2 Types of Businesses: You’ve got “Hammers” and “Nails”. Most large brands are hammers… They’ll hit you with large billboards and massive promotions, everywhere, to break down your walls and get you to buy their products. They’ve got huge market shares because they’ve got the size – under that weight, most smaller brands get bent out of shape. What most entrepreneurs fail to see is that even nails can make a dent in the industry. Sharp and focused, nails are what you use for penetration – to make things stick! Chris Wyland saw that opportunity in many of the brands he has handled! Chris is an accomplished franchise development and business professional with a track record of successfully connecting experienced multi-unit operators with franchise concepts. Chris began his career in the sports franchise, having worked with California Angels Baseball and Los Angeles Kings Hockey brands. Later on, he served as CEO, VP of Franchise, as well as independent franchise consultant for brands in the food industry, one of which is Roll-Em-Up Taquitos, founded by a good friend of his. What’s really the idea behind the success of these brands? Chris believes that startups can make a difference even in massively populated industries, much like the food industry. Being small doesn’t have to be a weakness. When you can niche down, reinvent a product, and stay focused on constantly improving that one awesome product everyone inevitably learns to love, that’s how your brand sticks to the hearts and minds of consumers. And once you get that level of attention, you scale that impact and make a massive ripple effect by seizing franchising opportunities! What’s Roll-Em-Up Taquitos awesome genesis story? How did Chris this startup in the multi-unit franchise success that it is today? How do technology and innovations affect the growth of brands? 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. Lance Graulich Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising Eye On Franchising
2 Types of Businesses:
You’ve got “Hammers” and “Nails”.
Most large brands are hammers…
They’ll hit you with large billboards and massive promotions, everywhere, to break down your walls and get you to buy their products.
They’ve got huge market shares because they’ve got the size – under that weight, most smaller brands get bent out of shape.
What most entrepreneurs fail to see is that even nails can make a dent in the industry.
Sharp and focused, nails are what you use for penetration – to make things stick!
Chris Wyland saw that opportunity in many of the brands he has handled!
Chris is an accomplished franchise development and business professional with a track record of successfully connecting experienced multi-unit operators with franchise concepts.
Chris began his career in the sports franchise, having worked with California Angels Baseball and Los Angeles Kings Hockey brands. Later on, he served as CEO, VP of Franchise, as well as independent franchise consultant for brands in the food industry, one of which is Roll-Em-Up Taquitos, founded by a good friend of his.
What’s really the idea behind the success of these brands?
Chris believes that startups can make a difference even in massively populated industries, much like the food industry.
Being small doesn’t have to be a weakness. When you can niche down, reinvent a product, and stay focused on constantly improving that one awesome product everyone inevitably learns to love, that’s how your brand sticks to the hearts and minds of consumers.
And once you get that level of attention, you scale that impact and make a massive ripple effect by seizing franchising opportunities!
What’s Roll-Em-Up Taquitos awesome genesis story? How did Chris this startup in the multi-unit franchise success that it is today? How do technology and innovations affect the growth of brands?
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.
Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
franchisees, franchise, brand, location, people, franchising, restaurant, year, unit, Ryan, franchisors, Chris, California, mentioned, business, keto, pretty, open, drive, process
SPEAKERS
Lance, Chris, Lance Graulich
Lance Graulich 00:02
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 the best businesses for you based on your investment level, mindset, skill set, and life experiences. This is Eye on franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise’s future. I'm your host Lance Graulich. Each week, we will speak to fascinating folks from the world of franchising, franchisors 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 learn the A to Z's of franchise
Hello, hello, and welcome to Eye on franchising.
Lance 01:10
I am your host, Lance Graulich. Today we have another just fantastic episode, the warm-up that we just completed, I'm already exhausted, this is going to be a great one. So from the front offices of professional baseball, professional hockey, alright, I'll tell you what it is the angels to the LA Kings, this guy into the world of franchising, and after that, we'll hear this story from the VP of development to CEO. He hails from the beach in Southern California. And he is bomb ATF. I can't say that because this is a family show. At least I like to think it is. So welcome to the show, Chris Weiland.
Chris 01:52
Thanks, Lance. Appreciate it. Thanks for asking.
Lance 01:55
This is awesome. You got your lucky la Dodger hat on. So Chris, today we're going to talk about rolling him up to Ketos. And this is going to be exciting and might even talk about some cookies as well. But uh, Chris, give us your backstory. How did Chris Weiland get to this crazy stage of your life? How'd you get into franchising and all that wonderful stuff?
Chris 02:18
Yeah, appreciate that. So you mentioned the baseball, you know, hockey career. So I you know, as a football player coming out of college, you know, my dream was to play on Sundays, when I realized that wasn't going to happen, you know, the next best thing was to hopefully, you know, work in professional sports. So, you know, where to work for the angels cut my teeth on corporate sponsorship season tickets, I mean, you name it, selling pretty much anything under the sun, you know, went from there to Los Angeles Kings as their director of group marketing and, and really kind of caught the franchising bug, you know, just by accident, you know, I realized that you know, wasn't going to make a ton of money and professional sports until you get to a certain level and, you know, didn't really want to put in that time. And so, you know, a friend of mine that I met, it was a franchise consultant, he kind of took me under his wing with his group and we developed and sold everything from, you know, fitness franchises to food franchises and everything in between. And
Lance 03:14
I got, I got to stop you. So, this friend that introduced you to the world of franchising, what was your initial reaction? Because I always love hearing the stories when people get into franchising because most people don't go to college and say, I want to buy a franchise or I want to work in franchising. So what was that first reaction? Like? Did you think of McDonald's?
Chris 03:36
Well, you know, professional sports franchise as well, but just in a different way. So for me, you know, when I, when I heard, I guess the word franchising, you know, the first thing that came to mind was just more systems and processes and McDonald's, and obviously, some of the bigger brands that are out there, but what really interested me was that kind of one on one with taking maybe someone that had never owned a business before and kind of walking them through that process. And, and hopefully, in the end, you make them successful. So that was kind of one of the main interests initially, and then once we got into it, there was just a diversity of working with different brands and seeing good ones do well and bad ones not do well. Right. So there are both sides of the fence.
Lance 04:21
Isn't there an easy way to determine what a bad brand is? I mean, for you, of course, by now.
Chris 04:27
Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, there's, there's plenty of reasons out there, but why
Lance 04:31
do people get involved with bad brands?
Chris 04:34
Well, I think good salespeople, I mean, there's a lot of reasons, you know, the lure of money? You know, I think that you know, people may get into it for the wrong reasons. I think it's really important to have passion, you know, to brand and, you know, I think that if anything, people aren't doing enough research to really look into the background systems processes to make sure everything was put in place to make them successful in the first place.
Lance 05:00
Yeah, and you know, my favorite step in deciding if a franchise is right for somebody. And obviously, as a broker, a franchise broker, consultant, I help people for free find their perfect business. And the validation stage is just the most important, as far as I'm concerned, where you have an opportunity, even in younger brands to talk to one or two or there's more, there's a lot of franchisees here, here's your list, go call a bunch of franchisees and make sure they're happy.
Chris 05:31
And I think that's what makes people I feel like as a brand if you can literally give your entire list over and say, I don't care who you call, you start at the top start at the bottom, you go through the material and time. I think that's what we should all strive for.
Lance 05:45
Yeah, yeah. So let's talk food. Let's talk to ketose. How did this whole thing come about? I know, you know, you got into franchising. Throw out some of the brands that you worked with over the years before you started rolling them up.
Chris 05:59
Yeah, so most recently, slim chickens brand out of the south, a ton of great work with Sam Ross child there. I've been fortunate to have some great mentors and people that have worked for David bloom, and Bruce Evans over at Capriati sandwich shops and wings zone, and do some work with Fit Body Boot Camps. I've been on the fitness side of it as well, a little bit of everything. But you know, the story here, you know it, Ryan and I kind of met by accident. Ryan, US Ray is the founder and CEO of Roma. Ryan had this great dream, his mom would make two Ketos for the family, you know, big events, she would do two 300 at a time, and they'd be gone in minutes. And so they would just sit around and say, Mom, you should open your own tuxedo joint. And at that time, you know, Ryan was in the apparel industry and had never owned a restaurant before, but he had a branding background. And he really started putting kind of the branding and the recipes and everything together. You know, years before he opened the first restaurant. Unfortunately, his mom passed away. She had a heart attack about five years ago. So him and his dad, hey, how do we really push mom's, you know, her idea forward. So, you know, he found this location was a converted Starbucks and Chino Hills really in a sleepy center. I think you and I a buddy that has anything to do with franchising would have talked him out of it, just because of where it was at and just didn't check the boxes, that we would normally check off. But, you know, the story he tells it was really the only landlord that was leased to him, you know, he had no restaurant experience, it was a brand new brand. And you know, he moved his family and across the street, him and his wife, they just, you know, worked in the restaurant for a year made every mistake, you can make rebuilt the thing twice, I think but two different general contractors. But you know, when they opened the doors, you know, the floodgates opened it, you know, just took off very, very, and I felt like he knew that he had something, you know, really special really early on, he reached out to me via Instagram is probably about a week, two weeks after he was open and said, Hey, I want to franchise my concept.
Lance 08:01
Oh, come on, he probably said help. Do I need a real guy here is that to you?
Chris 08:05
And obviously, I looked at it and almost gave him the Heisman, right. It's just kind of it's way too early. I don't know what you're doing. Like, just get some time under your belt. And we shared kind of messages over a year period. And a year down the road. He reached out to me and gave me some financial information, just you know, really asked me to come and check it out. We had never even spoken on the phone at that point. You know, he just said it seems some of my Instagram posts and, you know, I think he felt a connection there. And, you know, finally, he talked me into driving out from Vegas where I was living. I sat down in the restaurant, had the food met him and I knew within minutes that he had something really special. So, you know, as the old saying goes, we wrote out an agreement on a napkin and an offer. You know, go on and you know, it's so interesting.
Lance 08:55
Chris, about you know, my friend Leo that owns quite a few franchise brands talks about the riches are in the niches and they are myself being a Wingstop franchisee in the early days, people will like lean just wings. That's a Wingstop started it was just wings. So you're here to Ketos you probably thought of the same thing initially. Like, what just to Ketos. But that's a powerful segment. People love their tuxedos.
Chris 09:25
Well, that's the one thing I think that we found is that, you know, I'm yet to really meet someone that said, Hey, I don't I don't like to keto. So you know, it's a really easy food to eat fun food. Yeah, it's fun food. It's an afterthought on most full-service, Mexican menus. You know, we've just taken kind of that menu item and brought it to the forefront and gave a lot of different variations to it. And it works. You know, he knows they're not new, you know, tequila has been around for you know, 100 plus years. So we've just kind of reinvented them.
Lance 09:55
Yeah. So let's talk about the food. A lot of people listening. It's a newer brand, although it's incredible. Hot very successful. What do you want to share about the menu points of differentiation and all that and why somebody would want to be a franchisee?
Chris 10:09
Yeah, so we definitely like a simple menu and we both agreed that we would you know, stick to that. As we move forward. We made a couple of different variations and changes to it, but we liked that kind of In and Out Burger philosophy. Just do what you do and do it well. The menu is deceptively simple. We essentially offer it to keto or flutist, so it's corn or flour tortilla, there are five fillings. So we do a shredded beef, shredded chicken, a green chili potato, a cheese, and now we just introduced the ground beef. And it's been a huge hit for us. We complement that with you know, standard rice beans. You know queso, we have a churro donut that's a huge favorite. And then we do a look day, which is corn on a stick. And you know, if you do a load day incorrectly in California, you hear about it pretty quickly. So we both do it on a stick and we just started offering it in a cup as well, for those that don't want to have it all over their face.
Lance 11:02
Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love the authenticity that you pay attention to that. The advantage of being launched in California. Yeah, exactly. So what is the investment typical location for you? Well, let's give the background. So the original location opened, how long ago now?
Chris 11:18
I swear, we're running on three years here. In the first week of July, the second location opened in Brea last Memorial Day. So it's been open a year and in Victorville opened on August 14 of last year, and now we just open a franchise location and Colton and have a bunch more kind of coming online pretty soon here.
Lance 11:38
Very, very exciting. All right, so what are you looking for in a franchisee?
Chris 11:42
Well, you know, like any, I think New Brand You bring in franchisees in the beginning that maybe don't have a ton of experience. And listen, we have a few of those, we never really wanted to turn away, you know, franchisees, if they had the right passion for the brands, I think that's definitely a factor that we looked for. We've been very fortunate that since then, we've had a lot of existing multi-unit operators buy into the brand, really from here to Texas, and I think that's only going to, you know, pay huge rewards as we move forward. They know how to run restaurants, and you know that learning curves a little bit less but really what we're looking for first and foremost is that passion, you know, we don't want somebody buying it for their kid or buying it for their, their wife, we want somebody who's you know, really invested in the brand and, you know, wants to push it forward. You know, we felt like we can be a national brand. There's nowhere in the country that we don't think Ketos will work.
Lance 12:36
Yeah, and hearing that you have multi-unit interest multi-unit operators already interested in you, really is a testament to what you and Ryan have done thus far because that's impressive. Usually, the multi-unit folks don't come out until you've achieved that, you know, 20 unit success or whatever you want to call it the proof of concept, although, from what I'm hearing from friends of mine in California, you can't get into the place into a roll-up to Quito shop often. What are the peak periods? I mean, what are your typical hours, I know it'll vary but
Chris 13:12
Typical hours were 11 to 11 in our locations, and it will vary. I mean, there are two locations that are probably more of a lunch crowd and to they're more of a dinner crowd so it just really depends on kind of where you're at and the demographics and you know, the area around it, but you know, it's pretty, I would say if there's a percentage, it's probably 60 to 40 You know, dinner to lunch.
Lance 13:35
And what's the square footage typically, you mentioned the original location was a Starbucks so that was there was an older Starbucks it was probably you know, 1400 square feet didn't have a drive-thru what do you guys run into as far as average square footage and all that good stuff
Chris 13:50
And we started out you know, really looking only for either in capper drive-thru that was kind of our focus, we've approved a couple straight in line, but they were they're the right type of locations for the brand in those areas. But you know, our sweet spot was around 1800 to 1900 square feet a little bit. You know, we were hand rolling about 2002 Ketos a day in each location, more equipment, bigger hood, more employees. We are now co-packing that product sites we've been able to shrink that square footage down, we can actually get down to just about 1400 square feet. Right now. We're working on a prototype that we're going to roll out in Arizona, we've kind of saved the Phoenix DMA most of the Phoenix DMA is a corporate kind of build-out area and we're rolling out a drive-thru only concept. We have some very partners that have some experience with Dutch Bros coffee and we're really looking at that as maybe a prototype across the country as we move forward. And then it's you know, 1100 square feet drive-thru only with a walk-up window.
Lance 14:48
I remember when I helped as a Krispy Kreme franchisee I helped with the opening of the Issaquah Washington location for Krispy Kreme and of course with the drive a big 5000s foot building we did over $400,000 opening week $400,000 that those drive-throughs, though, gives you amazing throughput. So I'm happy to help you with the drive-thru.
Chris 15:12
See we're hard to find they're, they're hard to find the thing is one thing we learned during COVID was drive gratitude for working. And so at least in Southern California, we have seen real estate be pretty difficult, you know, good real estate, we're competing with the Starbucks of the world. And, you know, people like that. But as we've ventured out across, you know, you know, Colorado and Nevada and Texas, it seems to get a little bit easier.
Lance 15:36
Yeah. So you were talking about we were talking about franchisees a little while ago, so you don't necessarily need restaurant experience, although it is it's always preferred that you have a little bit of experience in this type of venture. But Are you doing single unit deals, or multi-unit deals, what what's, what's the plan?
Chris 15:54
Yeah, so everything that we've done thus far has been a multi-unit deal. The Minimum has been three, but we would do a single unit deal, we just haven't come across that opportunity with the right, you know, franchisee at this point.
Lance 16:07
That's awesome. Yeah,
Chris 16:09
I really feel you know, again, Ryan and I both agree that you know, two things, one, we were going to find franchisees that fit us and not the other way around. And so we want to make sure there is a good fit for both sides. And we also didn't want to turn away people that we felt could be good franchisees if we truly believe in our systems, our processes, our training, real estate, design, construction, opening, marketing, everything else, then, then I think we should feel good about bringing somebody in that maybe doesn't have that experience, as long as you have a good business experience and, you know, bring in can check off some of those other boxes, and then I'd say let's do it.
Lance 16:47
Yeah, that's awesome. And really, that's the purpose of a franchise is you're going to lend that support and experience. So catch them before they make a bad mistake of any kind, right? Yeah, and,
Chris 16:58
Yeah, and, you know, I felt like, you know, if you just kind of going back to the conversation with multi-unit operators, the reason we've I think, attracted them this early on, as we made a pretty big investment in technology, you know, we onboard and implemented Olo. When we reached out to Olo originally, with one unit, they laughed at us, you know, what do you do on your unit have 50 100 units before you really, you know, can make this work. And we said, well, we're gonna get to 50 to 100 Really quickly, and we don't want to implement it then. And so, you know, as these new franchisees are coming on board right now, although is implemented, and it's life, we have a mobile app that will be completed here, a customized mobile app with a punch that will be completed here in about two weeks, we've onboarded restaurant 365, for inventory management, scheduling, and accounting. So we've put that we really put that infrastructure together first, before we started building the brand and offering the franchise we didn't want to kind of look back and create those down the road.
Lance 17:54
Yeah, I love it. And you know, people ask me all the time, you know, is the franchise worth it? Or is this franchise worth it or whatever? And, you know, that investment in technology from Olo, which is an online ordering platform to punch to restaurant 365 is stuff that independents just really can't do on their own. Yeah, and not as effectively, cost-effectively, and as efficiently. So I really applaud what you guys are doing this far. It's pretty incredible. And that's exactly why you're getting multi-unit operators this early. I love it.
Chris 18:28
Yeah, that's that added value. I think that you know, there are a lot of franchise concepts out there. There are a lot of food concepts out there. So, you know, for us to really separate ourselves. We really felt like we had to put that stuff in motion.
Lance 18:40
Yeah. So I mean franchise in the world of franchising, restaurants, food and beverage is still the most popular no matter what, it's still the most popular personal care brands like you know, waxing and hair salons and things like that are probably the next largest group. But so yeah, you guys are going to be absolutely a hot commodity for sure. So tell me more. So let's talk about marketing. So how do you get a store open successfully? Obviously in California now you're building up a name. But as you start to hit states, you mentioned Vegas? Of course, everybody understands what it's Keto is least I think most people do. And because as far as I know, there are no other two keto concepts. It's gotta get people pretty excited.
Chris 19:24
Yeah, don't tell everybody that doesn’t want to see under the here that everybody listening.
Lance 19:27
Is anybody any of this?
Chris 19:34
This is Secret, Top Secret you we are like to say we are still the only multi-unit to keto focused concept in the world that I know of, which is a great place to be it's another reason I think multi unit operators are interested in this. It's a nice way to diversify. You know, but, you know, from a marketing perspective, you know, 90% of what we've done so far is really social media, Instagram, tick tock, tick tock videos with over a million views. We do a great job with influence served on a local base. And from a franchising perspective, you know, it was really important for us to work from our home base out. So we didn't want to have our first franchise be in Atlanta or New York or Florida, you know, supply chain marketing, just all of what we just kind of discussed, it's very difficult to make them successful. So, you know, we worked out, you know, really from our home base out. So, you know, initially, we sold San Bernardino County, Riverside County, Orange County, parts of LA county of Ventura County, and then we kind of moved into Nevada. And then we moved a little bit further, you know, into, you know, Colorado, Texas. And that's really about as far as we went, you know, the idea now is to kind of close the loop in between here and there. And, you know, what that's going to allow us to do is use those marketing dollars. You know, in a smart way, I really believe in the digital marketing side of this, I think a lot of, you know, it's just long term Restaurant Brands are not great at digital marketing, they are typically outsourcing that too, you know, the agencies that are working 10 hours a week on their brands. And so we brought that all in the house will can kind of control that. So the retargeting, whether it's Facebook, you know, Google AdWords, I mean, there's a lot of digitals that we can do to kind of build the brand. Now, luckily, in California, we haven't really had to market we just open that Colton location, the franchise location soft opening. And you know, I can't tell you the numbers, but it was it's been absolutely ridiculous. The amount of people, and it's a great location, it's a testament to the real estate, it's just off the 10 freeway, there's great visibility is a great hospital that's close by, you know, just people through word of mouth. And a few couple Instagram posts have really pushed that location to a point where I'm afraid to do a grand opening and might put a little bit too much pressure on the kitchen.
Lance 21:45
Well, if you don't need it, you don't need it. That you know, I've had plenty of people ask me over the years, but how do you know how well it's gonna do? And I said, Well, you never really know because you're now running it like if you're the franchisee you might be different than a different another franchisee obviously, everybody's a little different. And, but when you walk into a business, like the Colton location, and you see the lines, you figure out really quickly. What's the average check? How many people have I just seen go through this building in the last 45 minutes? Yeah, you start to figure out, holy cow, this is a really good business.
Chris 22:23
Yeah. And I think you, you know, being able to kind of take a peek into the back of that house and just see that, you know, just how easy the operations how easy we've made the operations, you know, for the franchisee is really important as well, I mean, we're co-packing our sauces, we're co-packing art to Quito. So it's, you know, it's a very streamlined, easy process. And if we feel comfortable, as I mentioned before, being able to teach anybody how to do it.
Lance 22:46
Yeah. So let's, let's talk about the secret to success. In general, though, when you get somebody talking about the training, let's talk about this now. So when you get somebody as a new franchisee? What is the training that's required for them? Are they going to California for a period of time, there's obviously on-site assistance to open a store?
Chris 23:07
Yep, yeah, both. So they're going to come here for at least three weeks minimum, each group is probably going to be a little bit different. So there'll be in Southern California training for three weeks. And then as they get closer to the grand opening, we'll send our training teams out, you know, for a week to 10 days, you know, before and after, to assess them, we've already started putting Franchise Business Coaches together to work regionally with a certain amount of franchisees as well, you know, training again, I feel like it's depending on whether they're a multi-unit, whether they're, you know, they have a ton of experience in the restaurant industry, or, you know, brand new each one, you have to train a little bit differently. So, a lot of our focus has been, you know, building out those training teams, you know, putting that infrastructure together, knowing that we're going to have, you know, 20 plus locations opened this year, moving in next year, that's 50 and add only compounds over time based on what our development already is. So we have to be out in front of it.
Lance 24:04
That's awesome. So average investment. So far, I know, California is an expensive place to do business. But you know, on average, what is it been to open a location?
Chris 24:16
Yeah, so obviously, we have the experience of our existing locations and everything that's being currently built. You know, I would say just as an average 400 to 450,000. All in, you know, before TI is kind of the number we've said well, that it can be a little bit more expensive, obviously, if it's a standalone drive-thru or something like that, but just so standard kind of build-out prototype from, let's say, a gray shell, you know, 400 to 450,000 is what we're looking at now for us, you know, we're actively looking for conversion, second-generation opportunities. That Victorville location, that location I think all in it was a Cafe Rio that closed down. It's right off the freeway on the way to Vegas. We went and flipped I think there's been 125 1000 all in,
Lance 25:01
I think I think I know that location, actually.
Chris 25:05
Yeah, yeah. So that one was a conversion. And, you know, depends on what the conversion looks like. But you know, if it has that infrastructure and you know, the walk in the hood, you know, the plumbing already set, and we can get in and get those open at a much lower cost.
Lance 25:17
Yeah, I want everybody listening to understand and some people listening certainly do understand, if you've looked at Restaurant Opportunities before, there's going to be a pretty sizable range. And let's call it the low end to the high end, in the Franchise Disclosure Document when it comes to the investment because it does depend on the TI dollars, as you mentioned, Chris, which is the tenant improvement money, gray shell vanilla shell, depending on the condition of the space. And if you get lucky enough to get a second-generation space, where it's already been a restaurant, like you mentioned, Cafe Rio, save a lot of money, potentially a lot of money if the layout is fairly similar for sure. So that's, that's great stuff. So that's a reasonable deal. I mean, look, you know, I don't want to talk sales at this point, because it's not officially disclosed. But you know, the magic numbers in the world of restaurant franchises like Panera Bread, in the old days, could be built in the old days could have been built for 450 or so before they changed the size and the design. And they could do 1,000,003 or a million, 3 million foreign sales in the old days. So you had this three to one sale were Yes, sales to investment ratio, which is pretty powerful. In the restaurant business. Remember, in the old days, McDonald's, there was kind of a one to 1 million open, you do a million in sales. So I think people listening can figure out pretty quickly when they visit your locations that you guys are doing really, really well. So I'm excited. I'm excited to see your amazing growth trajectory in the very near future.
Chris 27:01
Yeah, you know, we're big proponents of ROI. So I feel like again, that's, that's a something that franchisors lose sight of sometimes, you know, they want to build this Taj Mahal, you know, location. So you take a $450,000 build out and you make it $100,000. You know, we, our locations, if you walk in, you'll see there's, they're super clean, they're super modern, but you know, we're not using the most expensive subway tile, we're using vinyl graphics on the walls, we're doing things to keep the costs under control because we know in the end, it's going to make the franchisee more successful and make us more successful.
Lance 27:34
Yeah, I love it. So let's walk people through the process. So if I send somebody to you, and make an introduction, and they, you're the first phone call, and in most cases are all cases,
Chris 27:48
yeah, you know, it's a couple of people that work in the office. But for the most part in the first, you know, week, I'm going to have a one-on-one conversation. And that kind of goes back to what we were talking about before you want to make sure there's a good fit, you know, for both sides. And, and we have, we have formal discovery days, but we are a very informal company, if you catch me in pants during the week, that's pretty aggressive,
Lance 28:09
Typically wearing pants.
Chris 28:13
So, you know, shorts and flip flops, you know, we're, you know, we're a pretty informal brand, but it's really just, you know, for us, it's conversational, you know, we want to get to know the franchise, the potential franchisee, or vice versa, you know, I don't care if I have to have 20 conversations or 10 meetings, you know, we want it to be a process where in the end, you know, all their questions are answered, they've vetted us out, we've vetted them out, and we feel like there's going to be a good fit and your quote, unquote, getting into bed with somebody for you know, for a couple of decades minimum, hopefully. And, you know, I think you need to have the right partner in order to do so.
Lance 28:49
Yeah, that's the number one thing that I tell people on a regular basis, you know, you have to have the right franchisor the right partner, just like a marriage, and oftentimes people get excited about something that isn't necessarily a fit for them. In the restaurant business, you got to be willing to work, right.
Chris 29:07
You have to be willing to turn people away. You know, and I think that you know, we've done that, and it's never a fun conversation. But, you know, I think that you're doing them a disservice. I think in the end if you just really feel like there isn't going to be a fit there. Yeah.
Lance 29:21
So how are people financing these are they you know, some people paying cash and other people are saying, hey, I need some financing help. Are you on the SBA registry at this point?
Chris 29:31
We are so SBA registry, we've had a couple of franchisees that went through that process. That's been I guess, as far as a funding opportunity. That's number one. You know, most of our franchisees don't have self-funded, you know, the brand so far, but I'm sure we'll look to debt financing and things like that as a scale, but SBA has been a good resource for us for sure.
Lance 29:53
Yeah. So what are the hot territories you mentioned earlier, but what are you know, what are the top three? As of this recording today that you're most interested in getting to, I mean, obviously, you're working from the West Coast, and eventually, you'll be heading to the East Coast.
Chris 30:09
Yeah, no, I would love I'm born and raised in Oregon. So I would love to have an Oregon franchisee I'd love to have a Washington group, Idaho. So it's really I think that the pacific northwest area is an area that I definitely want to look at. You know, we have Nevada, we have Colorado, we have Texas and New Mexico. And we've kind of filled a lot of that space in between, there's still a lot of room in California, by the way. I mean, we've we haven't even touched the surface of another Northern California at this point. I mean, there are a couple of small deals that have been sold up there. But we came up with Excel just in California and be pretty comfortable. We, you know, I would say I never want to say that we put a halt to the franchising side, but we definitely slowed down on purpose, just to make sure. You know, we got to 480 units sold in a year of franchising, which is.
Lance 31:00
To say that again, Chris, how many sold so far
Chris 31:04
480 units under development in the first year? And how many? Yeah, so that makeup is about 32 franchisees, we had a group that came in from Texas, some great experienced operators that are more of a master development deal that we did for Texas, that was a 300 unit commitment. And then everything else has been kind of in-between here and there.
Lance 31:29
That's absolutely amazing. And astounding. So congratulations, that is phenomenal.
Chris 31:35
Well, we focus on just opening, right, we need to get locations open and continue to open them. And so that's really what we've kind of turned our attention to. So we run into a great group and some of these other territories. Fantastic. We'll talk to them, we haven't really had to like proactively go on the search form.
Lance 31:51
I love it. That's absolutely fantastic. So back to what we were talking about with the process. So as people progress, you don't necessarily have a formal discovery day. But at some point, we mentioned validation a little bit earlier. At some point, as you continue to add franchisees, how would validation go for those people I mean, obviously, anybody can walk in a store, they can talk to you, they can talk to Ryan, eventually when they're in the process. So they can see it's a hot brand. And there's demand, people are loving the product, and they can read reviews online. But do they have an opportunity to talk to existing franchisees at some point?
Chris 32:30
Yeah, I think it's the most important part of the process. To be honest with you. I mean, we can talk all day long, but until you've actually talked to somebody that's been through it, that can talk about real estate and design and construction and marketing and grand opening. And you know, that that support process. You know, I think that you know, for us, our goal from day one was to be able to, to hand someone a list and say, you know, call any franchisee that you want, you know, they're gonna say great things about the brand. And you know, they're going to be a great advocate for the brand. So, you know, I think, again, it's the most important part of the process, I'm happy to do it at any point, whether they're open or not, you know, obviously, they're all through, they're all in different stages of that as they go through it.
Lance 33:10
Well, Chris, this has been amazing. Any final words of wisdom or any thoughts or things we did not cover? Do you want to talk about cookies, you want to mention? An F AF the parent company and cookies and other things you got on the horizon. So Ryan and
Chris 33:24
I, we formed bomb AF brands, really as a franchise development group, you know, taking kind of my experience and his branding and really getting together with some of these smaller brands that may want to franchise their concepts as well. And the first one that came forward with it was a cookie concept called the cookie plug. So we franchise that officially a little over a month ago, we could probably do a whole other segment just on that brand is absolute. But you know, it's you know, small footprint, easy operations, kolpak product, one to two employees per shift. You know, great, great numbers. Of course, there are 24 locations to open right now for that brand and about 65 units that have been sold on the franchising side. So we're really excited about that. We'll continue to talk to other kinds of brands again, we want it to fit the vibe that one, in particular, is it's very la street art graffiti, they play hip hop and the locations were Mexican brand that plays reggae. So, you know, we want it to fit you know, I think you know that that same type of a vibe as we move forward. But we're excited about
Lance 34:30
it. It sounds like it's gotta be fun customers. It's about the customer experience for sure.
Chris 34:37
Yeah, if you watch the Super Bowl halftime show this year with the 90s Hip Hop. You know, all those guys knew but that's the vibe of the cookie plug.
Lance 34:46
You have a snoop cookie, don't you?
Chris 34:48
We do the stupid doodle. It's not named after him though,
Lance 34:53
I know. That will be a trademark infringement.
Chris 34:58
Named after our dog
Lance 35:00
Yep though, Chris, this has been absolutely fantastic. I appreciate you spending some time with me and I look forward to assisting you with your amazing success in getting you some more franchisees. Yeah, appreciate the time, Lance got to talk to you soon.
Chris 35:15
Take care. Sounds good.
Lance 35:17
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 at eyeonfranchising.com e y e o n franchising.com and complete our free assessments so we can assist you in finding your perfect franchise. This is Lance Graulich. Until next time