We Bought A Franchise!
Join Jack and Jill Johnson on their rollercoaster ride as the fresh faced new franchise owners of Pink's Window services in sunny Palm Beach, Florida! Peek behind the curtain at the real deal of launching and expanding a franchise – the good, the bad, and the downright chaotic!
The Johnsons are set to reveal the highs and lows, the freedom, and the fortune that come with being your own boss. Tune in to the "We bought a franchise" podcast today! 🎙️🏝️
We Bought A Franchise!
We Bought a Franchise: The Ups and Downs of Building a Business
We are guest free and ready to get real!
Ever wondered what it truly takes to navigate the unpredictable waters of franchise ownership? Join us, Jack and Jill Johnson, as we pull back the curtain on our own rollercoaster journey.
Discover the shared struggles that unite franchise owners across industries and how we managed to celebrate a record month for our franchise system in October.
Get a candid look at the raw realities of entrepreneurship, filled with personal anecdotes and insights that every aspiring business owner should hear.
Our conversation is not just about growth but also about the importance of careful planning and securing adequate capital to fuel entrepreneurial dreams. We share the lessons we've learned, emphasizing both the challenges and the immense satisfaction that come with building our Pink's Window Services franchise. Tune in for an honest discussion that promises practical insights and inspiration for all of you current and future franchise owners out there.
Visit www.weboughtafranchise.com to subscribe.
Send us your questions for an upcoming episode at 305-710-0050.
From your pals in franchise ownership, Jack and Jill Johnson.
Hi everyone, I'm Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2:I'm Jill Johnson.
Speaker 1:We're back at you with another episode of we Bought a Franchise and we're guest free for this episode.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Just you and I.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I mean again, I think the guests are awesome and there's a lot of great content, but there's a lot of questions people have. Not a day goes by where a prospective franchise owner doesn't hit us up and say, hey, we love it when you talk about running the business. So, jill, without further ado, this is. This is unscripted, by the way. We're just kind of jumping on and sharing our experiences. So what, what comes to your mind first from these last few weeks?
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot has happened. Pinks and everything, I mean a lot of good stuff, a lot. You know we're here to share, like so always.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's kind of why we did this right. As franchise consultants, we help people become franchise owners every day and, uh, it's kind of nice to ride shotgun alongside all of you guys out there who are franchise owners and thinking about becoming franchise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, um, I ran into another fellow franchise owner just a couple weeks ago at an event and we were, you know, just talking about all the fun things that were going on and the troubles that we were having. That were so similar, and she's a few months ahead of us so it was, you know, interesting to see like where she was at her point in, you know, opening the business yeah, we were, and it business, yeah, we work, and it's there's it's totally wildly different businesses, but we have the same pain points and, you know, same successes. So it was really fun to do that and we're in the same market. So I think that that's another thing too is like we have different concepts but we're dealing with the same market, the same seasonality, the same type of people. So it was really interesting I mean I'd like to do that with you guys too.
Speaker 2:Like, I found that conversation very helpful and we want to make it helpful for you guys too first year.
Speaker 1:Franchise ownership is not for the faint of heart. You guys can't see this, but I can. Um, if I look at our last month, well, first of all, we're in the midst of a of a record month of course I can't pull up my spreadsheet here so October is a record month for us and September was not very good. September was not a record month and I think that's just it. Any of you that are kind of long-time listeners, followers of our shows, like Jill said, it's not a, it's not a straight path and most people seem to agree that the first 18 months they really have the most sort of peaks and valleys, because it's no surprise, right You're, you're building your brand, you're building up a base of clients. Like, I'll tell you one thing, and I've been in business ownership you know mentoring and coaching for a long time, as as Jill. In business ownership, you know mentoring and coaching for a long time, as is jill.
Speaker 1:I I didn't think enough about accounts receivable on, like business accounts and how, like you know, we staff a job and we have a huge week, right, like last week was really, really busy, but we also paid out. Like you know, we weren't going to get the cash from those jobs for like 30 days, although I did hear somebody did pay early. We've got a big check coming, but, like last week, we going to get the cash from those jobs for like 30 days, although I did hear somebody did pay early. We've got a big check coming, but, like last week, we had to play the game of fronting all the all the payroll and well, and it's different when you're fronting payroll, right.
Speaker 2:So this is like a new concept. It's like it's coming out of our banks. There's not like some big corporate bank account right that it comes out of. So we really pay attention to the hours that our team is working, versus like what we're paying, versus the jobs. It just opens your eyes a little bit more, and we both have worked for, like you know, big corporate businesses, right, and you don't think about those things You're like oh, I got to order more business cards.
Speaker 2:I have to order this, I have to order that, and you just do it when you really order from Carolyn. That's what I'm saying. You're not thinking about who's paying for those business cards.
Speaker 1:Whereas like for us.
Speaker 2:It's you know every order, every business card, every box of hats that we order every you know staff member that we have to pay for either extra time or something. It's coming out of our bank accounts, so you really watch it. It's not a bad thing. It's just that if you look at it very differently, um than you do, if you're just like working for me, yeah, it's um, it's definitely.
Speaker 1:it's a game of of really building and staying with it, and there are moments where you probably want to cry Um, and there's moments where you want to just shout from the mountaintops I'm freaking awesome. We are so the good shout in from the mountaintop I have shouted from the mountaintop what have we?
Speaker 2:I've never theoretically um, metaphorically, I have I'm just saying like, actually have you shouted from the mountaintop?
Speaker 1:I don't think I've been on the mountaintop. I don't think I've ever been on. Well, I guess I have, like I don't know, I've been on a mountain top. I don't think I've ever been on a mountain. Well, I guess I have, like I don't know, like Tahoe you drive through mountains and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we've been on a mountain but I've never reached out.
Speaker 1:No, but we, I believe we set the Pink's record for franchise ownership revenue.
Speaker 1:In a month we did Not doing more than what the original, the OG, you know pilot location not doing more than what the original, the og, you know, pilot location, they're on like a level, yeah, they're, they're, they're the corporate location, but for franchises we set a record, which is um, awesome. And what's what's really interesting is is, here we are in palm beach county, the guy, the other franchise owner, who previously owned the record he's in a much smaller market. I think that's super cool that you you'd think we'd be like competing with Dallas or something like that, which I'm sure we will, but really cool. I mean, those victories can really, they really can fuel your fire as a business owner, and we would never be able to set those records if we didn't have a great team, and so we're thankful for that. As always, you guys, just to reiterate always be hiring, please, if you're going to become a business owner. Never shut the indeed off. Never, never, never. Even if you want to save that 500 bucks that we don't do it.
Speaker 2:Honestly, you never know. You guys could have the absolute best person and they have a family emergency or something happens and they decide not to work or they get injured or they get sick or something, and if you know they could be the best person in the world. But you always have to have backups. You always have to be bringing in new people and we're fortunate, honestly, that we could. We could have a team of people just kind of waiting and put them on the schedule as needed. Um, I know not, not a lot of places can do that, so we're lucky to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:Um, so it's good to kind of have like that well and it's cool that people want to actually work for our company. We've got an exciting brand that people kind of aspire to. But you know, it's like again the questions I get are hey, jack, you have, you guys have the ceo model. Is it like super easy? And absentee. I would say again, like I think I've said on almost every episode we've done this I probably spend about an hour or two per day working on pigs. It's not not like okay, here's two hours, beautifully knocked off of my schedule. It's like it's 10 minutes here, it's 20 minutes. Here it's a client that's upset and I'm, you know, messaging with them to try and smooth things over. So it's being involved. I really think, as a franchise owner, the more time that you can dedicate as the business owner even if you have a team and you're running the business kind of like we are you still make a big impact. The other thing I would say is, just like the hiring, never shut off the ads, always be advertising.
Speaker 2:I know it's like you want to, especially if they're not performing or if you think you have enough in, but never, never.
Speaker 1:You got to advertise the lifeblood of your business. I think most of the appointments on our calendar right now which are done for us by our franchisor, it all comes from the facebook and the google ads that they're doing. And it's interesting I saw that the um that the ceo of resi brands, steve montgomery, who's been on our podcast previously. He was talking and I think we talked about to him about this too about how chat gpt is really changing search um and so again, it's like we're in this new place now for pinks. Right now we're still seeing a good amount of people come from google, from facebook, but I think it's a very friendly sort of format. Well, it's. I mean, it's a very friendly sort of format.
Speaker 2:Well it's I mean it's a good hyperlocal target service businesses. They're almost easier to target because if you're actively looking in that area, you can be like really specific with your ads and where you're targeting. So it's helpful for us. And also I know we've talked about this a million times like our Facebook ads are so. So it's like it's people are watching them, not even realizing they have windows, and then they watch them like you know what. Maybe I could clean my windows or comments will know when I'm ready to do something like this and they call these guys. So that's. The other thing is that the advertising that we're doing for pinks is like it's entertaining, so it's got it's full.
Speaker 1:It holds more value I think more of a less well, um, as good as we're doing. I heard a client that owns a different franchise.
Speaker 2:He's only a few months in and he beat whatever we just did this month it's a different type of different business business and, like you said, you're going to have great months and you're going to have really hard months. So sometimes, so sometimes it can all be dependent on one big job for us. You know, if we have, like a hotel or something or, like you know, some kind of big corporate job, or even just like, get into a neighborhood for the week and then the next week can be quiet, and that can be because holidays or just weather or whatever. So really I like keep saying it's just that roller coaster up and down.
Speaker 2:So the good thing is that I love about this is like you never know what's around the corner, right? You never know who your next client is going to be. You never know that property manager that you might meet that has 50 properties that can change your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um. Well, what's? What's cool is that other business is another home services business.
Speaker 1:I mean home services is really it's. It's the place to be and that's what we're seeing as franchise consultants, people heavy on home services, senior care, in-home senior care, huge on that. So I think it makes sense in this sort of you know, we're a week away, less than a week away from the election. At this point. That's the kinds of things people are investing in. So it's, you know, again, I think, if you can have patience and I remember my dad always saying to me when you start a new business, you've got to survive year one. Those were his words, you've got to survive, you've got to find a way to survive.
Speaker 1:So for those of you out there, we don't want to discourage you. We would do this every day, all over again, because the's the nice thing is is being able to know that we're growing this thing and it's it is growing and we're seeing it and it's and it's happening and it can be a business that you know, unlike our franchise consulting business where we have to do all the work, this is a business that can run without us. So that feels great and it's great to see that we've got the second van out there, which we're seeing, that now we're doing more.
Speaker 2:Well, we can do double the jobs because we can have guys working at the same time. So, even if it's just a matter of one birdie being like the optimal time, you can now have two separate jobs going on at the same time and that's helpful for the guys. You know, we can split them up and they're not running back and forth to different jobs, so we can overlap too. But it's exciting to see different jobs so we can overlap too. But it's exciting to see it really is. I mean, I love seeing the business pick up. I love that we are trying to offer some new things, like we're really focusing on pressure washing now that we have a pressure washing truck and there's a couple things we're going to try out.
Speaker 1:Um, that's fun it still trips me out to see two jobs on the calendar at the same time. It's like, oh, I better talk to sal, sal's our g GM. But that's like, no, we can do it Now. We've color coded the vans. The power washing van is pink, regular van is blue.
Speaker 2:I mean, ultimately we want like five, 10 vans. So can you imagine what that looks like? How about 15 vans?
Speaker 1:But and then also the other considerations for our business are there are competitors of ours that are doing drones. They do pressure washing drones, and so do you buy a third van or do you go out and get a pressure washing drone?
Speaker 2:I still trust the robot.
Speaker 1:Well, you would be, I would be, someone would be flying the drone.
Speaker 2:I mean Trey can fly a drone.
Speaker 1:Trey's our son. By the way, he has like a DJI, you know.
Speaker 2:Can he fly?
Speaker 1:it. Yeah, ai, you know, can he fly?
Speaker 2:it. I mean, I guess you're the one that only lost one.
Speaker 1:No, you've lost all those cheap ones, no, no, no, no, no. But the real ones, like the legit with the sensors and the GPS. I've actually never lost one, I just crashed it landing. I was trying to fly it in and out of a hotel room. This is, and for years that I've had drones, one crash, but yeah, our son, son can take off land, fly it all over the place. They're easy. And so again, this is sort of the fun of what. What's next for us with our pinks business?
Speaker 2:these are the types of conversations we can have, um but you know, the drones would be great for, like the overnight dogs the drones, I guess we still have to control it, but you know you control it from like your pajamas you're?
Speaker 1:you're thinking of, like Elon Musk, robots. I can't wait. Team of robots out there, I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 1:I'm ready for one of them to like make my coffee you know I mean again, that sure would make hiring a breeze. Just 30,000, go get your. I'm sure you can finance the robot. It's 30 grand, same as like a car. I'm sure it's a section one.
Speaker 2:Eventually they're going to kill us and wait a second.
Speaker 1:How heavy is the robot? I think you have to have a certain weight requirement to write off section. Yeah, but the the freaky thing is then what happens to to the team Like one of the guys.
Speaker 2:When you know we hire someone and they put on the uniform, they just all look like cohesive and clean and you know it's. It's a great, it's great for branding, but we could just put the outfit on the robot.
Speaker 1:Cleans them up, cleans up the guys, they look good, I think it's a good looking uniform.
Speaker 1:One of the best looking uniforms. So I mean again, I think that for all of you out there, this is it is a great thing to have a business and we'd love to to help you. If you have any questions, you can always text us at 3 0, 5, 7, 1 0, 5 0. And you know we spend a lot of time talking about the hard because we, you know, we want you to be prepared. If this is something you're going to do, just be prepared that it's not always going to be perfect and predictable. The more of a mindset that you can come into this thing, understanding what it's going to be, the better you're going to be as an entrepreneur, and you should want to be a great entrepreneur. So I would say this I would say if you want to do a franchise like pinks, the franchise fee is 60 grand. Um, I think working capital wise probably want to have at least a hundred thousand dollars. I would say, um, and don't be surprised if it takes you more. And if you can get it done for less, awesome, good for you. But I think no one.
Speaker 1:There's a saying I've said before I've never heard of someone going out of business for having too much capital. So for those of you that are just trying to skate in by the skin of your teeth on this thing, don't do it. There's less expensive businesses you can look at. You can start smaller and let the first business feed your second. That's how Jill and I did it. Our first business is a was a franchise consulting business. We sold our house to start that business. We went the first five months of that business with no money coming in. They were good times. You know why? Because we finally were our own boss no, I know it was.
Speaker 2:it was a great feeling. It was. We were excited and we we were prepared for that. Just like jack said, if you are prepared that your first year is going to be hard, your first 18 months, and that you will not, we always say you probably will not make money. If you go in with that expectation, you might be pleasantly surprised, or you just know what it is right. And so I think it's our job as franchise consultants and even with this podcast, talking to you guys is that it's not easy and you can, you know, have the most experience in the world. I'm not saying, because we're franchise consultants, we know what we're doing, we're, we're learning, just like a brand new franchise owner, and it's not, it's not super easy. So you know, I think just setting those expectations is the most important thing. So you go in with a realistic overview and celebrate your wins, but also you know your frustrations are valid, you know that it's going to happen and I think it just your mindset is totally different when you ship it.
Speaker 1:Don't ever be surprised if someone quits on you at the very last second and they don't give you notice. That happens, but it's OK, you'll survive. Most of this is if you stay with it. You will figure out a way. Try and find a way to stay positive, because it's easy to let business ownership overwhelm you. But if you stay positive and you stay with your goal and you lean in on your team members, on your franchise support, you'll get there. So, yeah, that, I mean that's part of the reason why we bring you guys.
Speaker 1:This podcast is for those of you that are business owners, that are considering being business owners. You know we're all in this thing together and I think that the dream of, of entrepreneurship is. I look at a sign on my wall from my grandparents, my grandfather's general store from 1920. Um, there's such a sense of pride in building a business and creating jobs and charting your future and controlling your destiny not to be like a walking cliche for business ownership, but that's the stuff and it feels really good. I mean it's like for us the high. Hey, we just set a record for monthly revenue for a pink franchise owner. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but but to bring you back to reality, we set the record, we're so excited, we're celebrating, and then you know pressure washer. That is on us. So you know you celebrate while you can and then you move on and you fix what you need to fix and, um, that's just the reality. So just be excited when you hit those wins and you know also be prepared that the second you celebrate a win, something bad is gonna or a new cut like last year.
Speaker 1:We set a record for a franchise consulting business. Yeah, we set a huge record yeah never been done before.
Speaker 1:Some other fella came along and just broke our record faster than we did it. So you never rest on your laurels, because there will always be. You have to stay sharp and you've got to stay motivated and you've got to keep focused on your goal of growth. And I think if you can do that and, like Jill said, don't let a little surprise here or there knock you down. So for any of you that would like to get on our metaphorical business ownership couch and just kind of talk to us about this stuff, that's what we're here for. Our service at Franchise Insiders is free. About this stuff, that's what we're here for. Our service at Franchise Insiders is free. You can text us at 305-710-0050. You can go to FranchiseInsiderscom and just schedule a meeting with us. We have a calendar app if you just want to pick a time. And if you're considering pinks, great. If you're considering other franchises, great. If you're an existing business owner and you just want to talk're here, for that too yeah what else you got?
Speaker 2:no, I really love talking to you guys. So you know, if you just have a thought in your head, what can you do, what should you do? What's hot, um, what should you be looking at? I mean that's what we're here for, so don't hesitate, because we love it. I mean that's what we do, that's our, that's the side to take, that's peace, that's what we, you know, that's what we do, that's our, that's the sides pink, that's peace. That's what we, you know, that's what we do day in, day out. So, you know, call us, text us, whatever works for you.
Speaker 1:Um, we want to show by the way, no one's called it pinkies in a lot people seem to be getting it right.
Speaker 2:They know it's things, but I was on the, the, the ads and the branding are working I was on the franchise owner and there was like 50 new people I've never seen working.
Speaker 1:I was on the franchise owner health today and there was like 50 new people. I've never seen it's growing and, by the way, as franchise consultants, to see our clients who have become pinks franchise owners by the way, you know, don't. Don't invest in pinks because we did, just because we. Who knows if we know what the hell we're doing right?
Speaker 2:sometimes we do know what we're doing, to be honest.
Speaker 1:But but like I have seen them have success, yeah, and's so cool as a, as a franchise consultant. You rarely get to be on the other side and see what they're doing, so I mean, that's been. There's been so many rewarding pieces of the journey here and that's really cool. We really enjoy it. So, jill for this week, that's all I've got. Ups and downs. Metaphorical, you know business coaching, couch, new power, washing van, kicking ass, setting records, losing guys, adding guys. Maybe we have to add some robots. Our, do, our robots can have a section 179 tax deduction. Elon, we got to know this dude.
Speaker 2:I think that's it yeah, I think that's it. But, as always, if there's anything you guys want us to talk about or have any questions, let us know it is up 305-710-0050 and for this episode of we bought a franchise.
Speaker 1:I'm jack and I'm jill talk to you guys next time. Bye everyone, thanks for joining and thanks for stopping by, but mainly stick classy.