From A to Franchisee: The Podcast for Smarter Franchise Buying

What Makes A Good Franchisee?

• Franchise Business Review • Season 1 • Episode 8

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In this insightful episode, Michelle Rowan and Paul Pickett delve into the essential traits that define a successful franchisee. Drawing from decades of experience, Paul shares his expertise on the importance of aligning with a brand's culture, mission, and values. They discuss the critical role of emotional intelligence, team-building, and a growth mindset in achieving long-term success. Tune in to discover how focusing on customer relationships and community engagement can lead to thriving franchise ownership. Whether you're considering franchising or looking to enhance your current business, this episode offers valuable guidance and inspiration.


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Michelle Rowan (00:51)
Thanks for joining us today. We're going to be tackling what makes a great franchisee. Today I am joined by Paul Pickett, who is the chief development officer and EVP of franchising at Wild Birds Unlimited. Paul's career with Wild Birds Unlimited is a perfect combination of his love of birds, nature, and people. He joined the Wild Birds Unlimited team as the first full-time employee in 1989.

shortly after graduating with his master's in biology ornithology from the University of North Dakota. Paul has more than three decades of experience in working with potential franchisees as they decide to join the Wild Birds system and has managed all the site selection, lease negotiation assistance for Wild Birds. What I thought made him the perfect guest today, and I also will just full disclosure, he's also one of my best friends, so he's fun to talk to.

But he also, I think, is more involved with franchisees post-opening than other development teams at brands. He works alongside the franchisees within Wild Birds, but he also has several friends in franchising that are franchisees with other brands and also has been a business owner with his husband William in the past. So I think he has seen a lot of franchisees and business owners in action. So he's the perfect person to join us and talk about.

some skills and some mindset things that make great franchisees or might help you self-select out of joining a franchise system. So all that said, Paul, thank you so much for joining our conversation today.

Paul Pickett (02:27)
is a pleasure and an honor and great to see you, Michelle.

Michelle Rowan (02:30)
Always, always. Okay. So we're going to start with, people can't see me, but we're going to start with what or who you think make a bad franchisee. And I'm putting that in quotes because we don't think people are bad. We don't think franchisees are bad. But in terms of success, let's start talking about some things that you think could potentially hurt a person thinking that they might be a good franchisee, things to help them self-reflect on.

would it work for them? Cool.

Paul Pickett (03:00)
Yeah, absolutely.

Again, thank you. The thing about franchising is that it is this amazing model, but it means that a great candidate for a franchise system, no matter what it is, whether it's Wild Birds Unlimited or anything else, know, FastSigns, BrightStar, blah, blah. Understanding the franchise model.

understanding that there's a role of the franchisor in developing the system, having all of the brand standards, providing best practices. But then there's the role of franchisee who actually owns the business and runs the business and has the heart and is the heart and soul of the, that individual business, accommodating those brand standards and the expectations of the brand reputation, things like that. So I think.

Over the years, you talk to franchise candidates who are like, they just think it's going, you're going to turn a key. They don't understand that the success and or God forbid failure of the business is really dependent on them. Now the franchise or has a role in helping them with site selection. If you have a brick and mortar and making sure that the market is appropriate for their brand, but it's what they put into it and how they manage that business and how they drive that business.

is so important. So having a really good understanding of those two roles, I think, is the most important. And so when you're talking to a candidate and they're like, no, I just, I just, hate my job and I want to do something else. Well, who will build out the store? Who will do the marketing? Who will make, who will help me with my staffing? Who will those were questions that you just have to address very early in the process to ensure that they understand what their role is and that

It is really dependent on them. And yeah.

Michelle Rowan (05:00)
Yeah. So, yeah. So

let me just pause right there. Cause I, you're going to have a lot of good nuggets in here. So first of all, you mentioned site selection where our audience might not understand what that is. So the role of the franchisor is to help some, some more than others help you pick the physical location of where your store will go. If you have a brick and mortar franchise brand and a very key piece of your success is understanding your visibility and your traffic.

that will come into that store. So I just wanted to explain that to our audience. The next is, I do think this comes up a lot in our franchise community of executives of how important it is for development teams to educate a buyer on what is the role of the franchisee and the franchisor, because in general terms, it's the same for all of franchising, but it also is very different when you get down to the real estate, the marketing. So...

If you're not feeling like you're being educated by the development person you might be working with, those are some good questions to ask to really clarify what is my role as the business owner and what is theirs. Okay.

Paul Pickett (06:07)
Right. I mean, we

both have seen over the years a number of franchise brands and I'm gonna call it any names or just like you can work your full time job. This is basically like you buy the franchise and then it's going to be sit back and put your feet up in between the amount of times that you're taking the wheelbarrows full of money to the bank. And it's that doesn't work. I mean, even in a brand like that where you can be absentee and you you don't have to be working full time.

Michelle Rowan (06:26)
Yeah.

Paul Pickett (06:36)
It's still a ton of work and there's a ton of time that needs to be spent on strategizing and how to penetrate the market and how to acquire and keep customers. That does take a lot of time. And so a good brand is going to talk about that. And in our first conversations, it's like you have to work Saturdays. You know, we're in retail. That's, you know, that's, that's the glory day and asking them about what other obligations they have. And so.

when a franchise candidate says, yeah, you know, I need to spend every Saturday with my kids going to sports events. Well, that's gonna be problematic, especially if you're purchasing a brand new Wild Virgin Limited store or whatever the store is, and you have to build from the bottom up.

Michelle Rowan (07:20)
Right. So I had written down my note. I wanted to get your thoughts on semi absentee, the way that it's marketed by franchise brands to do that. So you nailed that one. And I will say too, even if you can get to that point, any business owner, franchise or otherwise to think your first couple of years will offer any of that is just pure crazy talk in my opinion. So that was good.

Paul Pickett (07:30)
Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, it

doesn't work. doesn't work. Another one is just people who aren't aligned with your culture, your mission, vision and value. You know, they're, they're, they don't understand the core values of the brand and the culture of the brand. And

Michelle Rowan (07:58)
Yeah, or they don't align

with it. They don't understand it or they don't align with it. Yeah.

Paul Pickett (08:03)
100 % yeah, so that

was my next thing is just that that understanding is important right up front and then having those conversations about alignment really are important.

Michelle Rowan (08:14)
Yeah, and I think that this is a good time to point out too, that that's the whole point of this process of working with a development team is you're vetting the brand to understand is it a fit for your goals and what you want to do. And they're also vetting you. And this is a big one is that they're going to be doing things to try and understand what are your personal mission, vision, value, core, core being of your person. So also spending some time to think about that before you approach franchise brands will just help you really articulate

What are your non-negotiables as you're learning what the brand's non-negotiables are as well? So understanding and aligning with those. A lot of franchises have a ⁓ faith base to their core values or their brand. So if you are a religious person, you would be attracted to those. Whereas if you aren't, that might not be a good fit for you because it will be something that's built into their culture of the things they do together. OK.

Paul Pickett (09:09)
100%.

Michelle Rowan (09:11)
Anything else that you think makes a bad, again, air quotes franchisee?

Paul Pickett (09:15)
I think ferreting out the base motivation, the why, and are you buying yourself a job or are you building an enterprise? And there are brands.

Michelle Rowan (09:27)
So a bad

franchisee would be someone who is buying themselves a job. Okay.

Paul Pickett (09:30)
I think a bad fit for our brand,

at least as somebody who is buying themselves a job. There are brands that have a beginning, middle and end. And it is a short ⁓ time period where you are trying to fill a gap in your own personal finances and that kind of brand may be perfect for you. And I'm thinking in some cases, and I don't want to just, I hope I'm not throwing anybody out of the bus, but a lot of the... ⁓

People who are in early childhood and they're doing the exercise brands with kids, where the goal is to do it for a window of time until your kids are then out of the house and then you can sell that business to somebody else. That may be one that buying yourself a job is okay, but if you're doing something like that takes a lot of time, takes a lot of money, is a bigger investment, you're going to need time under your belt.

building that enterprise where you're not buying yourself a job because you're not making money right away. There are enough expenses on the, um, that, that are fixed costs and the cost to get into the business probably takes a loan that buying yourself a job is just not a good idea. And you need to explain that to your franchisees and they have to think long-term, they have to do vision planning, they have to do a full business plan. They have to think what's going to happen in a year. How are they going to manage that? What's it looks like in year three?

Year five, year 10.

Michelle Rowan (11:00)
Love that. What else you have on your list?

Paul Pickett (11:03)
What

else do I have on my list? ⁓ You know, just the acknowledgement for a lot of people who don't understand the financial cap, the fiscal requirements and the fiscal return, understanding that in many business, you aren't going to make money in the first year. And so it's why I'm such a big fan of ⁓ our FDD and our item 19 that really shows that. Yeah. First year, the break even is the goal. Really, truly.

Bless you if you're making money in the first year and you're able to actually exceed those goals, but making sure that the franchisee has an expectation and that when they say, yeah, I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to take out a loan for 300,000 and I expect to make 75 grand in my first year take home. Guess what? That's not going to happen. So getting rich quick because it's a franchise.

Michelle Rowan (11:53)
I was going to say, so the person

that wants to make a quick buck is not a good franchisee. Okay, got it. Yeah. And we also

Paul Pickett (11:58)
That is correct. Even freedom

and flexibility, understanding what that is, like where do you want to build that? My boss and ⁓ friend, the CEO and founder, said it from a stage a couple of weeks ago at a conference. Making sure your candidates understand that there is a strong structure.

Michelle Rowan (12:04)
Yeah.

Paul Pickett (12:24)
around your brand, which then allows you to have the freedom to be creative inside that structure. But you can't have freedom in developing the structure because that is the brand reputation and that's the job of the franchise or franchise system.

Michelle Rowan (12:42)
So the person that has the mindset of I could do this better, I could do this differently is a bad franchisee. Or they could think it, but the people that do it.

Paul Pickett (12:53)
Yeah, that's right. ⁓ Do we have time for me to tell just a quick little story? Okay.

Michelle Rowan (12:58)
Of course we love stories and also too,

you're such a gentleman of not throwing anyone out, but we also love the tea. So feel free to call out anyone you'd like.

Paul Pickett (13:07)
I accept, except you. No, there's no tea on you, girl. I remember having a conversation with a candidate. This is a number of years ago. And it happened to be a guy and he said, I, were talking about marketing and our templates and our strategies and our marketing planner and how we provide all that information, blah, blah, blah. And he said,

Michelle Rowan (13:09)
Except, no, no, no, it's okay.

Paul Pickett (13:33)
I would actually rather develop my own.

own marketing plan and fail with it than to win with somebody else's plan. And I'm like, no, just smile. said, well, this is great information and I wish you the best of luck. And he's like, well, what do I do next in the process to move forward? And I just said, listen,

Michelle Rowan (13:43)
Did you spit your coffee out?

You

Paul Pickett (13:55)
Number one, I'm friends with IOPS team. They will shoot me in the hallway. If you're telling me right now, this early in the process that you'd rather fail with your own ideas than succeed with ours, you're just, you probably can be really successful. Go do this on your own. Do not, don't do a Wild Birds Unlimited or any franchise for heaven's sakes.

Michelle Rowan (14:12)
Right, the true, yes,

the true entrepreneur would make a bad franchisee.

Paul Pickett (14:22)
That is correct. That being said, and I know that there will be people who disagree with me in the world of franchising, but I think that if you don't have any entrepreneurial fire and drive, you're also not going to meet your goals and will not be a great fit for business ownership, let alone franchise ownership.

Michelle Rowan (14:38)
love

that. That's a good one. That's good. So too entrepreneurial. It's like Goldilocks. No entrepreneurial equals bad franchisees. Something in the middle. Okay, all right. That's good. That's good. And anything anything else on your bad list before we move on to what actually makes a great franchisee?

Paul Pickett (14:47)
Yep, yep, mamba bear. Far above the mamba bear. Yeah, yep, yep. There is a zone. There's a sweet spot.

People who just don't want to follow your process. You know, that is when they push back. don't like another story. A franchisee who was self financing. They had the money in the bank. They were purchasing an existing store and they're like, I'm not doing I'm not going to write a business plan. We have we provide them with a business plan example. We don't read blah blah blah. We don't do anything illegal. We don't look at the projections, but we make them do all that. And he's like, I don't want to do that. I don't need to do that. I'm not going to a funding institution.

Michelle Rowan (15:00)
Yeah.

Paul Pickett (15:28)
I'm like, if you don't want to do it, we respect that decision, but you're not going to be a good match for us because how you do anything is how you do everything. And if you don't want to follow this requirement in the development process, I can't even imagine the compliance nightmare, which I'm in charge of compliance for our company. I'm going to have to deal with you and fight with you all the time. No, it's just, if you're not going to follow the process,

Michelle Rowan (15:58)
Yeah. Yeah. So what you're talking about a non-compliant franchisee is someone who is not following the systems is not, not meeting those non-negotiables the brand has set. Then it comes, it starts with kind of a tap of the stick. You get letters saying you need to be compliant, but it could end in a termination if you're not ⁓ coming up to compliance. So again, yes. Okay.

Paul Pickett (16:23)
That is

So there,

yeah, that's my, mean, there's other things that are brand specific, like I want to put a store in.

Michelle Rowan (16:29)
It's a good list.

Paul Pickett (16:34)
Indianapolis and I don't have any territory, right? So I mean, that's one where you just go, sorry, we just can't accommodate you. We already have contracts in place. I don't understand that territory is too big. get it. The funny thing is when they, if you have then figured this out and you find a territory that is available for them, then they're always like that territory is too small that you're going to give me. And I get that. I would be the same way. So that's human nature. All right.

Michelle Rowan (16:58)
Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so let's talk

about good franchisees or even better, great franchisees. What's at the top of your list that would make a great franchisee in Wild Birds or any brand?

Paul Pickett (17:12)
Yeah, I think as you said earlier, understanding but more important alignment with the brand's culture, mission, vision and values. I mean, there's the basis well capitalized, have a firm understanding of the trajectory of profits through the lifetime of the franchise. see focused on results and I think right now focused on people. I mean, that is one of the biggest things is you can't go it alone.

Right. You have to have a team. can't do everything and be everything to everybody. You have to be focused on developing a team and doing it in the right way. So some franchisees have never been in leadership positions. They've never managed people or they've like, yeah, I managed a team of 750. Like, yeah, we're talking about this for Wild Birds Unlimited. You probably had people managing people, managing people.

Michelle Rowan (17:57)
Manage people. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Pickett (18:11)
You're going to be in the store rubbing shoulders with people behind a counter that are your direct reports. It's a very different type. And so if those people are not interested in learning and self self-educating and using the tools that we provide to become a better leader, a more dynamic leader, a leader who's really committed to training, accountability, and yet at the same time, getting the heck out of the way of their team, you're not going to succeed because you cannot do it all.

Michelle Rowan (18:39)
Yeah. Okay.

So here's what I want to say. So we're saying a person that would make a great franchisee is someone that has high emotional intelligence, EQ. They care about building teams and culture because that is what we see helps a business succeed is that they have the right people, which means as, as the business owner, I need to understand what I'm good at and what I enjoy doing, where I can delegate.

what I'm not good at and I need to surround myself with, but I'm also, need to be focused on the culture that I'm creating in my organization because the number one issue that we hear repeatedly from franchisees is hiring great people. And I can't scale my business if I don't have great people. So if you don't treat people well, if you don't think about the way you're taking care of them, it does become a lot harder. So it's important that EQ, that emotional intelligence, that does make a great franchisee. I totally agree.

Paul Pickett (19:32)
It

also, it plays up into a great franchisee loves to be trained, loves to learn, is constantly focused on how do I get better at this that I'm great at? How do I become better, greater than great? Which means that they love training, they love learning, and they also love coaching. Because if they don't love coaching, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's...

Michelle Rowan (19:56)
So it's a growth mindset. It's a growth mindset, right? Okay.

Paul Pickett (20:02)
The elimination of ego and the addition of acquisition of intelligence. ⁓ Yeah. So that's really, really important. They also have a strong why that really matches up with the with our culture. Like, why are they doing this? And it really truly does have to do with. Money is oftentimes secondary. It comes with meeting your goals. So again.

Michelle Rowan (20:08)
Yeah, I love that.

Paul Pickett (20:30)
Jim Carpenter talks about this in training. If your goal every day is to have 50 transactions with an average ticket of $75 with a five products in the product basket, blah, blah, blah, you might be able to do that and be successful. But if you have the goal of

engaging with 50 customers and bringing them more joy and understanding and excitement about the hobby of backyard bird feeding and the impact that they make on the world when they've made those 50 smiles, those 50 packets of joy, you're going to be a lot more successful. The money will follow faster when you're focused on that side of the equation versus just the cash.

Michelle Rowan (21:17)
Okay, so a great franchisee is focused on serving their customer there. It's not revenue first or sale first. is building relationships in your community or with your customers that will lead to long term success or repeat business is what we're saying. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Pickett (21:21)
⁓

Yeah, and for us it means like caring of the environment, right?

It's like feeding many more cardinals or stellar's jays and understanding that.

Michelle Rowan (21:46)
Yeah. Okay. Anything else on your good to great franchisee list?

You got some good ones in there.

Paul Pickett (21:55)
Yeah, I really, you know, you, can just, it's so funny because you can just feel it in the development process. You know, are they, are people checking out the boxes? Are they checking off the boxes or are they really, really focused on doing it the best possible way and figuring out how to make that the best possible way for them, their team, their community and their business.

Michelle Rowan (22:17)
Yeah, they're engaged in your process. I like that. All right. So because you've been doing this a long time, because you know, so many other people that are in development of other brands, I want to talk about from the perspective of a candidate, let's talk about some red flags, something that if they are hearing it, feeling it, seeing it, it might cause them to either walk away from that brand or dig in a little bit more. Can you come up with any ideas or

questions to ask or stories that you have that might help somebody. Again, I think people today just, they want to know that they're doing their homework, that they've really done the best they can before making this decision or that's what we're trying to help them do. So any red flags that you can share with them that might help them know if this is worth exploring or digging into or walking away from.

Paul Pickett (23:07)
Yeah, a franchisor who really is restricting a candidate's access to their existing franchisees. We call that validation. That's when a candidate is reaching out and talking to existing franchisees that have already been in the brand. If they're restricting that in any fashion or saying, no, you can't do that until you get to the end of the process, which I think is ridiculous why a franchisor would do that. That to me seems like a red flag.

I mean, if your existing franchisees are not your best development people and we call them validators, right? That's in the world of franchise. That would stick. That would give me pause It would be a red flag. ⁓

Michelle Rowan (23:49)
That would be a red flag. ⁓ Yeah. So

you have access to all the franchisees in the FDD, the franchise disclosure document, which we've discussed on other episodes, but typically the franchisor will tell you when it makes sense for you to connect with those. So the idea is, that if you just picked up that document and you weren't working directly with the development team at a brand,

the franchisees probably aren't gonna call you back. They wanna know that you're engaged with the brand, that you're going through some kind of process before you connect with the franchisees. So there's nothing wrong with the franchisor telling you when that happens in their process. But one thing is if they're limiting who you can talk to, they give you specific people to talk to. I do think we've touched on this in another episode. That's called directing, steering, and it's illegal.

Paul Pickett (24:37)
or steering is another name for it.

Michelle Rowan (24:41)
So they

can provide you people that they think you would connect well with because of certain reasons, but they cannot restrict you from talking to anyone that you want to in the system. So I think a red flag is that they are kind of limiting your access to people or you're saying putting it way at the end of the process, not letting you talk to them kind of early on to get a sense of what it's like. Okay.

Paul Pickett (25:05)
Right. And, ⁓

I think if I was a candidate and obviously your candidates know about FBR, but you're going to want a franchisor who actually cares about how happy their franchisees and how satisfied they are. So in my opinion, if there isn't a franchisee satisfaction survey with data and the franchise or is not surveying their customers, that to me may not be a red flag. Maybe it's a pink flag or something, but like we use.

This is not a secret. use franchise business review, your company, and we have for years. we actually, before they even get the FDD, they get to review the whole survey and go down deep. And I think that that level of transparency, which this is what's leading it up, it's transparency. If that franchisor is not transparent with you, it isn't willing to talk about not only the good and the great, but also the bad and the ugly. That's a red flag.

Michelle Rowan (26:04)
I love that. again, we are friends, so you're being very kind. But I will also say what I love is that even before we were close friends, you are the person on the stage that does tell other franchisors how important it is for them to get feedback from their franchisees. So it doesn't have to be franchise business review. Of course, we are the best one to do that out there. Right, right. Exactly. But again, yeah, that's what I... Yes.

Paul Pickett (26:11)
Right.

Why wouldn't you? But no, but we did this before we were friends, right? I mean, we were a client first because

we believe in, well, one of the things for our brand, have a very strong how did we do culture. And if you don't know how you're doing, you don't have a how did we do culture. So we do this every single year.

Michelle Rowan (26:44)
Yeah. But I love that you also, I mean, you're pretty aggressive. You tell other franchisors that it's important that they, need to understand the perspective of the existing franchisee to understand one, how they're selling it to other people, that what you're selling to someone is the actual experience being in the brand and two, what do they think you're doing well? And what do they think you could be doing better? So I do appreciate that. And I didn't even think about that as a red flag, but yeah, if they're not providing you some kind of data, preferably not from an internal survey, because

Paul Pickett (26:55)
Yeah, what?

Michelle Rowan (27:14)
Is that the whole brand? they? Yeah. So that's great. That's a great one.

Paul Pickett (27:19)
⁓ What else? ⁓ I strongly believe that having item 19 and for your viewers, it's the financial performance representation section of the franchise disclosure document or FPD. have so many bloody acronyms in franchising. ⁓ That is an important, in my opinion, that is something that should be mandatory. I'll just get tons of hate mail for that. ⁓

Michelle Rowan (27:36)
Yes, we do.

Paul Pickett (27:48)
If you possibly can do it, if you're not brand new, but even if you're brand new, you can figure out a way to show the first units in the concept, a way to set expectations, a way to show results so that people can make really good business decisions that match their professional goals, but also fulfill their personal requirements. I believe you need to do that. And if a brand is not willing to do that,

That would give me pause.

Michelle Rowan (28:21)
Yeah, I think that's great. Do you have any red or pink flags?

Paul Pickett (28:26)
Any red or pink flags? ⁓

Michelle Rowan (28:30)
What about a development team that moves you really fast through the process? Okay.

Paul Pickett (28:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, there were two things I was gonna

say. Yeah, in the process, the inability to connect with other people in the brand, ⁓ in the franchise or side of it. if they're like, no, you can't talk to our marketing team. You can't talk to our communications or training team. You can't talk to anyone else. You're just gonna talk to me. That would give me pause ⁓ and making it happen fast and having a lot of pressure.

These are life long, incredibly important decisions. mean, people are putting their houses up, they're putting their 401ks up. And if you're trying to be pushed through to that, I mean, another term for candidates, discovery day is oftentimes when you meet one-on-one with the franchise or, and hopefully their team.

We don't call it discovery day. Ours is at the very end of our process. every brand's a little different. If you turn that into a signing day, I think that that is a problem because you have this emotional excitement of, my gosh, I just heard all the wonderful things that I'm going to get. get all this. I want to sign today. That makes me very concerned. We've actually, call it meet the flock day and ⁓ we shifted.

to virtual during COVID. And then we stayed there because it's actually working really well for us. But in the old days when we did it in person and the candidate had to come here, have a friend I see in Virginia who's here and they're like, we're ready. We're ready to sign. We had given them their contracts early so the waiting periods had expired, blah, blah. And I'm like, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was playing hard to get. And I'm like, I want you to go home.

Michelle Rowan (30:20)
You playing hard to get, Paul Pickett.

Paul Pickett (30:28)
Tonight, go back to your hotel and think about it. And I will meet you here tomorrow at nine o'clock. But I'm not taking your money today because you are on a high.

Michelle Rowan (30:34)
Yeah.

I think that's great

because I think another thing that lot of companies will or brands, corporate offices will do is they'll invite a candidate to come to their annual conference, which is a great way to see the culture of the brand. But again, I can see them being like, look at all these new friends I've made and how exciting this is. So I like that. So like a 24 hour sleep on it. Call me in the morning. I like that. That's good. OK, so if if you're

Paul Pickett (31:00)
Yeah. Yep.

They actually

at the time were annoyed with me, just so you know the story. They ⁓ ultimately they built the business up really well and then sold it and retired. They did sign, yes they did come back and they signed the next morning and they crushed it and now they've sold it and they've retired and the new people have crushed it. But I will tell you that like a year later, he called me and we were talking about something else and he's like, you know.

Michelle Rowan (31:14)
They did sign the next morning. Okay, okay.

Awesome.

Paul Pickett (31:30)
Remember how annoyed I was with you and I'm like, yeah, I remember how annoyed and I'm like, and my friends in franchise development told me that I was an idiot. He's like, that was when I left and I stopped being annoyed and I thought about it that night. I was like, that was the perfect thing. This solidified that this brand does it right and cares about me and is doing the right thing. And I really, really appreciated that. Those are the things I'll never forget, right?

Michelle Rowan (31:57)
I love that.

Paul Pickett (32:00)
You know?

Michelle Rowan (32:00)
Yeah. So as a candidate, it's okay to tell people that you're feeling rushed, that you want to slow down. You perfect. Okay. All right. So, ⁓ do you have another one?

Paul Pickett (32:06)
Yeah, yeah.

⁓ Other.

Michelle Rowan (32:18)
think we got it. Yeah. Perfect. So I want to talk about some of the best franchisees out there. We know a lot of them. What traits, what makes them stand out, tell stories. I have a couple too that we didn't talk about, but tell me what you think they do or what about them makes them so successful.

Paul Pickett (32:18)
I know I've said that. Yeah, no, I think I hit all of them. I think I hit all of them in my head. Yeah.

I think the quality that they have is the ⁓ interest in transparency, ⁓ focus on their team and just leadership in general. They're always thinking.

Michelle Rowan (32:52)
So you're saying a franchisee that's

transparent as far as sharing their data in their business with other franchisees, with their team, that kind of transparency? Okay.

Paul Pickett (33:01)
That kind of thing, but also

just think this are going on in their life, right? mean, you can't, you cannot separate your life into different buckets and there are going to be things that happen professionally that will affect you personally and per and vice versa. And I think a franchisee who's really willing to have that conversation and with you in the development team will then also continue that when they're being coached in, when they're operating their business. ⁓ they,

focus on and they talk about the ultimate goal. They're really, really clear on their why and what motivates them.

Michelle Rowan (33:40)
So the goal of why

they're in business, the goal of what it looks like when I no longer own this business. And they're talking about that with their team, with the franchisor, okay, like that. So I have a couple. I think our friends, like when I think of Tam, when I think of Sanda, they're really involved with their franchise community and with their franchisor, that they are.

Paul Pickett (33:54)
Wait.

Yeah.

Michelle Rowan (34:05)
⁓ they raise their hand to test stuff. give constructive feedback. I always think about this, like there's a lot in a franchisor in a franchisee relationship that is difficult. It is not always roses. And I think the franchisees that we know have been through really hard times with their franchisors but I love that they, they keep that holistic relationship in mind and they're constructive in their feedback. They're not whiny. They are fact based and they.

they work on that relationship and helping their franchisor the brand to be better. They have this kind of holistic view of we all will win together. That's what I love about them the most. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Pickett (34:43)
solution based is when

they have an issue, they bring that to the table with a potential solution. You know, yeah, it's not. ⁓ And it's OK to vent, right? I mean, I totally get that. But they are also very clear on the fact that they have to be part of the the solve, not just notification that the problem exists.

Michelle Rowan (34:51)
Ooh, that's a good one.

Yeah.

Yeah. Or even I think it's, I think it's Brian Schnell from Faye Gray that talks about it a lot. This us versus them. That's like the worst thing in a franchise system of this us versus them or the franchise or saying the franchisees just don't get it and they're always complaining or the franchisee saying they don't care about us. They just care about like the us versus them. That is not the mindset of strong, successful franchisees.

Paul Pickett (35:16)
them.

It's not a healthy relationship.

Michelle Rowan (35:38)
Yeah,

yeah. I love this. I have one more question for you, Paul. Do you think you'd make a good franchisee?

Paul Pickett (35:42)
Okay.

I think I would. Yeah, yeah, I believe I would. I believe I would. like structure. I also like flexibility and communication ⁓ and the ability to actually, I mean, any franchisor that doesn't listen to their franchisees and use those ideas. mean, that is Jim always Jim Carpenter again has always said.

Michelle Rowan (35:47)
I think you would too. Yeah.

Paul Pickett (36:10)
When he started franchise, he's like, I wanted friends. wanted ideas. I wanted to create other people doing what I'm doing who could help me do what we're doing together better.

Michelle Rowan (36:22)
He's such a great example of a franchisor. And I think it's also too kind of cool, not really relevant to this topic, but that he's just created an ESOP for Wild Birds Unlimited, which means he will not be selling the company to another person as he exits the franchisor. But he's created that there's an employee ownership ⁓ arrangement to the brand, which is so very cool and is not easy to pull off. So that's also just, again, speaks to the values of your brand and your leadership.

I love it.

Paul Pickett (36:51)
Yep.

Yep. And what your legacy is, is your legacy going to be how much cash you have in the bank at the end of the day when you die, or is it going to be in the culture and the number of lives that you've affected? And those are okay. That's okay.

Michelle Rowan (37:02)
I

already know the answer for you on that one. So this has been a delightful conversation. I appreciate you. I appreciate you helping our audience understand franchising and kind of what to look for as they make these big investments and decisions in their lives. So thanks for joining us today. You are the best.

Paul Pickett (37:06)
Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

You are right there with me, dear. So thank you. I appreciate it. And if anyone wants to reach out to me, you can find me on LinkedIn. Actually, you can just Google me and my phone numbers and emails come up anywhere. So I'm available.

Michelle Rowan (37:35)
Yeah, and he really means that.

will say that. He truly means that. So you can find him on LinkedIn, Facebook. He's everywhere. Thanks so much, Paul.

Paul Pickett (37:43)
Thank you, Michelle appreciate it.