“Start a business from your basement and grow it, hoping that one day, a large respectable brand becomes interested in it.” That’s the American dream, right? Maybe not exactly THE Dream but similar – to start a business that you can put your energy into until it becomes successful enough to garner the attention of not just customers but other entrepreneurs as well. Because when you can rack up that much interest, you know you did something right and it’s most likely highly lucrative. However, starting a business isn’t always the easiest thing to do, let alone grow it to that scale. This much was true for Colette Bell and she’s got some interesting experiences to back up that claim. In 1998, Colette and her husband, Andy Bell, started Handyman Matters and developed the franchise model in 2001, launching a successful franchise system that was acquired by Ace Hardware in September of 2019. Colette is currently serving as VP, Franchise Development for the rebranded Ace Handyman Services. But before getting their business to where it is today, Colette and Andy went through a lot of challenges. They had to figure out how to cater to client demands when Andy could only do so much on his own. They had to become the accountability piece between clients and craftsmen. Even after they had worked out the kinks, addressed pain points for craftsmen and customers alike, as well as ensure quality of service, they still had to test if the business model can be replicated in other locations and conditions. Colette and Andy went through grueling times but have evidently come out on top. Now, they’re on a mission to help hopeful entrepreneurs reach the same level of success without going through the same ordeals. How did they ensure quality, profitability, and replicability of their business? How does their business model remain relevant today? How can you enjoy the same level of success that this power couple enjoy? Tune in to our Podcast to learn more about everything you WANT and NEED about franchising, investment, financing processes and options. This is Eye On Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. https://www.facebook.com/lance.graulich https://ionfranchising.com/
“Start a business from your basement and grow it, hoping that one day, a large respectable brand becomes interested in it.”
That’s the American dream, right?
Maybe not exactly THE Dream but similar – to start a business that you can put your energy into until it becomes successful enough to garner the attention of not just customers but other entrepreneurs as well. Because when you can rack up that much interest, you know you did something right and it’s most likely highly lucrative.
However, starting a business isn’t always the easiest thing to do, let alone grow it to that scale. This much was true for Colette Bell and she’s got some interesting experiences to back up that claim.
In 1998, Colette and her husband, Andy Bell, started Handyman Matters and developed the franchise model in 2001, launching a successful franchise system that was acquired by Ace Hardware in September of 2019. Colette is currently serving as VP, Franchise Development for the rebranded Ace Handyman Services.
But before getting their business to where it is today, Colette and Andy went through a lot of challenges. They had to figure out how to cater to client demands when Andy could only do so much on his own. They had to become the accountability piece between clients and craftsmen.
Even after they had worked out the kinks, addressed pain points for craftsmen and customers alike, as well as ensure quality of service, they still had to test if the business model can be replicated in other locations and conditions.
Colette and Andy went through grueling times but have evidently come out on top. Now, they’re on a mission to help hopeful entrepreneurs reach the same level of success without going through the same ordeals.
How did they ensure quality, profitability, and replicability of their business? How does their business model remain relevant today? How can you enjoy the same level of success that this power couple enjoy?
Tune in to our Podcast to learn more about everything you WANT and NEED about franchising, investment, financing processes and options.
This is Eye On Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future.
https://www.facebook.com/lance.graulich
[00:00:00] LANCE: Welcome to Eye on franchising. Are you looking for business opportunities? Well, you are in the right place. We represent over 650 franchises and business opportunities. We will help you find your perfect franchise for free. We even have a free assessment on our website that will help us determine what the best businesses for you based on your investment level mindset, skillset and life experiences this is Eye on franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. I'm your host, Lance Graulich each week, we will speak to fascinating folks from the world of franchising, franchise owners and founders, franchise, funders, and franchisees are you looking to find your perfect franchise or perhaps you are an independent business owner looking to grow and scale your business by setting up a franchise, either way, our team can help you. Eye on franchising where you will [00:01:00] learn the A to Z of franchising
[00:01:06] Welcome back everyone. To another episode of Eye on franchising, as you would have guessed. I have another amazing guest. She is also part of the founding team of a brand. So in 1998, she and her husband, they started handyman.matters. Hint, hint, handyman matters. Anybody out there know who this guest is yet. Um, they developed a franchise model in 2001 and she was the CEO from 2004 to 2008. Leading the system, the franchise system to well over 35 million in sales without further ado, my amazingly successful guest Colette Bell
[00:01:51] COLETTE: hi, Lance. Thanks.
[00:01:51] LANCE: Welcome, Colette.
[00:01:53] COLETTE: Thank you.
[00:01:54] LANCE: Well, let me, let me share my favorite part of your story. So handyman matters and then. [00:02:00] in 2019 you were acquired by ACE hardware. How amazing was that was that
[00:02:08] COLETTE: yeah, it's a dream come true. It's like the American dream, right. Start a business in your basement and grow it up and hope that some large respectable company ends up being interested all those years later.
[00:02:20] LANCE: Yes. And, uh, that is, it's an amazing story. Yeah. Let's start there. You just jumped right into it. Let's back up. Let's back up a little bit further. Uh, you went to Colorado state, you were a communications major. What did you want to do at that point in your career?
[00:02:36] COLETTE: That's such a great question. I have a teaching degree and my goal was to become a secondary teacher. So high school. And I had an English and a history teaching certificate, and I came from a family of teachers, both my parents were teachers, so that was the goal. And then I got a little bit derailed when I met my then boyfriend soon to be husband after that. [00:03:00] Um, and he was working in restaurants. And so right out of college, we ended up transferring all over the United States. We moved about nine times in six years, which was, I look back on it today. It just makes me tired to think about, but you remember those young days, Lance, when we didn't own anything, I didn't even have a dog back then. Pack everything up and, and head on out. Um, got to see a lot of the United States, which was great because we were both originally born and raised in Colorado, but after nine moves, I was homesick and ready to come back to Colorado. So we came back and he just turned around and got involved in some local restaurants. That's what he was doing. And I started a teaching degree and then eventually we got married. So that's kind of how, how we got back to college.
[00:03:45] LANCE: So, where did the transition go from you? Teaching and Andy in the restaurant business, we all know I've owned quite a few restaurants as well, and, and you're always looking for a good handyman. I would imagine that the need might have [00:04:00] arose from a situation in restaurants. You can never find a good handyman perhaps.
[00:04:04] COLETTE: Yeah. You know, funny story. So, um, with all that restaurant and all the moving around and everything, when we got back to Colorado, when we were getting married, we made a deal actually I made him make the deal. Um, and the deal was when our family started, I needed him to get out of restaurants because as you know, it's, it's a pretty, all encompassing was really normal for him to work a hundred hours a week and he loved it. Right? I mean, if you love restaurants, that's where you belong and he did love it. But in late 97 we learned, we were pregnant and so I said, okay,
[00:04:37] LANCE: I won't ask how that happened that's a different show
[00:04:40] COLETTE: I said, okay, here we go. Right. So he wrapped up his work with restaurants and turn the page to 1998. And we were having dinner with a couple of friends and probably had maybe a little bit too much to celebrate during the holiday season. We'll keep it with the child version of this. But, um, everybody kept asking him, what are you going to do next? What do you want to do? What can you do? [00:05:00] Which is always a great question. And he said, well, you know, on top of the last restaurant that I worked at here in Denver, they had about a hundred swamp coolers. Now, most of you may not be available with may, may not be familiar with swamp coolers. They're only in dry climates. So think Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, where we have right where we have no humidity. And if you live there, you can put this contraption on your ceiling. It has a fan and water and you pull air in with the fan, push it out through the water, which cools it gives it humidity and cools down a property house or restaurant and he said there were about a hundred of them on top of this restaurant. So I got really good at just tinkering with them. So everybody's kind of laughing. Oh, that's so funny. And he said, no, really? Like I could start a business and call myself swamp boy. Now at this point in time, right. I'm thinking. I got a family started here. What are, what is he thinking? Um, but sure enough, that next day he's very impulsive. He ran [00:06:00] out and put an ad in the newspaper and called himself. Swamp boy started up and repair swamp coolers. It was a little bit slow as you can imagine, first quarter, but come, may the phone started ringing off. So he would answer the phone all morning, book himself all afternoon. And after about two months of doing it, he came home and he said, there's something to this. And I said, what? He said, I'm there. And I show up and people are thrilled and I start their swamp coolers, but then they have a long list of things they want me to keep doing and he said, I can't do most of them. I don't, I don't know how to do drywall. I don't know how to do tile. I don't know how to do all this carpentry cuts that they need, but these people are desperate and we could create a business that would solve that problem. And that was it. That's where we started.
[00:06:45] LANCE: That's So incredible. So at what point did you give up? teaching?
[00:06:50] COLETTE: So that would have been 1998. I continue to teach. A little bit, I kind of edged down to part-time to go over, you know, dropped a couple of my [00:07:00] classes and just sort of did it in the mornings. And then I would go to the office in the afternoon, by the end of 2004. Um, we'd already franchised in 2001 with two kids, the business was taking off. We were moving from the basement to an actual office space and it was at that point that he said, I really need you to come full-time and help me out with this and let's see how big we can make it.
[00:07:21] LANCE: So the best part of this story of course is, well, there's a lot of great parts of the story, but the fact that there was an obvious need and, and he felt safe. And so did you, he had already started swamp boy, so, and, and now you, you find out. So much other business doing all these other things. So how did that really occur? I mean, at this point he didn't, like you just said, he didn't know how to do all those other things. He didn't. And so originally his idea was all take the needs that customers have and I'll connect them with craftsmen that handyman, that we know and work in the area, there was a lot [00:08:00] missing from that model. And the main thing was accountable. Because we would hand a customer lead off to a handyman and he would promise to call the customer and promised to help the customer. And then we'd hear two weeks later that she hadn't heard from him. And it was at that point that Andy said, we, we need to do more than just connect. We need to be the accountability piece of this and really the only way to make that happen, we felt like with any sort of regularity was to hire craftsmen as W2 employees, rather than as 10 99 subcontractors. And not everybody wanted to come on board with us. Some of them like the independent lifestyle that they lead, which is wonderful, but there were enough craftsmen. It turns out who. Who not only wanted to take a risk with us and come to work for us, but really appreciated a more regulated way of doing business. We took all the pain points away for the craftsmen too. So we'd figured out how to do it for the customers, but we answered the phone instead of the craftsman, having to answer the phone, we talked to the customer over the phone. We [00:09:00] moved away from estimates because that was just eating up a lot of time and not generating any revenue. And we started booking the jobs over the phone, just a simple time plus materials. So they bill by the hour, and then we would give those jobs to our craftsmen who are W2 employees, and we can hold them accountable for showing up and wearing a t-shirt and doing a good job that also allowed us to do a couple of other things on both ends of that relationship that became beneficial to customers on the front end. It allowed us to do backgrounds. And I've been doing background checks for about 20 years now. And I'm telling ya, I would never let some unknown person into my house let me tell ya I would want somebody to run a background, check on them. And on the back end, it allowed us to provide our customers with one-year warranty, which was really important to stand behind our work and the quality of our work to just bring the level of professionalism to the industry
[00:09:49] that's incredible. So obviously letting the craftsmen just do what they love, as opposed to, as opposed to the business aspects, you know, [00:10:00] how do we market? How do we communicate? How do we follow up? How do we get referrals?
[00:10:05] COLETTE: How do we collect money?
[00:10:06] LANCE: How do we collect money?
[00:10:08] COLETTE: All those pain points.
[00:10:10] LANCE: Yeah. So It. So at this point for you and Andy regarding franchising, so you start handyman matters and at some point, was it within a couple of months, six months as you start now having these W2 craftsmen, at what point you're like, wait, we have a real business here. What's the next move?
[00:10:31] COLETTE: Yea So we started locally 98 in Denver um, we were fortunate. We had a craftsman join us early, early on, who came to us after about six months. And he said listen I love you guys. I love the business. I'm really just doing this in between engineering jobs, but he said, I don't want to be a craftsman in my whole life, but how can I help build your business with you? And he just happened to live north of us in Boulder, Colorado. So Andy, my husband says, Hey, why don't you go try running this out of your [00:11:00] basement? Let's see how it goes and credit. Yeah, mark did that. So he was our first proof of concept. It's still, by the way, our partner was involved with the ACE acquisition. So he's still here working with us, which is amazing. That's awesome. Then we decided maybe there was just a fluke in Denver because Denver is a growing, even back in the nineties, it was a growing community and
[00:11:22] LANCE: So can this be replicated in other places.
[00:11:24] COLETTE: Exactly. And is it, you know, is it feasible? So we, um, chose the closest. Difficult state to us, which would be California course everybody knows it's hard to do everything in California flew to California, opened three offices, hired three general managers. We didn't know, brought them back to Denver, spent about a week training. 'em sent it back to California and continued to support them. But lo and behold, the business model worked in California. Now we had to keep our projects under $500 because of licensing laws in California. But back in 1999, that was pretty easy. Our billable [00:12:00] rate was like $45 an hour. It's not so easy right now where a billable rate is about $102 an hour. But, um, so once we knew we could do it in other places, we really Lance at that point had not Even echoed the word franchising really were very honestly very naive still at that point. But we were fortunate that one of our customers from Denver called us one day out of the blue and said, Hey, I just had Carl over to my house. He did great work. If you ever want to grow through franchising, let me know. I'm a franchise attorney. So we took the year of 2000 to learn about franchising, not having known that much about it. Of course, Colorado has got a lot of franchisors headquarters. So it's a central point in the country. There's a lot of franchising in here. So we were able to get some really wonderful mentors. Um, went to classes, went to the international franchise association to learn more things about franchising, wrote all the paperwork that everybody has to read nowadays and started franchising in 2001
[00:12:59] LANCE: that's absolutely [00:13:00] incredible. So that same franchise attorney sets you up. Yep. That's wonderful. I love, love, love, love the story. So what did you learn? Well, let let's, let's back up to, so what got you intrigued about the franchise model
[00:13:13] COLETTE: yeah. You know, two things. One is honestly, we didn't have enough capital to continue to grow corporately. You know, we've taken every extra dime we could cobble together and started California. And we had two small children. And so time was becoming an element as well. The other thing, once we really spend time learning about franchising is the thing I love about franchising. The most is it's a business plan, but it's operated locally. With love and community involvement and impacts and all those great things. And the way our franchisees know their communities is a way we could never know it on a corporate level. It would just be more of a commodity rather than a true impact into the community. And that's always been my favorite thing about franchising
[00:13:59] LANCE: [00:14:00] so important in so many people forget about that. They, they look at this, you know, some of the bigger franchise brands and say, oh, it's a big corporation. It's like, uh, it's owned by local. Independent and business owners that are that buy into the franchise. So they are as local as anybody else's and within the community, they're just attached to a larger brand right
[00:14:21] COLETTE: that's right. That's right.
[00:14:22] LANCE: So that's, uh, that's I absolutely love this story. I love the fact that you, you know, you were a smart person, as well as Andy didn't know anything about franchising already had something great going. So how did that translate as you grew? What are some of the things you learned along the way? I mean, because obviously our listeners today are. Prospective franchisees or their business owners that might want to grow through the franchise model. So what did you start learning right away about selecting franchisees? Where did you where'd you find them and, you know,
[00:14:59] COLETTE: [00:15:00] no, that's a great question. So, you know, um, we were fortunate enough to, as we were talking to mentors, we were able to ask people what strategy did they employ when they were thinking about growing their first. And from what I can tell, and I'm sure there's lots that I don't know about, but really growth and franchising tends to follow two strategic paths. One is based on geography, which makes perfect sense. Right. Um, you know, here, you've got a company that started in a location pick any state in the United States. Um, to grow around you in concentric circles makes your support easier because you can drive to franchisees to support them. The idea is that your business is likely to continue to be strong because it's the same kind of demographics that you're offering your business model into. Um, and that makes a lot of. Um, of course that's not the way we went Lance, but that it does make a lot of sense to go. Right. Right. Well, and I would do it again the same way, but I will tell you for re for concepts that [00:16:00] have inventory components. So whether that's food or retail, certainly the shipping and distribution aspect of it. Geography makes a great sense. We're a service-based business. And so our strategy that we employed was instead of worrying about where somebody was located in the United States, we wanted to spend all of our energy focusing on making sure they were the right people to grow and people who were servant minded even before that was a catchphrase to use in management people who had a big heart people who, um, wanted to impact their community, not just the customers, but the craftsmen that we employ want to make a good impact in that community. And really want to work hard to change an industry that doesn't necessarily have an A-plus rating on top of it there, you know, I think at one point we were rated right around and forgive me if your listeners is a used car dealership, but you know what I mean? Kind of in that. Construction tends to fall in that realm. So we want people who wanted to change the industry. Our mission is to impro improve home improvement for the better. [00:17:00] That's what we're trying to do. Every community, every craftsman, every customer at a time. So, um, that's the way we went forward. Our first franchisee crazy story. Andy happened to get some local press here in Denver, a magazine. I don't even remember the name of it. It's fast. Something or fast company was the name of it here in Denver. They interviewed Andy about his handyman business and literally at the end of the article, there's one sentence that says, and by the way, we're franchising, like that was literally the end of well, a gal who lived in Denver and read that article had a brother in Houston who was looking for a change of career and she called him and she said, Mike, come to Denver, visit me. I want you to go talk to this company. I think you should buy a franchise. So here comes Mike Mays, walking through our front door and saying, Hey, I'm Mike from Houston. I'd like to talk to somebody about buying a franchise. Literally, we were all like, what is going on? Um, Mike did, by the way, buy that franchise. He sold it after 12 [00:18:00] years, but the territory is still open. So that's where we started everything at.
[00:18:03] LANCE: That's fantastic. So what did you learn along the way about actual franchisees? Obviously the success of any franchise system has everything to do with the franchisees that they select. So we could even fast forward to today. Everything you've learned, who is a good or a great franchisee for Ace Handyman
[00:18:27] COLETTE: yeah, I'm sure it's, it's very similar to what people have heard from your other podcast interviews with franchising. I'll say that first and foremost, we're very strongly behind the belief system. That franchising is a relationship. It is a business contract, right? That's that lovely document that everybody has to read and agree to sign. Um, so that's
[00:18:47] LANCE: Franchise Disclosure document
[00:18:49] COLETTE: that's right. So that's the boundaries of the, of the experience between the franchisor and the franchisee. But the fascinating thing about franchising is it really from a [00:19:00] franchise work perspective is influence without authority. Because every franchisee is independently owned and operated. They have the right to do what they want to do. They have the right to not do what they don't want to do. And as a franchiseor while you have some components of your agreement, you can lean on for the most part, you're just trying to influence them to do things the way that everybody wants it done yeah, because we know if we end up going to paragraph 8.4 of the contract, you've already lost the battle. The relationship is over at that point. Um, what we have found with our franchisees is there's really two characteristic traits. I would say that that seemed to make people flourish. And again, I would imagine this is true in just about every franchise concept. The first one is passion you have to have a passion for wanting to start a business. Again, yours, locally owned and operated. You want to hit, you need a passion for somebody who really wants to learn from the [00:20:00] franchisor and, um, understand that the franchise, or has a blueprint that may not be. Um, and I'll tell you that we make changes, you know, every day I think, you know, change or die is really the business adage, especially in this lovely world of COVID that we've found ourselves in. Um, but understanding there's a blueprint stick with the blueprint in the beginning, we tell franchisees all the time, give us 12. We know with this blueprint, we'll get a very strong business creative for you in 12 months. And then you can innovate on top of that, but don't come out the board, throwing this away and trying that, moving this direction, doing that because that's what puts everything at risk. It's hard for us to support when we're not following the blueprint for the first 12 months. And then the second characteristic. And this is true in all business ownership is grit you got to have grit. It is not gonna go according to plan. That's the only thing I can promise you. We have a plan, you have a plan. It is not going to go according to plan that's Murphy's rule. Um, but you have to, if you have enough passion [00:21:00] to hit a roadblock and you have enough grit to say to yourself, I'm going to figure out how to get around this. You will be successful in business, really, no matter what the concept is.
[00:21:09] LANCE: I love it. So passion and grit, and I have to go back to something you said about passion that I so wholeheartedly agree with. You mentioned being passionate about business, about being your own boss, basically, but you did not mention. Passionate about being a handyman or a handy woman, or, you know, fixing things for people in their homes. And I found that pretty interesting because there are a lot of people out there listening to this that sometimes believe that they have to have so much passion and excitement for in this case, fixing things for people. And the reality is I'm running into more people than ever that are just passionate about. Getting away from whatever it is that they don't like doing. Whether [00:22:00] it's the boss, they can't stand. Whether it's the industry they chose, that's awful. Whether it's their schedule at work, that they can't stand, they can't stay home. They can't have a flexible schedule. They are passionate about making money and having financial freedom on their terms, which franchising gives you, obviously
[00:22:19] COLETTE: excellent. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, we've been really fortunate when, when we first templated the franchise concept again. Great, great mentors to help us with this thought process, but there's really two ways to go. You can, you can build a model that's intended for people with industry experience. And supplement the business ownership experience, or you can do it the other way around. You can template a business model for people who have strong business experience and then support them on the industry experience. And for our business, we chose to go that way. People who've got great business experience and acumen are good at building teams are great at being empathetic and servant leaders and have no [00:23:00] construction experience work better for our model then people who have construction experience because we really want our franchisees to work on their business, doing business activities, and then hire the craftsmen who are the specialized folks in carpentry and drywall and tile and all those different sorts of industry trade specifics. So,
[00:23:20] LANCE: absolutely that's just a perfect, perfect scenario is you're the business person. And you have a team and franchising is all about modeling success and you obviously have that very successful system. Well, let's go to the negative on some people that get into business for themselves, and it's not necessarily even has anything to do with the franchise, but if they don't have the passion or any kind of passion or any kind of grit, you know, let's flip it around. Who's unsuccessful being their own boss, whether it's a franchise or a non franchise
[00:23:56] COLETTE: yeah, I think it's, um, certainly the [00:24:00] people who believe, especially if they're buying a franchise, they believe the, the beginning and end of their responsibility as. And then that's it. The franchisor is going to do the rest. It's their business, it's their model. It's their, you know, really a healthy franchise relationship based on that, on that idea of a relationship, you know, the franchise award does their side of it, but the franchisee has to do their assignment. And in our particular business model, that means getting out of bed, um, opening the business, hiring the craftsmen, motivating the craftsmen, talking to the customers, really running a profitable buisness yeah, we have the ability to put somebody into business. It's really each individual franchisees responsibility to take those plans and then really push them down for their exact circumstances and create profitable businesses because we all know if you're not profitable, you're not going to be around for very long right. Um, and if it doesn't generate the financial money that you need, then it's going to be a hobby that you just paid a lot of money for which again is not going to inspire a longevity [00:25:00] in the business. So, um, it really is the day-to-day operation that the franchisee especially has to be totally bought into and ready to do also, you know, outside of franchising, if you just create a business and say, okay, well, I've, I've opened the doors. The open sign is on the front door is unlocked. You know, build it and they will come. That was only the field that doesn't exist. So, and I think it really does go back to my idea of. The way we used to do business is not the way we do business today. I mean, just take the advent of technology and marketing, right? In the old days, you could place a yellow pages ad or you could place an ad in the newspaper and those don't even exist anymore. Um, and you know, Google owns the internet and they get to change the rules of the road. Whenever they feel like it. Um, and so it really is a day-to-day catering of how does my business look today and what do I need to do to stay relevant tomorrow? And to me, that's the biggest advantage [00:26:00] between joining a franchise versus starting your own business, really part of the franchisors responsibilities to create the blueprint for today, but to keep their eye on the future for Tomorrow when you're in business all by yourself without a franchise. That's your job now, future, you know, entrepreneurial look of the industry is now your responsibility to
[00:26:20] LANCE: yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, when, when I tell everyone I talk to people about franchises, I explained to them that, you know, whether it's, uh, the national football league or baseball, I love sports analogies. There's always the top teams and they're the top players on each. Yeah, you might've made it to the pros, but in every franchise system, you're going to have the top franchisees. If I asked you to name the top five most successful franchisees, you will have names for me very quickly, but there might be a few at the. Not everybody can be the best sometimes people's circumstances change. Um, which is, which is [00:27:00] unfortunate, but that is, that is life. But a lot of people ask, well, how much money can I make? So Colette. Can you make money being in Ace Handyman franchisee
[00:27:08] COLETTE: we have a lot of franchisees who would echo that for sure, Lance and, and really you and I both know that the great thing about the franchise disclosure document is it provides a sliver of financial information. If franchise owners choose to take advantage of item 19. And we've always believed in being as transparent as possible through the franchise disclosure document. But if, especially, if you take a look at today, right here we are December 13th, 2021, our numbers are based on 2020 because that document lasts for an entire year. So the true answer to, I think anybody's question about not just can I make money, but really how much. Money, can I make with this concept or that franchise opportunity is the opportunity to ask the franchisees who are running the business day to day. And we're super fortunate. We've got franchisees who are just as transparent and part of [00:28:00] that's because that's our culture that we've built up. But, um, I hear from candidates all the time. We say, I can't believe they share. X Y and Z with me. And I say, well that's because somebody else shared X, Y, and Z with them. So,
[00:28:11] LANCE: well, we're going to talk about that right now. That was one of my next questions on validation, but let me go back to something. So for the listeners out there that maybe aren't aware, every franchise brand is required annually to update and of course, present to every prospective franchisee at some point in the process and actual franchise disclosure document there's 23 items within that. And item number 19 is the financial representations or earnings claims. And most brands do put something in there, whether it's sales, whether it's a full breakdown of margins and what have you. And Colette has some great information in her, within her item 19. But my favorite part of the process when you're a prospective franchisee is validation where [00:29:00] franchisees that have come along nicely in the process, likeAce Handy man will have an opportunity to talk to existing franchisees like Colette mentioned. So, and it just so happens. Ace Hanfyman man is fantastic. Validation, which means you're going to feel really, really comfortable talking to existing franchisees. Because if you ask the right questions, you're going to get the answers to those questions, right. Colette.
[00:29:22] COLETTE: That's right. Yeah. I tell candidates all the time. No question is off the table. People are good enough to say if they're not comfortable answering something, but I never hear that from so candidates never call me and say, well, they wouldn't tell me X, Y, and Z. And that's how I know our franchisees are really transparent and open and honest about their experience. About the relationship with the franchisor about what happened if there was a conflict, right. Not everything is going to go apples and roses and rainbows and unicorns, right. There will be times when people disagree on things. How was that handled? Um, because what I tell candidates all the time is the great thing about the franchise disclosure [00:30:00] document. Is it equalizes the playing field in every franchise? Yeah, it's a template that's written by the FTC. We're just mandated to fill it in with our own custom information. So it really puts everybody on the same footing. What's different from one concept to the other is who's behind the contract. How reasonable are the people behind the contract? How reasonably, if they dealt with conflicts in the, in the past with franchisees and what, what was the experience, especially with some of those older franchisees as years go by and business models, change and technology comes on board. What's been the experience of the, how did that get handled with the franchisor?
[00:30:37] LANCE: Absolutely. So when it comes to, uh, back to your franchisees, so many P there's so many misconceptions about franchising, people have told me in the past, oh, I heard it's expensive, expensive compared to what? I mean, a Mercedes is expensive, but people. buy a lot of Mercedes or Lexus or BMWs. And I guess there's a lot of Chevy's on the road as [00:31:00] well, but what would you say when it comes to misconceptions? It's expensive? Well, I always tell people if you want to create your own business, go right ahead. Just like you and Andy did. It's a lot of mistakes. People will make. There's a lot of time. There's a lot of development involved and, and, and discovery, so to speak. Um, but then people also say, well, I don't know if I wanna uh, yeah, some of the franchise franchises I heard are like, it's like buying a job. And I said, well, in your job, do you actually build equity? I mean, we buy homes and there's a hope and some cases, some areas of the country today, an absolute guarantee, we're going to have a lot of equity, same thing for a business. So what do you, what do you say? What say you Colette? So all of that,
[00:31:52] COLETTE: I totally agree with you. Um, in terms I've done it right. And we've started a business in our basement. And what I tell people [00:32:00] is part of what you get when you join our franchise system. And part of what that money pays for is 24 years of mistakes. Um, we've, we've tried every, you know, brilliant idea that came along.
[00:32:13] LANCE: I like that Brilliant the air quotes come out.
[00:32:17] COLETTE: Brilliant. And they were, um, you know, cost us a lot of money and not just the hard cost of the money, but then the lost opportunity costs that come along with that when you're not actually doing what you should be doing to generate money. So there is an opportunity to fast track a business. I think one misconception, I talked to people all the time about is that idea of buying a job and well, it's just plug and play. I do think that's true for some franchise concepts. Um, I don't think there's a whole lot of customization. If you happen to be in a position to buy a McDonald's and you want to, you know, outfit the inside of it in pink and purple instead of yellow and orange, probably not going to happen. Um, but there are a lot of franchise concepts, even older ones like us. I mean, we've been around for 24 [00:33:00] years who value. The opportunity for somebody to employ entrepreneurial ideas inside the boundaries of what the business model is. I can tell you that our greatest business ideas came from franchisees, um, and the ability to have somebody bring an idea to us. Beta tested in a small market, push it out to a couple of diverse markets and decide whether or not it works. It is part of the community. So not only are you building your business with your own good ideas, but you get to leverage not just the franchisor's great ideas, but hopefully all the other franchisees, great ideas that are all out there running the exact same business in a different way. Which there's so much value and opportunity to that. I think another misconception is that you're going to be in competition with somebody who is next door to you in the same franchise model. And again, franchise systems can be different. Um, we really see our franchisees as some of some of the best business networking opportunities. Again, to [00:34:00] talk to somebody who's running exactly the same business, but not in your market and learn from them and pick up best practices. We've got franchisees who are very tied together regionally. Um, I've got a group in Michigan that call themselves tongue-in-cheek the Michigan mafia. Um, they meet about once a month to go over different things and shared marketing ideas and things like that. So you benefit from not just the franchise or in your own great ideas, but really the community that's built up around you. And then the idea of exit strategy is huge, right? I mean, we could have. Uh, great business. That that was wonderful for our boys and our family and run it for 40 years and swamp boy would never be worth one ACE handyman services franchise, because the brand name leverages a different value association with that. Um, and you know, the same thing is true in all the franchise concepts. The goal is you're trying to build a brand name, whether you're early on, like we were with handyman matters or you're fortunate [00:35:00] enough to get into a larger brand named concept along the way. Um, You know, you can't, you can't put a value association on the exit strategy side of it when you're in a franchise system that has a value brand name associated with it compared to your own business.
[00:35:15] LANCE: Yep. Yeah. That's, that's just a great answer. A lot of stuff you just threw out there, you know, when it comes to community, myself being a franchisee, multiple times of different brands, uh, that was one. Biggest values is the best practices you've learned. You learn from existing franchisees, some things that aren't exactly written in the manual and, and you, you know, you referenced, so everybody helps each other. Everybody wants everybody to succeed. Um, I know when I opened one franchise in one area and I opened the second one, four and a half miles away, my sales jumped. Substantially because now people start to realize, what is this brand that's popping up? And that was Wingstop. I was opening [00:36:00] Wingstop restaurants throughout Vegas, and it was a, it was an incredible thing. And I was president of the franchise advisory council. So I got to hear. All and everything from existing franchisees, what were their challenges? What were their challenges with purchasing and bring that to the owner ownership team and say, Hey, we need help with this. Oh yeah. We knew that. No, we need to work on it now. Um, but you know, you mentioned McDonald's, um, the filet of fish, the big Mac, those are two items I recall that were created or invented by franchisees and they sent those. Corporate and corporate approved them and they became, you know, super famous, uh, menu items. So franchising is incredibly collaborative and the old expression, uh, you get to be in business for yourself, but not by yourself right. And so, you know, the average person again, doesn't have that unique, amazing idea. And, and really, they [00:37:00] won't feel comfortable giving birth to a brand and having to support that brand or whether it's a product or tech company. Think about all the things that you managed when you started let's let's rattle those off from, I know you managed accounting and marketing and vendor management.
[00:37:17] COLETTE: Yeah technology oh My gosh,
[00:37:20] LANCE: there's so many more pieces to that. If you're in brick and mortar, you have real estate, you have all these components. You have to be responsible for. So good luck. If you want to do it on your own, go right ahead. Absolutely. Right.
[00:37:32] COLETTE: Yeah that's right.
[00:37:35] LANCE: So what are your, uh, final thoughts for today? This has been great. I mean, obviously if I was listening to this, I'd be pretty darn excited that Andy and Collette have an amazing brand attached to ACE ACE hardware. And this is now ACE handyman used to be handyman matters. So what are your final thoughts? You know, the people listening and they're not sure if a franchises for them or, you know, how do we. [00:38:00] You know, may maybe home improvement or home services is something for us. What do you say to them?
[00:38:08] COLETTE: I think the, what, what I would love to leave people with is. The opportunity to start a business and then get involved with franchising was the most amazing journey of my life. And there's been nothing better than to be able to offer that opportunity to franchisees who are coming from all walks of life. Some of them are running their own small business and struggling at that and trying to find a better way, right. How to build a better mouse trap. But most of our franchisees are coming from a corporate America experience where either the passion is not there or the control of their life is not there or the potential exit strategy doesn't look so great at. Um, whatever that might be. And what I would tell people is find something that you're passionate about and then pursue, especially through somebody like yourself, Lance pursue the [00:39:00] opportunities that are going to fulfill that handyman and home services is not for everybody, but when it is a great fit, we believe we've got a lot to offer franchisees, not just within the business realm, but within the relationship and the background and, and all the great franchisees that we have. But franchising is such a great business opportunity to review, because it does have a lot of ways of comparison as you well know. And that allows you to be able to provide somebody with three or four different opportunities that they can look at, but really find something that you feel like after 10 years, you're still going to love doing. And it may not be the actual thing that you're doing. Like we were talking about may not be correct, you know, fixing carpentry in a house, but running a business. And managing people and encouraging people to better their lives and help their customers better their lives. That's something for us to get passionate about, but there's so many choices out there. Um, I just, I'm always thrilled when somebody chooses to move into business ownership through franchising, whether it's with us, was there some other fantastic concept? I, I [00:40:00] think the opportunity to own your own destiny and own your own business and your own financial control is just something. Everybody should have the opportunity to try if they want to
[00:40:08] LANCE: you're getting me excited, but you know, that that's it. I also, you know, Colette. I tell people, as you know, in my everyday practice as a business and franchise broker is you have to really determine the, what, before you figure out the how and the, what is really, uh, like you were describing before with passion. And then you get really detailed on, well, how much money. Would you like to invest? What do you have? Would you like an SBA loan? What do you do you not want to work nights and weekends? Some people are very specific. Um, and then we, you know, there's a lot more to it than that. And then when you match people up, that's what we do. Um, what is best going to be best for them? So, um,Colette, any final tip for again, anybody [00:41:00] listening, because I know you're going to give me another great nugget here.
[00:41:03] COLETTE: Well, I would tell people that I would encourage everybody to keep their mind open. Um, you and I Lance know how many different business opportunities exist within the realm of franchising. And there's really only usually a small sliver of the industry segments that people are familiar with. And if you keep your, if you keep your mind open to the opportunities, I would probably tell you that most of the franchisees that have joined. Didn't come in saying I want a home services and certainly not come in saying they want a handyman business.
[00:41:32] LANCE: That's such a great point.
[00:41:36] COLETTE: And I do think that's, you know, that's absolutely 100% the value of people like yourself, who are the franchise brokers, because you know more about the franchise systems and the people behind it, and really getting to a connection at that point may not lead you necessarily to the industry that someone says they're interested in, in the beginning
[00:41:54] LANCE: such a great final point of the day. Kala bell ACE, handyman. [00:42:00] Thank you so much for being here.
[00:42:01] COLETTE: Thank you, Lance.
[00:42:04] LANCE: Thank you very much for listening today, please like follow and subscribe so you don't miss anything here at Eye on franchising visit our website. Eye on franchising.com E Y E O N. franchising.com and complete our free assessments so we can assist with. Finding your perfect franchise this is Lance Graulich until next time.