Only a select few truly understand this: Riches are in the Niches! It’s one of the most prevalent cliches in the franchising industry, and yet the vast majority of entrepreneurs can’t grasp that this concept isn’t about one business providing 100 different services. The mistake often occurs when one tries to provide different service[S] to cater to “everyone”. What Leo Goldberger wants to share with us is that this concept is about: focusing on and providing [A] Service that EVERYONE needs. It’s about providing that $90 patch job that people truly need instead of the $900 overkill “All-In” package that every other business is offering. Leo has decades of experience in franchising, and is well known for starting Inspection Boys and The Patch Boys prior to starting Home Based Franchise Group. He has helped hundreds of franchise owners prosper and grow entry-level businesses into successful enterprises. Leo believes it’s far easier to master a simple business, and the consumer has far more trust in a business that specializes in one thing. “With Home Based Franchise Group, these are businesses that don’t cost very much to get started, and it doesn’t cost much to continue to operate and grow. There’s very little overhead, which is the most common reason why people go out of business. With our franchises, you can own a simple business and scale it up to be incredibly successful”, says Leo. Dryer vents are the leading cause of home fires. Keeping dryer vents clean is critically important! Understanding this, Leo mobilized the Dryer Vent Squad. Counting the windows in every building you see (and don’t see) is like counting revenue when you have a business like Frost Shades providing specialty window tinting. Renovating a room is overkill when cleaning up the closet will do. Leo saw an opportunity in creating custom closets that don’t break banks unlike full-on renovations. Not everyone with love for grass has the time to maintain them. Setting up The Turf Boys to provide artificial turf for these homeowners is one of Leo’s greatest ideas. Have a better grasp of the concept now? It's in mastering the simple things (that everyone needs) that you can start to grow successful and potentially timeless businesses. 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/
Only a select few truly understand this: Riches are in the Niches!
It’s one of the most prevalent cliches in the franchising industry, and yet the vast majority of entrepreneurs can’t grasp that this concept isn’t about one business providing 100 different services.
The mistake often occurs when one tries to provide different service[S] to cater to “everyone”.
What Leo Goldberger wants to share with us is that this concept is about: focusing on and providing [A] Service that EVERYONE needs.
It’s about providing that $90 patch job that people truly need instead of the $900 overkill “All-In” package that every other business is offering.
Leo has decades of experience in franchising, and is well known for starting Inspection Boys and The Patch Boys prior to starting Home Based Franchise Group. He has helped hundreds of franchise owners prosper and grow entry-level businesses into successful enterprises.
Leo believes it’s far easier to master a simple business, and the consumer has far more trust in a business that specializes in one thing.
“With Home Based Franchise Group, these are businesses that don’t cost very much to get started, and it doesn’t cost much to continue to operate and grow. There’s very little overhead, which is the most common reason why people go out of business. With our franchises, you can own a simple business and scale it up to be incredibly successful”, says Leo.
Dryer vents are the leading cause of home fires. Keeping dryer vents clean is critically important! Understanding this, Leo mobilized the Dryer Vent Squad.
Counting the windows in every building you see (and don’t see) is like counting revenue when you have a business like Frost Shades providing specialty window tinting.
Renovating a room is overkill when cleaning up the closet will do. Leo saw an opportunity in creating custom closets that don’t break banks unlike full-on renovations.
Not everyone with love for grass has the time to maintain them. Setting up The Turf Boys to provide artificial turf for these homeowners is one of Leo’s greatest ideas.
Have a better grasp of the concept now?
It's in mastering the simple things (that everyone needs) that you can start to grow successful and potentially timeless businesses.
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 back everyone to another fabulous episode of ion franchising. Lance Graulich today. We have another amazing special guests. Well, I don't know. I think he could be the most special, but don't tell anybody else. So, uh, let's see how I, I give him some. Credibility. I don't even know how many brands he owns today. We're going to let him tell you that. So let me give you the highlights. Most of you have heard the expression. The riches are in the niches. Well, this gentleman has loves niche. Businesses loves niche businesses, as some of my other friends say that focused on providing a service that everyone needs. So his let's see patch boys patch. Boys was his first brand that he grew to over 125 locations throughout the U S and then sold to Belfour franchise group. And then he found that in 2020 dryer vent squad, when I really got to know who this gentleman was, so let me, let me [00:01:00] introduce you to Leo Goldberger. Welcome Leo
[00:01:03] LEO: thank you so much for having me. I've listened to a lot of your interviews that you're doing and I'm thrilled to be here I really am
[00:01:10] LANCE: Well, that's awesome. Leo, thank you so much. We have a lot to discuss, so let's start our start off with, how did Leo become Leo? Like how did you end up amassing this empire of yours? You're the president and CEO of home-based franchise group. So let's talk about all that.
[00:01:28] LEO: Uh, first of all, I don't know if I want to give out the secret because I don't think the world can handle it but, uh, I'll give you a little bit of a background about me, how I got through the franchising world. Uh, I'm a little boy born, born and bred in Brooklyn, New York. I,
[00:01:42] LANCE: Like me, I love it.
[00:01:44] LEO: Yeah, we have that special bond. Uh, I was in the construction arena for all my life. As you could imagine, you know, in the early 2006, 2007, I had close to 600 employees and we doing great and we bought, we [00:02:00] bought more real estate and put up more buildings. And of course, I remember everybody remembers 2008. Uh, when it all collapsed, that's where my business collapsed as well. And I lost everything. I went down from 600 employees to one in about a week. I was in the closure. I was in whatever you could imagine, went wrong. Obviously the bank stopped giving the structure loans and mortgages and everything else took me a couple of years. I had a couple of difficult years from 2008 to 2010, but I tried different things, but I always wanted to be in the home service business and the construction of arena. And I figured to myself, where do I get a business? I had some like, agendas, like I don't want to do $20 million constructions where you make, even when, if you make 10%, it's $2 million, but it takes three years and it's so many things can go wrong. And little by little, I came up with a patchwork kind of stuff. I'll never forget for those who don't know, I don't own pets with anymore. Like you said, owned it but with basically a dry wall repair quick, dry wall repair franchise company. So the electrician comes to you and [00:03:00] they make a whole, they walk away. The plumber comes to make a hole. Nobody wants to come down for a little deal. I came up with a concept, how we make it quick and we make it a couple of dollars. I went to about four or five different business professionals and they all told me, basically they all gave me between three and six months to go out of business because it's not going to stay well. And, uh, 2015, I met it by then Chris Connor. I'm sure you know him. at a showAnd he said, he thought it was a good idea. Good friend of mine. Yeah. He's everybody's good friend. He's a great, awesome. And he thought it was a good idea to franchise. And I said, let me check in the dictionary. What franchise means before, you know it, we franchised it. And five years later we had a tremendous amount access and Belfort bought it out. And that last year and a half, I believe they sold another a hundred locations so they have well over 200 locations and they don't really go out and develop a real good friendship with them. But my head was stuck franchising and I kept going and came up with a lot of different brands. Yeah,
[00:03:55] LANCE: you got it. You got so much good stuff and all that. So let's start with this. So when Chris [00:04:00] Connor and you had this conversation about patch, boy's a very niche business, right? You're doing drywall repairs, sort of a business that would have been an afterthought. You know, a contractor it's too small, they charge you too much. They, so what got you excited? What, what did Chris say? And more importantly, as you got going, that feeling of selling your first, you know, getting your first couple of franchisees on your team so to speak
[00:04:26] LEO: well by then, that was in 2014 when I met him. But then I already, I proved already most people wrong because I already made good money in Brooklyn, locally where I had the Patch boys so I knew This is a good concept. Now my idea was always with a niche business. I keep telling franchisees today, you know, if you have a toothe ache the best doctor you'll find in the emergency room, but you don't goto the emergency room and you go to the dentist because he concentrates in there and I like to concentrate on niche, businesses, even something that's people would tell me, Hey, I have somebody who does air conditioning vents, and they also do drywall cleaning. I said, [00:05:00] exactly. And then if they have a $900 job in air conditioning and you want the $99 and drive and guess where they're gone. So I believe in this very very much and, uh, when Chris mentioned that to me, I said to myself, like immediately a light bulb went off and I said, if I could do to make him money, the million other people could do it. It took me a while to where, you know, it didn't go from one day to the next, started doing a little bit vicious, how the franchise world is, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly and the great. And, uh, and I said, let me jump into it. I don't have to tell you how the first five went because it's not always fun. The first five friends, when you don't know what a whole lot about friends I've used andFDD and marketing and everything else right, but I've learned little by little. I learned I was open to learning and I surrounded myself with good people. And you know, I remember in 2019, people still told me, Hey, I see you on LinkedIn. I see you on Facebook. Are you full of crap? You don't really have a business. Right? Nobody could do that. Then when they read that the Belford dished out a couple of dollars for this business, they all believe that that's where my franchising career began
[00:05:59] LANCE: So [00:06:00] Belko bought you out and then what'd you do at that point, besides take a little vacation.
[00:06:04] LEO: I pinched myself a couple of times to make sure that I actually got what I got. I became very good friends with the people in Belko with Sheldon Yellin and Dan Teran den and all the people who were in there. And we still talk to this day, once a week, once every two weeks. But I had two choice, a stay at home. My wife gave me three days to get out and go do something else. You know, it wouldn't have been pretty. So I was already, I had already started the drive in practice then. Drive in You know what people don't realize when they see a brand, people tell me right now you have six brands out there. I probably have about 25 other brands out there. They're in piloting program drive and squat. Every concept that I give out, there's plenty of them that didn't work out, that nobody knows about. I piloted and I realize it's not a good idea. And I take it off the shelf. So I know people think I'm perfect, but I'm not.
[00:06:50] LANCE: But you know, again, that's why. Franchising can be very successful when you pick the right brand. It's all about the leadership of the brand. Is it [00:07:00] a tested model? Is it a proven system?
[00:07:04] LEO: You gotta be honest with yourself. You don't just come up with an idea and throw it out there. And you're going to learn that. Dry event squad. When I gave up with it, we had two locations in different parts of the United States in Virginia and the Cedar rapids Iowa would have had two friends run it for about a year. And I said, let's see how this goes. And what it allows me is to figure out. The problems there is over there, all the different options that I have the pricing, because what works in Vegas, doesn't work in Lansing, Michigan. So you gotta adjust. You gotta find sort of a way that'll work for everybody else. But then I just continued with drive in Spartan and I was open with Belfort that I'm continuing to do it. And one thing led to another and I just kept trying different ideas. My partner from the old business was good to answer in a real way business. And we developed a group called home-based franchise group because all my concepts have one thing in common. You don't need a brick and mortar it's in and [00:08:00] out. You know, you order something, install it, you do it. And you know, it's a home service.
[00:08:04] LANCE: People are loving home-based businesses.
[00:08:07] LEO: People love home-based business. And for good reasons, you know, the overhead, you know, cost of goods and overhead is the number one reason where my father, my father used to own your lowered, your New York and my fatherowned a clothing store in portrait street. on the east side In the seventies and the sixties, and he taught me one thing, you don't make money when you sell the t-shirt you make money when you buy the t-shirt. So, you know, if you buy $20 and tell us what, then the season could be over, you drop it to $4 and you still make money. That's the same thing do over here. You look for drive in squad. It's simply a V I mean, obviously a little bit more complicated than them, but our cost of goods is zero. You don't have to buy new paint every time you don't have to buy new plumbing supplies. You take your vacuum, you take out the lens and you go to the next one. And our average lap is less than an hour. We're going with that system in all our brands. So, so,
[00:08:56] LANCE: so let's, let's, uh, sorta unpack the name [00:09:00] dryer vent squad. When I initially told my wife, she said, there's a company that actually comes in. I said, do you know, there's a lot of fires? Eh, because the dryers there's a lot of heat generated and she looked at me like I was nuts. So I said, there's that? There's a, there's a niche for that.
[00:09:17] LEO: So, uh, it's much more than that. The number one cause of residential fires, it's from a vent that's not clean. Yes. And one of the top 10 causes of a carbon monoxide leaks, you know what comes out with the gas? A leak of carbon monoxide mall. How does mold happen? People always ask you when you go into your car and it's foggy, what do you do? What are you doing on the call to the house? And the answer is, it depends. What's on the outside. And the summit. The reason became foggy is because the cold met the warm weather, right. That's how it comes foggy it's the same thing with mold, you know, the, the warm thing goes onto your sheet, right? The warm here and creates mold. You know, there's so many bad things that happen with. And it costs you a little bit [00:10:00] over approximately a hundred dollars to clean it through recession-proof business. You know, there's plenty of people who are going to think twice before they build a new deck for twenty-five thousand dollars or they build a new swimming pool. I don't think there's one parent across the United States who says, oh, the number one cause of fires is, is, does cost about a hundred. I'll take my chances. I don't think there's one of them. It's repeat customers. You know, you can be a plumber and fix somebody's plumbing supply. They won't need you for another 20 years. This is repeat every year they need driving in. And this is just one of the businesses. Obviously, one more thing that all our businesses have in common, whether it's frustrates drive and Clositvity, everything with. Well, one of the very few home service businesses where we don't have to be over four in the morning, nobody's going to call you Friday night at 2:00 AM. Oh my God. You got to come clean. My dryer people will call you. Oh my God, I have a leak in my basement or my air conditioning is not working. Uh, I ha I have a blackout or I need [00:11:00] restoration. So we're one of the very few home service brands. You could have a true. You know, working life kind of balance.
[00:11:07] LANCE: Exactly. So let's yeah. So let's keep going. What brand do we want to talk about frost shades next?
[00:11:12] LEO: Hey, as long as you talk about one of my brands I'll talk about anything.
[00:11:15] LANCE: Yea no you, you go in the order that you, uh, you choose, you have so many brands.
[00:11:19] LEO: Well, driving squad, I told you already fraught shades is a really great brand that we opened again, about a year old. We opened about the same time. We are the first flat window tinting business out there five years ago. There's so much advanced, you know, where the entire industry came from five years ago, you hold up somebody that you want windows, anything on your window, in your home. They ask you a question. Do you want high, medium or low? Right. So they did. Technology came such a long way. You could own one home. And then in one room you have a problem. If you have a glare, you can watch your TV, but enjoy the heat that comes in. We'll give you a film, with a [00:12:00] special dual reflective coating on it, which in a fret reflect the way the sun, but it's gonna allow the heat right next room. You're over a garage and you can cool off the room with air conditioning. The heat is so strong, but you enjoy that. The sun will give you a film that absorbed the heat, but it lets the sun comes through the light. People want privacy, people want UV protection. People want decorative. People want security gone. It's a whole new world out there.
[00:12:25] LANCE: I didn't know. There was that many options, customized experience. I love
[00:12:29] LEO: it. It's probably over 7,000 skews of different kinds of film we could put in your home.
[00:12:33] LANCE: So how long have you been selling franchise for Frost shades now?
[00:12:36] LEO: Uh, about a year, but a little bit shorter than driving. It's about a year and a half and Frost shades that's the second one of ours. And then we have two more, very popular. Positivities, but we will obviously start with solutions. We build closet. We only opened that two and a half months ago. It was in the pilot program. And the first two months we sold 23 units. We are will change changing the landscape of [00:13:00]
[00:13:00] LANCE: you're a legend and, uh, you know, people want to work with as an investor when you invest your money in a franchise, you want to make sure the leadership is solid and you have an amazing track record.
[00:13:10] LEO: I would love to take credit for that, but really I'm surrounded by an awesome team I mean my two partners, Kurt and Thomas Thomas, anybody who in franchising does not know time to Scott probably is not very good at franchising is probably single handled and responsible for 15,000 franchisees out there that were sold across the USA with his history of franchising. And Curtis then would be an independent voice, you know, but yeah, it's, it's, we love what we're doing. We really love what we doing. One of the funny stories that I have when we sold Patch Boys I spoke to Sheldon. Everybody knows Sheldon Yellin he's a movie star, he's a TV star and he's a truly, truly American legend he's a great, great, awesome guy. And I've developed a real good friendship with him. As we sold them, they said, oh, you know what, everything you've told us is true. We love how you do this. We love how you do this. And one thing we don't know how you're doing. How do you pick franchise? How do you know, how did you pick some [00:14:00] great franchisees? Do you use a credit score system? Do you. I said, I have a real secret way. I dunno if I want to share with you just come on and you got to share it. Okay. Here's my secret. I talked to them for two minutes and I decided if I liked them, not people are hung up. I don't care if you were arrested eight years ago, because you had an unsurpassed had on you, or if you miss four mortgage payments because you had a bad time. Like I had in 2008, no, I'm looking for hungry people if you're hungry and you want to do business, we will find a business to protect somebody. But in Patch Boys we had a guy came to us to buy a Patch boy buisness okay. And did a little research on this guy just by talking to him. And I find out that he's been trying to buy five or six different franchises and the minute they check his credit, he's out. What happened was, was a 17 year old kid. They found a check on the floor him. And his friend went over to the bank and they tried to cash a $500 check, you know, 17 year old kids make mistakes. He was waiting in the car and as they cashed the check, the guy took out a knife and said, give me all the money. [00:15:00] And you know, because he was in the car he's part responsible. Did 18 years in prison came out. Really good guy. Solid guy turned this world around got married has two kids, could not find a job, could not find he worked like three or four jobs to make this life. I sold them a patch boys which right there and then we gave him an FDD. 15 days later, he signed it. I think he's in the top 10% awesome guy. So I go a little bit against the grain when it comes to that. I, I, I couldn't care less. If you have a six 20 credit score of a seven 20, I want to see your work ethic. I want to see you want it. I want to see that you want to make it, and if you do want to make. It's not one thing that's going to hold you back from buying a plan.
[00:15:41] LANCE: So Leo, if you're going to think about, let's say the top 10 franchisees you ever had with, with, with patch boys or anyone for that matter, uh, dryer vent squad, what do they all have in common?
[00:15:52] LEO: What I just said They all want to make it happen. They all have that drive. I will honestly tell you if you look at right now, [00:16:00] In-class activity. For example, we just, we just came up a training. I came back from Nashville yesterday, where we had nine new owners, which we sold last month. So various different backgrounds. Two of them were in the corporate corporate world. One lady was a mortgage broker. Another one was just working in an office and she couldn't take it anymore. giving her Tears and sweat to someone else they all have in common that they want to make it. We have people 23 years old and people 60 years old.
[00:16:26] LANCE: And that's what I wanted to uncover. I suspected all different walks of life,
[00:16:31] LEO: right? Because people have that thing. You've got to fit a certain kind of mold to get it in there. If you want to make. We will find a way to get you, you know, we have plenty of brands to see which one calls your name. Well, some sometimes give you a recommendation. What I think will work better for your area or for your type or for your background. But they all have in common. We were there for three days in Nashville. We had fun. You know, we were interacting with one another.
[00:16:57] LANCE: Is that your annual convention?
[00:16:58] LEO: No, that was just [00:17:00] training. We do training training with all the different brands that we have, you know, we'll do training every two or three weeks because we have so many different. Well, we are literally doing natural on there. Like once or twice a month. I don't go to every training, but I go to most of them and we do three three-day training, but our training is also different than most of the trends that you see. We actually go out to jobs. We will get their marketing running, and Tom is a genius in marketing. We had a lady yesterday from Arizona. She has productivity or Scottsdale that eight leads as she was still talking. And I think she knocked down today, three or four of them. I love the business. And in clositivity is a perfect example. We just changed the whole landscaping of closet. We have our own special software, which allows you to do the closet design instantly within less than 30 seconds. And you can play around with it. So that's what we're doing. And let's, before I forget another one that we have is called the third voice which is the future of grass and many states have any, you can water your dress properly. And if you have too big of a [00:18:00] area, you can use real grass just to protect the environment, protect the green surface, the future of grass. And we just got into it recently.
[00:18:07] LANCE: I didn't even know about that one yet. Yeah so what's it called again?
[00:18:10] LEO: The turf boys
[00:18:12] LANCE: turf boys got it yeah turf boys is perfect. I love it.
[00:18:17] LEO: So we have our own unique way. Exactly. Similar to the other ones. We're going to work your, your backyard, your front yard, make nice designs and install the turf and do it. And the same, home-based kind of concept that we're used to it where you don't need a storefront and you order as you need it, just like with a window foams and with a closet and everything else. So we are real excited
[00:18:41] LANCE: Leo that that's, that's awesome. Let's talk about the investment, the typical investment. I know they're, they're a little, little different, but the average investment with your brands being home-based is how much all in
[00:18:52] LEO: anywhere between 50 and 75, depending which one of your brands is really, really, really inexpensive. And we [00:19:00] make sure that you have the proper funds. Obviously, because of our growth, we have a lot of different options for you. Funding options we have a lot of different companies that will work with, you know, to help you out in different ways, but 15 to 75. This number that most people could, could come up with 50 to 75. We'll get you from the day you called us till you make your first sale.
[00:19:22] LANCE: I, I tell people all the time, I said, look, there's so many misconceptions. People think you have to be a millionaire. They think of McDonald's. 50 to 75,000 and you'll get some finance. I mean, tell me, tell me the average deal. When somebody comes to you and let's say it's 75,000, do most people have all the cash or are most people getting some sort of financing?
[00:19:46] LEO: Well, 80% of the people have the cats because it's pretty easy to come up with that kind of money. If you have a little bit of a history, you work, we put away some kind of. So 80% of the people have, we'll do some financing for a certain amount, [00:20:00] for a little amount of it, and we'll help you out. And like I said before, if you're the right candidate, we'll find a way to get you in there. But if you haven't, for example, my frost shades people of Nashville, Tennessee, these were two people that were handyman businesses. The husband was a handyman. The, the wife, she did eyebrows, you know, twice a week, family with kids that did a little bit too, over 200,000 in sales last year, and they made 92,000 profit. It's going to be now in item 19. So I could, I could discuss it in 2022 item 19. We have similar stories today. There's very few businesses out there where you come back at the end of the year. Number one you say I made up. These guys back then money and made a profit, you know, there's business. We can tell you how much money you've done to make or what you could make 12 complicated kind of business. But we have business like this. We have a clositivity here in New Jersey, 48,000, the first month in
[00:20:56] LANCE: business. Wow. Because of Thomas' genius [00:21:00] smart.
[00:21:00] LEO: I'd like to think it's because of my good looks, but I guess it has to. Yeah. I mean, that's the main reason, but Thomas' marketing doesn't help me Bailey does tom is really a genius. He pivots in marketing. Everybody knows, you know, with algorithm and strategic ways, how these online advertising worlds, if you have to pivot a daily basis, I like to think he doesn't use a pillow when he sleeps, he uses use the Google dashboard, you know, he eats sleeps and breathes marketing
[00:21:27] LANCE: you know, you know, Leo, uh, there was a gentleman the other day through my business texts program, my assistant set out, uh, a text to candidates, just follow up stuff. And one gentleman responded, oh, I'm not interested in, in, in a franchise. I want an independent business. I'm looking for a resale. Right. And I said, why any. Well, franchises are expensive. I don't need a, I don't need any help with anything. And I said, purchasing marketing, you know, we got on the phone and he was nice guy. But he was just, he just [00:22:00] wasn't informed and it's like, you're not going to have time to workout all of this.
[00:22:04] LEO: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, we had actually a funny story. You mentioned that literally a week ago, somebody was going to buy a drive in squad and the last day calls up. he's not buying it. I said, what happened? You were so excited. My uncle owned three subway franchises. And he said, stay away from franchising. I said, nothing against subway. I like everybody, but we're not subway. We're not, we're not a brick and mortar selling $5, you know, sandwiches. But yes, it all comes down to the attitude and the willingness to work. You know, if you want to work and you want to make a living, please. I was telling you before about clositivity in New Jersey the second month, they both $78,000 business. They didn't actually do 78 because they're still installing it. And we have the same thing. clositivity in Nashville. We have Angie she'sdealing at$30,000. So if there a guarantee, somebody is going to do 20,000, the first month of 50, I'm not worried about the first month the [00:23:00] second month, but if you, we have the kind of businesses, you know, that if you put your head to it and you give it everything you got. I don't know how you fail. it's almost impossible.
[00:23:10] Yeah.
[00:23:10] LANCE: And this is the, you know, as a, as a franchise broker consultant myself, I, I tell a lot of people, oftentimes from the first phone call when I speak to people and I hear, I try to figure out, in my words, I, I looked for. What do you want to invest? What can you invest? Are you interested in financing? Whatever. Do you want to do it full time? You interested in semi absentee or passive, and I, and I match them up in most of the time, as you probably know Leo, most of the time they end up investing, you know, essentially buying a franchise. I didn't know anything about, they never even heard of it
[00:23:48] LEO: and you don't have to so that's what you have a team behind. You know, we have our headquarters in Nashville. We have a marketing team, we have a sales team, we have a compliance and we have an operation and training. We have a [00:24:00] whole staff. It's not a question you're going to ask us either one of the rental that we don't have an answer. And every business would come into a new territory. We can pivot and adjust within a week or two, you know, as our intelligence tells us, you know, which keywords, which SEO, what, what works in your area, but we figure it out pretty quickly. We have a system in place and, and it comes down. It sounds a little bit boring. You know, who are your people? What, what makes it happen? What makes it work? You make. I constantly tell them 98% of your success or lack thereof will be on you. But my sense is very, very important. If I don't give you my 2%, then it falls apart. So I take full responsibility for that, but I can't wake you up in the most. I, we had a guy in patch, boys in the early years of patch boys he's no longer with the company came in and said, Hey, when we spoke, you shut, you just potential for this and potential of that. And he woke up everyday at 11:00 PM, 11:00 AM, and he made breakfast and called me, Hey, where's my money. I said, it's there. And you're [00:25:00] just not picking it up. You know, you gotta make a phone call to get it. Yeah. And for people who understand what means, and you know, you sometimes have people who were never in the business ownership. So we have a coaching staff that will teach you how to run business owner. It's not like being an employee. You know, when you get a paycheck of your private, you know, you've got to invest in yourself, but you know, all that, you're, you're a guru in franchising.
[00:25:22] LANCE: It's Amazing. What you said, Leo, I'm still stuck on it. So many franchisors, if you really just ask why. Did you select a franchisee that didn't work out? Or how did that happen? And at the end of the day, it happens because people can tell you a story. You want to believe that they're going to do the work, but at the end of the day, somebody has to get up and do the work
[00:25:46] LEO: got to get up and do it. Yeah. You got to get up and do it. And you can't just add in, or you'd be surprised, you know, very rarely, you know, people who don't make it or not, or in the bottom 10 percent their ads are running the [00:26:00] Google. The home advisers are Facebook and everything else with the SEO. That's it. You're spending money. This is your money. Every time, you know, we we've done some research and we're very much into numbers. You know, numbers don't lie. Re we saw in the last year, people who answer the phone with nightmare. I had a 37% chance of closing their business. They closed 37 after eight minutes and went down 37%, whether they close the job, but they didn't close the job we saw the numbers, the numbers are right there. You know, we saw at frost, all the boards, people want to communicate, you know, this is. You know, if somebody calls you for a drive and planning and you get back to him, there might be two other guys that I'm sorry, I already have someone. Or, you know, they want to deal with people. This is not, nobody goes for driving because you're $99 or you're 1 0 9 or you're 89. This is not a full. That's 50,000 to 60 or 40 that we got to take that into consideration they want somebody, they can trust somebody that has a good name behind them. Somebody take it, led them to their [00:27:00] home. And if you, if you want to work and you want to work with, you know, opportunities today is so amazing, you know, it's like, boom, boom. When I grew up and I'm a little bit older than you, so you don't know this kind of stuff, but I was born in the sixties and when I grew up, we didn't even
[00:27:14] LANCE: Leo. How old are you?
[00:27:15] LEO: I can't say it, but it's 54. I'm 55. Yeah, well God gave you no wrinkles. I don't know what happened unless you make a really good today.
[00:27:26] LANCE: Makeup baby
[00:27:27] LEO: yeah. Or, or you didn't provide me with lighting, but you have all the great lighting. But when I grew up, we didn't think at age 18 of owning a business, we just wanted to get a good job. The young generation today, they looking to open a business, the millennials or the gen Z or the X or the W's. I don't even know all of them. They get sometimes a bad rep. You know, the young kids, they don't know, they have the crap down, right. They know what they want to do. They want to be at 19, they want to own a business and they want to have, we have some young kids in our network [00:28:00] who are just killing it. They go out there, they have the energy and they do business. And some of them make 40, 50 K in every month. It's just crazy. So, you know, if you're not motivated for yourself, nobody's going to do it for you. There's one thing that we can give you is motivation. You got. We'll give you everything else, all the support you need, but you gotta, you gotta check yourself to make sure you have motivation or you don't belong in the franchising world.
[00:28:25] LANCE: I love this. So let's talk about the, the, the young kids out there. First of all, do you have any franchisees that own two of your brands more than one?
[00:28:35] LEO: No. W we have two of them really good ones that own, I try not to make that. So we have a couple that bought, but it's really a husband and wife team. Perfect example, we have, uh, a man called Mike worker he's in Katy, Texas. He bought a drive in, he did so good in the first six months that he forced his son to buy one He forced him or he told him to his [00:29:00] bought one, three months later, his wife bought a clositivity. So we call them the Burkitt clan they're all doing really, really good, but they own it. And we have somebody in Kentucky again he was in the, in the window business. His wife is in the storage space business. They bought a clositivity and a frostshade I try not to do it, unless if it makes sense, you know? So some people would tell you whatever they want. I want to make sure like you establish yourself, you know what you're doing. So when we have those husband and wife teams a lot of those where she wants to concentrate in closets and 65% of our classes duty on as a woman right now, which is amazing, which is amazing. They love designing. If I could spend one minute in clositivity.
[00:29:41] LANCE: Yeah, I was going to ask you, please share more about clositivity. I got, we got, we have to hear more about it.
[00:29:46] LEO: Clositivity is probably, I would be disappointed if we don't have 500 locations in three years. That's how great, what we've accomplished with clositivity. First of all, our logistics and our deliveries, we could probably have two [00:30:00] weeks every positive that if you want right now, there's eight weeks and counting we have a real. Good system where we get that done. But what we have, something is what nobody else has. We come into your home, we'll have a computer. We have artificial intelligence, AI software. So when we come into your home, I know you live in Vegas, we'll come into and we'll put in, let's say your closet is 48 inches by 108 inches. We'll put in the closet. You council 10 and 30 seconds. Our computer is going to pop out five different designs. Based on what people in your area do. Now this does more than one thing. Number one, you get to see till now. It's like, okay. Yeah, let me get to the thing. Give me about a week or two. I'll come back and I'll, I'll make you one or two designs. You let me know what it is. It pops up five designs in color okay. And I have right in the spot, you'll pick one of the five. Oh my God. Number two talks to me, but I don't like that particular, I need more hanging. I'll take the draws out and I'll, I'll bring it in [00:31:00] that accomplishes two or three different things, you know, when you go to a gym on January 1st, what's the first thing they want you to do. They want you to sign up for the year, like January 15, you usually back to the donuts, right same thing over here. You want to buy closets but the time you come back in two weeks I've done some research, 30% of the people are not interested anymore. Right? If they made a trip to Vegas or they did something else with the money, we get it on the spot. But more important than that, you get to see in 3d exactly what your closet is going to look like. We could order it right there on the spot of two weeks later, our turn around right now in closetivities, less than three weeks from when we come down to the first visit. So we're done installing it, amazing software. We have amazing CRM system, right? Amazing designs. And I think we're right now, approximately 30% cheaper than all the brands across the nation.
[00:31:52] LANCE: So where, where is everything manufactured? And so based on the 48 by a hundred inch closet, or so [00:32:00] where does this product come from
[00:32:01] LEO: I cant tell you because I'll have to kill you. And right now, at least today, I don't want to kill you.
[00:32:06] LANCE: I don't, I don't mean the specific place. I mean, there, there is central or regional distribution center.
[00:32:13] LEO: I mean, obviously I'm just kidding, but we could have it in you within 10 days. We have our own manufacturing set up with a exclusive company. So when we put in an order, it's cut and, and back in less than two days. And if it's an unlike, so there's a lot of things that I set up in all my friends, I just bitten. There shouldn't be any conflict we don't want to, we don't make money off dead wood window tending. There's a lot of when I open patch boys, six months later, there's somebody else who opened the a patch dry wall repair buisness with, you know, I just open a frostshades five months later, somebody just opened another one. But if you look for example, that company, and I wish them all the luck. I know the people over there. We're good friends. We see each other at some shows. They forced you to buy the tent from them, the window film from there. So not only will you get it cheaper when you buy it. [00:33:00] But we allow you whatever price we get it. We send you over there. We buy direct from the manufacturer. There's only five manufacturers in the whole world who does window tinting we buy one of them. So we never want you to say, oh, so you make 7% royalty here. Plus you saw me the, the 10 I could have voted here. I could, whatever we have, we'll give you whether it's Drive in, whether it's Clositivity we've worked at such a deal. And the company said to us, if you add 20% for yourself, you will still be cheaper than that. No, that's not how we want you to get the best, but we want you to make money yeah, obviously we want to make money. You didn't buy a franchise to work for me. You bought a franchise to be a owner.
[00:33:36] LANCE: Absolutely. This is all. This is all phenomenal, but let's now let's talk about another important piece to your exact point on the purchasing side of things. Some people listening know what a franchise disclosure document is. The item 19 is the earnings claim, but when it comes to validation, that to me is my favorite part of the franchise process, because like what you're talking about with Clositivity [00:34:00] perspective, franchisees can have conversations with existing franchisees to talk about, well, how's franchising
[00:34:08] LEO: Now they can, they should. Now there's probably hundreds of companies out there. If you call one of their franchisees to ask information, they ask you, what's the code number you got from corporate because corporate doesn't let them talk to anybody unless they have a code number from corporate. The minute somebody calls me up And I said, can I open one or two of them ? I said, my website is frostshades dot com. The tap code locations, or every single one of them. Don't tell me who you spoke with, ask them any questions. Would they do it all over again? How good looking is Leo? Uh, how, how easy is it to deal with, you know, how normal is he? You know, which would be sub-questions, you know what?
[00:34:45] LANCE: Can I make money doing this,
[00:34:47] LEO: but I make money. Would you do it all over again? You know, you're familiar with Franchise business review and FBR. We just did our survey for last year. We have a, I think 91% said they do it all over again [00:35:00]
[00:35:00] LANCE: unbelievable franchise business review. I mean, I, I turn a lot of people onto that.
[00:35:04] LEO: One of the most successful, if it's a real gauge to see where I am with the franchisees 'cause you know them. We have no clue who answered what, and they don't allow you to do that. A reality company. Hi Michelle. We open everything. We there's no such a thing. There's no codes. There's no, we'll set you up with this one guy who cant talk. The first thing we tell them, here's the FTD is my information. Go through the location staff call everybody who you can see, and I want you to know, I want you to speak to the one or two who are greatest franchisees find out what they're not asking. What's wrong. And then come back to me and I'll tell you if you have the same problem, then these two people, I don't want you in my network. You know, if you cant be wide open with, with your potential friends, did you have a major problem? I, the first thing I always say to the potential franchise owner my job is not sell them a franchise. My job is in the next two days to see if we're good for each other yep. It's just as important to do a good for me as van would be. [00:36:00]
[00:36:00] LANCE: Yeah. I mean, I tell everybody that in every franchise, I don't care whether it's McDonald's or dryer, vents, squat, or clositivity or frost shades, they're going to be franchising. That are the bottom of the pack. Someone's gotta be on the bottom by default. And you know, there are the top 10% and they're their bottom 10%. And that's just the way it goes. Let's talk about exit strategy. Um, I have a lot of people that I walked through, you know, exit, you know, some people say to me, well, Lance, I don't want to just buy a job. And I said, well, when you have a job and you leave a job, Yeah, unless there's stock in the company that you've received as a gift, you know, you're not,
[00:36:41] LEO: and you put it and you put in a good 20 years.
[00:36:45] LANCE: Yeah. And you, and you leave with nothing. So in this circumstance, You have to work doing something. I mean, if your plan is to grow and scale something, you can certainly do that. There are plenty of brands for you, but you can, you can do a [00:37:00] low cost, you know, home-based brand from Leo and. When you exit you're worth a multiple of your cash flow, just like you were when you sold
[00:37:11] LEO: it's your company, you buy it. That would go, you build it up. This is your company, you know, you could sell it to someone else down the road five years. You know, you got to meet some paramedics to make sure that if you're doing it the right way, we don't get the money. If you were able to build up the company that it's worth a million dollars. I think we got half of a franchise fee, which is. 17 to $20,000, that's it? You know, so absolutely. If you want to buy it, because in seven, eight years, you want to retire. We have already people who bought what they're very went on and bought the second and third, a territory, you know? So you make your plan, whatever it works for you, you want to, you want your kids to continue with it. You want to, you want to sell it in five, six years from now. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a business it's buying a business, you burn out and six, seven years sell it. And it's your profit, you know, but, uh, But whatever it is, [00:38:00] but if you're going to put in his hard work, why not put it in for yourself?
[00:38:02] LANCE: Absolutely, absolutely. That everybody today talks about freedom, freedom to live, the lifestyle that they choose. And it's very difficult if you work for someone else, no matter how good your bosses, because inevitably your boss leaves and your new boss, isn't as friendly or as good
[00:38:21] LEO: or something like COVID comes up and there's no more firing. There's a new fancy word for it. It's called the furlough a permanent furlough. Yeah. Like they don't let you go anymore. It's just a permanent furlough. You, you don't know what happens tomorrow. There's so many opportunity whether it's with my companies or with hundreds and hundreds of other home-based company or. Whatever w whatever talks to you, go out there and do something for you, you know, work for yourself, do make it happen.
[00:38:47] LANCE: So Leo as expected, you have been fantastic. Any final. I know there are final words of wisdom, but what would you like to say in the final few moments minutes to share with prospective franchisees that are listening?[00:39:00]
[00:39:00] LEO: There's not a whole lot to say, except if you're motivated the word. There's never been a better place. There's never been a better time. There's never been a better opportunity than it is right now. Whether it's with our companies. I would like to think if you have a little brain, just come through us, but whatever it is you want to do today, it takes so little, you know, you talk to somebody 25 years ago, a franchise, they were going straight to subway to McDonald's to 7 11 200,300,000. There are multi owner units right now, whether it's in the restoration field, whether it's in the home service field, whether it's in the painting, whether it's in the garbage collection, that invested a hundred thousand dollars and then millionaire, you got to bring what we said before you bring motivation and there's opportunity. Like there has never been before it's wide open. We would like the thing that our brands are really awesome because we have a good setup. We have a great, great corporate team. We get it. We understand. Uh, our support and training is I'd like to think there's nobody else like it, or maybe a second close [00:40:00] second, but opportunity is wide open. And if you ever thought of it, make a phone call, check it out. You know, you can do all your pieces before and you don't need a million dollars to go into business. You can really go in with $50,000 a business and have a business that will probably give you in a year or two double the money that you're making right now. And without anybody telling you when to take a vacation,
[00:40:22] LANCE: Absolutely. Well, Leo, you have been fantastic. What a great way to close this out and, uh, we'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for being here.
[00:40:30] LEO: Thanks for having me.
[00:40:32] 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.