Retirement For Life

Franchising in Retirement with Special Guest Cliff Nonnenmacher - Ep 47

• Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP® • Season 2 • Episode 47

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To get the full RFL experience, watch the episode here at https://youtu.be/ZtuAJ14nZck

Want a second act that pays and still lets you live your life? We sit down with franchise expert and serial entrepreneur Cliff Nonnenmacher to map a practical path to semi-absentee ownership for people who want cash flow, not a new full-time job. From golf-ball hustles to Wall Street to scaling franchise systems, Cliff’s journey reveals how to pair discipline with demand so your retirement stays uncompromised.

We break down the myths that keep many would-be owners on the sidelines and dig into the sectors with real tailwinds: the silver tsunami of aging Americans driving mobility and small-format assisted living; the trades and tool-based services poised to win as labor tightens and robotics elevate operators; the booming pet economy powering grooming and training; and youth enrichment stepping in where schools leave gaps. Instead of chasing shiny brands, we focus on models with low fixed costs, strong margins, and clear KPIs that support an executive approach—hire a rock star manager, tie incentives to performance, and protect your time.

Financing gets demystified too. Most clients use SBA loans with a 30–40% injection, and Cliff explains how ERISA-compliant rollovers can deploy retirement funds into a franchise with no taxes, penalties, or loan payments, while preserving tax deferral on exit. He also shares a step-by-step playbook for validation: talk with existing owners in your age bracket and market, confirm ramp timelines, hiring realities, marketing channels, and unit economics before you wire a dollar. The message is simple: be unreasonably selective, trade fear for due diligence, and choose a system that matches your goals so you can create durable, local cash flow and a legacy your family can run—or sell—on your terms.

If you’re curious about a path that keeps you sharp, adds income, and protects your lifestyle, press play. Then subscribe, share this with a friend who’s “retiring but not done,” and leave a review with the one sector you’d bet on next.

Cliff Nonnenmacher’s Info:

Email: cliffn@franocity.com

Phone: 561-277-3710

Website:

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Intro:

Retirement for Life. Your passport to a comfortable and confident retirement. The podcast that's equal parts education and entertainment. Where we break down the retirement into the national fun and a heap of wisdom from your host, Christian Steers CPA, the passionate retirement specialist and president of Steer Financial Wealth Advisors, the independent registered investment advisor specializing in the AIM Retirement System.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Okay, guys, welcome back to Retirement for Life. Today's podcast, episode 47. We have Cliff Nonnenmacher. He is a turn to the left for this show. I have watched Cliff and he has something for you. I am super excited. Cliff, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us today. My pleasure.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Thanks for having me.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Appreciate it. So you, like me, are a serial entrepreneur. Is that true or false?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

That is true. And a former investment banker and then serial entrepreneur.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Who did you work for?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

I was with Solomon Smith Barney when they were Solomon Smith Barney.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Back in the day. That's right. And now you're a franchise expert. I think this is going to be a great topic. I talk to a lot of retirees on a daily basis. Now, most of these retirees, I'm just going to kind of give you the lay of the land here, Cliff. They are tired of working. They want to live their life doing something else, the things that they've been putting off, right? That they haven't been able to do for 40 years. And they want to take the stress, uh, the hassles, the pressures of managing their retirement and their finance, and just put them in the hands of some sort of expert, right? Credentialed experts. And a lot of people also want to make sure that if something happens to them, their spouse is taken care of. But let me give you some of these retirees that want to hear what you have to say today. I talked to these retirees as well. They don't want to get out of the action. Uh they're not ready to go on a golf course and just, you know, spend four hours every day just playing golf. They want, they want the action still. So um we're gonna be talking to those retirees today because I think there's a lot of misconceptions, and you're gonna help us uh kind of demystify what it is to own a franchise. So um let's just take basics. I want to hear how you decided to stop being an investment banker and get into the world of being a franchise or and owning your own franchises.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Okay, absolutely. So, long story short, so I started when I was eight, uh raking golf balls out of country club ponds and scouring the woods and collecting golf balls. Um, it was it was a business. It wasn't something I did once or twice. You know, people say I used to do something. I obsessed over it. I did it all the time, weekends after school. I would make $100 on a weekend selling golf balls in the 1980s. So for all of you who are investors, you know that $100 in the 1980s is like $300 today, right? That's a lot of money for an eight, nine, 10-year-old. So I would I would bang out as many golf balls as I could possibly get, take them home, clean them with bleach and water, and then tell my mom never throw egg cartons away because I put them all in egg cartons, and then I would sit in the front of the uh country clubs and I would sell them. Um at the time, I don't need to tell you pinnacle, titleess, titleess XLs, yeah. Well, at that time they just turn yellow and they just turn orange. That's right. That's right. I mean, some of those golf balls are six dollars a golf ball. I mean, if you look up what a golf ball is going for today, so back then I could get a dollar for a used ball that wasn't, you know, in the water, you know, from the woods. It wasn't waterlogged and blistered and all that. So that's how I started, scaled from there. Now I'm in New York at the time. I moved to Markov Island, Florida. It's an island three miles by six miles. I create Uber Eats decades before Uber Eats. I delivered food on the island for 16 restaurants, a pharmacy, and an auto parts store. I would do 300 deliveries a day, um, 19, and on a little island. Of course, I could do that because it was three miles by six miles. I actually had a dedicated cash register at McDonald's, and I believe I'm the first person in the United States to ever be a subcontracted delivery company for McDonald's. Yeah, absolutely. I was doing this in 1990, 1991. Cell phones just came out. It was the size of a purse, literally. It was a bag because the battery was massive, right? So you had to handset the whole phone, it was just tech and battery. Um, ended up having a dedicated cash register, did 100 deliveries a day for McDonald's. That brought me into the water sport business. Now I own parasol boats, jet skis, catamarans on Marco Island. I had contracts with the Hilton, Hilton Grand Vacation, and I had contracts on the Jersey Shore because I met people in Marco from New Jersey, and they said, hey, come on up to LBI and run your boat there. So I was running parasol boats up in Long Beach Island, New Jersey. That took me into the video store business. That then took me into distributing the fun noodle nationally, the polyneoprene tube that you float on. That ultimately led me into the gym business, that led me into printer cartridge remanufacturing. So now I'm a broker and I become now I'm like, okay, the grass is always greener, right? Right. I'm a basically an entrepreneur my whole life. I skipped college, I'm doing business, I have money. I'm trading a portfolio on my own. I had a DTN satellite network in the 90s on the side of my house. Um, so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take my portfolio to Wall Street, and I landed offers from every major firm: Raymond James, Morgan Stanley, Dean Whitter, Merrill Lynch, and Solomon Smith Barney. Why Smith Barney? My next door neighbor, Bobby, worked for Smith Barney. I thought it was the coolest firm. Sure. John Houseman, we make money the old-fashioned way to earn it. That's right. I loved that commercial. I just thought the panache of that firm. I ended up being with them. I was with a team called Comprehensive Wealth Management Group. We managed 250 million. And then I had a bad boss moment. There was one printer in the office, one for 50 brokers. And I asked our branch manager, could we have a printer on our side of the building? He said, if you want a printer, you buy it. So we bought it. The cartridge the cartridge was $250.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Oh, yeah. The cartridge used to be so expensive back then.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Yes, it was $250. Now it was a big one. It yielded like, you know, I don't know, thousands of pages. But still, it was $250. And I'm like, why am I paying for this? Like the firm should offer this. So I melted with a soldering iron, I attached a cut piece of copper pipe and I melted a perfect circle the size of a dime in the toner hopper, filled it up with aftermarket toner, put electrical tape on it, put it back in the printer, and I got four, five thousand more pages out of this thing. So I end up, I end up, I'm dating myself now. I end up going to Barnes and Noble and I buy a franchise handbook. And I find a company, Chris, in Australia that reverse, yeah, that reverse a remanufacturer of toner cartridges, ink, toner, secret handshake chips, anti-coagulation agents, you name it, they have figured it out. I buy the master franchise rights for this company, and I and I move to New York to scale 36 units as a master, um, sell it, move back to Florida, and continue my entrepreneurial journey. I know I said long story short, but I've I've been at this quite a while. I'm in my 50s now, and I've been in the restoration business. I have investments in pokey restaurants, I have investments in Boba T restaurants, and vowed that I would never go back to corporate America.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I just yeah, I that's me too. I left the corporate world. I just couldn't I despised it. I mean, I'm just writing this stuff down. It's hard to keep up. The Uber Eats guy before there were there was Uber Eats, the golf ball finder, uh, the printer cartridge guy, uh, and some flotation device in there.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Yeah, the fun noodle. The fun noodle. Yeah, they didn't want to sell one box, they wanted to sell tractor trailers. So I bought a tractor trailer.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So you've landed though on franchises, and I want to talk about franchises. I think that there is, as I explained earlier, a very good opportunity for the right kind of retiree to think about owning a franchise. And uh a lot of misconceptions out there. Okay, so so let's just demystify this right away. I'm 65 years old, I'm too old to get in involved with the franchise. True or false?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

No, false.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Okay. Uh there are people that you know and I know that think they want to run a business and they're just not made out for it. Tell me what you go through when you're first interviewing a potential uh investor in a franchise.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Yeah, I like that. I like the myth busting too. Number one issue dealing with retirees. First of all, they don't they they may have assets, but they don't have cash flow, right? So their burn rate is very high. Even when it's not high, it's just all burn rate, no income. That that just doesn't work. So most people haven't figured out. Number one risk they have is the fact that they may actually outlive their money. So they need cash flow. I mean, it's the number one fear. It's not death, it's outliving your money. It's absolutely their number one fear over dying. So, yes, now they want to play it safe. So they buy a 4% treasury, big deal. They go to corporates, they get scared, they hear the rumblings on TV, they're trying to chase yield, they can't get it. They buy speculative stuff and so on. I think franchising is an amazing investment vehicle for someone in their retirement if they could overcome what I call the head trash, which is all the myths. They're gonna make me do the heavy lifting, they're gonna make me cut hair, they're gonna make me make sandwiches. I don't want to deal with this. I'll never find the employees. Don't want to go back to work. Yeah, right. I exactly. I don't want I already did the 40, 50, 60 hour weeks. I don't want to grind it out again. Okay. Now, there are a lot of businesses that resemble all the negativity and operational complexities that we just mentioned. But there are businesses that are easy to scale, they're low investment, they're asymmetrical, they have a high margin. You don't need to break your back doing it. You can hire a rock star employee that maybe you dangle a little bit of equity to keep that stickiness so that you could go on a cruise and you can live a good life. Will you will you take a haircut for a paycheck because you have high labor, because you, the retiree, don't want to do the work? Yes. Yeah. But what's wrong with that? Nothing. I'll take a haircut. Exactly. If I only have to work 15, 20 hours a week to oversee some KPIs and manage my manager, I'll do it.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Okay, so what's what's the hottest industries to get involved in right now? You know, if I was just going to pick the top two or three, what are you loving right now?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

I'm I'm loving any I'm loving five things. I'm loving the which is really interesting because I've this is my first time on, let's say, a 60 plus or a retirement show. Uh-huh. And I appreciate you having me on there. And people don't because of all the myths. So I really appreciate you being like a trailblazer to say, look, let's flip the script here. What why are you not a fit for for six-year-olds? It's like that's not any sense.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I I I see that I talked to probably 20 people uh 60 to 69 years old. Okay, so you're talking four or five phone calls a day, right? And I know exactly who I'm talking to, and the majority of people would agree they don't want this, but there are I'm gonna say 10 to 25 percent of people I talk to want this and don't know they want it, Cliff. Because okay, so let me I'm gonna go back to the stereotypical guy. He was in the corporate world. I said earlier he loved the action. Okay, but they don't know what they want. Do I invest in Bitcoin? They just they gotta become experts in Bitcoin because they need something. Like, well, I don't know if that's really great. Um, a lot of times they'll gravitate to real estate, which is good, you know, that can be a source of income, arguably not as lucrative of as a franchisee. But you know, a lot of times I see my retirees who do want something more and they do go to that real estate, ultimately they end up balancing a checkbook and dealing with a tenant, and it's not what they're really looking for. So yeah, I I don't think it's unusual because I know firsthand there is a marketplace for people that we're talking to today to do this. So, what are the five things that really or some of the things that make sense that you're really loving right now?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

The first category, I'm gonna I'm gonna call it the silver tsunami. It's the aging graying of America. The country's aging rapidly, and there is a and and this is here's the here's a myth. Oh, yeah, I don't want to care for elderly people. The silver tsunami isn't just caring for elderly people, it's servicing, supporting, and providing products to them. Like, for example, I have a brand that all they do is install patented modular ramps. The business started by having one client, one high net worth client, Christopher Reeves. And they traveled around the world getting that guy in and out and on and off of stages all across the globe. Wow. That's that's how this guy, an engineer, created these patented modular ramps. The business does a million a year on average revenue. A million. For people listening, only six percent of companies in America will ever reach a million in revenue in their lifetime. Lifetime. You could take a snapshot right now, like October 4th, uh, excuse me, November 4th. How many brands do a million? Less than 6% in America. So, like, that's an enviable number to hit a million. And that's why the guys in the shark tank always jump out of their seat when they ask a guest what were your revenues last year, and they say a million, and you have a billionaire that will be like, whoa. Yeah, because you're in the you're in the single digit club. So you could you could care for them. Yeah, you you like real estate? Listen to this, brand. You like real estate as a retiree? Yes, I do. Why don't you convert that real estate to an assisted living facility? You reserve that right under the law, under the Federal Fair Housing Act, convert that home and generate eight to ten thousand a month in rent roll just by being a franchise assisted living facility. You'll have five to eight residents in your home, you'll provide three meals a day, not by employees, by subcontracted chef companies. They're everywhere, these people that do food prep, they come into the home, they do the food prep. It's a real estate play. If you're the worst franchisee in the world and you failed, what happened to you? You're stuck with a single family home somewhere in America that you now can rent to a normal family. I don't see a lot of risk in doing deals like that. Right. Right? So you think about you know, ramps, grab bars, anti-slip flooring, mobility. I have brands that do seven figures. All they do is repair, rent, and sell all things mobility. That's it.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I want to double-click into the term silver tsunami. Let me tell you a little funny story. Uh I'm all about exactly what you said earlier. There has to be reliable sources of income. My number one job and what I do the best, I believe, is making sure people won't run out of money. And you and I are on the same page with that. Years ago, I came across a term that just I thought fit that goal perfectly. Mailbox money. I love that term. I started using it, and you know, sometimes you get complicated products. How do you simplify things? Have a one or two-word description that just people say, I know exactly what he's talking about. I used mailbox money until, you know, about a year ago. I got a cease and desist from somebody who trademarked mailbox money like 15 years ago, right? So, uh, but I'm honest, I didn't come up with the term. So did you come up with the term silver tsunami? Is that a well-known term? I love that. I've never heard that before.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Don't know. So we just we just wrote a book, it's bestseller on Amazon right now, Beyond the Brand.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Yeah.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

And we needed our own nomenclature, and we chose uh silver tsunami.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I I think that's fantastic. I mean, what else we had on the book?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Wait, so yeah, the silver tsunami, and it doesn't just mean you're caring for the elderly. Then you have what I call the feminization of men in America. And let me explain. It means that we've destroyed men's sperm count. It it it is. It is well, if you're in your 60s and you're listening, you're you're a you're a baby boomer, uh-huh. Right. And baby boomers, in my opinion, was one of the greatest generations ever born. Um, I really believe that. I think it's it's an amazing, I think they were the best parents. I think my I'm Gen X. I think my generation will be the worst parents ever in American culture. Uh-huh. We destroyed these kids. I mean, we really did. We destroyed them.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

You could have a podcast on that. I go.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Just on that, right, right. So going back to them and you know, the um the feminization of men. Yeah. So any business requiring the use of tools, you will win. I don't care if it's a squeegee, a squeegee. I don't care if it's a pressure washing wand. I don't care if it's a hammer. I don't care if you're doing roofing. So smart. I don't care what you're doing, you are going to win because we have spent the last two decades shitting on the trades in America and telling every man, don't you dare become a plumber. Go to college. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Mike Rowe is out there every day from dirty jobs, telling people we need to backfill the trades. We need more, we need more manly positions filled. So if you're a franchisee, I truly believe that if you get involved in any business that requires the use of tools, you're gonna win. Here's the other thing that I believe. I believe that if you get involved in a business that requires the use of tools, in the next five to ten years, you will become the disruptor versus the disrupted. Why do I say that? If you own a home inspection company today and you're marketing exclusively to realtors, right, you're sending a human being to inspect this house. I believe in the next five years, you will send an optimist bot, a humanoid, into the home with infrared eyeballs, doing moisture readings on walls and ceilings and climbing in attics and sending a drone up to the roof. I really we're there. I believe an autonomous vehicle will pull up to the front of your house, and I believe that three, four optimist bots will get out. And I think they will do a full home inspection. They will not only give you a report on the condition of your home, they will tell you exactly who to call to fix it. It will be data to the right of a decimal point. Um we're there. We are there. Interesting. Oh, yeah, we're there. You will be the disruptor. If you are a home inspector listening to this, like you're in the business, you will be out of a job and disrupted in the next 60 to 120 months, you are dead out of business.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

All right. Hit me uh with a cup, just a couple more high level. What what else do you like out there?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

We back to feminism. Since we we're aging and we have feminized men, we're not repopulating. So we have humanized pets and animals. So anything in the pet and animal vertical, grooming, training, spa treatments.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

47% of Americans have a dog, and like 60% of Americans have some sort of pet. I don't know if those I think that those stats are directionally correct.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

100% accurate. It said differently, it is a hundred and fifty billion dollar industry in this country alone. 150 billion. And like people may be like, I don't know, is that good or bad? Like the entire home improvement industry is 500 billion. Just the money we spend on pets is 150 billion.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Yeah.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

I mean, the haircutting industry is not even 50 billion. Like you could do this all day long in market cap.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Silver tsunami.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Um silver tsunami, humanization of pets and animals, feminization of men in America. Public schools are an abysmal failure. Anything involving youth enrichment, okay? Anything. Teaching kids how to cook, teaching them a life skill, teaching them how to home economics. All the schools killed everything that makes you a productive human being. All right. It killed all of it.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So we got some ideas here, and there's a million of them. And I love the way you think about these things. You're not only just saying here's a product, you're saying, here's the way I've put thought into this. This is what I think uh the future looks like. And I have to say, honestly, every single thing you just said with me completely resonate, resonates. Uh the pets is crazy, right? The tools, the, the, the using use of your hands, the learning a trade. We're aging, everything makes sense. So, but again, not everyone is perfect for this. So who is in your I told you who I think is perfect for this. Who do you think is perfect or perhaps ideal for owning uh a franchise?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Yeah, I think that anyone that wants to create some cash flow, anyone that wants to leave a legacy for their spouse, children, or grandchildren, anyone that wants, I mean, if you think about why we invest, secure a spouse's future, endow a legacy, charity trust, care for our elderly parents, take take care of our children. I mean, it's the same list, right? So anyone listening, do you you know, do you need to have a background in these industries? No. Are you required to do the work in these industries? No. You will be what we call the executive model. All right. If you wanted to buy one of these businesses, you will be managing the manager.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

And what you're saying is there's ways to uh obviously be a hands-on owner operator, but there are circumstances where you can be more passive. Is that what you're saying?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

I will never say that this industry is fully passive. So if anyone listening is like, I want that mailbox money, I want a fully passive business, I would pump the brakes and say, don't do a franchise.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Okay, let's let's rephrase it then. Um, this is not a necessarily a 40-hour week, 20-hour week type of thing.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Semi-absentee.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Semi-absentee.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

This will be a semi-absentee business for the retiree, 60 plus. They're gonna hire a rock star, second in command. They're gonna create a sticky relationship with that person. I write about it in my book, How to Retain and Create Stickiness.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

The most important thing.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

The people you're that's exactly right. Make treat them, give them a little bit of equity if they hit some bogeys and KPIs, right? Just give them a little bit. Even a five points of equity, no voting rights, treat them like a profit sharing partner. Yeah, they will stay with you. They'll run around town. I'm an equity owner, I'm not an employee.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

And then you can find it, and you you hire 10 of those people, and that's now you're on to something else. So yeah, right, or single unit. I come unit the very first time, Cliff. Your company's name is Fronacity. I am looking for the right franchise to get involved in. I know these people. I told you I talked to them on a daily basis. First question, just give it to us. What's this gonna cost me for your services?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Thank you. The services that we provide to the buyer are 100% free. Nothing. We're compensated. So we're compensated. We're just not compensated by the buyer. We're compensated like a headhunter or a realtor. We're compensated by the seller, the apostle.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I don't have to pay you anything. You're getting compensated on the back end. And your services are essentially free to me.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Everything we do for the client is free. SBA pre-approval, helping them with due diligence. The process is three months. Like, this is not like a listener calls me and it's like, are you in or you're out? Like this is a three-month minimum due diligence cycle. So we we're helping them close the loop on due diligence. We're helping them navigate this whole process. We're helping them speak to existing franchisees. We're helping them identify within a system. Let's just use mobile pet grooming as an example. I want to buy a mobile pet. My wife and I love pets. It's something that we would enjoy in retirement. Great. Let's identify people in your age category that bought this franchise before you did. How do I do that? We'll teach you how to do it. We'll get their name. We'll get their phone number, and let's get some conversations going. Okay. You know what I mean? That's the power of what we do. It's not just trust. It's trust, but let's verify with people just like you in the franchise system. The most powerful part of franchising is validation with like-minded individuals. I don't want to speak to a 20-year-old. I want to speak to a 50, 60 plus-year-old. Okay.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So let's let's kind of get into the money side of this. So now we're not going to be able to deal with everybody. Let's just start very simple. You know, I is a is a franchise fee for McDonald's like a million bucks or more these days?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Yeah, not exactly. I would not recognise.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I'm just trying to get a magnitude here, and then we'll work on the code.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

That's a great statement. So exactly. Let me say something to that. Um, when I'm dealing with a retiree, it you could only F this up, right? You must put belt and suspenders on the golden years. You worked your whole life. You got to this point. That's right. I don't want to screw it up. So I this is what I tell people, and I want to share it with your audience. I literally want you to be unreasonably selective as to what you do in retirement. I want you to be unreasonably selective, what brand you hit your wagon on, who you work with, who you take advice from. Like be unreasonably selective. You could only screw this up. Right. You're retired. You made it. Like it, we gotta, we have to now protect this phase of life that you're in, which is the final phase. Right.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Okay. But a McDonald's is a million bucks, but we're not talking about that for the typical retiree. We're gonna do non-brick and mortar.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Non-brick and mortar is what we're doing.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So we're talking there's a wide range.

unknown:

Yeah.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

But if you're gonna give me a range that encompasses 95% of franchises that you're looking to work with these days that you love, what's a good ballpark range? Why did you want to make it?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

I'm gonna if I was working with anyone in this phase of life, my answer and advice to them is gonna be the same. You're going with a non-brick and mortar brand after we determine your risk appetite, your liquidity, right? All of that. Well, let's just say we got past all that. We're gonna do non-brick and mortar. Your total investment will be under 200,000. You could either pay 200,000 out of your own liquidity or put up 30, 40% of that, and we get an SBA loan for the balance.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So SBA, that was my next question. So what percent of um people that you have worked with with Fronacity? Uh is it Franacity or Fronacity?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Yeah, fr Fronacity.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

What percent of people that you've worked with end up using some sort of leverage to get involved in their franchise?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Nearly all. Yeah. Nearly all clients. Very rare people come and just say, I'll just pay cash.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Yeah.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

And and this there it's a benefit, especially when you I didn't realize you're uh tapping SBA for the majority of these or some of these or all these, or we we tap a lot of people listening, don't know this, but this is a 1974 ERISA law. So we use illiquid retirement assets in many cases to satisfy the underwriting requirements and cash injection for SBA. For example, if someone has a $100,000 IRA or a 401k rollover or a SEP a simple, a 403B, a 457, any qualified retirement plan, you could use dollar for dollar to buy a business, zero tax ramifications, no federal, no state, no early withdrawal penalty. It's a dollar for dollar distribution to the business.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So it's not a taxable distribution, essentially.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

And it's not a loan either. There's no repayment period. It's not a loan, it's an investment. You're taking your IRA, and instead of buying American funds or fidelity funds or underlying equities, you're taking that 100 grand and you're buying a franchise with it. When you sell, listen, when you sell, you still maintain tax-deferred status. When you sell that franchise, let's just say your hundred went to 150. 150 goes back into your IRA.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Yeah, no capital gains.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Tax deferred. That's right. No, no, nothing. Still tax deferred. Yep.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

All right. So now can I ask you a question about your book?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Of course. Yeah.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Is your book more about like your life story, or is it more about how to be a franchisee, or is it a combination of both? Where did you decide to go with this book and when did you write it?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

The I we wrote, so we just published the book. Uh in a it's published in October. Uh, we use the division of Forbes to do it. It's a number one bestseller in my category on Amazon. My category is franchising entrepreneurship. Um, excellent reviews so far from verified purchasers, people are actually buying the book. Cool. So I'm very excited about it. The beginning of the book just kind of level sets and says, like, who's the author? So it's a little bit about my journey, which I just kind of share with you. It's just more granular and more detail, and there's more up business opportunities mentioned in the book. But from there, it's like, okay, this is who we are. Like we've been there, done that. Please don't take advice from people that aren't where you want to be. So we're establishing ourselves in the first of the book. Then it gets into the trends, right? We continue with the trends. It gets into that introspective self, how to look within. Forget the brands. Right. Like that's why the book is called Beyond the Brand. It's called Beyond the Brand for a reason. Get forget the brands. Let's talk about you, the client, the investor. What do you want?

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I need to interrupt you because I agree with you 100%. What I love about when I asked you what are the top things you should be getting into. You didn't name one brand, you named themes, which is impressive. And I agree with that. And what that's what you're saying with this book, I guess.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

That i i we just go deeper, we go deeper into, for example, fear. But the people listening will be crippled more not by age, it will be by fear. They can't get there because most retirees now have this nest egg and they wanna they want to fight like hell to preserve it, right? So they will enter what's called catastrophic thinking. And everyone listening has suffered from catastrophic. It's a human condition, right? Catastrophic thinking. It's it's like confirmation bias. Every day you log into social media and it is showing you what you want to see, confirmation bias. And you sit there doing this and you doom scroll for an hour on social media, and it's only gonna show you things that they know you love. Yeah, right. Well, guess what? We're gonna talk about business now, and the people listening will immediately go into a Steven Spielberg movie in their brain, which is I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna lose my nest egg, I'm gonna have to go back and get a job, my wife's gonna leave me. Like, that's what they're gonna do. And that catastrophic thinking is what prevents people from retiring uncompromised. That is my written goal from is to retire uncompromised. What I love about people is what did you where'd you work? I worked here. I worked there 30 years. Great. Tell me about your life. Four vacations a year, did this, had a second home, did all these great things. Okay, how's retirement? How's retirement? Don't do anything anymore. Nothing. Right. One one cruise, it's a cheap carnival, crappy cruise, right? It's not the Rich Carlton cruise. It's not Seaborne, right? It's just some shit cruise. We do one a year, it's like $600. It's like that. That is not retiring uncompromised. And that's the type of retirement that I want. So, how do you retire uncompromised? You still have to speculate to accumulate wealth. You still have to continue staying in the game. Plus, what also happens to people listening is their brain just goes to mush. It's using a lose it proposition. You got to stay sharp. You have to have an identity. For some reason, we need our business cards as men, right? We just we got to stay in the game.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

It's a we what I learned naively when I was starting this business 25 years ago, I thought it was all about the numbers, the X's, the O's. That's the foregone conclusion of a necessary foundation for what we do, right? And we work towards improving that on a daily basis. But the real partnership is about helping people, asking them and identifying what is that purpose that you have in your retirement, what are the things that you're looking for, looking forward to, what are the things that you're doing to keeping yourself healthy, to improving your longevity, not only the length of it, but the quality of it. And uh there's nothing more than a person, nothing better for me than a retiree who wakes up every morning and knows what day it is, and can tell you the four or five things they have on their schedule that day. And it doesn't have to be work, it could be spending time with your family, but uh I couldn't agree more. All right. We've said a lot. If I'm interested in kind of dipping my toes in the water with franchises, maybe I want to go to your website or somewhere and just kind of check some things out. What's a good way for a person who's just considering maybe getting involved? What's the first steps?

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

For if they a quick first step, if they one, they could Google my name and visit our website. I've done a ton of media appearances like this, and I'm grateful for you having a lot of people.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

We'll put all that in the show notes that's right in the description.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

Visiting our website, which is fronacity.com, fr a-n-o-ci.com. They could just fill out a short form. And unlike a lot of people, they will actually be speaking with me. They'll also be speaking with my business partner. We both co-founded the firm. It's not like I'm here and you get the audience excited, and then we just pass them on to some unknown quantity. They will be working with us, my business partner and I, for the life cycle of the relationship. That's fair, which is good. Yeah, they could get the book beyond the brand and say, okay, I like to hide behind the scenes. Yeah. I mean, you could read the book and be like, okay, where's this guy's head at? What is he thinking? What actionable ideas does he have? Can I ever really get comfortable enough to even want to schedule a consultation and speak to this person about it? We also have a podcast that we self-fund. We only interview founders of franchise concepts. Love that. That's so it's a great resource for someone listening to you to say, well, I only drop episodes on Wednesdays. So I record on Fridays, I drop episodes on Wednesdays. And again, it's a high-level interview with a founder only. So someone who created the brand, scaled the brand, went through all the issues that we all go through. And what's interesting about a lot of these episodes, you're like, that guy's 65. There you go. That guy's, yeah. And you know, we're all on camera. We're on a YouTube channel. So it's like, you know, you can't hide that you're 65.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

You could try, but you can't.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

You that's right. You know, you look at like Colonel Sanders from KFC. That guy was in his 60s. You look at John Pemberton, he was the founder of Coca-Cola. I mean, that guy was in his late 50s, 60s. You look at some of these people, you know, uh, even that Ariana, um, what's her name? Ariana Huffington. No, the Huffington Post. No, not Arian. No, not that Ariana. He's not all. No, no, Huffington. Huffington, I just said Huffington Post. Ariana Huffington. She was in her, I think, 50s or nearly 60. So age is just a number. Age is just a number. We like, you know, there's a lot of things that we could talk about with with an audience like this. It's like getting healthy, getting off medication, get moving, you know, get get off of like modern medicine blood work and go with a holistic doctor, get your hormone levels checked out, stop being prescribed anxiety medication and SSRIs for shit you could accomplish through testosterone therapy.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

All right, Cliff, listen, uh, you have to promise me uh we have to continue this conversation at some point because you're just a fascinating person. Cliff Nonenmacher, serial entrepreneur and franchise expert, CEO and co-founder of Franosity. Cliff, thank you for joining me so much today. It was truly a pleasure. You're dynamo, man. You're ready to go.

Cliff Nonnenmacher:

I had fun. This was good. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Outro:

Investment advisory services provided by Sear Financial Inc., SEC Registered Investment Advisor. All content on this podcast is for information purposes only and should not be considered investment, legal, or tax advice. Material presented is believed to be from reliable sources, and no representations are made by our firm as to another party's informational accuracy or completeness.

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Christian J. Cyr, CPA, CFP®

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