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Local Living
A community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland.
Local Living
Meet Jill and Jack Johnson: Building Business Success on Your Terms
Discover the surprising truth about franchise ownership with Jill and Jack Johnson, founders of The Franchise Insiders and owners of Pink's Window Services in Boca Raton. Their journey from corporate careers to successful entrepreneurs reveals pathways to business ownership most people never consider.
The Johnsons demolish common misconceptions about franchising, explaining how some healthcare franchises can be started with just $1,000 down while potentially scaling to $3 million in annual revenue. They compare their consulting approach to that of real estate agents - helping clients find the perfect franchise match based on investment capacity, personality traits, and long-term goals. Unlike traditional consultants, they even rebate a portion of their commission back to clients, having saved franchisees nearly $2 million in fees since 2017.
Their candid insights about cash flow challenges, seasonal business fluctuations in South Florida, and the critical 18-month growth period provide essential knowledge for aspiring business owners. Through their own experience operating Pink's Window Services (offering everything from window cleaning to paver sealing), they demonstrate how franchise ownership creates lifestyle freedom while building valuable assets. One client's story particularly resonates - turning a $300,000 investment into a multi-million dollar exit opportunity within just two years.
The conversation explores practical funding strategies including SBA loans and tax-free 401(k) rollovers, making business ownership accessible to more people than ever. For the Johnsons, entrepreneurship isn't just about financial independence - it's about creating a lifestyle that allows them to travel extensively with their son while controlling their own schedule.
Ready to explore franchise ownership? Text the Johnsons at 305-710-0050 or visit thefranchiseinsiders.com to learn more about finding your perfect franchise match.
www.thefranchiseinsiders.com
www.pinkswindows.com/palm-beach-florida
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast!
Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
Welcome, welcome everyone to Local Living. We are a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. I'm David Conway, your host, and today we have a dynamic couple with us Jill and Jack Johnson. They are the founders of the Franchise Insiders. They're local residents right here in Boca Raton and they also own and operate Pink's Window Services. It's one of the most successful locations for the franchise nationally. Jill, jack, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3:Great to be here with you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yep, obviously you two have a very busy schedule, so I do appreciate you putting time aside for us today and you know. If we could start off, could you just tell us a little bit about your business? I'd love to hear about the Franchise Insiders. First, what that is and how you got started into that.
Speaker 3:Great, yeah, absolutely a pleasure to kind of talk about what it is that the Franchise Insiders does, and I think the easiest, simplest way to do that is to compare what we do to what a real estate agent does. So, just like you work with a local real estate agent that knows the market to help you find the right house for your needs, franchise consultants do the very same thing, but help you to find the right franchise for your needs. Jill and I work with literally thousands of franchises, but typically there's only one that's right for our clients, and so we use our two decades worth of experience, our analysis tools that we have in-house and our deep relationships with franchise founders to help our clients find the right franchise for them.
Speaker 1:So when a possible franchisee reaches out to you, do they fill out a questionnaire? Do they already know the type of franchise they want to get into? Tell me a little bit more about that process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it's interesting you put it that way.
Speaker 3:I'm just doing an analysis on a hotel chain franchise which costs anywhere from $16 million to $22 million to invest in and if you're lucky it'll gross $3 million a year to invest in and if you're lucky it'll gross 3 million a year, whereas we work with healthcare franchises that you can start for as little as a thousand down and also scale to $3 million per year. So part of what our job is is to sort of unveil the curtain, if you will, on what franchise opportunities make the most sense for our clients. And yeah, some do come to us with preconceived ideas about restaurants and things like that. But, just like the home search, it comes down to what can you invest realistically? Being realistic because you want to have a certain amount of money in your bank as you grow a business, so it's managing expectations. But we do have analysis that we use to help really pinpoint the perfect personality match as well do have analysis that we use to help really pinpoint the perfect personality match as well.
Speaker 1:So you said $1,000.
Speaker 3:So it's actually realistic for somebody to be able to start their own franchise with $1,000? That's $1,000 down. You can finance a franchise fee over time. No, I think a more realistic budget to build a real business is probably somewhere between, let's say, $150,000 and $200,000, which still, again, if you compare it to what a home costs, is relative peanuts, especially your book.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So there's still. With $1,000 down, they could still really start a franchise that could generate $3 million in revenue.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we're actually here to show people that Many people don't know that. You know you sound surprised to hear it as well, but that's our job is to really talk to people, find out what they can invest, what they're looking to do, their goals for the future, and then we're there to show them the options, because many people will come in focused on, let's say, a fast food right. That's what we all think of when we think of franchises. But, as Jack said, when we look at the financials, you're going to spend 10 times what you need to spend to open up a fast food franchise versus a home services or home health care, where you're going to invest less and make the same, if not more, money on the back end. So we're here to really advise people on that and just show them all the opportunities.
Speaker 3:And just a quick, quick legal house cleaning. Here Everyone gets an opportunity to review what's called a franchise disclosure document, and so, for example, that $3 million number that I mentioned before, that's a real number from our client, hector, who owns a home healthcare franchise, that he actually built it to that revenue mark within three years. Now, just for comparison, the average for that franchise, for franchisees post 60 months, is a million four. So none of this can be done overnight. Building a franchise does take time, it takes work, it's hard, it's not always easy but, in our opinion, always worth it.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:And does the client pay you? Do they pay you a commission for helping them or a service fee? So no, we don't work for any type of fee. In fact, what we do that's different than most people in the industry is we offer what? Do we call it a cashback?
Speaker 3:A rebate. A rebate. I want to make sure I have the terminology.
Speaker 1:Just like a real estate agent.
Speaker 3:So we earn a commission, the franchisor pays us a commission and then we take just like a real estate agent can do. We take a portion of our commission and rebate it back to our clients Anywhere from two to 10,000. In fact, I'm really proud to say we have saved our clients nearly $2 million in franchise fees since 2017. Nearly $2 million in franchise fees since 2017.
Speaker 2:And that really helps people get started. So that could be enough to cover your rent, you know, for your first couple of months or your first truck or any business. You know expenses that you have. So it's really helpful for our clients to know that you know we're invested in them too. You know we want them to succeed. So whatever we can give back to them will help them get started.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Now you see so many franchise opportunities and locally decided to start Pink's Window Services. Start off by telling me what made you choose Pink's for your direction.
Speaker 3:Sure. So the nice thing about being a franchise consultant is is we've got great data so we can look at. You know what types of franchises we're affiliated with over 700 consultants. So first thing we do is a data analysis. What franchises do people actually buy and believe it or not? Over the last 12 months, painting, restoration, home health care, power washing these are sectors that are heavily invested in, versus the things you might think Like. I had someone call me yesterday and say well, what about child enrichment? We love those types of services, but people are not as bullish on them and things like tariffs, which are a hot topic today, don't affect services. So those are the smart reasons, but the real is jill, and I fell in love with the brand yeah, we loved it.
Speaker 3:We thought look at that logo, look at that bits and bokeh. They're cool. And I don't know if you've seen the pinks advertising, but it's retro, it's funky, it's cool, it does something to you emotionally yeah, and we, we, I mean, we love the brand, we love the, the company behind the brand too.
Speaker 2:so again, we sort of had an inside look to it. We were what? The second or third franchisee, yes yeah.
Speaker 2:So we were really in at the beginning and you know again as far as home services go, we know that that's a win. We know Boca, we know Palm Beach County and there's lots of windows and opportunities for power washing and pressure washing, which is what we we, you know use ourselves as homeowners here. So we, we love the business itself, we love the brand and it just finally was that perfect fit for us and we knew it would just do extremely well here in Palm Beach County.
Speaker 1:So it's not just windows. Do you pressure cleans homes? Do you residential commercial?
Speaker 3:We do both, so our team was just they were window cleaning and pressure cleaning a very well-known downtown Palm Beach building that is huge when you drive into Palm Beach. I won't mention the name.
Speaker 2:You can't say the name, but most people will recognize it. Okay, you can eat dinner there, but that was a two day job.
Speaker 3:Today they are cleaning their cleaning model homes for a community, and then the rest of the week will be filled with residential jobs where we do everything from paver sealing to pressure washing your driveway and your back patio, to washing your windows inside and out, to cleaning your uh, your screens, to getting rid of cobwebs, to cleaning chandeliers um, there's a lot. We can clean gutters, um, and, and notice how I keep saying they. This is the best part of owning a franchise is that you don't, jill, and I aren't out there cleaning windows. The franchise, taught us, supports us in hiring and scaling a team that can actually work without us being out there, what we say on the glass. So Jill and I are really running more of the day to day overseeing cash flow, running the P&L, managing the business, bringing on new employees. We're really working on the business versus in it.
Speaker 1:So I know being a part of the Franchise Insiders was very helpful in you picking the correct franchise for you to be successful in, but I imagine that your experience can also apply to helping you run your franchise more effectively and providing better services. Can you give me an example of how that might work?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's symbiotic. I mean it's like we coach people about what this is like, what to expect. Even just you know the commercial client I just spoke about. Yay, you land a really big job, but you're not going to collect any money on that job for four weeks. So notice how we talk about backfilling residential jobs, and these are things that we coach our clients upon so they understand the realities of growing a business and what it's like and the things that you have to do and you have to be mindful of. So no, being a franchise owner is extremely helpful to our clients, and we actually host a podcast called we Bought a Franchise, where every week we're either interviewing franchise owners from other franchises or talking about just our general ups and downs. I mean, we just did one today where I think we're pretty brutally honest.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, the purpose of that is to share our experience as franchise owners, because we have another podcast where we talk more about being franchise consultants. But this was more. We really wanted to share the good, bad and the ugly. So we talk about the wins. We talk about frustrations that we've had. When we started the podcast, we talked about how we hired a GM and he never actually even did the job. We had to get rid of him immediately after training. So you know we talk about it all. We want to be transparent and let people know. You know business ownership is 100% worth it, but there's a lot of hurdles along the way. And you know business ownership is 100% worth it, but there's a lot of hurdles along the way. And you know we want to share that with everyone, just as we share it with our clients too. You know it's not all rainbows, but we want to be realistic because when we're coaching people and guiding them, we want them to know really what they're in for.
Speaker 2:It's better for us to be honest and really share than paint a picture that's unrealistic.
Speaker 1:So, Jack, you piqued my interest here. You said you host a podcast called we Bought a Franchise. You recorded one today and I think you said you were brutally honest. Tell me a little bit more about that. What happened in today's podcast?
Speaker 3:So today we focused on again, again, the sort of cash flow lessons that we're learning and growing a business. Um, initially, like we're doing an hoa job here, in a couple weeks that's going to take our team out of commission for six days again, because it's what we would consider a commercial account. Um, we'll have two weeks on receivables. So these are things that most people who are thinking about starting a business and, by the way, most of these service franchises think about. The businesses I mentioned Painting, you're going to do residential and commercial Restoration, all insurance paid, so you've got big accounts, receivable issues there. Home health care. On the other side, people are paying you privately and you're collecting every single week on ACH, so collections aren't an issue there. Collecting every single week on ACH, so collections aren't an issue there. So, again, it's the us not knowing what we didn't know until we got into it and saying, okay, well, we better make sure we keep certain cash reserves as we're growing a business.
Speaker 3:I do want to add one thing, though as we talk about the challenges of growing a business, I do also want to share with you. We have a client who invested in a roofing franchise with us and within two years of him buying that business. He received an offer for his business. When you consider his total investment was probably 300K. The offer he got back for his business was 20 times that within two years of work. So again, why do we do it? Why do we build these assets? Because you can't turn your job into a 20 times exit, but you can turn a business into that that would be $6 million for our math challenged listeners.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1:You know it takes in most cases. It's going to take time and I'm sure some people come in thinking they're going to be cash positive in two, three months. Is that the main misconception that you find people have when they come to you, or is there something else as far as a myth of what people are thinking, reality versus what they have in their mind?
Speaker 3:The consensus seems to be 18 months for a business to really mature and become predictable. Census seems to be 18 months for a business to really mature and become predictable. So that's where, again, you need someone like jill and I to help you find a franchise that doesn't have you. You, you used to. No one ever went out of business for having too much cash, right? So we want to put our clients in a position where they plan accordingly, right. So a franchise fee not all franchise fees are a thousand dollars down. That's one franchise that we know of right now that's doing a promotion.
Speaker 3:See, again, that's where you want to work with a franchise consultant. They're, for the most part, you're paying a $50,000 franchise fee and you probably want to have at least $100,000 in working capital. Not everyone has that in the cushions of their account. So there are things that a potential franchise owner can do, such as do an SBA loan. So there are things that a potential franchise owner can do, such as do an SBA loan. If they have left their job, they can roll their 401k from their job over tax and penalty free. So there's lots of little strategies. You can even utilize equity from your house. So, again, working with a franchise consultant. It doesn't have to be Jill and I, but it should be. We can help you. We can point to franchises that do things like. We've got someone coming on our podcast next week. He has a franchise that does facility solutions for businesses things like janitorial and the average franchise is grossing $7.8 million according to their franchise disclosure document. We can show our clients these types of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's really important to note that a lot of people there's a misconception of how much money you do need to start, like you know when we were talking about whether it's a thousand down or not. But to Jack's point, a lot of people will write off owning a business because they don't have that in their bank account. You know they're looking at their savings or looking at their checking. They don't have it. So just talking to us where we present some of these financial options for them, these finance options, makes it more of a reality and they wouldn't have known that had they not come to talk to us.
Speaker 1:So I know you're both busy, you're driven, you're obviously very successful, but you're also living the good life, I think, down here in South Florida, your local Boca Raton residence. Tell our listeners, tell me actually a little bit more about what you like to do for fun and a little bit more about your day-to-day.
Speaker 2:Of course, so well, we work from home, so we see each other all day, which is great, and we've been in Boca now for four and a half years, almost five years. We moved from Southern California and we love it. We absolutely love the California and we love it. We absolutely love the weather, we love the community, we love the lifestyle. We are very big on traveling. We have a nine and a half year old son who is like our nine and a half, going up 30.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's our little travel partner. We do everything together, the three of us. He is wonderful in that he knows probably more about our business than we do sometimes. He's very involved and now wants to be an entrepreneur like his parents. But in our spare time we love to travel, we love to go to different places. He loves to see the world, so we're definitely making that happen for him.
Speaker 3:Um and so on our next trip we're going to start recording all the things we do and we're going to have him work with our video guys. We're going to put together like a whole professional video and, allow you know, we're going to have him post this whole YouTube series. We'll see. Hopefully the first one's good, um, but you know again, you know I remember my dad doing this with me when, when we had family businesses, I go into the office and get a chance, had family businesses, I go into the office and get a chance, and so now he's getting a chance to kind of have his first thing.
Speaker 3:So you know, for us it all comes back to why are we entrepreneurs? Because it's important to us to all be at the family dinner table at six o'clock at night and share time together making a meal. It's important for us to travel together. Jill and I know the reason. I mean we sold our home 10 years ago to start this, to start Franchise Insiders. We I mean we sold our home 10 years ago to start this, to start Franchise Insiders. We didn't want to travel, we didn't want to work for other people, we wanted to control our own destiny, and so that's, it's been able to come to fruition here in Boca Raton.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You went all in 10 years ago to do this.
Speaker 2:We did, we did. We knew there was no other option. We both came from, you know, corporate jobs and were frustrated with you know the limitations and working for other people. And it just wasn't for us and we wanted the freedom and flexibility to work from home, be able to travel, you know, spend time as a family. And we just made it happen and it was a little bit scary at first but there was really no option, no other option. We knew we were going to make this work, but there was really no option, no other option.
Speaker 3:We knew we were going to make this work. Yeah, and it was wonderful. I mean, it was so thrilling to finally be starting our own business and be controlling our own destiny and, no matter what, we still do that to, to, to to a T today. We control our schedule and so, while we would never recommend to any of our clients that they do what we did, by going all in.
Speaker 2:Please do not sell your house.
Speaker 1:We have that's. That's amazing, and you know I am curious. So you know, have you seen a few of your clients along the way, maybe make a mistake here or there? That you've learned from that you can apply to how you're currently running Pinks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think franchise ownership, business ownership, requires strong mindset. I think it requires positivity. Um, what I've seen is that, just like in the classroom, um, when it comes to franchise ownership, you have a students, you have b students, you have c students, you have people below that. What happens is is that c and d students start to clump together and, instead of focusing on revenue generation and getting you know five-star Google reviews and and you know, um, creating an environment for their team to win, they're complaining about their business. Um, and it just goes downhill from there. Um, so we've learned that having a positive attitude, setting a positive example, focusing on things that generate revenue, um, we've learned that that's important. We've also learned that we start to see so, like when we have a catch-up call with one of our clients, let's say, 12 months in the first thing.
Speaker 3:I do, is I go to look at how many Google reviews they have, and if they only have two, I know what kind of phone call we're in for, whereas if they have 200, which, by the way, the guy who got the big valuation he had hundreds of Google reviews. He's driven, he's tenacious, but the good news is is that it's okay. Some people find out along the way. They're not made for this.
Speaker 3:And so we can list their business. For them, we can sell their business. None of this, even though you're signing a 10 year agreement in most cases, if you want to sell your business, you can. So the lessons that we've learned along the way is that it's okay, If it's we want this to be the best thing you've ever done, but if it's not communicate with us, let us help and let us help move it on to someone else who can take it to the next level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think another lesson that Jack touched on earlier is the first 18 months are hard, and so we've always coached people on that. We've warned them that month six you may wanna just quit, month six you may want to just quit, and month 12, you may not be, you know, hitting your revenue goals. And it's really important for us to make that hit home with people as we're talking to them, because it is hard. It's hard as your business is just starting and there are obviously some I don't even want to say rock stars. Some people do hit it out of the park right away and they're profitable, you know, six, seven months in, but most people those first 18 months are hard, and now we're in those first 18 months, so now we can see it firsthand, and so that's really again it's it's what we, we tell our clients, but also now we're living in. So sometimes we have to remind ourselves that the first 18 months are hard well, that brings up a quick interesting point.
Speaker 3:I don't know how you're doing on time, but we do weekly conference calls with all our fellow franchise owners and what we've learned is, right now, you know all of our friends in New York, new Jersey, chicago. The winter was hard for them. It was hard for them to clean, right, they couldn't do any jobs. It was hard for them. It was hard for them to clean, right, they couldn't do any jobs. Now, with spring coming, they're starting to pick up and what we experienced last summer is here in Boca Raton, because we have so many snowbirds, our residential business started.
Speaker 3:We go through our slow season in the summer and it was interesting, as we would go out to dinner last summer I'd noticed restaurants that right now I need to book reservations for two weeks in advance. You can walk right in on a Friday night, and so I started to look around and I noticed I'm like we were slow this week. And look at this, we're sitting in, you know, red pine. Good luck getting a reservation at red pine, you know, during the season, right, but on summer, you know the place is empty. So, as local Florida business owners, that's something that we want to. You know the place is empty. So, as local florida business owners, that's something that we want to you know, and again, there are certain businesses that might be affected in certain ones that aren't. So that's a conversation we would want to have with local potential business owners is how does seasonality here in boca raton potentially affect your business?
Speaker 2:right, and it's very opposite than other parts of the world too. So you know, and we last year was our first year, so we were. You know, in the summer things were slower. Also, the weather is is really hot, plus all the storms, all those rainstorms that come in during the summer.
Speaker 3:People don't want to get their windows cleaned because it's going to rain, but what we found is they do want the pressure washing, because your, your, your driveway, your backyard gets brutalized the the plants grow through the pavers much faster with all the rain, and so what we did is we invested in a pressure washing truck with heavy duty pressure washing equipment. We added in paver sealing, so this time around we're much more prepared for the things that people need here in the summer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So, as we wind down, start off, if you will, by telling me about your podcasts. You have more than one, so what are your podcasts and how can our listeners find them?
Speaker 3:So we've actually we're streaming. We've sort of combined them because it started to become confusing for our clients and we everyone seems to love that we Bought a Franchise podcast format. So we really are kind of combining them, if you will. So the one people want to listen to is called we Bought a Franchise. It's on anywhere where you might stream a podcast Apple, spotify, you can even go on YouTube. We do a video version that's on YouTube and then the rest would be audio, but it's called we Bought a Franchise and we try to do it every week probably ends up being every other week where we share our experiences as franchise owners. But we also interview. We interview highly successful franchise owners from other systems because we want to learn what are you doing to be successful? What are the things that you're doing? What are the lessons that potential franchise owners and even existing franchise owners can learn from you?
Speaker 1:And how do you get your guests? If someone possibly wanted to appear on your podcast, do they ever reach out to you or they are always word of mouth, or how do you get your guests?
Speaker 3:Well, considering that it is high performing franchisees, you know, we kind of reach out to our network with these franchisors and say give us your top performers who we can invite to be on our show. If there is a local franchise owner who is a high performer that would like to come on and share their journey with us, I'd invite them to text us at 305-710-0050. And we'd love to potentially feature you on the show.
Speaker 1:So for the franchise insiders, if you have someone listening that may be interested in getting more information is considering starting their first franchise, or even a new franchise. What's their best stream to reach out to you?
Speaker 3:So again, texting us we encourage that because it's easy 305-710-0050. Or if you just want to learn more about us, that's thefranchiseinsiderscom. Our website has tons of resources. We've got a blog where we share again. I'm just writing one today on Hampton Inn franchises, so we share information on what's happening in franchising and also you get to know a little bit more about Jill and I.
Speaker 1:That's great. And finally, for Pink's Window Services, I've got actually some pavers that could use some work. How would I reach out to you? Would I text the same number or is there a separate line for Pinks?
Speaker 3:Best thing to do is to go to pinkswindowscom Get a free estimate.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Pinkswindowscom.
Speaker 3:You got it.
Speaker 1:Well, listen you two. It's been a pleasure Really. Just so much great information for the listeners. You're dynamic, you're successful, and I can see why.
Speaker 2:Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity and thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Thank you the opportunity and thank you for having us. Thank you Once again, everyone. We were joined today by Jill and Jack Johnson, and I am David Conway, your host of Local Living, and we look forward to having you back next time.