Annie Tselikis, Cousins Maine Lobster Alumna

“The franchisee/franchisee relationships are critical for the success of our system.

Annie Tselikis said, “You’re crazy” when her brother Jim and cousin Sabin Lomac hatched the idea of a food truck in Los Angeles serving Maine lobster rolls. But when they tapped into her deep fisheries expertise to shape their business model, Cousins Maine Lobster was under way!  Today Cousins delivers an inimitable, mouthwatering Maine lobster roll experience to customers from more than 70 mobile and stand-alone locations.

Annie (now Director of Marketing and Business Development for Slade Gorton seafood products), visited with Ab and Vini and shared her views on why successful scaling requires going all-in on franchisee onboarding. Why effective brand building “starts where the people are.” The “family approach” that keeps the Cousins brand healthy and on the grow. How she applies her global travels and experience in anthropology studies to business operations. And how FUN can be a corporate goal.

Listen to the archive episode with stars Jim Tselkis and Sabin Lomac.

Transcript

 Hi everyone, welcome and thanks for joining us for Stars of Franchising. Get ready for a roller coaster ride through the world of franchising as we bring you the best stories of inspiration and entrepreneurial grit and turning dreams into franchise realities. That's right Vinnie. From emerging to global brands, we'll chat with the genius minds behind the magic. All brought to you by the Tariq Farid Franchise Institute at Babson College. I'm Ab. And I'm Vinnie. Now buckle up for some serious inspiration.



 Really excited for today's guest, Jeff Klein, who is not only an incredible entrepreneur but a Babson alum and we're so proud of Jeff and so happy that he's here and willing to share his story. Hey Jeff, welcome.



 Thank you guys for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Well it's great. Let's kick it off with what we usually like to do here at Babson and on our podcast is get to know who you are and what your why is, what caused you to do what you do and a little bit of your story around entrepreneurship and then franchising.



 Got it. So great, thank you. So, as you know, I graduated Babson in 1991 and I think that coming out of school, the entrepreneur spirit just stuck with me. I took a different path. I started in a family business. I was the fourth generation and my family scrapped our demolition business and my great, great grandfather started in 1898. And in 1998, we turned 100 and I decided to do something different. My wife's a physician and we decided to leave the cold weather of Ohio and she said, look, I can move anywhere in the world, pick a spot. And we decided to go to Las Vegas and I started out in the gaming industry where I was a casino host at the Hardrock Hotel and one of my big players asked me one day, he said, hey, look, you're a really great at sales, but you work in graveyard shift. Add this. Somebody puts a plate in their jaw.



 When they break the job, put a plate in it to fix it. And if you want to sell that product, I can get you the sales job. And within about 30 days, I left the gaming industry and got into medical device sales.



 And about a year later, a buddy of mine called me and said, hey, the mortgage business in Las Vegas is taking off. I think you should, you know, we want to start a mortgage company. So if you want to get involved, I said, sure. So I gave it got 15 grand, a buddy of mine and three of us started a mortgage company and I started doing mortgage loans. I was a mortgage broker. And while my competition in the OR was trying to sell a better product, doctors were asking me about rates.



 And so it was a great competitive advantage for me. One time in 2007, late 2007, a buddy called me and said, hey, I am looking to buy a restaurant. I want to get a home equity line of credit on my house. Can you help me? And I said, you know, let me look. And it just turned out the market just wasn't right. Couldn't get the value of his house. But I said, look, you know, we've been friends a while. Why don't we partner up? There's a bank trying to get my wife's practice business. Let me see if they do a loan for us. And in May of 08, we bought our first Capriates.



 And I was still selling medical devices, doing a loan here and there, and was a silent partner in one location. And did you know the brand before? Did you know the brand? I did know the brand. Well, I did. It was funny. He said, hey, have you ever heard of Capriates? I said, of course, every doctor's office in town wants to eat that. So I catered there two or three days a week. So it just worked. And it just was a funny thing. So I was a silent investor. I never went in there. I continued to sell medical devices. A year later, a second store came available. And I went from one bank to the other bank. A month later, a third location came available. We went to the third bank, and I kept playing the banks against each other. And over time, by 2011, we had grown to 16 stores.



 And in 2000, and I continued to sell medical devices all along. I helped out the development side. I would look for locations. We had branched out into the Los Angeles market and built some stores there. And Labor Day weekend of 2013, my partner and I at the time had a challenge, and we split up.



 And in May of 14, I woke up one morning going from 16 stores with a partner who was operating them to-- I had 13, and I was operating them myself. And so May of 14, basically, I left my medical device career and started in Capriates.



 And over that time frame, I have bought stores, built stores, sold stores, closed stores,



 sued landlords, been sued by landlords, have done it all. And so currently, fast forward, I am now out of the Los Angeles market, and I am in the Las Vegas market, and also in the Salt Lake City market. So I currently operate 14 locations. Wow. I'm their largest franchisee, and I am currently the president of the Franchise Advisory Council. Got it. Well, Jeff, maybe a nice question to follow this might be, what was your biggest failure in all of this, your journey so far in the franchise world?



 And what did you take for me?



 Well, look, there's basically two.



 The first one being the challenge that I ran into with my partner, I didn't know enough. And I let somebody-- I was basically just a silent partner and did not have my hands around enough information and didn't know enough.



 I knew enough to be dangerous, but not enough to watch myself in doing that. It basically turned me into a-- now I just dig in everywhere I can. Every number I can get a hold of, I'm analyzing. But the largest failure, single failure, was when COVID hit, I decided, hey, I got an opportunity to invest in a mobile vet business, which was a franchise. And what a great idea. You don't have to bring your pet to the vet's office. We send a vet and a vet technician to your house and take care of all the things that you would need to do up until an animal-eating x-rays. And what a great idea. And I used it-- I used the service myself. And I thought it was a great idea. And at the time, we had three vets.



 And we took over an operation that was fledgling a little bit and put some money in.



 And within 90 days, all three vets quit. And I realized, you know what? I'm not a vet, so I can't do this business. So we had to shut it down. Wow. So that was a good lesson for me, and kind of stick with what you know.



 And so I know that in the morning, I can go in with myself, my wife, or either my two kids and open up our capriattis and run the store just for two of us.



 And so it's what kind of helps. And I think it makes sense to kind of stick in that sense. I do have one location of the Gens place, which is a franchise. It's an upscale men's grooming lounge. And even that, it's a very successful business. We're doing very well. We have one location in Las Vegas.



 I had tried to-- I had gotten into a bad mindset with capriattis four or five years ago, and I decided I wanted to diversify out of food. And I tried to buy the sports clips franchises in Las Vegas. And that didn't work out for me. And I was speaking at the multi-unit franchise show. And after the show, the guy came up to me and said, hey, you're the guy in Vegas who wanted to buy the sport clips locations. I know it didn't work out for you, but if you still want to get into this space, you got to come to the show and meet the Gens place. Emmet Smith and Jerry Jones are the money behind them. And voila, now I have one location. Wow. Great. Maybe along this same line, Jeff, what would you say people misunderstand the most about franchising?



 Well, I think-- look, I think people think it is plug and play.



 And I advertise it. So when somebody asks me, hey, what do you love about franchising? I say it's plug and play. But I think it's also a myth because they have a system.



 They have metrics.



 There's a very thick document called the FDD, which nobody reads. I pay an attorney to read it for me. But I think that people think it's plug and play like, oh, I have some money. I have some business experience. Let me buy myself a job and run a franchise. And in some senses, that is true. That's the American dream. That's what franchising really is. But at the same time, it's the myth because if you buy into the wrong system, if you are not capable of doing those things that are required on a daily basis-- I mean, I work 24-7, seven days a week. I am never not working.



 The only time I'm not working is if I'm on a flight and I'm lucky enough that the Wi-Fi is out. Yes. Yes. And if I'm lucky enough, the Wi-Fi is out. That is like 30-- an hour flight. I go back and forth between Salt Lake City a lot. It's an hour flight. That's an hour of heaven where nobody can bother me. I don't have to turn my phone on. Other than that, you're always, always working. Right. Wow. Well, that's a perfect transition because you're obviously an operator since you made that realization to be involved or you had to.



 Talk to us a little bit about what makes for the best franchisor and franchisee. I think you alluded a little bit on franchisee, knowing your numbers, knowing the business, but can you talk a little bit from your perspective, Jess? What's a great franchisor like from your experience and what are some attributes of a great franchisee and that relationship?



 Yeah. So, it's interesting. I think that the franchisee-franchisor relationship is absolutely key. Okay. And I have been with Caprioni for 15 years. So, I have a relationship where if I need something, I call the president of the company, I text him. Yeah. I have that unique situation. What I look for in a franchisor is when I speak to them, I go to the multi-unit show every year. It's in Vegas, so it makes it easy.



 I ask them, "What's the most important thing for you in franchising?" And if they do not say unit level economics, I run. I run. Unit level economics has to be the most important... Let me rephrase that.



 Franchisee unit level economics has to be the most important thing that a franchisor thinks about. If they don't, it doesn't work. Because if I can't make money, I can't grow.



 And look, I have a wide range of stories. I was very fortunate last month to close a store that when COVID hit, because of my lease, I lost money every single month since COVID started. 36 months in a row, I lost money in a store. And so the franchisor helped me out there with the royalty stream and things like that. But I think that the relationship with the franchisor, look, they rely heavily on this franchise disclosure document, notice the FDD.



 And some of them have what's called item 19, which is their financial disclosures. And I really represent myself basically as item 19. People call me all the time. I'm an open book. I send QuickBooks files. I send P&Ls. I have stores that make money. I have stores that lose money. Well, not anymore, but I did. And so I think that, I probably didn't answer your question the way you wanted me to, but



 franchisor, it's important. It's important to have the franchisor behind you because it's not perfect. And when things happen, when things go bad, you need the franchisor's help. So Capriates has been amazing. And I bought three stores in Utah a year ago and the staffing was miserable. I was driving 45 minutes every day at lunch rush making sandwiches.



 And when it got a little difficult, they sent a training crew out to help me. And so just little things like that are, I think the relationship is really important. You have to find somebody that you can get along with because I didn't come up with this, but you're told if you, once you sign your lease, once you sign your franchise agreement, if you ever have to go back and read it again, you're in trouble. If you ever have to pull those documents out of a drawer, you're in trouble. Right. Well, no, you did answer it. That's exactly right. We've heard it from many others, which is the franchisee and its unit economics are the most important thing, at least from the best franchisor's perspective. So that's great advice for folks coming in. Well, how about on the franchisee side? You're a good operator. You speak, you're part of the advisory council. Talk a little bit about either any operators you've learned from or been inspired from, or what advice you give to franchisees that are looking to up their game a little bit.



 Look, I'm very lucky. I have a director of operations that would drive his car through the window of my office if I asked him to. And so I met a couple guys 10 years ago on a trip to very successful, large Midwest Burger King franchisees. And they gave me two pieces of advice. They said, A, don't ever be afraid to close a store that's losing money and B, pay your top two people a lot of money. So that allows you to grow and do things. And so I've been very, very lucky with my team.



 I have a gentleman that works for me that runs my operator, you know, as the director of operations has been with me for 15 years. He's been with the Capriates for, I think, 17 or 18 years.



 And I think that, you know, today's day and age, it's really hard. It's hard to do, but you've got to surround yourself with good people. You have to surround yourself with good, high quality talent, especially today, especially since the pandemic. I mean, I don't want to say it was easier back then, but it was easier. Yeah.



 Yeah. I think, I think, you know, go ahead, Jeff. I listen, I'm saying, I think that, you know, pre pandemic, it was much easier to kind of find some talent today. I think it's a little bit, you know, it's obviously much more difficult. Based on the current climate. And so I try and find as best I can. And then maybe you talked about the pandemic and the challenge it presented. What was the major, the most, maybe the major innovation that you witnessed during the pandemic?



 And how is that going to play out just looking into the future?



 Well, look, you know, in, you know, each area was different. Las Vegas, they shut our dining rooms down. And so basically overnight, you know, once, you know, a couple weeks into it, once the third party delivery systems got set up more efficiently, you know, our sales were up 25%, our labor was down in half.



 So you know, we had no dining rooms. We had no, you know, it was the pandemic financially for our industry was phenomenal.



 I mean, it was fantastic. I mean, I mean, you know, we took advantage of it. Wow. And so for Capriates, for, you know, my entities, I don't, I don't think there was a lot of crazy technical innovation. You know, we have the third, the third parties, Uber Eats, Grub Hubs, you know, those type of things. But look, we have, you know, we turned stores that were 10% take out to 40 or 50% take out. What's enabled us to do is as we develop new locations, I don't need 1500 feet anymore. I can operate 1200 feet. Wow.



 So, so it allows me to have a smaller footprint of a store and still come in the same sales volume because people just are not sitting in the restaurant as much as they were pre-pandemic. Wow. Got it. Well, you alluded to it a little bit now. Go ahead.



 So now, you know, robots are coming. And so, you know, we have seen the videos of the robots making wings and the robots making pizzas. And you know, so I think that's something that was born out of the pandemic. But you know, I think that's coming.



 And when that comes, maybe if you want to, Jeff, if I may push you to look into the future a bit, what would franchising look like, especially in your industry, when you have those technology advancement coming in like robots, artificial intelligence, machine learning into your industry? What would that look like?



 Well, it's interesting. So I was at a franchise conference this weekend and, you know, maybe I'm just behind the times, but I had my first introduction to chat GBT. Oh, yeah.



 And in the AI universe. And there was a one hour, the first session of the morning on Friday was about it. I'm like, I was blown away. And talked about what it was like to be talked about in our industry. What it is, look, I think that you're going to have robots making food. You're going to have robots cooking food. You know, they've had robots making cars for years. And I have seen the machine that makes the makes the wings and you drop the frozen wings and the thing and it weighs them out. It tells you how many you have and it fries it for you and drops it in a basket. You know, I think that's going to that's going to come.



 You know, I think that I hope that it makes it easier on us. I mean, when you when you are when you are working with large numbers of employees like I am, it's difficult. You know, you have somebody calling in every single day. And sadly, I think that the younger generation, there's a paradigm shift in the, you know, I like to use the word grit or, you know, work ethic, I guess you could say, but it's it's more. It's more of a grit and what what it takes to kind of get to where you want to be. So technology may may help certain aspects of the labor piece of the franchise model. That's fascinating. Well, let's talk a little bit about entrepreneurship and franchising and what does franchising have to do with entrepreneurship and that myth that it's because you get the quote unquote plug and play that it's not necessary. Entrepreneurial. What do you say to that?



 Oh, I disagree. I think that, you know.



 You know, self-employment and entrepreneurship to me kind of run hand in hand. Yeah. Yeah. OK.



 At least to start, at least to start. So you can you can develop your own business and you could be the founder. Founder seems to be a big word being thrown around lately if you're the founder of the business and you that you can sell your business and still be part of the business and then work for somebody.



 But you're still entrepreneurial. Yeah. And you're still helping, you know, helping the business grow. I mean, I am. You know, Gordon Gekko looked at a thousand deals a day. He chose one. I mean, I'm looking at franchises constantly. Yeah. Now, old Jeff, old Jeff, you know, 10, 12 years ago, Jeff would probably have jumped at a few more. I used to go through the multi unit show and bring home stacks of paper. My wife was like, you can't do that. You can't buy a truck that you can't buy a truck that has a golf course simulator in it just because you want to use it or truck that's got 30, you know, 30 video games in it for kids for a birthday party. You got to try to let it get it. You know, maybe you'll get invited to that party as of it. But you can't think you could be all those things.



 That's the French. Sounds like the franchise bug. Love it.



 Jeff, you you were in sales for many years. And I I would even I would even dare to say you are still in sales. OK.



 Absolutely. Absolutely. 100 percent commission sales. OK. OK. So, Jeff, what did you take from being in sales? And how did it help you in being in getting to where you are today and what you were trying to do in the future as well?



 Well, look, I think luck takes a big part of it. I believe you make your own luck, but I've been very, very, very fortunate and very lucky. I can trace my success and failures back to like single instances of people that I've met or situations that have happened. But I think that, you know, I go back to the entrepreneurship piece of it that, you know, look, when you're in sales, I was, you know, I had a call on customers. It was my business. And I had my own business. I had a quote I had to meet, but I had to go call these customers and I had to go build a business. I had to make a business plan, you know, SWOT analysis. That was a big, you know, kind of getting away from that today. But, you know, that was a big piece of it. You know, we had you know, we had annual planning and and you had goals you had to meet. And so that's still entrepreneurship. And so that's still entrepreneurship. I mean, even though I got a paycheck from a company, it was still my own. It was still my own business. You know, I don't I don't want to I don't want to not, you know, not equate it to punching a clock, you know, going, you know, going into an office every day. And, you know, you're working at a bank, you're punching a clock.



 I, you know, I think that you either have this goofy spirit or you don't. Yeah. You know, you either you either chase it or or or you don't. And so I think that's a big piece, you know, and also I think that Babson, you know, look, you know, we I guess I could say we we win the award every year because we win the award every year because we're really good at it. And we're great at it. And we you know, you people go to Babson and if they don't have that spirit, you are around people that do. I mean, my my three best relationships that came out of Babson, my three best friends from school that I still talk to weekly.



 Sometimes daily, depending on what's happening, that they all came into school. They all had their own business when they started school. One guy was selling T-shirts.



 One guy, you know, you know, my best friend had a had a condom machines in the dormitories, you know, I mean, and they all had this. And so, you know, you kind of you kind of learn it. Then I left, you know, I went to work for my family business for 10 years. You know, you know, I was not able to, you know, entrepreneur as much as I wanted to at the time. But, you know, since 2000, it's it's it's every second. Well, I love it of the day I'm doing it. Wow. I love it. And true Babson fashion. You mentioned something earlier. I'd love to have you expand on for our audience, especially, you know, the importance, as you referenced, of the franchise or franchisee relationship and partnership. Can you talk a little bit about and explain how advisory council works and and and this this kind of sharing of things that's in many franchisees, DNA and even with you with French is or thanks.



 Yes, so franchise advisory council is an elected position.



 You know, I don't have a lot of experience and a lot of brains, but the way Capriati's works is they split the they split the country up into three territories. I think they just added a fourth and you're elected. You you you run for position. They have they have elections and, you know, right now we have five members, excuse me, of the advisory council to on the West Coast to on the East Coast and one in the Midwest. I believe they add to somebody in the mountain region.



 And basically once a quarter, we have a all hands on meeting with the senior leadership team and the court, you know, the franchise or team. And, you know, it used to be years ago, it was at least a Capriati's they got us together and they told us what they were going to do. And that was really it. But as the system has grown, they have made it more of a, hey, here's what we want to do. Give us some input. And so we, you know, we now we now have some we now have some input into the system of things that, you know, that that we want to do. I have been involved in the franchise advisory council community for probably 10 years, you know, as the system grew.



 I got off it, you know, pre pandemic to give some other people a chance to get on it. And recently somebody dropped off in January. They named me to be back on the council and then immediately the first meeting, they all voted me as the president.



 And, you know, there's not there's not a crazy amount of responsibility that I have, but it's it's more of I want to be a resource for people coming in because I have. I have 15 years experience and I have failed. I mean, I have built stores and had to close them because they did not, you know, I lost money and, you know, I want to make sure that one of the responsibilities that I feel that I have is I want to make sure that the franchise community. Rives and can be supported and can, you know, for lack of better words, make money and make enough money to build the next door and to build the next door. So I feel kind of responsibility about that because I get phone calls from people that want to get into the brand. I mean, our our food is very, very, very good. Our food is, you know, we have sandwich that's award winning and our food is very unique. And when people come to Las Vegas, you know, there's 40 plus stores in the Las Vegas area.



 I get a lot of phone calls from people saying, hey, I tried your your sandwich and it was really good. And my brother's uncle's going to liquidate his 401k and my my cousin's getting out of jail next week and he's going to run the store for me because he worked in a prison kitchen. And I have to tell these people no. And so, you know, with the franchise advisory council, it allows me to to one, I have access to some information at the French level that maybe I wouldn't have. And I can disseminate that and I can bring that down to the community. And they're one of the things we're working on is we're required by the franchise or to send an RP and I was monthly and it's just crazy that we have like a 65 percent through rate on that. And one of my jobs is to get over these people that aren't doing it, find out why and convince them to do it so they don't get defaulted where they don't realize their franchise agreement requires it. But it's a good thing and it helps with benchmarking and and we're able to find a better insurance company for the entire brand that saves us money. But I think the council is a nice thing. We, you know, I have we have quarterly meetings, but the five members of the current council, we meet now monthly ourselves, just the five of us. And we just talk about issues. We're in different parts of the country. We are not competitive threats. We are, you know, we're friends and we talk a lot about issues that are going on in our stores so that we can then, you know, get them out to the community and see what what happens. You know, a lot of the great innovations in franchising have come from franchisees. Yes. Okay. The Egg McMuffin. The Egg McMuffin is the greatest example of it. I mean, that was that was designed by franchisee that was hungry and wanted to make something in the morning for breakfast and and developed it. And so I think that the council, you know, when I was on it for years was just a monofranchise advisory council. Great. I think now it's it's a it's a body that makes sense for us. And I hope to be able to, you know, use my 15 years experience to help new franchisees coming in and also foster existing franchisees and see how we can make, you know, more money. The bottom line is we want to make more money. That's it. I mean, that's not for ourselves here. We're here. We're here to make money. Most of us, including myself, have debt. You know, I have I have loans to pay and I need to make money to be able to do that. Yeah. Jeff, if you have a group of, I don't know, students at different maybe undergrads, graduate student, MBA students, and they are thinking of going into a franchise in what would be your advice to this group?



 Well, it's funny. I have it's changed. So if you would ask me this question three weeks ago, I would have given you a different answer. But I think that, yeah, you know, it's funny because I have now that I'm the president of this council, I'm getting calls from people and I have I have a gentleman whose son is about to graduate with his MBA.



 And he wants to buy his son a territory to build capriaudits. And I asked him who's going to run it. Yeah. It's well, my son's in my son's an MBA and he's, you know, and I said, well, you know, has he ever washed dishes?



 Has he ever, you know, made a sandwich? You know, yeah. I mean, you remember, you remember the old commercial time to make the donuts, you know, the guy get up at four o'clock in the morning. I mean, there's a lot of that involved. I think that as a as a as an undergraduate student, go get a job at a sandwich shop, go get a job at a pizza shop, go get a job at a gas station. You know, you know, all these places are, you know, seven eleven is, you know, franchise. OK. And and get some experience doing that. I think that there's nothing greater than having the hands on experience. OK. When I woke up one morning in May of 2014, I had I had made a sandwich kind of I went in the store, but I'd never really run a restaurant. OK. I did not have to go through the formal training because I had a partner that did it. And that's what it was. You know, when you when you sign on now today, you have to have a general manager and you have to go come to Las Vegas and go through 30 days of training.



 And so, you know, an NBA coming out maybe has a different experience, maybe has some background in it. But no matter who you are, you absolutely must have a seasoned, you know, that industry expert working with you. OK, I know restaurants, I know restaurants. And so that's what I have. I mean, so there's there's a and there's a great franchise called Chicken Salad Chick. Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with them. I love their I love I love their food. They're fantastic. But they are growing very, very, very sadly, methodically. Yeah. And they have not yet come west of Denver. And so I had looked at doing a few stores of them at Denver and they said, Jeff, look, great. No problem. But you're going to move to Denver. And I said, no, I'm not moving to Denver. And they said, OK, then you're going to have an operating partner, someone with equity in excess of 10 percent in your team. That is an operating part of that lives in Denver and runs those restaurants. And so I said, look, I can't find that. I don't know anyone in Denver.



 I'm not sure I would trust anyone to do this with. Let's wait till you come to Las Vegas. And so I would I would kind of give the same advice to somebody going out. And you have to have an operating partner that that knows the industry. I don't care if it's what it is. You know, tires, paint. I mean, there's a billion franchises.



 You know, that type of thing. I think it's really important. And, you know, people talk about, oh, I can go, you know, you can buy yourself a job. Yeah. So, you know, you could buy yourself a job. I mean, you know, I had a capriaudis in Culver City, California, had one left that I was able to sell. And, you know, the manager was making about 50,000 a year. The store made about 50,000 a year. And so, look, if you wanted to buy the business, you can basically be an owner operator making so 100 grand a year. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Well, we've had a lot of discussion and people weigh in on the intersection of franchise ownership and entrepreneurship and and social impact. Right. And, you know, supporting a community in different ways that many people may not realize since you're an entrepreneur. Can you just shed a little light on, you know, impact the franchise meet franchisees, making their communities and maybe as a franchisee, how you can, you know, advance diversity efforts and getting more people involved in the brands or however you view that that kind of subject area.



 Yeah, you know, it's interesting. So depending on where I am, you know, Las Vegas is kind of an anomaly with us because there's so many locations in Las Vegas and we have so many owners. Yeah. So I think we I think we're up to that. I think we're up to nine franchisees right now. When I get in the system, they were there were 30 stores and they were 19 franchisees. Got it. And so, you know, look, we we are constantly donating food. Yeah. OK, constantly. Sadly, through the pandemic, you know, the health department in Clark County, you know, you're not you know, our bread comes fresh. Yeah, our bread comes fresh every day. I can't give it away. You know, there's there's there's just certain, you know, there's you know, there's a health department piece of it. But look, we do you know, we're a small brand. OK, I know that I think tomorrow is Jersey Mike's Giving Day where Danny DeVito is going to be slicing slicing meats.



 You know, we we do you know, we do what we can. And we donate we donate where we can. I don't really turn down anybody. Yeah, you know, my my my son is a pretty accomplished DJ because he got a summer job working at the Boys and Girls Club here in Las Vegas. And when Duane calls me, I give him anything he wants, any sandwiches he wants, any trays, donations, whatever they want. I try and do, you know, try and do as much as I can with them. Right. Good stuff. Wow. And I think that I think that on the on the diversity piece of it, look, we, you know, in our industry, you know, we are hiring. We are hiring anybody that really wants to work. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I think I think it's hard. You know, when you are when you are hiring for let's face it, ten to twelve dollar an hour job, it's supposed to be it's supposed to be kind of your starting job. It's supposed to be kind of your four way into employment to see kind of, wow, this is work. It's hard work. It's not easy. Right. Well, OK, it's not easy. Yeah. I mean, in your example, if some of your employees being being involved for 15 plus years can hopefully shed light as a pathway for folks, you know, and then maybe in store ownership. Look, yeah, look, I I brag about a few things. One of them is everyone loves working for Jeff Klein. OK, and it's true. I have I have a lot of longtime employees and for the longest time pre pandemic, you know, you know, I didn't hire managers. I developed manager. Yeah. And, you know, I promoted from within and it was a recruiting. It was a recruiting strength of ours where, you know, we said, look, if you want to grow here, look, look at these five sports. Four managers I have all of them started with me at eight dollars an hour making subs. That's great. And we developed them. And it's funny you mentioned about, you know, you know, owning, you know, someone in a store, you know, I kind of have this deal with my my operations director and his wife. We both have worked for me for 15 years. You know, Mike, the greatest thing that's going to happen to me is when he comes to me, he says, Jeff, look, I'm leaving and I want to buy three of your stores. Yeah, great. You know, that's kind of that that would culminate from a guy that was making seven seventy five an hour.



 And who now who now will have and he will he will absolutely have an opportunity one day to be a store owner. Well, Jeff, Jeff, now just to start wrapping up, what current trends.



 Do you think we must shape the future of franchising?



 Innovation, innovation, innovation.



 I think innovation is a big piece of it.



 You know, it's kind of twofold because as a franchisee, I don't really get to innovate.



 And so and anything that I come up with, you know, the franchise or now because we because we are seen in our capriyote system as being very, very top tier operators, I have the ability to go to the franchise or and say, hey, look, why don't we try this? Here's something we've been doing. Here's something that we like to try. Can we test this? You know, something like that. I think it's a piece of it. But people, you know, I'm in the food business and I'm in the.



 Hair care. People are always going to need their haircut. OK, I don't think there's going to be a different way to do it.



 OK, if you want to be like, you know, if you want to go about the Jetsons, you know, maybe you're going to stick your head in something one day and you're going to come out, your hair is going to be done. But I think that robots are going to be a big piece of the food industry. I mean, you're seeing McDonald's do it with the order and kiosks, you know, that type of thing. Wow.



 Great stuff. What an awesome discussion. And and thank you, by the way, I've got the magazine here, you know, that you are in. I appreciate it. You know, you represent. Thank you, guys. That was great. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you. You represent so much that's great about backpacking. I mean, I think you're going to be a big fan of the food industry. You represent so much that's great about Baps and but most importantly, taking advantage of opportunity and acting and and innovating and and developing leaders. And I think a lot of great advice for our audience. So thank you, Jeff. I'll be out in Vegas hopefully soon and we'll get together for a sandwich. And we'd love to have you back. I look forward to it. Thank you, Jeff. Yeah. Yeah. Please let me know. Yeah. I'd love to come back any time. You know, it would be a big honor for me to be able to do that and share my experiences. By the way, Jeff, this is not OK. We're done with it with the interview, with the conversation. But I want you to know that, you know, here at Barbzine now, when you were at Barbzine, there was no courses on sales. Now we have four. OK. Wow, that's great. Because I came in from the sales and sales background. So when I joined Barbzine, I wanted to build our sales curriculum. So it's growing. And then now we have students that are taking classes in sales. So I love it when you say I think it's fantastic.



 Well, yeah, no, look, I was I was at 100 percent commission sales. Now, look, my wife, my wife's a doctor and very successful doctor. So I was able to take a position like that, you know, because of it. But, you know, there are it's funny. I was in this franchise show this week and it's a primarily franchise or based. Yeah. Conference. It's called the it's called the Unconference. And it's basically a networking event that's put on by a law firm and a PR firm. And I met the guys that before Covid and they met up skiing at Parks and Utah. That's where the show is. And they said, hey, we're going to let a couple of franchisees come. But it's been a great thing because from that, I get to see it from the different side of it. Yeah. Yeah. And now and now and now and now that I bought this business last week.



 Excuse me, that was a franchise that went under. Who knows? I may end up as a franchise or one day. Yeah. Wow. And the good thing is, is I think that it's interesting and I just thought of this as I'm sitting here. The best franchise or are the ones that started as franchisees. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. They have that. I didn't say that. I didn't say that, but I should have said that. Yeah. I think that the best franchise or so the ones that started franchisees because they know the struggles. Yes. Wow. Yes. Wow. Well, great stuff. And we're if we can be of any help to you with that. We've got a bunch of really exciting student initiatives going on. And Vitti's modest, but I'm like you. I'm a big believer in surrounding yourself with great people. So he's the brains behind putting everything behind this podcast. He's brilliant. So we'll definitely plan for you to come out for sure and have a day around it and love to stay engaged, my friend. Now, listen, I really appreciate it. It's been great. Thank you so much. All right, Jeff. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Stars of Franchising.



 Stars of Franchising was produced at Babson College, engineered by Travis Gray. Karen Sohle is our guest coordinator and music by Ralph Taylor. If you like Stars of Franchising, be sure to review us wherever you get your podcasts and swear the word and share these stories any way you can.