An ideal franchisee demands technology appreciation, phenomenal client support abilities, initiative experience, and a craving to help different organizations develop and succeed. In a world of franchises, numerous companies are offering different services that they are experts in. Cinch I.T. is one of the fastest growing companies that is serving I.T. services and offering franchise opportunities to small and medium businesses. Rick Porter, founder of Cinch I.T. has made it possible to build a strong network of franchise owners to help solve technical problems that are hindering their growth. Emphasizing the phrase he said, ‘Time is money and technology takes time’ because once you think of time as money, you will sort out your success as you work harder to save time. According to Rick, the best franchise owner will be one who are, sales marketing, top finance, or project management proficient in their industry. Being the franchise owner at Cinch I.T., you should have the option to direct your clients to assist them with settling on IT choices that either drive income or deal with the primary concern. Providing the computer support services and being a third of the cost of an in-house I.T. person is the number one reason to connect with Cinch I.T. This is Eye On Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. Lance Graulich Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising https://www.facebook.com/lance.graulich https://ionfranchising.com/ http://eyeonfranchising.com/
An ideal franchisee demands technology appreciation, phenomenal client support abilities, initiative experience, and a craving to help different organizations develop and succeed.
In a world of franchises, numerous companies are offering different services that they are experts in. Cinch I.T. is one of the fastest growing companies that is serving I.T. services and offering franchise opportunities to small and medium businesses.
Rick Porter, founder of Cinch I.T. has made it possible to build a strong network of franchise owners to help solve technical problems that are hindering their growth. Emphasizing the phrase he said, ‘Time is money and technology takes time’ because once you think of time as money, you will sort out your success as you work harder to save time.
According to Rick, the best franchise owner will be one who are, sales marketing, top finance, or project management proficient in their industry.
Being the franchise owner at Cinch I.T., you should have the option to direct your clients to assist them with settling on IT choices that either drive income or deal with the primary concern.
Providing the computer support services and being a third of the cost of an in-house I.T. person is the number one reason to connect with Cinch I.T.
This is Eye On Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future.
Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising
Lance Graulich 0:12
Hello, everyone and welcome back to eye on franchising. This is your host, Lance Graulich. I have a great one today. So this, this next guest is a US Army Special Forces guy. So I definitely appreciate the heck out of this guy's service. Anyone that's been in the military. He's an award winning guest. He's been ranked top CEO. He's been a recipient of the 40 under 40. So he's still youngster much younger than me, board member of the Better Business Bureau. His brand He's the founder of is one of the fastest growing franchises in the US. And it's certainly an absolutely needed franchise. The brand is called Cinch I.T. Welcome to the show, Rick Porter founder. How're you doing, buddy?
Rick Porter 1:04
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me on today.
Lance Graulich 1:06
Well, is my pleasure excited to have you on and sort of unpack all the goodness of what cinch is doing? I mean, so let's, let's hear your backstory. You're in the army. Who knows? You can't even tell me half the stuff that happened while you're in the army, I'm sure but, you know, tell us everything you want to tell us especially how the heck you got into franchise
Rick Porter 1:29
Sure, stumbled into franchising, get to the we'll get to the short story right stumbled into franchising. The long story is this. After graduating high school parents told me I wanted to join the military right away. parents told me Hey, we think you should go and get an education first. So you should go to college and get your degree first. I thought that was wise advice. So I did that, went to school for Business Administration with a concentration on accounting and finance. After that, actually worked for an IT company for three years. Still wanting to join the military the entire time, but you know, naturally just got right into the workforce. Finally, did it finally joined up, join the United States Army, work in the Special Operations community had an absolute blast mate met some amazing people that to this day, have done some amazing stuff. And the Discovery Channel Fun fact, Discovery Channel actually did an episode about one of the missions that I was on, I was on a 22 hour firefight. And the Discovery Channel did an episode called the war fighters series. And I think it's season two, Episode 13. It's called objective Berlin. So it's pretty fun story if, if anybody's interested, but that was one of the missions that was on. But to get out of the military eventually, you know, became a civilian again and got back into the only other thing I know, which was IT, and been doing that ever since. Now, how do we get into franchising? That's, that's a, like I said, the short answer is we stumbled into it. So we started IT
Lance Graulich 3:02
but but that's because you had experience in it. And did you see a need that this this brand needed to be born? I mean.
Rick Porter 3:11
Yeah, so So what happened is, and when we started the IT company, we struggled at first, like so many young IT companies do. And we eventually connected with some really great people. Right. Morgan Hill as our director of support Mike Mosher's, you know, our director of training and technology. And we brought in these really great people. And things started to take off for us, we learned how to sell which is really unique, by the way in the IT space, right? We lovingly use the word nerds around here, right? We're mostly a bunch of nerds who just really like to work on computers and technology. But we're not innately the best salespeople. So we learned how to sell and how to market and things really took off for us. And what we found out was, we started to spread and more importantly, our customer base started to spread all across the country. And our mission is to provide fast and friendly IT support. It's actually really that simple, fast and friendly. That's what we focus on. And it's really hard to provide fast IT support on site, especially when you have customers in 34 states across the United States. And so we were we were searching for a way to be able to provide on site support in a fast manner as well. And we looked at tons of different models. And that's when I first got introduced to franchising and I'll be honest with you, I fell in love with it.
Lance Graulich 4:30
So who introduced you to franchising and what was your first reaction, like hey you should franchise this?
Rick Porter 4:37
Well, so franchising for me right away I said, Wow, that sounds like you know, it's I don't know anything about it. So it's a little scary, right? It's new to me, but it was actually my CPA, my CPA said hey, one of my clients is a franchise has a pretty similar story. And they worked with a local attorney, and maybe you should have a conversation with that attorney. And so I did that. had a conversation with the attorney and she kind of filled me in on on how franchising works. And she suggested a couple books for me to look into. And I'm a lifelong learner. I'm a big, big, big reader like this year. Well, last year I did 54 books, I think it is all audiobooks. I wish I had time to read physical books, but all audiobooks. And she really filled me in and I got, I went down this rabbit hole of just learning about franchising. And the more I learned about it, the more I loved about it, and then I started meeting people like yourself. And what I realized is the franchise community is like no other. They're just amazing people who are all willing to share and help each other and you don't find that in most industries. And I fell in love with it.
Lance Graulich 5:42
Yeah, I love it. That's, that's such a great story. So 2004 is when you actually started,
Rick Porter 5:47
You got it.
Lance Graulich 5:48
And then you just started franchising, you know, you basically perfected the system, your website is amazing. You have a lot of great information. And 2019, you started franchising, right in the middle of a pandemic
Rick Porter 6:02
Yeah we
Lance Graulich 6:04
essentially the start of a pandemic.
Rick Porter 6:05
Yeah, we launched about six months before the pandemic. So you'll probably not the best strategic time to open a franchise. But then, you know, here's the nice part. We're in IT. And if there's any industry that was as pandemic proof or recession resistant as possible, it was IT right, because all of a sudden, everybody had to work remotely. And sure everybody cut costs, cash was King, this and that the one thing you couldn't get rid of, and the one thing you needed more than ever before was your technology. Right? People started to jump on Zoom meetings and team virtual meetings, and this and that, and you had to be able to access your data from anywhere. And our customers used us like ever, like never before, actually, our ticket volume. So our requests for support increased threefold, like overnight, by the way, which was a fun challenge. But it was fantastic. And so even though it wasn't a diff, it was a difficult time for potential franchise partners to make that leap into franchising and to purchase their territory. I think that was difficult for them to make that decision during times of uncertainty. Those that were already with us and those that were really close. did really, really, really well.
Lance Graulich 7:23
Yeah, you know, something new to anyone doesn't matter who you are become scary. You don't know. You know, I remember that first 30 days or so of the shutdowns. And I was like everybody, friends of mine family across the country, we're all talking like, so what's going on? How long is this? What's what's a shutdown? I mean, like, like, what?
Rick Porter 7:46
What do you mean a three day vacation? I'm going back to work on Monday.
Lance Graulich 7:50
Yeah, my case, I've been self employed for so long. So it was it was no different. You know, except I was like, Wait, I don't have a gym to go to anymore. In the morning. Well, thankfully,
Rick Porter 8:00
it's difficult to get toilet paper.
Lance Graulich 8:02
Yeah. Difficult to get toilet paper. That was fascinating. So I want to ask you about your services specifically. So everybody understands, yeah, what what are if you're going to create kind of that pie chart of services, what's the number one reason that people hire Cinch IT?
Rick Porter 8:19
So number one reason is, is we provide computer support to businesses. And the number one reason is, is because we are about a third, a third of the cost of an in house IT person. So if your company is large enough, where you have an in house are thinking about bringing in an in house person to outsource that to a company like cinch IT saves you about a third of the cost. And more importantly, we don't take vacation, right? We don't have sick days, we have, you know, 50 plus people there to support your company, which means we also have a vast knowledge base. Right? If you're not trusting just one person's knowledge base and training, you have an entire company there to support you. And so, you know, companies oftentimes will come to us to save money. The other ones will our growing companies, right? If you have a company and you've been growing and doing well and you've been successful, you probably have an IT person already. But oftentimes, you're gonna outgrow that single operator, right? Your IT company is maybe one guy or one gal, and they've done really well to this point. But now you need fast service, right? You need to be able to call a number and guarantee they're always going to answer the phone and resolve your issue very quickly. Because time is money and technology takes time. Those are the number two reasons why people do business with cinch IT in and what we're here for to help them.
Lance Graulich 9:45
So is that part of that secret sauce that I happen to see on the website?
Rick Porter 9:49
So the secret sauce is more a sauce for our franchise partners because here's the deal if if our franchise partners wants to open up their territory And they look at everything we do for our customers, right helpdesk support on site technical support, procurement when they need to buy laptops and desktops and tablets and Wi Fi access points and firewalls and, and projects, moving customers to the cloud and this and that it can become overwhelming. If you're thinking about starting your own IT company or opening a territory, right? You might be thinking, hey, it's I'm in this all by myself. And that's a lot to do. Well, the secret sauce is that Cinch IT is your partner. And the truth is, is we're handling so much of it for you. That's what makes us different than any other franchise IT company that we provide a help desk for all of our franchise partners. So they do not have to go out and hire, train and run a help desk, we do it all for them. We have a projects department, we pull their national, our national buying power for our franchisees so that they can get larger discounts with vendors, and they don't have to reach out to 26 vendors, when they need something they just reached out to us, we're able to acquire it dropship it to them the whole nine yards. So those are some of the components of the secret sauce that just make it easy and convenient for them to not only start a business, but to grow and scale it.
Lance Graulich 11:12
That kind of magnifies the classic statement. You're in business for yourself, not by yourself.
Rick Porter 11:19
You got it. You got it. No, you know, I definitely heard that a lot when I was first, you know, researching and learning about franchising, and I love that idea. Oh, and I don't even know if I've really shouldn't say this on your podcast. But I think that there's a lot of franchisors out there. That might say it but but how true is it really, I wanted to make sure with our brand, that we were really, really, really delivering that value and making sure that when we say it, we really mean it, we're here with you every step of the way.
Lance Graulich 11:46
Yeah, no, and it's good, it's good you said it. I mean, you're just being being honest. And there are brands, I tell people all the time as a franchise broker, when people come to me and they're scared, or they're nervous, and they honestly can't get out of their comfort zone. They don't want to get out of their comfort zone, they don't want to take any risks. And I said, look, it's my job to match you up with brands that there's very little risk. When you follow the plan, you get to go through the process. And by the time you're done with the process, I mean, Rick's not asking you for a credit card after the first phone call. Exactly. He's gonna, he and his team are gonna vet you and make sure you're right for the brand that it might be six weeks or two months later. And you'll have an opportunity to validate which we're going to talk about in a second and talk to existing franchisees that you absolutely, you know like dating, you know, you don't get married after the first date. Take your time figure it out. And you know, does the company culture match up to what you expect and need.
Rick Porter 12:45
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great metaphor, too. Because right, your average franchise agreement is longer than most marriages nowadays.
Lance Graulich 12:53
A 100 a 100%. And it is a business transaction, which truly is, sadly, how people should treat a marriage. It should be like a business transaction. And if you're not seeing eye to eye don't get married.
Rick Porter 13:05
So I just in case my wife listens to this. I'm not going to agree with you. But I'm nodding my I'm using me nodding my head. Yes, right.
Lance Graulich 13:12
Perfect. You got it, you got it. So let's talk about your process. Walk us through if somebody is interested, and I bring somebody to you, somebody's listening, what have you, and they come to Cinch IT describe the process? What are they going to go through to understand everything about you in order to make a decision?
Rick Porter 13:30
Sure. Yeah, it's it's a, it's a, I think it's a very thorough process for us, It's six steps. It starts with learning about that secret sauce that you mentioned, right. So what we'll do is, we'll jump on a quick introduction call just to get to know each other. One of the things that I do, I don't know if it's unique, because I don't know what other people do. But one of the things I do in my introduction call is I really want to learn what the potential franchise partner is, is looking for in a business and more importantly, in a lifestyle. And if if I think we're a good fit, you know, I'll be honest with them, and let them know that we'll continue on in the process. But oftentimes, what I do is actually share other franchise systems that are out there, especially in the IT space, I give them the name of the competitors, and I tell them, we might not be the perfect fit for everyone. So I think you should also do your research. And here's some companies you should look at as well.
Lance Graulich 14:21
Rick, Rick, you just you just hit on some really important I wanted to dive into that. A lot of people tell me, you can imagine I get a lot of the same comments, questions, stress, anxiety from people because they don't know what they don't know. I always equate everything to working out. I love working out and tell people tell people if you've never worked out or you haven't worked out a long time, and you go to do 10 Push Ups. You're gonna be straining.
Rick Porter 14:46
It's gonna hurt.
Lance Graulich 14:48
It's gonna hurt. It's just like starting this process. In the beginning. It's gonna hurt there's a lot of stuff you don't know. But a lot of people mentioned competition. Why? They're scared you know? I can mention any franchise Oh, there's so much competition. How do you know? But in your case, you are helping them understand who the competition is, What would you say? If you name your first, you know, couple of competitors, What are the major differences?
Rick Porter 15:17
Yeah, absolutely. And the major differences are actually the reason why I recommend them. So I'll give you an example. And you okay, is it okay? If I shared names with some of my competition here as well, so, so so so when I have in that initial conference, conference conversation, pardon me, with an individual, I want to, I want to understand what their background is too, right? If they tell me that they have worked in the IT space for 25 years, and they love working with computers, and they love working with the customer directly. Because when they are able to fix a problem or frustration, they love the look on their face when they resolve it, then guess what, we might not be the best brand for you why? Because we're going to do helpdesk for you, we're going to do statistically speaking, we're going to do 90% of the IT work we're going to do for you. So you might not get an opportunity to see that smile on the customer's face. But you know, what, CMIT, Teamlogic IT, Nerds To Go, these are some other IT franchises that are out there, that that don't provide you with a helpdesk. So guess what you will be able to do the vast majority of IT work and so they might actually be a better option for you. Now, at the end of the day, if you said I've been in this for 25 years, and I've done the technology, but now I'm at the point where I want to work on my business and I want to grow it and I want to work on scaling it I don't want to be involved in the day to day IT support. Well guess what? We might be better than anybody else for you. Because we're going to handle 90% of those technical issues for you, while the other brands won't. So that's a huge competitive differentiator that we have. That is right for some people, but not everyone.
Lance Graulich 16:53
Yep. I love it. I love it. And that, look, it speeds up the process for people because at the end of the day, it is possible they are the type of individual that want to do a lot of work themselves. There are people like that, chuck in a truck stand in the van.
Rick Porter 17:08
Yeah, exactly. And I don't know, you know, I don't know if everybody feels this way, or might think I'm a little crazy, but I don't think anybody, I don't think you should at least sell a franchise, it has to be a good fit. Like you mentioned, I love your analogy of being, you know, like a marriage, right? You're gonna be you're gonna be working with these folks, hopefully, for a very long period of time, you both should be happy in that marriage. And so you know, I don't I don't, I don't want you to start a Cinch franchise. If you want to work on the IT support every single day, you're going to be unhappy. And so I'd rather you be happy somewhere else. And in the long term that karma will come back to me.
Lance Graulich 17:45
Yeah, but you know, like a marriage. It's all about roles and responsibilities, marriages that are successful look, I got remarried 10 years ago, celebrated our anniversary last week. And she's crazy enough to keep me for 10 years, it was unbelievable. Now, we're incredibly happy. But then again, we really did define our roles and responsibilities. And in a franchise with the Franchise Disclosure Document that every franchise is required to produce. It's 23 items in there that lays it all out. And these aren't necessarily, you know, projections, this is history to show, this is how many franchisees This is the investment is the term. This is our you know, if there's an item 19 earnings claim, but then you also have the opportunity to talk to existing franchisees and validate and hear from them. I had a guy recently looking at of franchise a pretty, pretty big franchise, but it was some resale stores that were all beaten up that weren't run right by the previous franchisee, and didn't pay attention to his business. And, and my guys couldn't get proper validation. There was happy franchisees they kept telling him, oh, yeah, this is how much we make. And my guys came back to me like, well, they're happy, but that doesn't make me happy. Hearing those numbers, what do we do? The answer is you run I'll get you something. And I did. So there are franchises. Just like your description earlier. People might be happier with CMIT.
Rick Porter 19:11
Yeah, absolutely.
Lance Graulich 19:12
There's nothing wrong with it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. So continue telling us and sharing with the audience about your process. Yeah. So once you're done, I mean, anybody else in the corporate team has a vote or you you get validation
Rick Porter 19:24
Yeah absolutely so that that initial call is really just to find out, hey, if we might be a good fit for you. And to kind of give you some some structure to do some research after that. What we do is you'll sit in we do a webinar usually takes about an hour to an hour and a half. That is called the secret sauce webinar. And we dive into all the details right everything from our mission of providing fast and friendly IT support to what the training program looks like and everything in between. And at the end of that, I believe that franchise partners usually have a really good idea of, hey, this is exactly what I was looking for. Or maybe it wasn't right away, but you usually have Have a really good idea. We're also sharing with you the FDD, like you said, so you can look through all 23 items, and you can see all of that stuff. We also, then while while you're taking a look at the FDD, we're going to look at territory reviews. And that's one of my favorite pieces. Because, you know, our competition has been around for a really long time. And in some areas, it's really, it's hard to find a good territory. And because we are an emerging franchise, and we're not shy to say that, in some areas, you can find the exact territory you were looking for, and it's a perfect fit for you.
Lance Graulich 20:32
And Rick, let's just talk about how big is the territory typically? what what makes up a territory? And what is the investment overall?
Rick Porter 20:41
Sure. So I'll start with the investment piece, the investment piece is a range of $101,000 to $125,000. Total, our franchise fee is $15,000. The, the territory the way it works as their contiguous zip codes. And it is an area that has anywhere from 3000 to 3500 businesses with 10 or more employees, because that's our target demographic, we're looking for businesses that typically have 10 to 100 employees. Now we have customers that have a lot more than 100 employees. And we certainly have some that have less, but that's our target market. That's our sweet spot. So we're going to make sure that your area has anywhere from 3000 to 3500 of those businesses.
Lance Graulich 21:23
Got it.
Rick Porter 21:24
Now, when we're looking through the territories, at the same time, you'll fill out a traditional formal application. And once we have, you've had time to review the FDD. And we've looked over at potential territories, and we have your application back, we will also do exactly what you mentioned, we're gonna put we're gonna put you through validation. In other words, we're gonna put you in contact or allow you to reach out to all of our franchisees as many as you want and talk to them about anything they want, right? Things like how much money are you making? Are you happy with a culture things?
Lance Graulich 21:55
Would you do it again?
Rick Porter 21:56
Would you do it again? Exactly.
Lance Graulich 21:58
Rick, put me through this bootcamp because he was US Army Special Forces.
Rick Porter 22:03
So so if I if I may, just because I know you're joking, but I'm gonna give you a real story. And I promise I'll make it short. I have two. I have two franchisees that are close. They their territory is close to our corporate headquarters. And last year, we Cinch IT put together our first ever charity event that we hosted ourselves, it was for pediatric cancer patients, okay for an organization called wideband Sherry's house. And what we did is a military inspired charity event. It was a 100 mile ruck march. In other words, a hike with about a 40 pound backpack. We did 25 miles a day for four days. You slept outside in tents at a brewery, we threw a party. We did it for four days. I 100% invited two of our local franchisees and they went out and guess what? It was painful. But they actually finished 100 miles.
Lance Graulich 22:54
Oh, my Joe
Rick Porter 22:55
So you laugh about the bootcamp. But there may be a little boot camp.
Lance Graulich 22:59
I think I want to do that now. With you.
Rick Porter 23:02
So we actually our second annual 100 mile ruck march is on July 21 through the 24th. So it's coming up in three weeks.
Lance Graulich 23:09
Oh, thank goodness, I'll be out of town at a franchise convention. I got that one.
Rick Porter 23:14
Start training for next year.
Lance Graulich 23:16
Next year it is.
Rick Porter 23:19
So and then. And then lastly, once you validate, we'll bring you in for what every franchise calls a discovery day. That's what we're gonna bring you up here to our borders. Yeah, exactly. Meet the Team meet everybody. 20.
Lance Graulich 23:30
Where's your corporate office? Rick
Rick Porter 23:32
It's in Central Massachusetts, in Western Massachusetts.
Lance Graulich 23:34
That's right Western.
Yeah so we'll bring you up here, we'll tour you'll meet the team, the whole nine yards. And we'll have paperwork prepared for you and things like that. We'll sign the documents and then we'll we'll start the training program and get you scheduled and get you through the training program open for business. And so it's a good like I said, it's a thorough process. I'm very honest with people and let them know that, especially for us, and I'll share this because I think it's important for your audience, and really anybody. We do not rush this process. And we're very particular, in this process because of our secret sauce. So our secret sauce is that we're going to handle 90% of the work for you. Right, that's the short way to describe our secret sauce. Another words, we're partnered with, our franchise partners, we are closer to them than than probably most brands, because their customer truly is our customer. And so we want to make sure that we bring in Rockstar franchise partners, right? They need to be a great fit. And we likewise we need to be a perfect fit for them. So we take our time with it. We do not rush the process. And here's the other part. We don't award 25, 50, a 100 franchises a year, we actually award a real a very low number because as you can imagine if we're doing a if we're doing you know 90% of the work, we need to grow and scale even faster than our friends. So for example, we have about three to five new employees that start here every single month, because we are keeping pace ahead of pace of all of our franchise partners growth. And so we're very, we limit the number of franchises that we award. And we choose only the best. And I think it's, it's done well to make sure that our system is successful. And a you know, at the end of the day, I am, happy franchise partners and a successful system is more important than me than the number of locations we have.
And you have several franchisees that are going to be multi unit already.
Rick Porter 25:38
Correct yep, yep, we do. And so it gives them an opportunity to expand their network and expand their geography and so they can cover in their particular cases, you know, multiple areas of the state. And in some cases, you know, we have a franchise partnership in Utah that has basically almost all of Southern Utah, which is really, really great. It's worked out well for them, and they've been wildly successful.
Lance Graulich 26:04
Love it, love it. That's absolutely fantastic. So let's talk about who you are looking for when you're talking about these rock stars, superstars? Who, if you're going to think of your top few franchisees, top three franchisees right now, what are their qualities? And what did they do before joining you?
Rick Porter 26:23
All right, so Lance, last time I was asked this question, it was at the IFA emerging franchise conference, I was on stage and they asked me this question, and I got myself into trouble. Because our ideal franchise partner, I can actually be very, very specific if I wanted to. So I funny story, I was actually up on stage, he asked this question, and I said, I said, the ideal franchise candidate is a salesperson that currently works for paychecks and paychecks was a sponsor, and they were in the audience. I was like, Oh, geez. But with that being said, Well, you know, an ideal franchise partner for us, is actually somebody with a sales background, not necessarily a technical background. And if you think about it, this is going to make perfect sense. In the IT space. In order to grow your business, you need to be out in the community forming relationships, right meeting with businesses, and finding customers, that's how you're going to grow your revenue. Obviously, the other part of this is I told you that our secret sauce is that we handle about 90% of the technical issues. So you truly don't have to have a huge technical background. Because you're there's not a lot of technical work for you to do. So most of our franchisees and our, you know, like you said, our, our wildly successful franchisees come from the commercial insurance, they were a commercial insurance salesperson, right? They were a commercial banker, right. And so they were working on the sales side of bringing
Lance Graulich 27:51
them so not afraid to talk to people is what it comes down to, and preferably a sales background of some kind.
Rick Porter 27:57
You got it and that 10% of the IT work that you're going to do locally in your territory, you can hire that out, if you don't have the ability to also do it as well, you can hire out that technician to handle that 10%. So our ideal candidate is typically has a sales background.
Lance Graulich 28:12
I've had it guys and gals, as clients candidates that have come to me looking at franchise opportunities. And several of them have asked about sales related businesses. And as I hear them on the other end of the phone, I'm like, I don't think this is for you. Because they've seen the salespeople that make all the money. And yeah, assume that they can do it. I was like, nope.
Rick Porter 28:40
And sales is it's a tough skill set. Right?
Lance Graulich 28:43
It is. And that's why you know, when people say to me, you know, I'm worried about failing or, you know, I have to pick the right franchise, well, of course, you have to pick the right franchise, like you have to pick the right wife, or spouse or whatever it might be, but you can't be mismatched. You know, just, you know, if you, you have to have a certain skill set to be a professional athlete, just just like that in franchising, we can train anybody to almost do anything, because there are there are certain skills that are necessary in order to be successful.
Rick Porter 29:15
You got, you got it.
Lance Graulich 29:16
Yeah, I mean, that's what it comes down to. So obviously, you will weed people out in the process. Doesn't matter what walk of life they came from, but you're obviously looking for the sales background. Now, I'm sure you've had people that have come to you through people through referrals and what have you. And you're like, Yeah, this is probably not for you. So I'm sure you feel badly when you have to kind of kick people out of the process. Right?
Rick Porter 29:44
Yeah, exactly. And the truth, so I don't know. So I told you I have a military military background. So I'm also right the military knocked the failing feelings out of me in a long time, so I actually don't feel bad. I really don't. I'm gonna be honest with you. Is that bad to say? I don't feel bad and here's why. If I'm honest with you, and I tell you, Hey, I don't think this is a good fit it the truth is, is I'm probably looking at your best interests, I probably am thinking, you are not going to be successful in this endeavor, or maybe you'll be successful, but I don't think you're going to be happy. And at the end of the day, that's a one, two, those are the two things I want for anybody, I want you to be successful and happy. And so if we do have to turn you away for because it's just not a good fit, it's probably in your best interest. And I'm actually going to sleep really well at night. And I'm not going to feel bad, not that it's an easy conversation to have. But it's in your best interest. And at the end of the day, that is going to make me feel good.
Lance Graulich 30:37
I think that's I think that's a great, honest, really important point. So I appreciate you saying that. Talk a little bit about marketing. So obviously, if you were doing 90% of the business or corporate, the franchisor is doing 90% of the business. The majority of the business that new franchisees are doing is the business development and the sales aspects and customer acquisition as Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank says on a regular basis. So what do you do in the in you know, what, what is the ramp up period look like when people launch because we all know how important it is to get any franchisee out of the gate successfully. So they're, they're at least breaking even as quick as possible, and then eventually making money.
Rick Porter 31:22
Exactly. And so there's, there's actually a lot to unpack here. And I'll have fun with this one. I love this topic. So marketing, right, so let's talk about marketing. So we do have an advertising fund fee. So all of our franchisees participate in a fund. And that fund actually does a lot of I'll call it digital marketing first, right, so it's going to handle websites for you. So our franchise partners don't have to worry about creating and maintaining websites, it's going to handle all of their social media, so they don't have to get involved in their social media or they have access to get involved. And and so we're handling digital marketing, we're handling websites, we're handling all of that type of digital marketing. What we're looking for for our franchisees is to do what I would consider local marketing. And when I say local marketing, what we're really talking about is networking. Right, in our space in the manage services or IT space, right IT support for businesses, what we're really looking for is is somebody who can develop relationships. So, you know, most of our franchise partners, when they get started are going to join their local Chamber of Commerce, they might join a referral group like maybe a BNI, or a ProVisors or a Vistage, right, they start to join these groups. And well, we call them tier one partnerships, that's part of our training program, how to how do you develop and nurture relationships with people who will consistently pass referrals your way and who you can also pass referrals to. And so most of that customer base is going to come from networking, right? And because here's my belief, and here's what we've seen, you know, in, in coming up on almost 20 years in this industry, is that businesses that have 10 to 100 employees have a successful business, right? If you have 10 to 100 employees, you've done well for yourself, you're doing well, you've, you've probably been doing this for some time, and which means you've developed you as the business owner has also developed a network. And when you're frustrated with your IT, you typically don't just go to Google and type in you know, best IT company near me, you don't you reach out to your trusted advisors, right? You reach out to a CPA, you reach out to your lawyer reach out to your friend who also owns a business, right? And you say, Hey, who do you use for it, I need a new IT person. And we want to be top of mind, we want to develop relationships with all of those people. And so that's what our franchise partners are doing in their local community. As far as how fast we get them ramped up. Our training program is a thorough training program that takes about 12 weeks, it takes exactly 12 weeks. It's it is called experiential training. Another words we are actually going through and we're teaching you how to sell in the IT space. And when we do it, it's experiential. We're not talking about theory, only, we're talking about theory, and then we're actually implementing it. So when I say you're going to join a local Chamber of Commerce, we're not waiting for 12 weeks and then saying, Okay, go join the Chamber of Commerce you are joining it on week two, right? We're attending some some in person meetings throughout that training program or virtual meetings, when we're starting to develop those networking relationships and doing one to one meetings with them and things like that. We're doing it throughout the process, so that when you actually get your diploma and you graduate from St. University and you go back, you've got tons of activity going on in that sales world so you can ramp up and like you said, breakeven or become profitable as fast as possible. And I'll tell you one other thing this is really neat about our industry. In the IT industry, one of my favorite things about it is it's all about reoccurring revenue. So when you bring on one customer let's say that customer spends $1000, their their bill for support is $1,000 a month let's just say. It's a $1,000 every month. And so once you bring them aboard and you nurture that relationship that there's a $1,000 there every single month. So if you do it again next month, and the month after that, and the month after that, it's really compounds into one day, you're looking at your annual your reoccurring revenue each month, and you're going, Wow, I'm doing really well. It's one of my favorite parts about sales in the IT space. And like you said, customer acquisition.
Lance Graulich 35:22
Everybody's talking about multiple streams of income and imagine getting paid. While you can imagine you do it getting paid multiple times for the work you've already done, essentially.
Rick Porter 35:34
You got it.
Lance Graulich 35:35
So So let's break something down real quick. 12 weeks of training, I would assume a little bit of that is in Massachusetts, but most of it is remote Correct.
Rick Porter 35:46
You got you've clearly done this once or twice before. Yeah, so all of the training is remote with the exception of two weeks. So we have a two week on site training program that's here in Central Massachusetts, and it's all hands on, you'll actually work inside of a live franchise, your technician is actually going to go and visit live clients and work with hands on with the computers and support and things like that. And on the sales side. You know, salesperson is again experiential, they're sitting in and let's say you want to do a cold calling block, you're gonna sit with your trainer, and your trainer will actually make cold calls on your behalf. They'll help you schedule meetings, they're going to help you to identify who those best referral partners are. But you're going to do it hands on with them, you're going to travel, you're going to sit in on meetings with them, you're going to go visit existing clients, talk to existing clients, talk to them, why they chose to Cinch IT, and what's so valuable about the service. I actually think the first the two weeks that are hands on in person, I think of the most valuable of all,
Lance Graulich 36:45
Love it. Well. I want to know, are there any final thoughts? Anything? We missed? Any final words of wisdom? And I have plenty of words of wisdom, that's for sure.
Rick Porter 36:54
Well, you know what, I honestly, I don't have a ton of words of wisdom. I feel like I'm letting you down right now.
Lance Graulich 37:00
You know you've, you've thrown out all the words of wisdom so far.
Rick Porter 37:04
You know, I think we talked about it probably a lot today is that, you know, if you're, you know a potential franchise partner that's looking to find a franchise or if you're a franchisor you know, my words of wisdom is to make sure it's a good fit, make sure you're gonna be happy. While use our metaphor to close us out here. You said it perfect. It's a marriage and make sure that it's a happy marriage. Make sure that it's one that's going to last and you're going to enjoy every minute of every day with that person.
Lance Graulich 37:33
So do your homework before you put a ring on it.
Rick Porter 37:36
You got it.
Lance Graulich 37:38
Rick Porter, Cinch IT. Thank you so much, Rick for being here. You did awesome. This was fabulous.
Rick Porter 37:45
Thanks for having me on.
Lance Graulich 37:46
Thank you.