Simplicity sells! In today's increasingly complex market, simplicity flies off the shelves. But how do you cut through the clutter of confusing messages and complicated offerings to reach your customers with a simple message? It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. It all depends on the perspective you take when building your business. Most entrepreneurs have the idea that customers want flashy and bedazzled products and services. That may be true on the surface but deep down, what customers are really begging for is simplicity. People don’t want complicated! There’s a high demand for simplicity because customers generally have low supply of patience. And that’s exactly what Footprints Floors, a flooring installation and restoration franchise, has to offer. Hear it straight from Bryan Park and Bryan Knuth how a NO-Gimmick Franchise is key to achieving your entrepreneurial dreams! Bryan Park attended the Air Force Academy and served his country after graduation. But after his military service, he had to find a way to put food on the table. Opportunity came knocking once he saw that the flooring industry was highly inefficient and unscrupulous. That’s when he decided to start Footprints Floors. Bryan Knuth has a reputation in Franchise Development and is the proud partner and owner of Footprints Floors in Indiana. Early in his career Brian worked with customers offering tree removal and pruning services. He also utilized his skills in helping homeowners with various home improvement projects. In meeting Bryan Park and Footprints Floors, Mr. Knuth realized that he wanted to join forces with a winning service business. Their idea of putting customers, by providing an elegantly simple service rooted in honesty and fairness, made the business what it is today: one of the largest hardwood providers and flooring services business that’s continuously growing rapidly. And they’re not about to stop now because they’ve proven that SIMPLICITY WORKS! Tune in to our Podcast to learn more about everything you WANT and NEED on 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/
Simplicity sells!
In today's increasingly complex market, simplicity flies off the shelves. But how do you cut through the clutter of confusing messages and complicated offerings to reach your customers with a simple message?
It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. It all depends on the perspective you take when building your business.
Most entrepreneurs have the idea that customers want flashy and bedazzled products and services. That may be true on the surface but deep down, what customers are really begging for is simplicity.
People don’t want complicated! There’s a high demand for simplicity because customers generally have low supply of patience.
And that’s exactly what Footprints Floors, a flooring installation and restoration franchise, has to offer.
Hear it straight from Bryan Park and Bryan Knuth how a NO-Gimmick Franchise is key to achieving your entrepreneurial dreams!
Bryan Park attended the Air Force Academy and served his country after graduation. But after his military service, he had to find a way to put food on the table. Opportunity came knocking once he saw that the flooring industry was highly inefficient and unscrupulous. That’s when he decided to start Footprints Floors.
Bryan Knuth has a reputation in Franchise Development and is the proud partner and owner of Footprints Floors in Indiana. Early in his career Brian worked with customers offering tree removal and pruning services. He also utilized his skills in helping homeowners with various home improvement projects. In meeting Bryan Park and Footprints Floors, Mr. Knuth realized that he wanted to join forces with a winning service business.
Their idea of putting customers, by providing an elegantly simple service rooted in honesty and fairness, made the business what it is today: one of the largest hardwood providers and flooring services business that’s continuously growing rapidly. And they’re not about to stop now because they’ve proven that SIMPLICITY WORKS!
Tune in to our Podcast to learn more about everything you WANT and NEED on 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] well, welcome back everyone to another amazing episode of ion franchising. I'm your host Lance Graulich. And today, yes, there is going to be a fabulous episode and you'll learn all about this amazing brand that we'll talk about just in one moment. So let's do the intros, the first gentlemen, I'm an intro. Yes. I have a cheat sheet. I can't memorize all this anymore. He is a home services veteran. He's done things like tree pruning, tree business, tree removal, decks, landscape, light carpenter. He's not that talented. He's moved, he's married and he married his high school, sweetheart. You got to love that. And they have to, well, they don't have to. They have twin boys that's assumed as two difficult. As soon as he met the founder of today's featured brand, he realized he was certainly wanted to join forces in this winning. And so he's a [00:02:00] franchisee and a partner in this brand and today's brand is footprints floors. And this is Brian Knute, who is the franchise development manager, footprint floors.
[00:02:11] Welcome Brian.
[00:02:13] BRIAN PARK: Thanks for having me, Lance.
[00:02:15] LANCE: Awesome. Well, I'm glad you're here. And the next gentlemen on the panel today is the founder of this particular brand. He attended the air force academy. And thank you for your service, sir. And let's see, after serving his country and after graduation, he and his wife, Kelly settled in Littleton, Colorado started a family, three rambunctious girls, and two big dogs later. Brian noticed a big gap in the flooring industry and he realized in the flooring industry in Denver, there was a highly inefficient and unscrupulous. It was sort of an unscrupulous and highly efficient industry and he knew he can do better. And it was Brian's calling to change this. So let's put the customer first. [00:03:00] He said, and let's create an impeccable reputation in the flooring industry mission accomplished all these years later, we're going to hear the whole story of how this got started. They are now the largest flooring contractor in the state of Colorado and probably one of the largest in the world in the United States. For sure. And the franchise expansion is well underway well and well under foot as well. So welcome Brian Park, founder of footprints floors.
[00:03:27] BRIAN PARK: Hey, thanks for having me on excited to be here.
[00:03:30] LANCE: You got to Brian. Well, I was super happy you guys are here, so let's dive into. The stuff that I missed in your background. So let's take us through some of the other significant things that occurred in your backgrounds that took you into both of you into the franchise world, into the flooring world and to where we are today with this amazing high growth brand.
[00:03:53] BRIAN PARK: Yeah. I'll I'll kick us off the paragraph that you read. The very abbreviated version. It makes me [00:04:00] sound way better than I am. But the short of it, I got out of the air force. I served, I served out my time. I, I enjoyed that for what it was, but I was looking to do something different life and really didn't know what that was going to be. I was a history major in college, which means you don't have a job waiting for you. So I had to figure out something early twenties and, you know, I, I wouldn't say that I came into the flooring industry with this grand plan of conquering the world and changing at all. That's always fun to say 15 years after the fact, but when you're going through it at the beginning, it's not, so it's not so pretty. Really, it started out as just trying to feed my family. I was young trying to find a job really that I got into the industry. I had no No, my parents weren't in construction. I was Mr. White collar through and through, which has really served me well later on, but that's not necessarily how I got into the trades. I got in because we hired a flooring company. My wife and I had gone out to dinner, came home [00:05:00] and our puppies had eaten our carpet. Like just. And we're like, oh, wow. Okay. So we live on sub floor or we hire a flooring company. So our hand was forced. And at the same time I was looking for a job and I was watching the young guy install my floors. And I was like, how much do you make doing this? He's like, I don't know, a hundred grand, 120 grand. I'm like, oh, cool. You think I can go to school at night while I'm installing floors? Cause that was the original plan was just kind of a filler to feed my family. And at the time it was just my wife. So yeah, start installing floors for that company. I was the customer turned crew to start and really the next two or three years I worked for that company. I was figuring it out, figuring out that the trade was really backwards. There's zero technology and it's things behind closed doors. People saying, oh, the customer will know about it. Just do that, cut that cord or do that. And it's just, there's a bad thing. They never sit. Right. You know, I'm coming from an air force background [00:06:00] where integrity, integrity is everything do, do what you say you're going to do, even if nobody's watching. And that was, that was my background. And so, yeah, just. Even up to that point, I still wasn't. Oh, I'm going to break off and start my own company. It was an oh eight when the economy crashed that I was a manager for that business and they stopped paying everybody, all their employees. I went six months without a paycheck living on credit cards, believing that they'll. Pay me back someday, which of course they did November of oh eight. They let me go, sat me down in an Arby's of all places. And let me didn't even buy me a roast beef sandwich or anything. I just, I got fired and got fired at an RVs in November of oh eight entering into the winter of the worst economic crisis. At the same time we had a two year old, my wife was eight months pregnant. We had four dogs, so not, not great timing. So I [00:07:00] started, that was the landscape of the Footprints floors. I was in 20, 25 years old, you know, young life, young family way too many pets, 800 square foot house, $30,000 in credit card debt, running a flooring company out of my garage.
[00:07:17] LANCE: So, so that's when we insert the adversity. Breeds opportunity, quote, because that was, that was about all the adversity anybody can take.
[00:07:29] BRIAN PARK: Oh yeah. I had no other option. I, I walked neighborhoods at night putting flyers on doors. I, we went two months without even doing the job. Cause it's the middle of the winter trying to launch a business and yeah, just, just made it, made it happen. And then I did floors for the next few years with my own hands and. It was, it was mostly about, I need money. It's not, I want to conquer the industry. Like the paragraph says it's I need to feed my family.
[00:07:56] LANCE: So, so who taught you how to do floors? What was your [00:08:00] apprenticeship like in that
[00:08:01] BRIAN PARK: I started working for that previous company that stopped paying me.
[00:08:05] LANCE: Oh, that, that was the flaw okay. Got it.
[00:08:08] BRIAN PARK: But I learned how to do floors Although when I, my first day of training, I showed up in my trainer, no, showed the day. So I, I kind of self-taught for the first little bit, but you know, I, I got pretty good at it over time. I'm a, I'm a pretty solid floor guy by now.
[00:08:23] LANCE: Yeah. Awesome. Brian, what about you?
[00:08:26] BRYAN KNUTE: As you mentioned, yeah, it's kind of cut my teeth in the service business working, climbing trees.
[00:08:31] LANCE: You, you had some talents you'd already worked with your hands
[00:08:36] BRYAN KNUTE: well, yeah, but kind of same timing as Brian starting footprints. I had a choice to make and kind of made that choice and, and got into the service business and watched it thrive under my feet. You know, in, in oh eight when the economy was down and. Fast-forward I got an opportunity to help grow and develop a franchise development firm in 2012. Gosh, it's been a while now. And so I joined forces with my partners over there and we [00:09:00] built a franchise development firm. And, and my biggest question to them was what the heck could I do as an asset to this company? And they said, well, you've been in the trenches trying to run a small business. I think you could broadcast a story. Franchise support very well and it served me well. So, so that's kind of a little bit of my background and how I got involved with franchise development. And then fast forward, 2018, we met Mr. Park in our office and I was immediately attracted to the business and, and you know, his story and his involvement of growing the business to where it is today. And, and so you have to have fast forward a little bit there. I became an owner in It was 20, 20, 19, 20 20. I launched February 3rd, 2020 and fell on my face. What March 10th, 2020. And it's been awesome ever since.
[00:09:48] LANCE: Well, let's talk about the falling on your face for what happened there
[00:09:52] BRYAN KNUTE: COVID yeah, the uncertainty of being able to do estimates, but it was, it was a week of uncertainty. It was, it was very quickly [00:10:00] deemed that we're an essential business. Customers are willing to let us in their property. If they're not, they're probably not going to hire us. And we very quickly grew a business alongside of other franchise owners. So it was a very mild disruption or wave in the water
[00:10:14] LANCE: yeah, I thought it was pretty interesting with home service brands that there seemed to be that temporary freeze. If you will, when COVID first hit hit, people couldn't believe what was going on. So maybe the third, first 30 days, depending on what city you were in, nobody did anything. Nobody knew what to do. You certainly didn't want anybody in your house, but after all that, you know, maybe after. All of that actually sunk in isn't that when the phones really started ringing, essentially when people like, well, if I'm going to be home, I might as well remodel things.
[00:10:50] BRIAN PARK: Right. We slowed down, we slowed down for like two or three weeks, and then we were off, off to the races. I I think we had record months starting in [00:11:00] April for. 14 consecutive months or something. It was, it was just crazy.
[00:11:05] LANCE: Yeah. People are still talking about, well, well, what actually did well during COVID and I answer it the other way. Well, what really didn't do well during COVID. So anyway, that's a, that's a phenomenal story. And as you guys both know, the story really helps people because you know, people are, are, are drawn in by hearing these wonderful stories in this, these success stories. So let's really next let's get to what is footprints floors? Because you're quite unique in the industry?
[00:11:34] BRIAN PARK: Well, we are quite unique. Although I've never really felt like we were, but for some reason we just chose to do things a little differently. And I think that's really at the core of everything. That's why we've grown as fast as we have is because we have. Done things a little bit differently there on the surface. It's like, ah, you kind of look like other companies, but just our systems that we have in place, the overall model, it just tweaks all of the old ways of [00:12:00] doing things, which by the way, those old ways of doing things or what I was trying to get away from. And just those tweaks have really made a very, very profitable funds, successful business. So yeah, to summarize who we are, we're. At the core of it. We're, we're a contractor. We install sand and finished hardwood. We install tile and we install LDP and LVT and, and, and the way we're different is that we don't necessarily want to sell the material. So we're not a mobile showroom. There is no brick and mortar. We're not we're not a, a storefront we're laborers. We're, we're a contractor. You call us to get your floors installed and, and we can supply the flooring if we need to. We have. You know, we're a huge company. We have lots of opportunity to sell floors, but we would actually prefer customers go purchase their own floors at a local showroom. We can steer people to, to local showrooms where we have good deals. But for the most part, we just want to do the labor. It's [00:13:00] pretty much how, like a general contractor runs his business. He's not selling trim and windows. He tells you where to go buy it. And then he, he puts it in. Pretty much what we do
[00:13:09] LANCE: and I know people love the simplicity of it. And, you know, Brian, is that what you fell in love with now that you're a franchisee?
[00:13:16] BRYAN KNUTE: One of the things I fell in love with absolutely. Yeah. Simplicity. Non-emergency, you know, a lot of tools. Infrastructure to support us with carrying out higher volume than we could on our own. But yeah, simplicity is what I think attracts a lot of folks to this. In fact, a lot of folks that have experienced P and L management and logistics and business management, they look at this and go, you've got, gotta be kidding me there. There's more to it than this, right. No, that's it.
[00:13:45] LANCE: Well, Brian, Brian, while you're talking about all that, why don't you roll into the franchise process? You know, when, when you get a candidate, whether it's through a broker like me or an outside lead, talk about the process. Cause obviously people [00:14:00] listening that are going to be interested in footprints floors, want to understand what kind of process they're put through. I always tell people when you're looking at a franchise, nobody's sliding your credit card. On a, on a call it's, it's a pretty rigorous process, you know, you have to like the brand, they have to like you. So why don't you describe that process a little bit?
[00:14:18] BRYAN KNUTE: Yeah, so we We call it and believe it as a mutual discovery process, it's a mutual evaluation where we're going to get to know the franchise prospect of the candidate. Just as much as they're going to get to know us. We're going to approach it at a digestible pace where we add layers of information at the appropriate digestible points. We're not going to just info dump, not here to sell anybody and, and provide them with all the answers to their questions they may have on the first call. We want to approach those questions and those answers at the appropriate time. So we, we usually spend about four to six weeks going through this information, gathering information about their life experiences and their plans and their goals and their non-negotiables all well, [00:15:00] we share ours. I'm hoping that it's a mutual alignment and the objective is to really set a firm expectation of what they're getting into. What it's going to cost. What success looks like is as we describe it and Footprint floors that might not be successful to somebody to us, here's what it is. And here's what, the way we describe success. And so ultimately we go through this mutual discovery process over the course of about four to six weeks. And it's at that point, that candidates arrive at a good, confident decision. It's it's either a yes or it's a, Hey, it's a good business. I see it, but it's not for me. And that's the objective. As we approach that decision, that's when they'll start to interact with the executive team and go through kind of final approval and interviews and background checks and just, just some tools or filters that are in place to ensure that, you know, we're all off on a good, good starting platform here. But yeah, it's, it's four to six weeks of evaluation and discovery and it's, it's really my role to help be a tour guide and provide. [00:16:00] All the answers or the directions to the answers that they need to make a confident decision.
[00:16:05] LANCE: I liked that the tour guide Brian, the tour guide. So the investment today, I know you have quite a few people joining or have joined and maybe they only got one territory and they quickly are like, Hey, I need a second territory here. This is fabulous. So what, what is a territory cost to get up and running in an average? Area today based on your franchise disclosure document.
[00:16:31] BRYAN KNUTE: Yeah. So I tell folks I'm all in. You're going to be about $85,000 cash outlay that's that's franchise fee that's training and travel costs. It's soup to nuts, open doors. But I want to make sure you have accessibility to about another $25,000 of footprints floors budget. I say it that way. You've got your life buck budget or your life bucket. You got. Being able to put food in the fridge and so forth. So we separate that. So if you look at the footprints floors, [00:17:00] capital outlay, it's, you know, it's 85 Spent. But I hope you got another 20, 25 sitting there in reserves and that's spent throughout the first three months of getting this up and going, and that's including marketing and so forth.
[00:17:13] LANCE: Yeah. Pretty much in zero franchises exists that you come out of the gate, just printing money. You have to, you have to kind of work a little bit first fair to say?
[00:17:23] BRYAN KNUTE: Oh, yeah, but it's it's, it's pretty fast trajectory. And one of my attractions, you asked simplicity and so forth. You know, footprints floors provides a very robust infrastructure on lead generation getting in front of a customer and in the comfort of their living room, it is an art form. It's a game it's, it's challenging. And footprints provides that to us as franchise owners. Meaning when I come out of training tomorrow, I'm going to be walking into customers' living rooms because the franchisor has created that for me. And they're good at it. So it's not this learning curve of trying to figure out every component to the business. Again, going back to the simplified [00:18:00] aspect of this, I walk into a living room and I do what I've been trained to do, which is communicate with customers. So it doesn't print money immediately, but we're in front of the opportunities. It's ours to lose as they say
[00:18:12] LANCE: yeah, well, you jumped right into something great that I was going to ask about the ramp up. You know, and, and when you have franchisees, let's talk a little bit about validation. When you have prospects candidates, actually having conversations with franchisees, you're doing it in group calls. How do you do validation needs?
[00:18:32] BRYAN KNUTE: We do it in group calls and that's largely because of the interest level we have right now, we have a very large pipeline and a lot of folks looking to speak with owners. And so out of respect of our owner's time we try to limit that. So we do weekly calls. We have a library of about Recorded calls that consists of franchise validation calls as well as executive leadership calls. And we try to establish a good base level of knowledge. And then from there, if there's any one-on-one topics that we need to address we'll [00:19:00] respectfully engage them with our franchise owners and, and make it a warm introduction
[00:19:04] LANCE: wonderful now. And that, that obviously works well through the validation process and you're a franchisee and obviously it depends how you run the business. I mean, you do want active owners. This isn't an opportunity where you can be a semi absentee owner. You can down the road once you're established and have a good foundation. But at the beginning you definitely want active owners. What are you seeing as that ramp up time to where the owners are really. Starting to feel good and doing well. So it's six months. Is it a little longer?
[00:19:35] BRYAN KNUTE: Oddly enough, I say that there's a difference between feeling good and doing well. The business work, the business works. Customers hire us because we show up, not because we're awesome because we're there, we're accountable and that's the front end. Right? Any good at floors and people are saying yes. And that happens for folks that are able to conduct the conversation and able to juggle things and, you know, commit to customers. Right. That's, that's scary in and of [00:20:00] itself a customer saying, yeah. You've never carried out a floor, like meet him at that and get it done. So that, that happens right away. And then as franchise owners experience more and more of this, they become more capable. They become more comfortable in that arena and they convert more of their customers into yeses. So I would say that if someone's ready to go get socially engaged with a customer and, and hold themselves accountable to delivering what they're selling the customer, the opportunities are there immediately, but that that's, that's simple to say it's scary
[00:20:31] LANCE: absolutely. So Brian Park, so one thing I didn't cover yet is what really brought you into franchising. At what point when you were developing this, did you think, like how did you know about franchising and that this was for you and the method for your expansion?
[00:20:51] BRIAN PARK: There was a few few stages, I guess, along the way, I, I had zero desire to franchise from, from day one that wasn't the plan. And it was [00:21:00] really three, four or five years into running my business in Denver that I'd grown to a place where I was running 10 crews a day, you know, driving around like a maniac, doing most of the sales. I had some staff going and we, we grew quickly. But we got into a place where I had a decision to make. I couldn't handle everything myself anymore. And the first stage, the first step in our growth towards franchising was right. Then this was maybe 10 years ago. I didn't like the idea of hiring employees and having them be the frontline contact for my customers. I've always been a big fan of, of this, you know, the, the. The owners who cares the most. And he's probably the most talented as well. And that's really who needs to be in front of the customer. So that's, it just lent itself well, to this idea of. Franchises. So the original plan was to break up Denver into kind of little zones with many owners that I wasn't calling franchisees. I was just 10 99, these guys, and they were out doing estimates and doing their thing. And [00:22:00] then that first year we went to file taxes and my accountants, like you had a fantastic year. Highly illegal. What you're doing, you can't, you can't run these guys as a 10 99. You need to either make them W2 employees, or it kind of looks like you're running a franchise. I was like, I don't even know what that means. So that was step one was learning what franchising was about way back then. And so I, we made a little franchise document to kind of govern the relationship with me and the other four guys in Denver and ran that way for the next five years. And we're wildly successful, but that whole time I was saying, I don't want to go out of state. I don't, I don't want to travel. I, I didn't know brokers existed. Sorry. No offense. I didn't. I knew nothing. My idea of franchising was me traveling around the country that like trade shows or something, trying to recruit people, which sounded awful. So about that time. So 2018, and this links back to Brian Knutes story I ran into his company as we were kind of dabbling in this franchising [00:23:00] stuff and told him my story. He's like this thing's going to be amazing. He and his business partners. And like, I don't, I don't want to travel. And like, you know, you travel, it was these broker guys like, oh, tell me, tell me about them. So that was yeah, 2018 and we decided to pull the trigger and go out of state really. Because I just, I learned what the industry looked like and finally decided a franchising might be a worthwhile venture launched in spring of 19. I was out of Colorado for the first time. And we've gone from four owners to 80 in the last two and a half years.
[00:23:30] LANCE: How many locations right now?
[00:23:32] BRIAN PARK: 168.
[00:23:34] LANCE: Unbelievable, unbelievable. And How what percentage of those owners are multiunit? Multi territory.
[00:23:41] BRIAN PARK: We averaged just over to, you know, we have 80 owners, 168 locations. So I think percent probably like, I don't know, more, more than half or multiunit. Yeah, that's right. Sorry.
[00:23:56] LANCE: I love, I absolutely love how you came to the [00:24:00] realization that. When you, when you're selling franchises and you're finding other investors, so to speak they're they're owners. So they have, if you find the right people, they have the right ownership mentality, hopefully that you do. And it's fairly easy to figure that out. Although brands do make mistakes and sometimes can select the wrong people were trolls into my next thought process. You know, when you guys are talking to people how do you know when somebody is definitely right for your brand and how do you know on the flip side, man, these, this is not this person's not going to work and why
[00:24:38] BRIAN PARK: yeah, I'll give that one to Bryan he's the one talking to most of the prospects up front. I don't get to meet them until towards the end.
[00:24:45] LANCE: Hopefully Mr. Park, you don't ever have to say, Hey, Bryan I don't know what you're thinking, but I don't like that guy. I don't like that lady.
[00:24:53] BRIAN PARK: I only say that half the time, half the time. Okay. Bryan's extremely good at his job. So, no, I don't need to say it too often. [00:25:00]
[00:25:00] LANCE: So Mr. Bryan what a. What say you on, what are the traits really? What does it come down to? Who are you looking for? Who you not looking for?
[00:25:10] BRYAN KNUTE: The model and the infrastructure and the team and the culture was, was very highly established before we started taking this national, it wasn't this question, mark of w what are we going to do? How are we going to support them? What do they need to do to be successful? That the roles and the guard rails of what a franchise owner needs to stay within were very established. When we started back in 2018. And what we've recognized is we're looking for somebody that can be. Socially engaged with customers that can manage multiple things and be very task oriented, can be decisive and a problem solver. And someone that has emotional tolerance to do. New things thrown at them on a regular basis. And so not a lot of, you know, challenging or highly technical things. It's just, can you be composed, can you get up and get after it? Can you leverage the resources around you? And can we communicate right? Not just in good times when [00:26:00] money's being made. When times are tough when we have a problem, when, you know, Hey, we need to think about where do we reallocate budgets because it's not working. And that means we wasted a little bit of the money. It's not a good thing. It's not that easy to swallow, but all of those things go into consideration as we go through this, this mutual investigation process. And that's a lot of what I have. Of the prospect's going through the process. Hey, tell me a story about this. Have you ever experienced that? And so that's, that's one of the ways in which we kind of filter that understanding of someone's capabilities and commitment so forth, but really the other way is through the validation calls, we call it a peer review process where they speak with other owners and they understand what other owners have experienced. You know, the. Sales centric. Individuals tend to take off a little bit faster in this business, the ops centric, individuals little slower, more methodical pace of trajectory. And, and who do you like in yourself too? And they get, you know, prospects, get the opportunity to speak with our owners and understand who they like and themselves to, and then [00:27:00] compare that against their trajectory and their sales volume and their stress management and all of that. So it's, you know, it's. Vetting and filtering, but it's largely the candidate setting themselves and really starting to establish an understanding of what are their non-negotiables. And can I see myself in this business? So it's kind of it's mutual there where they're going to vet themselves out and say, it's not right. And then we get to the point where they meet the executive team. The executive team is pretty hard to deal with. They're pretty hard to get along with they, they run them through the ringer pretty hard and determine if they could all work together. But yeah, there's a lot of filters throughout the process. I think it's very easy. I think it's very cut and dry. As long as you know, the prospects we're working with are open and honest with themselves. It's going to come to surface if they can be successful in this business or not
[00:27:43] LANCE: right. And what is the commonality? I know that you have people from all walks of life that become successful franchisees, but if you are going to look at the best, the top 10% of high performing franchisees today, is there anything in [00:28:00] common at all in their backgrounds? Are they just from all different places in the, in their lives? And as far as career choices prior to
[00:28:08] footprints,
[00:28:10] BRIAN PARK: Oh, wait, go ahead. Well,
[00:28:14] LANCE: I want to hear from both of you on this. This is a good one.
[00:28:18] BRYAN KNUTE: So it's easy to say this, like Brian said, right? You read the bio and go, okay. 15 years later, it's easy to say this. So not knowing. And until we arrived at this it's not industry, it's not background, it's not a skill sets. I think it's, it's a cultural alignment that starts with wanting to serve others, wanting to do right by customers, wanting to do right by crews. I mean, we use subcontract crews in the world of construction, people say, crews are terrible. They're right and wrong. And the same breath left on their own. Crews are not the easiest to work with, but if, if you're willing to serve your crews and provide with them, you know, jobs and, and, and fair treatment and honest and, and continuous pay, you [00:29:00] create this environment by which your. Flooring business grows and it becomes more successful, right? Crews want to show up for you. They want to do right by the customer. So it just really starts with our franchise owners wanting to do right by their customer, do right by their crews, do right by their community. Everything else falls in line. So yeah, no, no industry, not engineer versus sales person. Although sales is a necessary component to this business. But Brian's I'll toss it to you, man.
[00:29:27] LANCE: Bryan what do you see out there?
[00:29:29] BRYAN KNUTE: Yeah, you took my answer, Brian. I, no, I'm just kidding. Yeah, it's, it's all different walks of life and I there's there's guys that are doing amazing that I wouldn't have predicted and then vice versa. It's it's interesting to see. So we're certainly figuring it out still, but I think it ties into what Brian is saying with the customer service, you know, others first mentality, and to expand on it a little bit is, is this thought of, of leadership or. We're looking for leaders because in a lot of ways we're asking a successful franchisee, a franchise owner, I think [00:30:00] they're successful because they're, they're taking leadership of a customer's project. They almost take it upon themselves. Like I want this thing to go wildly successful for your good, and I'm going to lead the way. And I think that's a trait that always served me well with my customers is I, you know, I got this, you can trust me. You're going to pay me some money, but I'm going to take care of this thing and you're going to love it in the end. Because that's at the end of the day, what a customer wants. Just, I don't want to know everything there is snowball flooring. Just take it. Let me trust you. Don't be weird. Like, I want to enjoy my conversations with you and then just go. And so it's, I think it stems from a leadership and an owner. For the customer, but then also an ownership for the crew. I've, I've always seen them as my crews. These are guys, these are my guys. I'm going to take care of them. I'm going to buy them food and remember their birthdays and their kids' names and, and invest in them emotionally. And I, and I think those are traits that they're, they're very difficult traits to identify in other people. And they're not real common traits, but I think those are things that lend [00:31:00] themselves to. To being successful and just in construction in general, just, just own it. And part of that too, is do what you say. You're going to do. Show up return calls. If you say you're going to call him back tomorrow, call him back tomorrow. So yeah, it's it's that would tie in it's the leadership and integrity. Those two.
[00:31:18] LANCE: I love it. So let's talk about let's talk about technology. What do you do to sort of enhance a franchisee's life? So to speak so many mom and pops. Non-franchise is you know, they don't really communicate. They don't talk to their customers maybe as they should communicate what's going on, you know, what do you have in the way of technology? Maybe you talk about marketing and technology all in general. As you, as, as you said earlier, Bryan K you know, there's a lot you do to get into people's living rooms and start getting people leads quick, ramp up, et cetera. So Brian Park, why don't you kick it off with technology marketing
[00:31:55] BRIAN PARK: yeah, this is really where we shine. And this is one of the huge advantages of, of joining a franchise [00:32:00] model with, with so much volume. We can invest in cool stuff that the, our, you know, our competition can't possibly invest in. The first thing, one of our biggest advantages, we have an entire call center that has software at their fingertips. So when we, we put out a lot of marketing dollars that go out, internet print, marketing, you name it. These phone calls start coming in, and a lot of the phone calls will just, they funnel right into. Our system automatically these emails and we're emailing and texting the customer within seconds of receiving this information. So a homeowner has already gotten pinged four times and two minutes from once, once they submitted the request. And that's the exact opposite of what's common in this industry, typically. You're calling the tile setter. Right. And he's like, I'm busy. Call me back tomorrow or exactly.
[00:32:50] LANCE: I'm laughing because when we remodeled our house, that's kind of what we went through. And then you could hold your breath and hope that somebody actually even calls you back the [00:33:00] next day.
[00:33:01] BRIAN PARK: Oh, they never, they never do. So we're our call center is fantastic. These, these guys make life so much easier. They're just putting estimates on our owners schedules for them. So each day you wake up as an owner, Hey, I've got four appointments this afternoon. Good deal. And that's, that's really where their job starts is driving to that estimate. And then taking over. So that, that technology is huge for us, that, that system that we use though, they do their bids and their work orders, everything in that system all the way through. So it's, it's very easy on everybody. That system has built in financing for our homeowners ACH payments, credit cards, it's all just in one system. It makes franchise owners lives a lot easier.
[00:33:44] LANCE: incredible Incredible. So let's talk let's talk numbers, you know, I I'm, I'm laughing again because you know, when I present your brand to candidates, it's kind of a no brainer. It's a low cost investment. If they fit your, you know, [00:34:00] preferably sales ability. Cause I know that helps you ramp up quicker. Maybe they just have the ops ability and they're gonna hire somebody that they know that's great in sales, but let's talk about the numbers. What do you what can you share for those of you out there playing at home and listening? The franchise disclosure document is, you know, has 23 items and most brands are many brands. Fill in there item 19, which is the earnings claim and footprints floors has certainly a very detailed earnings claim. So which Brian would like to share some of those highlights?
[00:34:34] BRYAN KNUTE: Yeah, I'll jump in on that one. It's tough to get it all in and quantify all the numbers behind. In a short stint, but as franchise candidates go through the process, we'll paint a picture on what it looks like to build a $500,000 business. Meaning how much time does it take of you? How much budgets are you going to need to insert? Is it going to crush your family life, your, your work-life balance? And, and what we see is franchise owners are very capable of giving to a half, a million dollar business at a 25, [00:35:00] 26, 20 7% net. And that's all substantiated all within the hours of Monday through Friday eight to five non emergent so it's a glimpse of it, but yeah, we'd go through a very robust model. As we, as we worked through the validation process
[00:35:14] LANCE: yeah, I, I can't imagine people can possibly ask for more and that still gives us substantial ROI. And there's some other numbers that people definitely want to see in there. Obviously, you can't divulge everything right here in this phone call. What, what did we not cover today, gentlemen, that you'd like to cover that, that people need to know other than, I mean, boy, we've given a lot of great reasons for people to reach out to me so I can connect them to you. What did we miss?
[00:35:40] BRIAN PARK: I think a big one. I'll I'll I haven't really talked about this. I mean, the money's fantastic, you know, construction generals pays very well. But maybe my single most favorite part of my job, because in a lot of ways I'm asking franchise owners to do the exact same thing that I've done for the last [00:36:00] 15 years of my life. I'm, I'm a contractor. I do estimates. I've done over 10,000 estimates. I've done millions and millions of dollars of job site management,
[00:36:08] LANCE: 10,000 estimates. You look pretty damn young.
[00:36:12] BRIAN PARK: I've done a lot of estimates. It's been 15 years. We do. Yeah, we do a lot of estimates. We do. I think last year we did almost 50,000 estimates nationally in one year. So it's, there's a lot. But my point, what I love about my job is the flexibility. I set my own schedule. I block things off I'm in Florida right now. I don't live in Florida, but I'm doing a podcast from Florida. These are not native Colorado trees here. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's fun. So as a franchise owner, you gotta take Friday you know, off, you want to go skiing for the weekend or whatever, block it off. It's it's your schedule? It's your business? You know, a lot of our guys don't start doing estimates. So the afternoon they take the mornings off so they can catch up on computer work and it's extremely flexible. And we as a management team, W [00:37:00] we don't really see our role as the franchise or as a policing role. I, I don't, I'm, I'm the worst micromanager in terms of, I don't do it. I'm a, I'm a big picture person. I don't want to manage these guys. I want them to manage themselves. So we're, we really see our role as that, of. We want to come alongside and help. In any way we can it's, you know, servant hearted leadership, not, not do what I say. So I think our culture and that's flexibility is I I'd put it against any brand out there. I, I think we're pretty awesome in those two regard in that regard.
[00:37:35] LANCE: Awesome. Mr. Knute.
[00:37:39] BRYAN KNUTE: You know, all this besides you and the strength that, that you bring to candidates as they go through the evaluation process leaning and leveraging your, your accessibility to what's out there. What businesses look like, what you're going to need to put in to get these outcomes, you know, from a, from a high level overview, but I would support, you know, franchise candidates or candidates thinking about making a life change [00:38:00] spend time with you and understand what's out. Leaning on you with, with Q and a to, to establish what's right for them. Footprints isn't for everybody. And my objective is to help folks learn about footprints, help them learn about themselves and, and hopefully take that knowledge back to you for a second round, or maybe even a third round so that they make the right placement. This is. I hope everybody wild success and that it happens immediately. The second you turn on the lights, but isn't this ownership. It's not that it's it's what are you going to do? 8, 10, 12, 15 years from now. And are you going to enjoy it enough to stick with it for 15 years? So, so to me, I would say leveraging you as an asset to help them find the right fit.
[00:38:39] LANCE: Yeah. And boy, it's easy to talk about footprints floors, cause I love you guys. And keep up the great work and thank you so much. Both Brian and Bryan for being here and I'll see you next time. All right.
[00:38:51] BRIAN PARK: Thanks Lance.
[00:38:53] BRYAN KNUTE: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:38:54] LANCE: Take care of.
[00:38:55] Thank you very much for listening today, please like follow and [00:39:00] 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.