. So, and then drop back to a junior college kinda football factory, Harper Junior College.- Oh, yeah, of course.- Palatine, Illinois, just right outside in Chicago, Chicagoland area.- Yeah.- That's in Arlington Heights.- [Jeff] That is.- I have relatives in pal. My third cousin used to be the sheriff in Palatine.- Oh, seriously?- Yeah, dead serious, it's crazy. We didn't know this before right now, but yeah.- Nice.- That's insane, yeah, my grandmother is Midwestern. My grandfather played pro baseball for the Braves in Milwaukee back in the fifties.- Okay.- And so he met my grandmother who was from, near Madison in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.- Okay. And her, all of her family lives in Lake Arlington Heights, peloton. That's crazy.- Nice.- It's very similar. So my brother lives in Mequon.- Okay.- Which is right outside of Milwaukee. My dad went to Platteville and got an engineer a degree. My older brother went to Platteville.- Okay.- And then I kind of broke the tradition, and I decided to take a flyer and go to Appalachian State University. So you take a Chicago guy.- Oh man.- And you go out to the top of a mountain in Boone North Carolina, and everybody has to adjust. It takes a little time. But it was a great decision. One of the better decisions that I made in my life, things happened for me when I got there.- That's awesome. A guy on our team, Kirby Oscar, is an Appalachian State guy.- That man, we're winners. We know how to win at App state.- I know you do. And you've had some of the greatest upsets in college football have happened.- That's right.- With App State in the last several years. So that's awesome. So you, you started, if my research serves me correctly, kinda your first foray into what became your franchise and career started because you pursued an opportunity in Florida. Was it painting houses or painting? Do doing some type of student painting or a student home painting? Was that in Florida or was that in college?- That was in college.- That was in college, okay.- Yeah, so the three things that happened to me, when I got to App State, first thing that happened was I met my wife. I mean, immediately when I got there. You know when the student is ready, the teacher appears. She took on the project. It was a project at the time. So it was.- I didn't even remember this, when the student is rep, I'm 43 years old. I'm still not ready yet. Is that what you're saying? I mean.- Well, I, you know, you know, she was, she had this ball of clay to work with. So we're together 35 years now.- [Jamie] Wow.- Married for 29 of it or whatever. But we have a lot in common. One of the things that we're both passionate about is we're both constantly working on me.- [Jamie] Okay.- So, and then, really, I got serious about academics.- [Jeff] Okay.- And then I started the painting business where we recruited players that were taking classes over the summers. We had met the people that handled the student housing apartments.- Yeah.- And we put together a crew of basketball players that could cut in the ceilings without a ladder and wrestlers on the base moldings and football players rolling the walls. And we'd 15 to 20 apartments in a day.- What led to that? Like you're, this is your third school.- Yeah.- You mentioned the failure at Northern Iowa where you're like, they didn't want me back. I wasn't performing in the classroom. You get serious about your studies. How did you come up with an idea of I'm gonna start this painting business and I'm gonna employ a bunch of athletes?- Yeah, well, so I was in love first of all. So I wanted to stay. There was really only food service in the college town, and, you know, I didn't have the support at that particular moment in time to be able to, you know, football scholarship's great during the season.- Sure. But then, you know, you've got kids that don't have means over the summer, sleeping in equipment rooms and everywhere at these universities so, yeah. So, you know, and I've learned, you know, oftentimes entrepreneurs are screwed into existence. Like they just don't have another choice. So they've gotta find a way to make some money. They find something that they did for me. I worked the trades growing up in Chicago.- Okay.- So I worked construction, flat work, concrete, moving in storage. And I worked one summer for a painter, and I learned how to paint. It was a really good painter. It was just like me and him on the crew.- Got it, okay.- So I learned everything, on how to talk to customers, how to sell, how to estimate, how to do, I mean, observationally. I mean, I was, I was hauling stuff from the truck.- Yeah, yeah.- But, so I talked my roommate into starting this painting business. And first summer we did some houses for the people that worked in the football office- Okay.- And some other projects that we were able to get ourselves into. But we met these people that had all the apartments for the students. And the next year we did, my partner and I, I think I remember we split $76,000 and- Wow.- 1990 dollars. and really just working a four to five week period during lease.- That's incredible.- Yeah, it was really good. So kind of the entrepreneurial bug kind of, kind of bit me at that point.- I want to catch back up to where you are now, but I do think some of these things are so foundational to what success, what leads to success later on. In that first endeavor, what did you personally find the most difficult? Was it getting out and like selling the fact that making people aware that you were starting this business and that you were looking for customers? Was it the actual execution of the job itself? Like, what was the hardest part in that early opportunity?- It's funny you you say that. I remember being so darn excited about it. I was going to school. I was in the business college. So I was taking accounting classes.- Okay.- And I was taking marketing classes. So I was taking everything that I learned in school, and I was translating it right into a business that I was building literally out of the classroom, out of the textbook into my business.- Got it, got it.- So that connected the dot for me as to like, well, because you're in school, it's like, you're working hard on this stuff. Like, when am I ever gonna use it? Well, I'm gonna use it next week.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- So that's one the things I say is everybody needs a side hustle.- Yeah, that makes perfect sense.- You build a business. I've got a. My youngest is 19. He's built multiple little businesses. He had a pressure washing business called Two Bros and a Hose.- Yes. That's great branding right there.- Well, dude, I went to get a trademarked. I must have said it, because I went to get the trademark like a year later.- Okay.- And somebody had just filed for the trademark on that name.- Wow.- I don't know if I had said it on another podcast or something like that. But I was like, they took the name, but, yeah. Or printing, you know, 3D printing and he created a business, he worked at HobbyTown. He created a business where he designed aftermarket parts for RC cars that just came out.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- And then they would cad them up, they'd print 'em on 3D printers and they'd sell 'em on Etsy. So.- Wow.- You know, so like, the things you learn from a business being really gamey. I don't remember how I got to that, but.- Yeah, yeah, no, you're talking.- [Jeff] Please pull me back in, Jamie?- No, we were just talking, we were talking about like, everybody needs a side hustle, you're talking about.- [Jeff] Yeah.- Some of the things that your son has started as well. You did make an interesting point.'Cause again, you going back to, you know, when you got to App State, a few things happened. One, you met your wife immediately, two, you got serious about schooling. And that part, do you think that that that entrance into entrepreneurship at that time and being able to immediately apply the schoolwork to the job, did that help the engagement of you being engaged in the schoolwork itself?- Yeah, look, three legs to the stool, like anytime, it's funny, anytime that you see something that is transformational in somebody's life, or even in the world, there's usually like three points. So I've been in the fitness industry a little bit.- Yeah.- Fitness, nutrition and accountability. Those are the three legs to that school. Inflection points in your life typically have three things. Number one, they have people involved, people that you care about, people that you're responsible for, people that you wanna be around or you wanna do something with.- Yeah.- The second thing is, is there's a great adventure at hand. There's something new, there's some upside, there's an opportunity to do something really cool. And the third thing is risk of loss. You always have to give something up.- Yeah.- To get something, to go for the ring of the brass ring of something better.- Yeah.- I was having lunch with some really great technologists today, and they said when they pitch to private equity or investors, you know, it's gotta have three things. There's gotta be the wave, there's gotta be the surfboard, and there's gotta be the rider. So the wave, the wave is the momentum. It's the market demand. It's this confluence of things that are gonna happen in the marketplace.- Yeah.- That based on the trends and the needs and consumer that are gonna create this momentum of things that can transform an industry and are gonna create a new way that things get done. The surfboard is basically the product, is the solution for it. And then the riders are basically, do you have the team to get this done?- Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. And you were talking about your three pillars a moment ago. It reminded me, there's a book written by, I can't remember that. He was a psychiatrist. He was a Jewish guy in the Holocaust. He got, he got brought to one of the concentration camps and he lost like his entire life's work. Like he had been working on his thesis or his doctorate, you know, something equivalent to his doctorate. He wrote something.- I mean, it's not Viktor Frankl.- It's Vitor Frankl, yeah.- A "Man's Search for Meaning?"- That, yes.- [Jeff] Yeah- I felt like that aligned, like his, his three principles kind of align with your, with your three pillars a moment ago that you were talking about. You've got the painting gig, you get done with college.- [Jeff] Yes, sir.- And then I know at some point Hurricane Andrew, was it Andrew in Florida?- That's right, yeah.- And that brought you to Florida? Or you were already in Florida?- Yeah, so what happened was, is, so. You know, I grew up and the way the situation was at our home, I had a younger brother. He was going to the same junior college that I was going to, kind of resources at that. It was kind of a tough time in our family. So resources had kind of run out.- Yeah.- And so what I had him do was I had him come out and get his driver's license.- Okay.- In North Carolina, go back home, finish out his second year at school. Now he had his license for a year, and he was able to come out to Appalachian State and get in-State tuition.- Okay, ah, yeah.- Yeah, and then he took over the painting business. I had bought a house, owner financed a hundred percent, from somebody who sold me a house that had a really bad water problem that they didn't disclose. So, you know?- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- But so he lived in the house, put himself through college, took over the painting business, and he ended up going to Arthur Anderson doing public accounting. And then from there, they had their little paper shredding incident.- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.- I was at Deloitte right after that. So, yeah, I was pretty much everybody. Our Deloitte office in Tennessee were ex Anderson guys.'Cause Anderson got shut down.- That's right.- And the whole Enron thing.- I think he might've gone to Deloitte for a hot minute.- [Jamie] Got it.- But then he took a job with the Carolina Panthers and he ended up as their CFO.- Okay, wow.- And he was on their team there when they sold the team in 2018.- Got it.- Mr. Richardson, so anyway, that was a path there. There was a lesson learned inside of that for me that actually translated to franchising, that simply was that I could build a business and systematize it and give it to somebody else. And even as he was operating the business, that's what allowed me to have the cash to start AdvantaClean in 1994, when I got down there. I did go down there in 92. And my partner and I, it was the end of the painting season. I was waiting for my wife to graduate or my girlfriend at the time.- Yeah.- And the painting season was over, it was August 24th, was, 1992, was Hurricane Andrew, date of loss. I wrote it a thousand times down there. So we just went down, a buddy called that had painted and said, hey, we need all hands on deck down here. So we went down there, got some of our own jobs ultimately due to licensing requirements and resources. We threw in with a company for about 16 months, cut our teeth in that business. And then we moved up to Central Florida in 1994 just outside of Orlando.- Yep.- In Winter Park, Florida.- Okay.- Started the company that would turn into AdvantaClean, and then I would sell some 24 years and 11 months later. Moved there. I moved back home in, I moved to start our second location in 95. So the second year in business started our second location in Charlotte.- Okay.- And that went on and we became a good sized romp and Stompin disaster response company, government contractor working in a lot of VA hospitals, military bases, things like that. And then we did residential business in markets in North, South Carolina and Florida.- Yep.- Bought up my last partner in 2004. And first thing I did was I brought in some consultants learned about how to turn strategy. And we ended up with a seven page document that was basically three and a half pages, was how to build our direct business bigger. So we ended up buying campers, trucks with diesel tanks in it, some semi trucks, more equipment generators on wheels. And sure enough, preparation met opportunity.- Yep.- Hurricane Katrina.- Yeah.- Hit in 2005.- [Jamie] Yeah.- And we responded down there and did a, I guess a nine figure storm response over the next four years. And I was driving back in the middle of the night, and at this point, I had three small children and I was, you know, we were doing jobs in Hawaii and Canada and in the Caribbean and doing these storms. And I was home less and less, and I really didn't want history to repeat itself. And I was driving home to get home to my son's first football season, first football game.- [Jamie] Okay.- Or maybe it was the first one that I was able to get to. But, and I just made the decision through that inflection point in the middle of the night, that I was gonna sell all of my company stores under a franchise model and commit to that franchise model. So that's what we did. And we sold our stores in 2006, 2007, 2008, launched AdvantaClean right after the great financial crisis in 2009. And think about it, we were recession resistant, high margin complimentary services. Third party payer. It didn't look like big screen TVs. It didn't look like discretionary spend. It was definitely essential services.- Yeah, yeah.- Non-discretionary.- So all of those people that were looking for something stable, we were able to really grow very quickly in that brand up to the 240 locations.- That's awesome. How did you, had you done research in franchise before you decided, you made that decision at night that I'm gonna go down this path that you've been doing research or what led you to that point?- You know, one of the things that seems very commonsensical is that you can only make a decision based on the subset of things that you've been exposed to.- Yep.- Very few people can actually think outside of anything they've ever seen.- Sure.- In the storm, I worked for a company that was a dealership model at the time.- [Jamie] Okay.- And they had put together a multi-unit storm response, but I was watching ServPro, ServiceMaster, Pure Clean.- Yeah.- I was watching all of the franchise brands, and I'm like, well, this industry is basically franchised.- Yep.- So that was the path that we started pursuing in 2000.- Yep.- But we hadn't gotten anywhere. Number one, I had partners and we were going through our little, we had four that started the business.- Yeah.- So we're going through our little survivor of, you know, partners leaving the island every couple of years.- Yeah.- And the other thing is, lack of focus will lead to a lack of greatness.- Yeah, amen to that.- Yeah, and so we were not, you know, we were growing as a direct business. I had this franchise stuff that I had started on in 2000, but I really hadn't committed the resources to it. So I knew, I had done it once before in my career. We had decided to stop pursuing reconstructions and fire jobs and focus on our, what we called light environmental services, which was the high margin water damage.- Yeah, yeah.- The mold remediation, the duct cleaning. We did roll out some waterproofing services, but we couldn't grow those services because we were so busy doing the other ones.- Yeah.- So that was the days of the fax machine. One day I came in on a weekend and I wrote 33 letters to our 33 biggest customers. And I just informed them that we no longer did those services.- [Jamie] Wow.- And on the Monday I had the letters out.'cause you know, you keep the letter when it goes through the fax.- Yeah, yeah.- For all you kids out there. That's how it works. So, and I just laid 'em on the table, I said, and our business went literally 90% down overnight.- [Jamie] Wow.- And I said, we now have to do this. Now you don't have a choice.- Yeah, yeah, there wasn't that like thing to fall back on.- Nothing.- [Jamie] Yeah.- So that was an important lesson for me early in my career, which then I doubled down on that by selling all of our company stores under the franchise model later.- How did you come up with a name, AdvantaClean? Like, what was that? Tell me that story.- Yeah, do you know the story?- No, I don't.- Okay. So we started off as a company called Lost Control and Recovery.- Okay.- Which is a little wordy, but we were very focused on the insurance space.- Yep.- Over time, we became more independent. We even had some services that we were offering that were not insurance related at all. You know, we basically moved to anywhere that moisture gets 'em somewhere where it doesn't belong and creates, how do we say it, you know, impacts the the occupants.- Yeah.- Damages the building, whatever. So we had some moisture control services, like sealed crawlspaces and crawlspace markets. We did radon mitigation systems. So we needed a name that was a little bit, you know, more, you know, a little broader.- Yeah.- And gave us a little more flexibility in the services that we wanna provide. So I offered a $25 prize to somebody who could come up with the name in the office. And I did the old kind of Ben Franklin chart, but like with certain names on one side and certain names on the other. And I started crossing 'em up to see what made up word I could come up with that we could possibly get trademarked.- Yeah, yeah.- And so, basically, you know, we had great people. They worked very hard, tirelessly to come up with names. They presented them to me, and I had just picked the one that I liked that I had come up with.- [Jeff] So.- At least you're honest about it.- Yeah, I don't know. And I think I just bought lunch for everybody. But do you know. Guys off the $25 that I just.- [Jeff] Yeah.- I'm gonna buy lunch for all you guys.- Yeah, fied trout from the South 21 next.- What were the words? Like how did you come up? Like, what was going through your head like AdvantaClean?- Oh, you know, I actually, it's funny, I kind of remember, I don't remember yesterday, but.- Hey, that's how it works sometimes.- You know, I remember we had, you know, advantage.- [Jamie] Yeah.- Durable, Max, you know, all of the like, big strong words.- Yeah.- And on the back we had, you know, pro and clean and this and that and all the other things. And there was a Dura Clean and there was a Dura Pro, and there was a, you know, ServPro.- Yeah.- So you just basically take all the, all the different words and you just start mixing 'em up together and. And, you know, that one came out and maybe one or two others. And it's like, well, I haven't seen one of these.- Yeah, yeah.- That's what we wanted. It wasn't an exhaustive study.- Yeah, you didn't pay a bunch of consultants, yeah, yeah.- Yeah, we didn't commission a Madison Avenue firm to come up with it.- That's crazy, so you mentioned, you fast forward a little bit. Was it 24 years and how many months?- 11.- 11 months.- Almost made it 25.- Okay, and how long, I mean, at what point in the process did you start thinking about, hey, at some point in the x number of years, I'm gonna, I'm gonna to exit, I'm gonna do something else. Like where were you in the process where that started to kind of come front of mind?- Yeah, you know, it would've never happened would I have not joined YPO and gotten in a bigger room around, and it seemed like everybody in my YPO chapter had sold a business. And they, and I saw what life was like after.- Yeah.- So it was a combination of things, number one, you know, we were still growing, but I had done this business now for 25, 26, 27 years in total, you know, a couple years before AdvantaClean.- Yeah, sure.- And I didn't know how much more I could offer. I mean, it was just the same thing over and over and over again. And, you know, the market seemed to, you know, for,- [Jamie] Yeah.- I mean, it was a whole thing of deals.- Dwyer and Neighborly was happening. All these great multiple.- Deals were happening all over the place. I had been in one of my, my most transformative things was I joined a group called Vistage. Which is a CEO group for nine years.- Yeah.- Had an incredible mentor who was the president of Husk Farm in North America for 18 years.- Okay.- Grew from 29 million to 530 million through dealership network name, is David Zerefos. A lot of what falls outta my mouth, that's not a joke, comes from him.- Okay.- And then I got into YPO, which then took me out of my city and peers there, to people that had built international or global businesses. YPO is relatively high requirements to get into.- Yeah, yeah.- So the room was, the room was big and there, you know, I did meet the investment banker who helped us.- Got it. And who did you work? Which investment banker?- I used Boxwood. Yeah, I used Pat Gallagher. So I started looking at the optionality of it, and then I thought, well, if I'm going to do something else, I would be 50 when I sold.- Okay.- And that seemed like enough time to, you know, rebalance some things. Put some, you know, we had done well already.- Sure, sure.- But to basically kind of fill the buckets- Yeah.- And then to be able to step back and say, what do I want my, you know, second half to be.- Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. At what point in that lifecycle did you decide to go on Undercover Boss?'Cause I know that that was great for y'all's brand.- It was.- So were you already down the path of thinking about selling? Or was that before? Like where did that kind of fit in everything?- So we shot, we got a call in early 2016. It was season eight.- Yeah.- Somebody had backed out and they, and we had gotten a recommendation, I think from maybe 919 marketing. Okay, yeah.- And they had been gracious enough to give our name, and they contacted us and said, hey, we have a spot. But you're gonna have to film in two weeks. There's three inches of paperwork to get through. You're basically gonna have to, we'll come out there and we'll shoot a sizzle reel and we'll pitch it. Nine outta 10 of these get turned down by CBS. So don't get your hopes up. But if you do decide, if you do get approved and you decide you wanna do it, you're gonna have to do it immediately. And, you know, I think, you know, I looked at, we have a set of family values, right? And it's like, how do you make decisions if you have a set of family values and it's, you know, live fun, be humble, respect others, be a servant leader, never panic, trust yourself to take chances, fail fast, and move forward. Always do more than is expected. I think I got 'em all. That seems about right.- That's awesome. And these are family values?- Those are family values, right?- [Jamie] Yep.- So, you know, we basically, we got the offer to do it. And I sat the family down and I said, you know, this has an opportunity. You know, nobody really knew the scope of our business. We really didn't talk about it. We coached football in the side yard. One of the things when I franchised the business and I came off the road was I coached over 30 seasons of my kids' sports.- I read that, yeah.- And so, you know, and you know, but nobody, we practiced in the side yard of. We had a five, we have five acre campus. And they're like, oh, they let you do it here and stuff. I said, look, if we do this, you know, number one, it could go poorly because many of the episodes do. You don't have any control over it. And the second thing is, is people might look at you differently because they're gonna talk about the size and the scope of the business, and we're, you have to give away a certain amount of money. And so you're giving this stuff to these people and then nobody knows really where that money's coming from or how it works, but.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- But the, the implication is.- Sure.- But, you know, we just looked at our values and said, well, we have to do it. And I felt good about our franchisees. I thought that they, they were very values forward. We had a lot of relationship equity. They had to go to over 60 locations to find the candidates that was the right fit for them.- Yeah.- That had enough going on.- Yeah.- That kind of fit what they were looking for. I mean, we kept getting calls from the production company saying, where are you hiding all the crazy people? And I'm like, we don't have that many crazy people. So we did it and it was great. We had a long extended time on the road filming it because there was a couple of political issues that actually happened. So we had to go from one state, they didn't want something filming in one state.- Oh, wow. And go to another state.- Okay.- Which is a little when the network might like, not wanna show it.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- All that kind of stuff going on. But ultimately, when it aired, I mean, they said at the end of it that you guys have five episodes that, you know, most of the other shows would kill to have.- Wow.- Because they usually get one or two good ones.- Yeah.- And it's like more time at the dog park with the family or something.- Right, right, right.- So we threw one out. I got busted twice. Yeah, they threw one out.- Okay. And then we had four really great meaningful situations, storylines on there, and ended up, and we saw it the first night, you know, 7.1 million people watched it the very first night. That was the first time we ever saw it. I watched it the next day. And I haven't watched it since.- Wow. Did that, I mean, did that just impact like franchise development, consumer marketing, like how did that, because I mean, at the end of the day, it is a marketing channel too, right?- It is.- I mean, it's telling your story, but it's a great marketing channel. Like, so what were some of the downstream impacts of the business? Just nuts and bolts from franchise sales or getting more, you know, picking up more customers. Like how did that, how did that all play itself out?- Yeah, it showed well, it definitely helped in development. We did hear from franchise owners that they did get preference in job customer acquisition.'Cause people had seen the show.- [Jamie] Yep, yep.- The best thing is, is that it re, it seems to, they rerun it all the time.- Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it at least four or five times.- Yeah, it's on there. So yeah, I mean, it's kind of the gift that keeps on giving.- That's awesome, that's awesome. So you end up deciding to sell the business. How did you decide to sell it to who you sold it to? Because I mean, there's no shortage of options, right? I mean, there's different paths you can go down, but like, what was your decision criteria and why did you ultimately decide to land, you know, where you landed the business?- Yeah, so like, there's a great book. It's called "Sell Your Business for an Outrageous Price." By.- By anybody that's ever owned a business? No, no, no, no, no. It's, gosh, what's the guy's name? Anyway, you could find that book, Gary Short, I don't know. Anyway, and he's like, there's, you know, there's four things you have to do to sell your business. You have to be able to articulate a competitive advantage.- Yeah.- As to, you know, that.- [Jamie] Sure.- You have to hire represent, proper representation to sell it.- Yep.- Because I had taken inbound offers for years.- Got it.- I mean, I got an offer, you know, 14 months before I sold the business. And I mean, we languished, they languished over it and they just kept coming back and all that. And then, you know, we sold it, you know, the next year for five times with the best I could negotiate on my own.- [Jamie] Got it, yep.- And then the other thing is the, the seller has to be able to keep their mouth shut and let the professionals do their work.- Yeah.- And there's one more on there, extra credit for anybody who goes and figures out what the four things, the four things you need to do.- Okay.- It'll probably pop into my head.- Yeah, yeah.- So it was time.- Yeah.- It was time. And, you know, I knew that we had been performing well. I knew what was going on in the marketplace.- Yeah.- And it was just time. I mean, I was, it was, there was nothing material that was gonna change really going forward in the business other than our consistent.- Yeah.- Growth rate and that kind of thing.- Yeah.- So it just seemed the time to put it with, oh, you asked me who, how we chose who we sold to.- Yeah.- So we ran a process.- Yeah, yeah.- And, you know, I remember 121 indications of Interests. 35, you know, LOIs?- Yeah.- We put 10 people in the chair.- Yeah.- And we had 10 management meetings. We kept three people till the end.- Okay.- And, you know, right to the very end of it. And then we just, you know, selected the one that we thought would be the best fit and take, you know, with high, you know, it was, I'll ask people, when I'm doing some training, I'll say, what's more important price or terms? And, you know, you can pick the highest price.- Yeah.- But terms matter a lot.- [Jamie] Sure.- Is there a clawback?- Yeah.- [Jeff] Is there a basket?- Absolutely, yeah.- Is there an earnout? What about, will somebody pay for air? You know, reps and warranties insurance, meaning if something gets claimed, it goes against the insurance before it comes back to you.- Yeah.- So, you know, we did, we were fortunate where we ended up ultimately, I think going with the highest price and the best terms.- That's awesome.- But, you know, you really need to look at at terms inside of that. But this company had a really proven track record- [Jamie] Yeah.- With franchisees. And I was very concerned also about where our franchisees were gonna end up and ultimately whoever we chose to go with, you know, would they to the extent that they could, you know, honor the way that the business operated.- [Jamie] Yeah.- And take care of the franchisee. Just wanted to put 'em in a good spot.- [Jamie] Right, right.- And maybe create some leverage, right? In customer acquisition, give 'em an access to a bigger platform, So they could grow their businesses.- Yeah, you mentioned earlier, you know, thinking about the second act right? The second half.- Sure.- When you made this decision to sell AdvantaClean, did you think that at some point you were gonna get back into franchising? You're gonna start a new concept?'Cause now you've got Homefront, you've got several brands. Like, did it take some time to kind of get to a place where you wanted to do that again, or?- Yeah, a hundred percent. So my coach Dave Zerefos told me, he gave me some great advice. He said, whatever you do, resist the urge to immediately go out and do it bigger, better, and faster.- Yeah.- And every decision that you make going forward, make sure it drives deeper into your purpose.- Okay.- Yeah, so I took three days off and then I, and then I launched an array of investments in businesses that now has me with 47 K1s.- Three days. All right, man, you really had me fooled in there and then you just, yeah, yeah, okay, all right.- But it's good advice.- [Jamie] Oh, yeah, yeah.- For anybody who cares to follow it.- Yeah.- You know, but, but no, I mean, it was, you know, we then shortly after that, so I got into fitness.- Yeah.- I helped the company grow inside of that. And now a little bit in wellness, and then got into some servicing companies, you know, franchise sales organization.- Yeah.- And whatnot. And did some non-correlated investing in companies. PMC, Parking Management Company is an investment that we partnered with the Ben Carson family to do. It's the second largest parking, it was the 13th largest going into COVID.- Okay.- And then coming out of it, you know, the second largest parking management and parking lot.- Okay.- Company in the country.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- So stuff like that through the YPO connections and the family offices and things like that. And then really, you know, after kind of doing all that, everything was bringing me back towards this property services niche, which we consider to be the most durable niche, among the most durable niche in franchising.- Yeah, yeah.- There will be a hundred million more people in this country by 2050.- [Jamie] Crazy.- We already have a shortage of housing inventory for the places that people want to live. We have an increased migration of people from west to east, north to south.- Yeah.- Cold to warm, all of that. And, you know, so all of those factors, you know, lead us believe that you can, there's not the restrictions of a box.- Yeah.- That, you know, you can only have so many tables in a restaurant. You can only turn so much volume in something where in the service business, you can really get compound annual growth rate year after year if you're willing to acquire customers and understand the mechanism, how a lead turns into a job, turns into dollars.- Yeah.- And invest in that process. You can continue to grow service businesses really as much as you want to.- Right.- As much territories as you wanna acquire or as as much market penetration that you wanna have.- [Jamie] Yeah.- Inside of your market. So for all of those, you know, we say you'll never see a Home Front brand stuck between a blockbuster and a curves.- Yeah, yeah. One of the things you and I were talking about the other night, and I'm just interested in how you got to this point in your experience and your knowledge, is your belief in media and content like podcasts, like you've got Heroes on the Homefront, which is a podcast you all have launched inside of Homefront brands, but like, what led you to thinking about your personal brand and the brand of your company and getting into that new media and using it as a way to connect to people to get, have people get to know your brands, but also have potential franchise owners get to know you and the brands and the type of legacy you're trying to build. Like what led you to that realization?- Yeah, so, boy, can I say that? Like, yes.- Yeah, you can do anything.- That's amazing.- Yeah. That's an amazing dialect.- We're gonna edit the s and ums out for you.- That's fine. You can leave 'em in.- [Jamie] Okay, that's fine too.- I'm a smart man. We were, many franchise companies use traction as their Gino Wickman's tool.- Of course, I just interviewed Justin Mink, who was a EOS implementer right before this, right? Yeah.- Yeah.- With what we're doing at Homefront brands, we felt like we needed something that had a little bit more flexibility.- [Jamie] Yeah.- So we moved forward with scaling Up by Vern Harnish.- Okay, yeah, yeah.- So if you look at scaling up and, you know, there's four drivers of that you need to have to scale a company properly. And then there's another three things that get in the way.- Okay.- One of which is cash, but the big one is marketing.- Okay.- So failure to create a big enough brand to build an audience. Companies don't scale if they can't get the marketing right.- Amen, yeah.- As my thesis in building Homefront brands, there's a couple of things. So, number one, we wanted to make sure that we were able to create a real competitive advantage in terms of data and use of technology. So that we could take advantage of all the machine learning and all the AI that's out there. So we bought very small brands and we took all of 22, migrating them on to a similar operating platform. They all have different tech stacks, but all the data ends up at the same place.- Yeah, yeah, smart.- We're a Microsoft shop, so now we've got Power BI, we get relative dashboards and all of that, and we have machine learning running in there, so we're getting insights inside of that. So that was one thing that was really important to us too. The other thing is, is we wanted to give great franchise executives the opportunity to participate and to really, you know, say, we asked for, hey, we're all making a 10 year commitment here to build a hundred year brand. So we really wanted talented people that had maybe built companies in the past, built them for their family, or built them for somebody else.- Yeah.- And give them an opportunity. So we were very fortunate in getting an executive suite that has multi-billion dollar, multi-brand franchise platform experience all across the c-suite.- Yeah, yeah.- And then at our hall of presidents, if we were at Disney, very people that have built companies in the franchise space before. So like we have a really strong leadership team.- Yeah.- And some depth there.- Yeah. Yeah.- And because of that, I'm completely unqualified to lead them.- Yeah, well, you know, that's the best leaders in that way, right? So yeah.- So they asked me to go out and to promote the brands and to build a big audience. So with the Homefront on the Homefront podcast with Jeff Dudan, we've been as high as number 36 on Apple for entrepreneurship. Somehow we're in the top 30 in Great Britain.- Yeah, that's awesome.- We've had, we're up to about, we started last April, we're maybe a hundred thousand downloads a week now.- Wow.- Yeah, so it's really grown. So really building an audience. We don't do as, it's not, we have some franchise guests on there, but it's a handful.- Yeah.- Of the 50 shows that we've done.- [Jamie] Yeah.- So it's the hero's journey. It's Kara Golden who built Hint Water.- Yeah.- A story about her or Stacey Madison who built Stacey's Pita Chips.- [Jamie] Yeah.- We've had Chris Foss on. We've had Mark Sissen who built Primal. We've had Andrew Zimmer and Robert Irvine, the celebrity chefs.- [Jamie] Yeah, yeah.- So we've got a just a lineup of people like that, that are interesting, but they're willing to go back and talk about how they grew up, what they, it's fascinating to see these people that are well known,- Yeah.- Celebrities, and they're household names. But you go back and you just see the inflection points in their life and how they made decisions with the hopes that they can inform other people's journeys.- Yeah.- With the journeys that they had. And maybe people can trust themselves to take some chances.- Yeah, that's awesome.- I know we were talking about podcasts, but you were also talking about this idea around leveraging technology early on in the lifecycle of these brands you were developing. So you brought them all, you bought these smaller brands, you got 'em all in a similar tech stacks. What types of, for like your field service solutions and things of that nature, are you guys building those things? Are you buying off the shelf products? Like how does that working.- No, we're generally, we're buying, we're not building. We're integrating.- Yeah, so you're buying, you're using the software, some type of SaaS tool, and you've probably built some type of data warehouse where you're extrapolating the data from those places. That's right.- [Jamie] Yeah, so you can normalize it and you can see trends and things of that nature. That's awesome.- [Jeff] That's right.- I think that's a big mistake that I think a lot of your franchisees have been around for a long time that have scale already for them to kind of unwind what franchisees may be doing. And like, trying to back that out takes a long time. So it's really insightful that you guys are doing it really, really early on.- It's difficult to do when you acquire a company that's got a legacy, 200 owners.- Sure, sure.- $200 million of sales and they might not even be consistent across all the platforms that they're using.- Right.- Inside of the brand.- Right.- If you don't have centralized technology, if some of these brands are 30 years old.- Yeah.- They didn't have centralized technology. There's 10 of them are using this and 20 are using that and the business is working fine.- Yeah.- The franchisor has visibility.- Yeah.- They're able to see the flow of the work, but you just, you can't integrate that into any single source. So the edict, and we actually have been named by Microsoft as their SMB partner for 2024 with their Copilot, their AI.- Oh, wow, that's awesome.- Tool, so I don't know exactly what that means, but I mean, they're working with us as we rollout Copilot into our org. And our org goes all the way down to the technicians at every franchise.- Well, that's what I was gonna ask is like, so now that you can turn data and technology into a competitive advantage for your franchise owners,'cause you can actually teach them how to leverage that information to just improve the operational or efficiency and effectiveness of their own business. So that's awesome. Was that always the intent early on when you started that? Was that part of like how you wanted to build a value proposition?- Yes, exactly.- [Jamie] Okay, got it.- Very intentional.- [Jamie] Got it, got it. So you've got Jeff the entrepreneur, Jeff the athlete, Jeff the family man, you're also an author.- Yes.- So how many books now?- Two.- [Jamie] Two, "Discernment," and what was the other one?- It was called "Hey, Coach."- Okay, got it, got it."Discernment" I find to be, I mean, first of all, I just find it to be an interesting word and not one that I've ever would've thought like a business book would've been written about. Like what led that, what led you that book and just landing on that word, right? So instead of judgment or use your best judgment, like how did you land on that word, "Discernment?" And like what led to writing that book?- The full title is,

"Discernment: 43:09

The Business Athlete's Regimen for a Great Life Through Better Decisions."- Yeah.- Wisdom and discernment is a cumulative asset, and it is born by our experiences that we have in life. And then we build those into models of thought, so that as we see future situations, we can quickly lay our opportunities and the decisions we need to make against a series of filters and models of thoughts. The decision filter of our family values was, I could not, I could not say no to Undercover Boss.'Cause we laid it against that decision filter.- [Jamie] Makes sense.- So all of the things that as you go through life making decisions are the quality of your life and the velocity of your business is directly attributable to the quality of the decisions that you make and nothing is a hundred percent, and anything can go to zero. So your decisions basically turn the gas gauge. If you're 67% success rate now, and you make a good decision, maybe it's 68, maybe it's 69, maybe it's 70.- [Jamie] Yeah.- But nothing's a hundred percent. Anything can become, there can be a Black Swan event. We've seen it.- Yeah, yeah.- We've seen it with COVID.- Sure.- And so I tend to write a book when I come to the end of a, what I consider to be a season of life. I wrote the book, "Hey, Coach", when I finish, I usually coach my kid if I had, if I had skills and opportunity up through middle school.- Okay.- And if the situation was right, and I wrote that, "Hey, Coach" book, because I would always have, I had a just, all of this stuff from the way that me and the staff, and we had a lot of the same dads going around doing it together. We just had a way that we went about it. So I came to the end of that season of like, people would always come and say, well, you know, how do you guys win so many championships? What is the offense? What is the defense? How do you get the kids to say that they needed carpool to be on your team? All of, youth sports is the best and the worst of us man.- I played college tennis. I don't if I ever told you that. Yeah, I played tennis at University of Memphis. It is the best and the worst of us, yes.- [Jeff] It brings out the best and the worst of parents.- Yes.- And everything that a coach does is unwound in the car ride on the way home. So we had a series of value statements, we had player rules, we had coaching commitments, and we had parental expectations.- Yeah.- And little tones of seven or eight little things on there. And we would set this team up, little team is, and we had like trimesters of the season and we would install everything. We would break all the clicks, educate the kids, work on nothing but fundamentals for the first third of the season.- Yeah.- Let, you know, get, every parent was invited to participate and coach. Sometimes you go to a team and it's like, hey, you know, once the kids step over the line.- Yeah, stay out of it.- Stay out of it. Don't talk to 'em, don't talk to your kids. We're the exact opposite. We wanted to, anybody that wanted to do it, we would teach them how to keep time, keep track of plays, coach special teams. We were responsible for whatever. So now you kind of get everybody involved inside of it.- Yeah- . And then, you know, we would, so we would sometimes lose a game early, but the goal is to really, you know, we had one goal. Everybody is the best they can be on the last day of the season. And that's everybody, right?- [Jamie] Yeah.- So then as you go through the season and now you've got the fundamentals and every position had three to five things, you know, don't get dirty eyes if you're, and you know, what does that mean? Maintain outside leverage on the end. Keep it, you know, the way to stop speed is before it gets started. So each position had all of these, just these three to five fundamentals. And if they did that, everything was complete. So by the end, and then we said by the end of the season, we turn the team over to the kids. And if we don't show up for the last game of the season, whenever that is, you can do it without us. So there's this autonomy that you would give more time and it's just formula that just worked.- Yeah.- So, and I got all this stuff and I got the big drawer on my desk, so I shut the drawer and I'm like, well, you know, that's done. Like, I spent all that time building that what I'm gonna do with it. So I did the best I could to put it in a mediocre book called "Hey, Coach." It had a different working title, but Coach Joe Gibbs coached in the same, we went to a private Christian school, that's where we coached.- Okay.- And coach Joe Gibbs coached there. He coached his grandchildren.- Oh wow, that's awesome.- And we coached against him. And you can probably cut all this outta the podcast, but, so anyway, we were.- I love this, this is great.- Yeah, we were, he is a Hall of Fame coach, incredible leader. You can't say enough good things about that man. I mean, he's helped so many people tirelessly. He's just straight up.- [Jamie] Yeah.- Is who he is.- Coached in Louisiana greats at the Redskins. He coached Doug Williams, won the Super Bowl with Doug Williams. And then there was another quarterback from North Louisiana. Stan Humphreys.- Yes.- Who married like a good family friend of ours and from north Louisiana. And they both played for Joe Gibbs back in those days in the Redskins. So, yeah, what a legend.- So we go into this and we go into the season and we're in this jamboree before the season where you're kind of playing the other teams. And they just murdered us, right? They had these timing patterns. They were just throwing bombs down the sidelines. They had the fastest running back in the league. Great kids. His grandkids were great. And we had a couple of our kids were on vacation, some are our better kids. So I said, well, first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna try to take away what they do the best. So we spent all week teaching our little corners to jam those receivers, you know, just work on just getting a hand on that ins on that chest pad. Forcing 'em outside, knocking'em off their timing, so they couldn't complete those passes. And then, you know, and then keeping that running back. So we just focused on just the few things that we thought we could control and we hit 'em in the mouth. We had 'em the first game of season. We hit 'em in the mouth. And we go up 14 to nothing at halftime. And we were at halftime and I'm like, guys, that's Joe Gibbs. There will be halftime adjustments. The kids are not gonna be shellshocked when they come back out, and we're gonna catch the very best of it. So anyway, they're taking it to us in the second half. It's 14, 13, we're backed up. It's fourth and four on our own 11 yard line. And there's a minute something left on the clock, and we've got a punt to the fastest kid in the league. We've got all of our linemen in there blocking. We're not gonna tackle 'em.- [Jamie] Yeah.- And so we had put in a little freeze tap play where the quarterback just taps and walks through the line and nobody else moves. So we called that play and we put it in and we get the first down. And you know, time runs out. Later in the season, he was doing something for either NASCAR or ESPN, where they were out there watching 'em coach the kids. And they said, well, your record's seven and one. You're gonna win the league. How did you lose a game? And he said, we got out coached.- Wow.- Yeah.- Wow.- And I have that up on my wall. Printed that.- That is awesome.- Yeah.- That is awesome.- Yeah, I hope he doesn't watch this, but he wouldn't.- [Jamie] I hope he does. He wouldn't care. He's too fine of a man care. But, so anyway, so I was at a fundraiser for veterans invited by some Bank of America executives and whatever. And I was walking out and I heard, "Hey, Coach," and it was Joe Gibbs. And I think the word, I think the name coach, I think it's a huge honor. I mean, like, when people call you coach, like I, you know, Dion Sanders was here and you know.- Yeah.- When when I got to get my picture with him, I just said, you know, I said,"Hey, Coach, you know, how you doing?" Because that's a.- Out of respect, absolutely.- Respectful thing.- [Jamie] Absolutely.- So I wrote that and then I wrote discernment after I sold AdvantaClean. And it was like the first thing I did. Well, I'm gonna, whatever I've learned, I'm just gonna take it. And when you work with somebody writing a book, and I did have an editor, you know, they're like, Jeff, it isn't everything you know about everything. That's the first thing.- Yeah.- Yeah.- Yeah, yeah.- But, you know, there's things in there like a life balance sheet, you know, there's equity, what are the things that create equity for you in your life? What are the things that create liabilities? Kind of a life balance sheet. There's, you know, there's, we talk about which is important in franchising, relationship equity. And how you need to earn it. And sometimes you're gonna burn it and you gotta have enough to where, you know, things can be recovered.- Sure.- Reputation, equity, I mean, reputation equity is the relationship you have with people you haven't met yet.- Yeah, yeah.- So those are the types of things in the book. And I've had some people that just tear it up. I mean, just, they call me this, I've highlighted like a hundred things in this book.- Yeah, yeah.- And, you know, little things. So somebody that's young in their career that's maybe thinking, you know, how to think about decisions. What are some stakes in the ground that they can anchor themselves with. Some anchors and things. You know, there's some good stuff in there. I mean, it's not that, it's not like a great book or a bit, but it's, you know, taken by the, the sum of its parts. It's, you know, there's some stories in there. I guess the continuity's fine, but there are lessons in there that people can, I believe, can really use.- That's awesome, man. That's beautiful. One last question and then promise I'll let you go after this.- Sure.- How did you come up with, and I'm sorry I didn't ask this earlier, but how did you come up? The family values thing is, it seems like such a no-brainer talking about it, like to have written family values.- Yeah.- And certainly like, my parents are amazing. I mean, like, just did a bang up job and there were clearly like unspoken values in our family. But man, like to be so intentional about writing them down and then publishing them and then using that as the basis to make decisions for you personally and within your family. Like, what led you to do that?- I took my role in our family seriously.- Yeah.- But I also, I always blended anything that I learned from coaching kids, I used to help coaching franchisees. It's very similar.- Yeah.- At Homefront brands, we say, if you start well, you will go well.- [Jamie] Yeah.- So very, very rarely do people not start well and then go well.- [Jamie] Yeah.- So that first four months, like a four months of a football season, what's the four months that they need to do to start well, so that they can go well? So you kind of circle these things. So things that I learned in business, you know, hey, here's a set of values that I, when I got that consulting gig, you know? The set of values that we, it was a purpose, vision, mission, value statement. So immediately I'm like, well, I need these for my family. And then what? And they don't pop out right away, you know, it's like, what are they, like they have to be authentic. You gotta be able to live 'em. They have to come out, they have to be, you know, unique, you know, like unique language. People, we're tribal people and the culture of a family or an organization lives in its stories and in its unique language. So that's a unique set of values to us. It doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. There's a lot of things that people would say could be, you know, you could have some faith, you could have a more faith based one, or you could have this or what about that, you know? Okay, but put 'em in yours. That's fine, put 'em in yours. And then secondly, we honestly, we just had a open spot in the refrigerator.- You needed to put something there.- Something had to go there.- Tired. And like there was a picture of a, you know, sunset over here. I needed something over here.- Okay.- I couldn't look at it being off balance.- Okay, and you're paying painting skills are so bad that you were scared if he put a painting by Jeff there, your wife would be.- That's right.- I'm outta.- Yeah. It seemed like a good use- Man, this has been great.- Yeah.- Thanks so much.- I've enjoyed it.- You're like one of those guys that I was, I was trying to shoot all of these like yesterday or the day before and, but the guys on our team over here said, hey, if you get somebody that you're really passionate about and they called it a whale. If you get a whale, then we'll make the time. And you are my whale for this week. So man, I do appreciate the time.- That's very kind. And thank you guys, I appreciate it. This has been great.- [Jamie] Yeah.- Awesome. Thanks again, Jeff.- Yeah.- I appreciate it. Cheers.(soft music)