Today on Eye on Franchising we have two stars with us, Jessica McLean & John Erlandson. Star number one is Jessica McLean has over ten years of experience in the franchising space. Currently Jessica is the Director of Franchise Development for Franchise FastLane representing Soccer Stars (a Youth Athletes United Brand.) Star number two is John Erlandson is a senior executive with over 15 years of business development experience in the sporting goods and licensing industries. Soccer Stars has had a positive impact on more than 2 million children and we’re just getting started. As a major player in the $19 billion youth sports industry, they are building confidence in young athletes through fun, non-competitive, semi-competitive, and competitive soccer programs that teach the value of teamwork and sportsmanship. But they don’t do it alone. The franchisees are the real MVPs, conducting 100,000 classes, camps and clinics nationwide each year. Through their industry-leading training and support, their franchise owners have all the resources they need to launch and expand their business and develop the next generation of Soccer Stars. At Soccer Stars, they believe in the power of sports to bring people together and make an impact on young lives. Soccer Stars offers children an opportunity to learn how to play soccer, while the coach and program instills important life skills and values. From diapers, or roughly 12 months old up to 18 years Soccer Stars is here for you! Have you heard the news? We are officially on YouTube. Come check out a few videos have have and give me a follow! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwoAdrkPZmveJt5AQRDk8WA --- Lance Graulich Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising Eye On Franchising
Today on Eye on Franchising we have two stars with us, Jessica McLean & John Erlandson. Star number one is Jessica McLean has over ten years of experience in the franchising space. Currently Jessica is the Director of Franchise Development for Franchise FastLane representing Soccer Stars (a Youth Athletes United Brand.) Star number two is John Erlandson is a senior executive with over 15 years of business development experience in the sporting goods and licensing industries.
Soccer Stars has had a positive impact on more than 2 million children and we’re just getting started. As a major player in the $19 billion youth sports industry, they are building confidence in young athletes through fun, non-competitive, semi-competitive, and competitive soccer programs that teach the value of teamwork and sportsmanship.
But they don’t do it alone. The franchisees are the real MVPs, conducting 100,000 classes, camps and clinics nationwide each year. Through their industry-leading training and support, their franchise owners have all the resources they need to launch and expand their business and develop the next generation of Soccer Stars.
At Soccer Stars, they believe in the power of sports to bring people together and make an impact on young lives. Soccer Stars offers children an opportunity to learn how to play soccer, while the coach and program instills important life skills and values.
From diapers, or roughly 12 months old up to 18 years Soccer Stars is here for you!
Have you heard the news? We are officially on YouTube. Come check out a few videos have have and give me a follow!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwoAdrkPZmveJt5AQRDk8WA
---
Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
franchisees, business, soccer, franchise, love, franchising, john, brand, kids, locations, work, stars, system, business partner, people, sell, pandemic, coach, sports, corporate
SPEAKERS
John, Lance Graulich, Jessica
Lance Graulich00:06
Hello everyone and welcome back to another fabulous episode if I don't mind saying so myself to ion franchising, this is Lance Graulich, your host. Today is another very special day. This is a hot hot brand that we're going to talk about. I have two great guests. And ladies first, so we'll go with the lady. Let's see, she has been in the world of franchising for just about 10 years these days. She was working at a friend's group side by side with him for years a b2b cost reduction franchise, doing it all from training support operations, eventually Chief Business Development Officer, she was a competitive soccer player. No way you'd be able to figure that out. But that's what she was, believe it or not. 15 years doing that. And she's so passionate about kids, that she just had one. Welcome to the show, Director of franchise development. Miss Jessica McLean.
Jessica 01:07
Thank you, Lance. Happy to be here and shout out to Bo McLean, the little boy that I just had.
Lance Graulich01:14
Good job on that. Well, I didn't do the reveal on the name of the brand that we're talking about today. Until we get to our next guest, the co, one of the co founders of this brand, senior executive 15 plus years business development. And he looks really young. But he he's got a lot of experience.
John 01:33
That's a very, very nice, you just say that lands but usually when I go to a bar downstairs, they see my head, they're like, Yeah, you don't need to put your idea out. Just just come on in it
Lance Graulich01:43
kind of gives it away. Bald Head Equals experience. Yes, it does. So cheap business development for authentic brands, he assisted them driving growth from 100 million to $8 billion. In just seven years. You could say this guy's a real baller. More on that a little bit. It was business development, sporting goods and the licensing industry. He's held all kinds of positions Horizon Fitness, fitness quest, we'll talk about that. He's got a BS degree in kinesiology fancy, but that certainly fits.
John 02:19
I mean, fundamentally exercise science. It's I got out of school, and my father called me he's like, What are you going to do now? And I'm like, you know, I'm looking for a job to go teach him. I'm like, Dad, I'm not a teacher. I'm have an Exercise degree. He's like, Well, what are you going to do? I'm like, a personal training. I'll figure it out. So anybody's kids out there that want to get an exercise science degree, figure out what they want to do first, before they get into it.
Lance Graulich02:44
I love it.
Jessica 02:45
Now look at you. Now look at you, John. Right. Oh, look at you, John.
John 02:50
How am I landed here
Lance Graulich02:52
Well so the culmination of this introduction to my friend John Erlandson, co founder of youth athletes united, and soccer stars, soccer stars, is the brand of the hour. So let's have a conversation with these two superstars. I mean, soccer stars. Welcome to the show, John.
John 03:13
Thank you. Appreciate you having us.
Lance Graulich03:15
You got it. Well, ladies first, Jessica, let's go back to your deep history. How the heck did you get into franchising? What do you want to be when you grow up? How'd you get in the world of franchising?
Jessica 03:25
Yeah, I appreciate the question. So my original goal from a Korean I grew up in a family where nowadays it would be considered old school, there was an expectation in my house that you had to make a decision when you were really young as to what you want to do when you grow up. So I'd have to fill out a form every year through grade school. And on that form, it would be like, Okay, what are you going to be right? And you feel that pressure as a kid. And anyways, I put my sister was much more creative. She came up with all these different unique ideas. I put teacher, every single time teacher was the answer. And so that's always what I had said that I was going to be. My mom loved the idea that because she's a teacher grew up working with kids. So the goal that was the plan, went to university for four years, then went to I'm Canadian. So here in Canada, it's called Teacher's College. And throughout that time, actually that journey every summer, what I did to get experience working with kids was coach and manage a soccer camp, interestingly enough, and I did that for four years. Anyhow, while I was in the last phases of teachers college, so I was actually in the school, teaching the kids. I just had something inside my gut and my heart and my mind that was telling me their long term career perspective, even though I love kids, and I love educating. I just didn't feel like it was what I wanted to do. I just had something in me that was telling me that, as you can imagine this decision that I was telling my parents I I was going to make was devastating to them devastated especially my mom, I had, you know, I filled out the form every year, here I am, you know, the money had gone towards it. And I tell him that I and so then the question becomes, what are you going to do? Right? If you're not going to be a teacher? What are you going to do? And my answer was, I have absolutely no idea. The only answer I had is that I knew I wanted to do something that was in more of an adult centric environment. I had made that decision. I knew I loved business, I knew I loved relationships and communicating with people. The only answer I had was I'm gonna move to the city, I'm gonna move to Toronto, and I'm gonna figure it out every parent's dream, not when right when your kid says that. Anyhow, so long story short, moved to the city, found a job in recruiting to begin with, that was the first job that I have led me to another position with a software company, again, starting in HR. And soon after I did that, they said, you know, do you want to be more client customer facing moved into that role? And then I made another decision to move to a really small town here in Ontario. And so that was really challenging, because then the question became, what are you going to do from a corporate perspective? Anyhow, believe it or not in the newspaper, and again, this was 11 years ago, now, in the newspaper, there was an ad for a franchise system, I didn't even know it was a franchise system. I just saw the ad in the newspaper, I read a little bit about what they were looking for. I thought, You know what, there's maybe five jobs available in this little town. So I'm gonna put this out there. It sounds like it's at least somewhat business related. Lance, I knew you're good friends with the founder of the franchise system. So next thing I know, I'm sitting down with him. And a week after that, I started a position where I was responsible for building a training team and department and system for new franchisees coming into that b2b Consulting franchise. And that's where my journey began. And franchise, love it. Love
Lance Graulich07:06
love it. Well, that is a heck of a start. So I appreciate that. John, how about you?
John 07:11
Yeah, you know. So I'll go back to my scenario. After college, I don't know what to do. And I decided to invent a fitness product because I have nothing but time on my hands. I love fitness. So I invented what's called the Extra Deck and it's a color coded deck of cards. When you travel and want to flip your workout out, you can just flip out these color zones and get a different workout every time. So I sold it to fitness class, actually. And now my dad calls in what are you going to do now that you've sold this fitness product, you still haven't gotten like I'm collecting royalties, man. I'm retired, like, loving books on QVC. And it bombs like the worst product in the history of QVC. We'd sell like 20,000 units in eight minutes. We sold two. So my royalty dream of retirement at 22 didn't quite come through. So now I'm back to square one on personal training. And it's like, Man, I got this college debt. What am I gonna do? And fitness plus is hiring. For a brand manager. He just lives in the New Balance brand. So they took the license of the shoe brand and put it on treadmills, ellipticals, they're looking for a brand manager. They wanted 10 years of experience all this stuff. And I called up the owner and said, Look, man, I'm a great young kid. I'll work my ass off. I'll be in the office till four in the morning, you tell me whatever you need to do. I want to come work for you. And I want to do this job. So he's like, Well, look, you balances got to sign off on it. So send me your resume. You know, I'm not a college I have like, I have nothing on my resume. But I was able to talk my way in and went there. And it was really my first taste of business experience. They did a lot of infomercial. So they have this boom and bust cycle.
Lance Graulich08:52
I remember that. Yeah.
John 08:54
I mean, you told me a little carousel you know, Chuck Norris Total Gym still on TV to
Lance Graulich08:58
this day had a Total Gym when Total Gym first came out.
John 09:01
It's amazing. So we had some unbelievable brands. I learned a ton from the owners there. But fundamentally, you know, I didn't love the infomercial business because I thought the products were could be hit or miss. We had some really good ones. But we also had some ones that were not great. And so Horizon Fitness was a big player, they make everything like matrix next time you're in a gym to rise in Division, second largest fitness maker manufacturer in the world, got a job to come there and launch couple of their product lines. From there. I moved to sportcraft. So I'm still in product development and sales. I didn't even know what franchising was at this point. And I'm a lot of years into my career. And then sportcraft goes bankrupt and I just bought a new house. I just had a baby. Every dime I had went into the house took about a year to build thought we were gonna recap. And in my new house, I got a call saying hey, did we do the recapitalisation? You know, board board approve it. We're liquidating. So I go to my wife and like, I think we got 50 bucks in our bank account, no health insurance, no check. And Baby, baby, baby. Having a baby in the hospital without health insurance was an interesting life experience for another podcast. But so I'm sitting around trying to figure out what I want to do. And so I go back to hustling again, just like I did when I invented the fitness product, I realized all the factories that got burned that I had just been in China, tell them we're gonna pay you, we're gonna pay you handle this inventory. And the trademarks are in bankruptcy limbo. So no one's watching the ports. So I call the factories and I just said you, I'm gonna apologize because they think I lied to him. I didn't know any better. I was kind of a pawn in the in the game. And they just said, Hey, can you sell this inventory? And I'm like, I don't know. I'll call you right back. So then I start pulling all the retailers and I start selling inventory kind of illegally under the radar, but oh my god, we got enough to pay the mortgage. This month, we got enough to pay the car payment, so I'm just hustling. And that all kind of got sold, the trademarks got bought by authentic brands. And right around that time, we ran out of money again, Hurricane Sandy hit seven trees fall on my house. And I'm like, This is gonna be like the worst time of life. But I got a $60,000 insurance check. And it was 5000 to fix everything. So now we're back in business and we're surviving. So back in the black. Yeah. So I took that. And like every good entrepreneur, I doubled down, I went to the bankruptcy court. And I bought the software we had developed at fourth sportcraft to manage product management. And it was a really unique kind of software. So I started a software company with the money from the from the insurance. What's interesting is now I know the advantages of franchising. Starting a business from scratch, I realized was like not it's way harder than most people think. And so having a system in a box is is unbelievably a much better way to start if you just want to go out and produce and you don't necessarily want to spend all your time trying to figure out how to invent. Yes. And so through that process, authentic brands that had the trademarks heard, I was still selling some inventory dribs and drabs and called me and were like, Hey, you can't be doing this. So I think I'm going in there to get sued. I go to meet with the owner. And he's like, like, I really like you look for a job. All right. And that turned out to be probably the most life changing experience. They were a licensing company. So now I'm getting closer to franchising. And it was a Harvard case study raise $500 million from letter green complete startup bought celebrity estates. First one was Marilyn Monroe that Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali Al Lee, did such a good job with dead celebrities live celebrities came to us and said, Can you do this for me? Shaquille O'Neal Greg Norman. So we started buying half of their rights. And then we started buying fashion and sports brands. Licensing is very, very similar to franchising was in legal nuances. And I fell in love with the with the industry. It was like something I was very good at. I felt like, I'm very good at working with outside businesses, helping entrepreneurs, building box based systems where a lot of the IP is right there and just scaling those. And so we were very fortunate, myself and my business partner today to have early stage options in that company. The minute they cash, I was right back to my journey. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I always like to hustle. What are we going to do and super soccer stars comes up for sale. And so it was like options, cash, soccer stars came up for sale, amazing athletes and other brand. We all came up for sale. And me and my partner started talking about like, man, we could build the same platform that we just didn't licensing, except for I can get up every morning. And we love what I do. I just didn't care about women's handbags and posters and but I care about kids. I care about fitness. I care about sports, man, if I can make a great living doing that, like I couldn't like it all came together. And it took out 38 years.
Lance Graulich14:10
Wow, it all came together that quick and 38 years.
John 14:13
overnight success.
Jessica 14:14
I think it's so cool to John how Adam, John's business partner. His kids also participated over the years and super soccer stars. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Lance Graulich14:25
So so you get a hold of super soccer stars. You know, that was how long ago exactly that you set up a franchise system. Let's talk about how you got a franchise.
John 14:35
So it started as an OPCO. So we bought amazing athletes, which youth athletes united as the platform on the consumer brands that we own. The first two were amazing athletes, and the other one was super soccer stars. And so as you can see we got a lot of action going on here in the office. So mazing athletes, super soccer stars, super soccer stars was about a $20 million operating company. In 30, markets, mostly cities, Manhattan, Los Angeles, places like that. amazing athletes with a pure franchise go in 30 states. So when we merge the two together, we have always been like, Well, look, we want to scale franchising, but we really need to understand this Opco we bought, and we really need to get a better understanding of how licensing is different from franchising. And we don't like to move fast before we understand that everything is in place, right. And it was going along, like, better than anything could have ever dreamed. But my whole life savings into it was great. And then the pandemic hits. And I remember so we have about 600 w two employees, between the coaches and the corporate staff. And I remember, you know, being like, oh my god, we're gonna have to lay off 95% of the staff, and we did it like, you know, a week, two weeks, and then they we had this core staff left. But for me, again, you talk about things coming full circle, and you go on these entrepreneurial journeys, I felt like I was rock solid piece of iron. Why? Because I had lived through bankruptcies I had lived through businesses that didn't work. So when I got on there, I could speak to the team with so much confidence about, like, I'm telling you, everything's gonna be okay. That was just part of the process. It's part of the process. And when they got up with their franchise partners, same thing, guys, I'm telling you, everything's gonna be okay. Not only is everything gonna be okay, this is gonna be the best thing that's ever happened to you. They couldn't believe it. I was saying that. What do I mean by that? Half of the mom and pops competition that's out there, who you really compete with will go away, they won't survive. They're not going to make it through this. You have an army of people with you here at corporate, you have an army of corporate resources. By the way, you all worried because we were private equity back Now eventually pretty happy because we're going to be around deliver the tail, right. And so over time, building that trust, taking our history, and then just injecting it and infusing it into the system. We survived the pandemic. And then we started to just geometrically explode coming out of it, which is now worthless led us to start franchising soccer stars, because the demand has been It's been unbelievable. I
Lance Graulich17:13
love it. I love that story. So share with us, John. So how did you come across? Franchise fast lane and Jessica? Business development piece?
John 17:24
You know, it's funny in life, you always think like you, you know, more than you really know. And so I was like, Oh, we got this franchising thing figured out. But we're always digging for like, more knowledge, and how do I sell faster? You know, we had sold 30 units of amazing athletes, and another tennis and golf brand we own call TGA. And we're like, We're doing great, you know. And we went to one of the conferences, I can't remember which one it was. And we started meeting investment bankers and different people in the industry and fascinating kept going on, you got to talk to these facets. We got to talk. These guys are just like you. But they're NFS. Oh, I don't understand what NFS Oh, is there a broker there? And so I meet Carrie. And she says, look, it's very simple. You ever sell a house? I said, yes. Okay, so you have a seller's agent and a buyer's agent. And fundamentally, the reason why we can sell faster is the agents have processes where they can talk to each other seamlessly, they get each other's language. And by systematizing, that process, you sell a lot faster, because everybody starts to know each other. And the other thing that's really cool is, listen, when a person comes to buy a brand from you, in a franchise, there's a little bit of a, you're selling me and educated me simultaneously, right? Like, there's a little bit of an unfair advantage. So there's some mistrust and she goes, John, you may be great at building that trust, but it's never going to be perfect. You put it into my system with your unit economics, and we're gonna make it perfect. And to their credit, I mean, they taught us so much that we didn't know I mean, I thought we knew this and we knew this. And so it's been unbelievable, I do think will be one of the fastest systems never have a franchise close because every broker you talk to says, everyone checks off sports. Everyone wants to make a good living at sports. There's not a lot of options out there.
Lance Graulich19:11
No, no you became such an obvious amazing option and I love it. So Jessica, talk a little bit about your little story. You just joined the fast lane, so to speak and soccer stars it is and look at you former soccer star yourself jumping in helping on the friend Epson?
Jessica 19:31
Yeah, so it's interesting actually, because fast lane. I mean, they're, as John said, very prominent name now have become a very prominent name in the franchising industry in general. And so I had crossed paths with some Fast Laners with Kerry Gilley at consultant network conferences that I was at for the brand that I worked for for almost the last decade. And so it was about three was just before the pandemic hit the That Fast Lane had approached me about coming into the fast lane and at the time and actually soon after that the pandemic hit. And my response to the person who had contacted me was, you know, look, I'm happy where I am. I love what I'm doing. You know, now the pandemics here, I felt really confident about the economic recession proof aspect of you know, the brand that I worked for. Anyways, time goes on. And it's so funny because and this speaks to Bobby Brennan, who's the person that initially contacted me from Fastlane. He's the senior VP there. Anyways, Bobby called me one day I was off on maternity leave with my son. And, and he that he just put a question out there, he said, How do you feel about soccer was his question. And as you now know, and as you said, Lance, so I played soccer for 1516 years love kids, you know, that was a big reason why teaching was the original career that I was pursuing. And so from there, these conversations just spiraled with the fast lane and Lance, you know, this kid and I have known each other for a while now I'm a passionate person, just in general, really important for me to be passionate about whatever it is that I'm doing career wise. And to be, it was that passion, that drove me more and more towards coming into the fast lane being a part of what they represent. But even more so equally, or even more so employee to that, representing soccer stars. Yeah, I just I really felt the drive. It was like one of those moments in life of this is a bit of a risk for me, because of the position that I held where I came from. But, you know, you hear some of the most successful people, you know, in the world talk about how some of their most telling moments that changed their lives were when they took risks, and a decision to take that risk.
Lance Graulich21:54
Yeah, no, I love it. So let's talk a little bit, John, why don't you talk about what soccer stars is as a franchise system, and then Jessica, dive into the investment and who you are.
John 22:06
Fundamentally, we run kids soccer classes, we don't run leagues, we don't run tournaments. We aren't the kids need to travel to six states over to get competition when they're 10. There's a there's a side of sports, and there's good and bad about all those things that most people think of sports, then there's this magical world that we exist in which the majority of the revenue from our franchises in our businesses today comes from Kid classes per sport experience. And so it's the first soccer is every kid's first floor. Mom can come in as early as parented me, if you're 18 months to two, you can come on the field with your parent play. And everything is this educational, fun based learning that is wrapped in this soccer package, and you're having a good time, but you don't even realize you're learning if you're a kid. It's all developed by not just soccer expert, but early childhood development experts. And its progressive every step of the way. Now we do run crib to college, and we will partner with your local soccer club to get the parent volunteers best in class content. And to get him a trainer to make sure that the practices are great. So we have that ability to really run the gamut. But the majority of the revenue today really comes from K classes, you know, under six, lot.
Jessica 23:23
It's so interesting. One of the things that I found is a lot of job mentions parent volunteers who are coaching and I've been having conversations with people who because nobody's volunteering to coach their kids teams, they're volunteering to coach their kids teams, and then they'll say to me, you know, and then we, you know, we went on YouTube to try and figure out what we should cover on practices with these kids. And they're saying that because what they didn't recognize is there's this business out there like a soccer stars that you can run as somebody who loves kids love sports, but where there's also a pre created and designed curriculum there for you and or, you know, these coaches as you grow and scale to roll out for every single age group, every single type of class, and I get that wow factor back from them because they're, you know, again, talking about these YouTube videos. And so that's one of the elements that I thought was really cool about this, too is Dean Simpson, who heads this on the Soccer Stars team has mapped this curriculum out start to finish for these different these.
Lance Graulich24:22
I'll tell you growing up in New York, my mother was my soccer coach. When I was 16, we were on a traveling soccer team. And she knew nothing about soccer when this whole thing came about, but she learned and she was an amazing coach and that that picture pops up in my Facebook memories every year. And I reshare it I absolutely love that experience. I mean, some of the people listening you know, everybody talks about following their passion to find a business and you know, to some degree, you see it on Shark Tank all the time. You know, that's a hobby that's not a business. It's amazing. If you guys have turned this into an absolute business, that clearly there's there's passion behind it. I don't know that anybody's going to be successful working with kids in soccer, if they're not passionate about that. So let's talk a little bit about that. And then we'll dive into the investment. We say
John 25:19
that might need to hear the kid screaming in the background here. It's great. That's passion. It is. And I would say, we say, look, money is a wonderful byproduct of this business, but it's a byproduct, you need to be here first, because you want to get out of bed every morning, you want to change kids lives, because we fundamentally Do we believe in that mission, everybody's here believe that mission, our franchisees bleed that mission. And what's amazing about the type of people that start this business as a franchise, a lot of them are worried, well, I don't know how to sell, it's like, Hey, you don't know how to sell, you don't have to sell. Can you tell a story of how you could change a kid's life through sport. Because if you could do that at a party, you can do it at a preschool at a church and elementary school, at a park and rec, everybody you're going to talk to you and you have to go find a location they have to sell to is interested in helping their community. It's not like someone trying to sell you a car. Nothing wrong with car sales, right? It's a very sale where I have to get you right now, I don't care what the experience is. Because if you leave the lot, I've never seen you again, right. So it's a very kind of like, it's back and forth. It's not like we're working together for something brave, you're a member of your community that's trying to enact change, it's called there's coach John, or my nickname is Coach marshmallow. So the kids are like, Marshmallow right now I'm picking fluff.
Jessica 26:42
So we're gonna call you that now.
John 26:45
those are the little like techniques that we teach. And like, it just ingrained you in the community in such a cool way. Now, we do want our owners to scale. So we don't want to be on the field all the time, I go on the field once or twice a year, just to stay close to the product, I love it. But if I was doing all the time, I wouldn't be running the business, right? Like, you have to start there. And you have to be comfortable enough to get it. Right. And so that is what makes this special. And if you do that, right, this business just throws off cash. And what's crazy, it's not like you're charging a parent, three, four, or $5,000. For a travel team. It's it's, you know, a couple 100 bucks for a 10 to 12 week session. It's very affordable. It's very reasonable. And we also do have a big charity initiative where we want to help all kids and back to through sports. So we talk about, like, give a Class A class. So for example, if you're in a mixed income school, our business like the airline, nobody really thinks about that when a class takes off those empty spots, they just expire. So give them away, right? It doesn't cost you anything. And now we get underprivileged kids coming into the class. And you get to do the whole do good in the world while simultaneously not affecting your income. Everybody wins. And so it is just a wonderful, wonderful business. And I think what we brought to it, like Dean was one of the founders like 20 years ago, he invented this thing from scratch with with Gustavo. We brought professionalism, business scale, millions of dollars in infrastructure, our third business partner degree from MIT developed software for Mackenzie. So he's building the whole software in the back end. That's really what we've done, we've done basically made great greater.
Lance Graulich28:31
I love it, you know, it's amazing
Jessica 28:32
I was just going to say to people just start sorry, LAN, I'm just gonna say one, one really cool, in my opinion, differentiator, and it relates to the comment that John made to about the common interest between a franchisee or business owner and who they're speaking with in their community as a secure these locations for the classes. soccer star opera lease offers these programs to kids as young as my son's age. So a year old through to 14 plus a lot of the youth enrichment programs out there don't a lot of them start at, you know, maybe age 234 through to age eight. So when they're talking to these facilities, that's another thing that they different use to differentiate or talk about is, you know, what about your son who's 18 months for me, and I, that's early on, when I first met John and the team, I don't think there's any program out there for my son's age here where I live like that. It's like the parents soccer stars program. So it's unique in that way to you and to go back to the passion piece. It really is about the kids, what can we provide to these kids the socialization? What's that going to mean to the parents, you know, the mom who's maybe at home, who now has something that she can take her son or her daughter to at such a young age or for the older kids, the kids who aren't as skilled at sports, you know, they don't make the competitive teams, but maybe there's something like this that they can do, where they still have a really good time, you know, it's meaningful, they feel like they're a part of something. So I think that's a really special element of this point, something that certainly does need to matter to the owners coming in, in addition to some of the other really cool elements like the revenue they can make with something like this.
Lance Graulich30:02
Yeah, you know, John, I was just going to add when you were mentioning, your partner from MIT, every great franchise between technology, intellectual property, the investment that you guys are making. I mean, this is youth sports. This is you said, you know, the money is a byproduct, the fact of the matter is, last I checked, it's a 19 $20 billion industry. And there's a lot of money to be made. And I think it was Steve Jobs That said, you know, do the best you can and your product and your service and the money will follow. And that's clearly what this model is all about. Follow your passion on the field. And you'll take a sack of money off the field. That's my quote of the day at least. So let's talk about the investment. Jessica, why don't you dive into that? What's the investment? So people listening, that want to be a soccer star and join your amazing franchise? Talk about that, who you're looking for? What's the investment?
Jessica 30:55
Yeah, yeah. So I'll let you John lead the charge on who we're looking for. And then I can comment, but the investment, it's a low investment business. So one territory, and actually, I should say two really large territories as well. So we're going with a territory size of 400,000 people in population, which is big investment is 49. Five, so you can move forward as a business owner invest for one territory all in under $100,000.
Lance Graulich31:22
And what else are you buying? Besides the franchise fee? What else are you investing in? You're buying goals, and you're buying balls and cones and all that good stuff, right?
Jessica 31:33
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, but the bottom line is, there's really minimal fixed expenses beyond the investment itself. And then it's also the type of business where you can get to cashflow really quickly, because as we've been talking about prior, as soon as you secure that first second location, the kids can start registering for those classes, and you're getting to revenue and cash flow. So low initial investment, minimal fixed expenses with something like this. And then the one thing we haven't touched on yet, but I just think it's really important. And it speaks to the youth athletes United platform overall, is the operating system that these franchisees are using. It's immaculate. They're using one system, which includes CRM, a CRM, shared database, the curriculum that I mentioned, a complete we call it a Lean Six Sigma recruitment platform
Lance Graulich32:23
course this is MIT certified stuff here.
Jessica 32:26
That's right. That's right, like John said, but it really I mean, all the registrations, the payments, and so on, and so forth are happening through this one platform. I know, I know, for me, when I started to become involved with the brand, the first thing that I was touched by was the team, because you can feel that they've been through things together, like John talked about earlier, a lot of them have a lot of tenure, like Dean, who we've mentioned, and others. So you could feel that that was the first thing I noticed. But the second thing, I was blown away by the system,
John 32:58
kind of commitments our franchisees. So one thing I say all the time is I'll never ask you to do anything with your money that I'm not doing my own because I own 13 of these units that actually are more like 20 territories, right? So if I'm telling you to do something, it's because I made money on it. And now I'm passing it on to you, and I'm telling you not to do something, I really lost money on it. And I'm telling you to save yours. And then is you'll always have operators to talk to not technicians. So what do I mean by that? Too many franchise systems, you have a technician, somebody has ever worked in the business, somebody that's never had to hide deal with a hiring problem or a sales problem or anything, they're not battle hurting. Everybody that's here, they work in our operating units, they have to go out and sell they have to go out on the field, they have to go out and deal with coaching. Maybe they do work in the coaching department, but they've taken kind of a tour of the department, they lived in the day to day and they have an expert that they can call on if they need to, is build something very, very special that really not many other systems have in, in franchising in general, but especially new stores.
Lance Graulich34:04
I love that you have corporate locations, there, like you were mentioning, there's quite a few franchise systems that don't, that could be very effective as well. But having corporate locations knows, I mean, look just like the pandemic, you you get to feel exactly what the franchisees do.
John 34:24
Well, if you're a franchisor, with no corporate locations, it's easy to sit on your horse and be like, Well, hey, you guys got to figure that out. And I'll cut your fees. But like, here, I'm like, that's I'm my units are as big as the entire way you system. We're 50% of the revenue, right? Yeah. So I'm going through and I got 600 plus employees here. So imagine when I'm dealing with in the microcosm, now I'm so empathetic and I'm your partner and we're gonna get through this together. But the quality of that speech is so different when they know that you know, you're on the other side of a bigger problem and you You're coming every day. I mean, if you look at our Franchise Business Review surveys today coming out of the pandemic, like the leadership numbers have been off the charts, like we just, that's amazing. Everything's an opportunity in life. And we also we listen a lot. And I think franchisees love that when we bought all these systems, one of the first things I noticed was, it was like these founder lead on God in this system, you work for me
Jessica 35:24
and follow the manual, right? Here's the manual, follow it. And so we came
John 35:29
in, and it's like, Well, I kind of flip that a little bit, you're my customer and my business partner. So at a minimum, we're like this. And as the customer, you kind of sit above me, because my job is to make sure you get what you need to make money. And so if you have an idea, no idea is bad idea. Now, I can't promise you we're going to execute every idea that comes in, and you got to understand that but if you have a really good idea that scalable, it's going into the system, why? To be a visionary genius, I need to know bed and a piece of paper, tell me what you want. I'll make sure I get it done, right. And so what's happened is, we have this never ending list of innovation coming in, and how we can always get better. And the partners love it because they feel so we're engaged in so vested in the system, that now this community of franchisees, they're all talking to each other, and it just builds on itself. And it's been incredible. Yeah, that's amazing.
Lance Graulich36:23
So John talked about the investment. I mean, we talked about the investment, sorry, talking about who you're looking for. That's what I meant.
John 36:31
Yeah. So the type of person but very simple, high energy, they even feel that from the call between Jess and myself, and absolutely loves kids love sports. If you have those three checkboxes, I tell everybody, you can't fail in this business. You cannot fail. Unless you can't get yourself out of bed in the morning. And we've had one or two of those. If you are a person that needs to have someone else put you on a schedule, I can't help. Yes, you just have energy in your school and go and you're passionate about what you do. You do the worst salesperson of all time, you could be the worst marketer of all time. Preferably, you wouldn't be the worst coach of all time, but even then we can work with it. But you can build a great business because you're just out there telling your story. And what is mind blowing about this businesses. It runs like 1975. It's fragmented, like you've never seen, it's mom and pops. It's poor quality, good quality, poor quality. And it's, it's still so many locations, in areas that have had like, you know, jerseys, like a soccer hub. It was like the heart of the British invasion of all these visa coaches coming over and starting businesses. And yet, I can't believe how many cracks there are in the market where we pick up new business every day here. And so it really is a very easy business run, we do get a lot of first time business owners, because they think about if Why are you going to go spend 200,000 on a lease, open up a store be on the hook for 10 years, plus your franchise fee plus on this. So the capital investment, if you've never owned a business, you gotta build a retail facility. It's scary, right? It can bankrupt Italy. Here, this is the lowest investment and fast lanes portfolio. And I would argue it's one of the lowest investments in franchising. And so if you look at the investment to return
Lance Graulich38:21
Well, John, let's, I'm going to have Jessica lay out the process. But I have to, I have to tell you that I love that when I went to your website, the numbers speak for themselves. For those listening that have never looked at franchises before. There is a Franchise Disclosure Document normally called an FTD for short, that you will get when you investigate any franchise, including soccers soccer stars. And on the website cited from the FTD average unit volume of $1,320,980 to be exact 13 units. The small print, of course, is the 13 units, reporting in the FTD. And you'll get that and see that same information. And that's the beauty of franchising is transparency. So you will get that from soccer stars. And I absolutely love that.
Jessica 39:15
And I would just just to add to that Lance as it pertains to the numbers, the thoroughness and detail of this item 19 is also really, really great. So what I mean by that is somebody can actually see for these 13 outlets, how many locations how many class locations, they're running per outlet, what the average revenue is per location, right? So do they have less locations but they're generating a water revenue? They're really nurturing those locations or do they have more locations and bring it you know, so all of that detail is there to really help you as like John said, especially a first time new potential business owner, wrap your head around a pro forma campaign to it,
John 39:56
but you know, me and my my short sayings that kind of sum up things in life, like, I'll never tell you anything, before you sign that I'll tell you something different after you sign. See a lot of that in franchising, the greatest FTD in the world, I could spin a story around it, if I if you want to be a bad salesperson, so we're very transparent look, you're not going to get to a million dollars in year one, right? Like, it's not that type of business, you're going to do to 300,000 a year if you're a rockstar, and if you're not, you're gonna do 125. And you're gonna stack that up. And it might take you five years to get there to get to half a million or to get to a million depending on if you're, you know, top tier mid tier, right? And so we'll sit with brokers and ask great question, a lot of smart brokers out there and they'll go, Wait, I've never seen an item seven. That's this law with an item a team this big? Well, the catch is you need time. Because this is a Netflix type business, you're stacking annuities. Once you get that location, kids show up, and you just have weekly annuities come to you for life. As long as you show up. You bring entertaining content where kids are learning and having a good time. And that's fundamentally what the business model is.
Lance Graulich41:03
Love it. So Jessica, share with us or John the process. When you have obviously there's a first phone call. Franchising is a two way street, everybody has to like each other. At some point, you get to, you know, I want to hear the story.
Jessica 41:21
Isn't that so true, though, all things being equal. People do business with people that they like, all things not being equal, people still do business with people that they like, at the end of the day, right? So process your meaning the process that we take the candidate through? Is that what exactly? Yeah, so actually, what we do is, is there's a there's a video that we'll send to somebody prior to their first conversation with me, that just gives them a really high level overview of the business. 20 minutes in length, and then from there, I'll have a conversation with them. And we'll talk in that first conversation mostly about them, you know, what do you want to hear from me throughout this call, you know, based on what they watched in the video, based on other things that they're wondering, pertaining to the business? And really, I want to learn there? Why? Why are you here talking to me in the first place, what drew you to, you know, youth enrichment, soccer stars,
Lance Graulich42:16
I hate my corporate job. I'm gonna be laid off in 2023,
Jessica 42:21
get me out of here, right. And so that conversation is very collaborative. And then from there, we move into what we call the unit economics, where I actually take them through what we were just talking about. So the initial investment numbers, and take them through the item 19 numbers and really do a deep dive into that data. Because like I said, it's very thorough. So it's very helpful for a business owner, new business owner, potential new business owner coming into this looking to build out a pro forma for themselves. And then from there, we of course, give them the opportunity to start to connect and collaborate with the pre existing locations. And to validate with them, they start to connect and collaborate with John Adam and the super star star support team. And then from that point, moving forward, we get into looking at territories and discovery day and confirmation day where we actually collaborate and meet the team and work towards, you know, a final decision. But really, it's been you know, it's an interesting experience, because I think back to there's a, there's a licensee who's been doing this for about 15 years and been running super soccer stars or soccer stars now for about a year. And he was on a call the other day, and he was he worked in it before this, he was he worked in IT corporate America. And you know, he said he kind of liked what he did, you know, and he was providing a nice living for his family. But when this came about, he just told such a powerful story about the day that he made the decision to take the leap, and to work through the process at the time. He said, every single day, now he loves getting up and doing what he does. And that's what I love about this is there are people who can come from an IT background, a financial background, you know, multiple different types of backgrounds in corporate America to your point Lant. And they don't realize that there's an opportunity like this out there. And I feel like in some cases, there's something within themselves that they can actually unleash in you know, committing to launching something even
John 44:26
like anecdote around that guy, which is what I love about franchising. It's like the hidden thing nobody talks about. So he was here in New York, we did a business plan, planning session, you're strategizing. He's like, let's go grab a beer. So I'm like, All right. And he has this beer app on his phone, who has catalogue every beer he's ever drank. And he knows every place to go in the city. And what's so cool about franchising is like the death of like these people on their stories and your business partners and they're all different, but like that is such for me, it's an amazing way to wake up because Every partner conversations a little different. Yeah. And it keeps things exciting, right. And so the and you get to know people better than if it's a job because they're your business partner. So they'll tell you things they wouldn't if we work together as colleagues. But the other thing I'll tell you guys, you said, you know, people continue to work with people they like, when things get tough, they stick with people they respect. And at the end of the day, I think we love our franchisees and a lot of them love us, but we all respect each other. And so if there's a problem, if there's a tough issue, we got to work out, what you find is when things do get tough, liking somebody falls apart very, very quickly. But if you respect somebody, you will grind your way through and figure out what you need to do. Look, pandemic was a perfect example of that. But we had some very, very tough personal financial situations with some of our franchisees and just fundamentally, we went through the box and said, love you, I want to be in the trenches with this person when things are good. And the answer is, yeah, so you know, we're gonna get back from her. And you know, we're gonna start getting out in the field and building the business again. So I need to help this person get through, had franchisee bought a business. He was basically bankrupt, he had just gotten divorced. And he assumes I'm calling him asking for money. And I'm like, Tell me your story, man. And he tells me I'm like, you were one of the biggest franchisees? What happened? What was a personal issue? Since What's your issue now he's like, Man, I just want to get back to my kid on the on the East Coast. I can't, I can't get back. I don't know how to do it, I can't get a job there, and I can't pay you. And I said, You know what we're gonna do, don't worry about pay me, I'm gonna hire you, you're gonna come work for corporate, you get to move back and be with your kid. Because if you can't fix your life issue first, then we can't do business together. And he was about to fall off his chair. And we've had one of the most amazing business partners, he actually will move his franchise over to the East Coast starting in January. But it's just like, man, national entrepreneurship is about. And that's what this business is about. You do great things to the world. You do great things for your business partner. And it is a fucking great way to live, man. It just is.
Lance Graulich47:02
John. I love that story. You know, people forget, it's not just getting trained by corporate getting the intellectual property, the system, the blueprint. It's the community, the franchise community, the collaboration. You know, soccer is a team sport, but franchising is a team sport. And I absolutely love that you're saying the things you're saying. I mean, it's amazing from you literally being on the field with corporate locations, to having that kind of, you know, not only bandwidth in the corporate office, but the the grit and I just love it. So I want to applaud you and what you guys have created, and I'm so excited about the future for you guys.
John 47:45
Yeah, and I look, I would tell you, it's interesting, right? Some people get into franchising. 10 10% of the capital is put up by the partners 90%. We raised from private equity, and they've been unbelievable partners to us. They give us like, you always want to find that book from a franchisee perspective. Most of the time franchisees fear private equity, because there were all these guys just want money. Yeah, it's Yeah. If I'm owned by mom and pops, my income is taking all the profits out of the business, when you're owned by private equity, they want all the profits go back into the business for growth, right. So some of the reasons we can do great things like that, where if I own the business on my own, we may not have been capitalized. But when I have private equity partners that are well capitalized and the business is doing well. I can take some risks. I can take some shots on people, I can over invest, I can do great things for the franchise system, because it allows me to think long term because at the end of the day, our alignment is we all want growth and what does growth mean kids in classes, the more kids lives, we change every single class, the more profitable everybody, you know, becomes the business outcomes. And so it's that beautiful alignment of everybody winning.
Lance Graulich48:57
I love it. I love it. So Jessica, final word for you. And then John, I'll give you the ultimate final word.
Jessica 49:03
Why the ultimate final? No, I'm only kidding. John deserves the ultimate final word. No, I would just say I just want to thank you, Lance for, for having us on. And I just want to go back to talking for a second about my personal decision. And I'm not making this about me I'm making this about soccer stars. But my decision to take the leap that I did in coming into the fold and representing soccer stars. And one thing that I just want to say and mention is so I went to Manhattan spend time with John and the team at the at the corporate location or the headquarters which is where new owners will probably come to train in the future. There's a couple of different options for that. But anyways, one thing that we did while we were there is not only did I get to witness the classes, the soccer stars classes that we're at that location, some of which again for where kids who are my son's age, it's funny in the fast lane. There's sort of an inside running comment because our director of marketing or VP of Marketing she called soccer stars the cutest Grand there ever was the cutest franchise brand. But also in addition to that, John myself, his business partner Adam Geisler, their VP of Operations, all of us walked to Central Park to see some classes that were happening there. And I mean, I kid you, not every single person, Adam Jones, they were all involved in the Klan. I just know I've been in franchising long enough, you don't see that. That's not happening all the time. Founders aren't out there. I'm telling you right now at the brand that I came from the founder wasn't out there acquiring clients B to be with the franchisee franchisees, you really don't see that type of hands on approach and commitment and belief. And so I just want to end on on that note, and again, just reiterate how much I believe in it. And that's why I'm here today and how much I believe in the future of it for these people who are going to be bringing into the system. So I'm just excited and want to say thanks again for having having us, Lance. My pleasure,
Lance Graulich50:56
John.
John 50:57
Yeah look I would say, everyone that is here has been very fortunate to do well in life. And we want to we tell the franchisees and we tell the kids, you've got to be having fun every day, right? We want great partners that want to have a lot of fun and build a wonderful business. And so if that defines you in sports, call us. And if that doesn't, there's a million other things out there for you, right. And so that's the way we look at the world. And like I want to get up every day with the energy that that five year old gets up with coming to class, saying hi to coach pineapple or coach marshmallow. And like, I tell him, like, that's where I want to get up in the morning. I want my franchisees to get up in the morning like that. And if you can do that, then this is this is gonna be the best, like journey you've ever had. And it won't be perfect, and it'll be hard and then it'll be great. And then it'll be fun. And then it'll be different. Anything that is good in life, the ball is moving, it's rolling. It's exciting. Like, literally, it is literally. So that's, that's you know, that's the pitch
Lance Graulich52:03
I got, you know, I just have to tell you, John and Jessica, I start all my calls with my clients, my candidates with what is your goal, get it, get it? Anyway, that's a good place a good place to end right. There. Thank you. Thank you both for being here and wish you much success. And I'll be certainly a part of that, as I'm telling all my clients about you. So thank you both for being here today.
John 52:29
Thanks.
Lance Graulich52:31
My pleasure. Thank you