Today on Eye On Franchising we are joined by Brian Beers. Brian is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, and business coach who is focused on massively scaling his businesses, income, and contribution. Brain is also the host of Business with Beers podcast, a weekly podcast with business owners and investors who share their wisdom. As an entrepreneur, Brian joined his family's automotive repair business, Midas. Today, he shares some business strategies that have helped them scale their business from what was once a struggling mom and pop shop to now a company with 30 locations that still continues to grow. There are two major components to running any successful business or making a business successful – the visionary and the integrator. The visionary is the person with all the ideas, the dreams, the culture aspect. It's the person most likely to suffer from the shiny object syndrome, who always wants to chase the next big idea and get bored very quickly. The integrator is the one who implements the visionary's ideas. They want to make everything efficient and make sure it all works. They want to hold not just their people accountable but themselves. They're based on results and driven by the results. Midas’ Business Growth Strategies Brian says they look at creating those relationships. People buy from people they like. and trust So make it a point to be well-known and well-liked in terms of helping others. The more you give, the more you get back. Connect with Brian: Instagram @businesswithbeers Email brian@beerspodcast.com Website https://www.brianbeers.com/ Have you heard the news? We are officially on YouTube. Come check out a few videos have have and give me a follow! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwoAdrkPZmveJt5AQRDk8WA --- Lance Graulich Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising Eye On Franchising
Today on Eye On Franchising we are joined by Brian Beers.
Brian is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, and business coach who is focused on massively scaling his businesses, income, and contribution. Brain is also the host of Business with Beers podcast, a weekly podcast with business owners and investors who share their wisdom.
As an entrepreneur, Brian joined his family's automotive repair business, Midas. Today, he shares some business strategies that have helped them scale their business from what was once a struggling mom and pop shop to now a company with 30 locations that still continues to grow.
There are two major components to running any successful business or making a business successful – the visionary and the integrator.
The visionary is the person with all the ideas, the dreams, the culture aspect. It's the person most likely to suffer from the shiny object syndrome, who always wants to chase the next big idea and get bored very quickly.
The integrator is the one who implements the visionary's ideas. They want to make everything efficient and make sure it all works. They want to hold not just their people accountable but themselves. They're based on results and driven by the results.
Midas’ Business Growth Strategies
Brian says they look at creating those relationships. People buy from people they like. and trust So make it a point to be well-known and well-liked in terms of helping others. The more you give, the more you get back.
Connect with Brian:
Instagram @businesswithbeers
Email brian@beerspodcast.com
Website https://www.brianbeers.com/
Have you heard the news? We are officially on YouTube. Come check out a few videos have have and give me a follow!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwoAdrkPZmveJt5AQRDk8WA
---
Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
franchisees, midas, people, franchise, stores, brand, tires, automotive, business, location, started, called, talk, dad, technicians, revenue stream, years, business model, day, uncle
SPEAKERS
Brian, Lance Graulich, Bian
Lance Graulich00:06
Hello everyone and welcome back to another fabulous episode of ion franchising. I am your host, Lance Gramlich. So today, we're going to talk to a guy that has the Midas touch. Yes, I said he's got the Midas touch 30 locations of Midas. And in the last few years so, welcome to the show, my new friend, Brian beers.
Brian 00:31
Hey, Lance. Well, thanks for having me.
Lance Graulich00:33
Brian, it's awesome for you to even be here. As busy as you are. Thank you for spending some time with me. And let's, let's go way back and let's talk about how this all got started with the family and Midas
Bian 00:46
Yes, sure. So I mean, so Midas specifically has been in our family's blood, you could say since the 1960s. Like, my dad's uncle, was a franchisee of in Boston had the 60s might start in the 50s. So like 10 years into it or whatever. I'm not exactly sure when it started, but started having success started just buying up and opening new locations. And back then they say it was like taking a wheelbarrow to the cash register every night, and such good business. And so my dad has
Lance Graulich01:19
no credit card. So you had to have for all
Brian 01:22
the quick little jobs or just cash tickets do there's no independent royalties on those. And then, you know, my dad was 22 years old, and like just I don't know did a bunch of jobs are just looking for something new. And so his his uncle's having all success says hey, maybe you should open up a medicine Philadelphia. And so my dad and his dad's my grandfather, who's kind of just coming off retirement as a teacher decided to open up a location and I think my uncle, I think my dad's uncle, like back then you had to get like referred to get into it if such a good business, right. So if someone had a back, you like to get into it. And
Lance Graulich01:57
so, by the way, Brian, that was when I was called Midas muffler, right?
Brian 02:01
Yep. And the oldest right and so all they did like, was just exhausted, like exhaust systems rusted out every three years is what I'm told. And it was like, you know, Midas, this thing was a lifetime warranty. And so it created like loyalty for customers, because they got to save money and obviously was good, it was a good business model. Love it, it was totally vertically integrated Midas manufacture the parts, distributed the parts, so like, their cost of goods was like, at cost, there's no middleman of people marking it up. So it was like, you know, it was like, a great a great business model. And so they helped finance it, they I think my uncle Lou, my dad and grandfather like 50% of the the funds to get it started and took a note and all this stuff. And so I started one location, just start building from scratch. And a couple of years after that my dad's brother in law joined the business and then together, they had a second location and then they bought a third and opened a fourth and a fifth and a sixth and just through the years, wow, just bought them and sold them and you know, went to underlayer Linux city open one up gotta go and sold it for a bunch of money.
Lance Graulich03:01
That can be dangerous opening one near Atlantic City, when you have an excuse to go gamble some of that cash
Brian 03:06
flow into the stem into the shore a lot. So they like go to the shore on Friday, visit the store and then go down. Anyways, great, like, you know, all through, you know, childhood growing up, we had, you know, we had a good life, private schools and, you know, to pay for college, and just, you know, it was a great life that it had provided for our family. And so I graduated college 2010 and decide, you know, what I want to do, I'd study entrepreneurship and computer science and tech kind of thing. And so decided, hey, let me like, take a shot at the family business, my dad and uncle like, oh, 809 been rough. And they've been thinking about selling the stores kind of retiring. I mean, at that point, they'd been in it for you know, you know, over 30 It was 35 years. And so, and you know, it was everything they needed at that point. And so I come in and just do nothing about the business. So I'm just like a 22 year old kid or whatever. And so I just started learning it, I started networking with other franchisees and started like, learning best practices, becoming part of these like mastermind groups, they weren't called that back then. But that's what it was. And then we just start having success and like start building sales and, and then we kind of took me about six years, and then we went to acquisition mode, and we started just buying applications and two here, one here to there. And then, you know, over the last 18 months, we doubled more than doubled from 12 locations to now 30 With a couple of bigger, bigger swings
Lance Graulich04:24
12 locations to 30 I love it. So let me I got one question. One question from the distant past. So when your uncle and your dad were setting this up to they exchange stories of why they picked Midas why they picked a franchise did they have ideas of doing something on their own? I'm always curious about that. Origin think
Brian 04:49
it was just like, you know, they saw success I think was my uncle just like it was a good business. I think they went up and visited him and they just like, you know, it was a simple business model. I mean, employees that anybody who could pick up a torch and a hammer could be employed, like there was a low barrier of labor was techs were, you know, their installers. They were technicians, it was just you paid $4 an hour. And then it was commissioned. So they earned obviously more if they produce but like, it was a very profitable very easy to run simple business model. And so, you know, my like, I think they're agnostic, like, kind of like I, you know, yes. Like, my dad is not a car guy. He's not a mechanic. Like, he's handy. Like, he's very handy and creative. But like, he's not, he's not under the hood of a car, by any means. And so it was just like, it was a good opportunity, and someone else was having success. And I think, you know, the reason I like it now, too, is is that same thing where there's like, there's a proven model, there's a support system. Like, I think one of the biggest benefits is the community and a lot of people don't know about or talk about, but like, yes, once you join a franchise, you are instantly a member of a of a community. And literally day one, you can call up another franchisee, and ask them, like almost anything, and they will tell you like, you know, sales and margins and challenges and what do you wish you knew and like, instantly, you have help and support and because for, you know, the franchisees, the bigger the brand goat grows, the more valuable our like locations become. So it's in my best interest to help as many other Midas franchisees as I can, even as podcast, someone wants to join Midas and they they come to me and I help them join and, you know, they have success and help build the brand and help put more marketing dollars to the National Fund and like, it's just like flywheel effect. And so I think people are now they're suspicious of you if you're not a franchisee yet, because like, you could be working for the competitor that could be Meineke, or, you know, a car X or something. But like once you're in the club, people are more than willing to help.
Lance Graulich06:50
Yeah, I love that you brought that up. That's such a great point. And and not a lot of my guests talk about the community. I mean, some do. But you know, when you go through the process of selecting a franchise, myself as a franchise broker consultant, people don't realize they're not asking for your credit card on the first phone call. It's it's all about are you even right for the system. It's a two way street, you're checking them out, they're checking you out. You look at the Franchise Disclosure Document, which has an item 19, which discloses sales and other information. And then you get to the validation stage where you have an opportunity before you're a franchisee, to talk to existing franchisees to essentially validate that this is right for you. And by the way, I had a guy that jumped to step. It wasn't Midas, it was a different franchise was an automotive, he jumped to step and he called the local franchisee that a friend of a friend knew and started asking, you know, really intrusive questions which are appropriate during validation? How much money do you make? Do you like it? Would you do it over again? Yep. And because my candidate, my client was not formally introduced through the validation stage yet, franchisees for that brand have a password. And unless they know the password, they can't give the sensitive information.
Brian 08:12
I've done due diligence on other ones that I was looking at investing in. Yeah, I've had to say the password
Lance Graulich08:18
I loved I love the password thing. But the collaboration and the community piece is what a lot of people do not know about or they forgotten about that. So you have so many people that are have a vested interest in your success is my point.
Brian 08:33
Yeah, and a lot of people just aren't involved. Like they don't think you can be as involved or as not as involved as you want. Right. And I'm like, highly involved, because I see the value of it. But like, you can go to the local meetings, like might as we have local regional quarterly meetings, right? You can there's national conferences that like some people never even attend to there's like, you know, for during COVID Like, I personally started zoom, like group calls where I just I put it out there and corporate help market it or whatever, saying, Hey, I'm going to interview some of the top candidates. So I interviewed some of the top performing franchisees, like a one on one webinar style. And yeah, we had 60 or 70 people like listening, hearing this guy's story in best practices, I've put together like, I don't know, a group call where it's just like we're gonna get it was about the same 60 or 70 people to talk for an hour on one thing, like how do we drive gross profit? Or how do we you know, payroll stuff for like hiring practices, or whatever the topic I picked that day was so like, like, that was an A minus corporate putting on that was like me choosing that, like, Hey, I'm gonna get a lot of value from learning. Plus, it helps my like, personal brand within a franchise, right? Because we want to grow and, you know, the more people that know, you know, like and trust you the better opportunity you have to do these acquisitions. And so, like, I created some of it just because I, I wanted to, and so like, I don't know, even someone's in a brand and they're like, oh my people don't they don't do anything well, like go out and like just put it on yourself, like get a bunch of franchisees together for a call All, or grab breakfast once a month or whatever it is like you can, you can make it happen.
Lance Graulich10:05
I love it. No, that's all. That's all wonderful stuff. You know when you mentioned earlier how you dove in when you dove in the business when you're out of college, you started attending meetings, you mentioned it just now as well. What have you noticed from from your dad and your uncle stories from the past? What have you noticed has changed? Obviously, technology has changed the business a lot. But you know, talk about some of the specifics and how Midas continues to sort of protect the brand and brand integrity and new revenue streams perhaps and you know, yeah, a little bit about that.
Brian 10:40
So yeah, the business model is trained, change tremendously when from exhaust is 100%, exhaust is 5% of our business, right, and then oil change Come on, and they're just hey, we're now going to focus on oil changes in car count, and it's a loss leader to get, you know, service work. And now it's tires. So like Midas is owned by a tire company. And so we have very good prices on tires, but it's a completely different business model in process than selling brakes or service, even though you think they're parallel. And so over the years, you know, they've been good to adapt to the times and kind of change just based off of, you know, market research and consumer feedback, and just, you know, what it what do we need to do to kind of continue to drive forward and drive car count and drive sales. And a big part of that is, you know, franchise feedback. And so like, I'm a member of the fact or the franchise Advisory Committee, it's called, so it's once a quarter or so we're getting together and there's like, you know, it's all hands on deck, we got almost all the leadership at corporate and there's like, almost all the successful franchisees, many of them multi unit, but some also single unit and smaller unit to kind of more of a wide, you know, opinion of, of the different programs. And even through that there's committees on how we get to drive whatever the different things that are important, whether it's a marketing one a technology one, you know, I'm on, I'm on one about new store expansion. So like, how do we make the FTD appealing. So like Midas, we've put together a whole bunch of like, really good incentives for people that like, I've been, personally been a leader of a thought a thought leader and to help him develop and so every brand is different. Some brands, it's all internal, and then other brands, at least like Midas, they, they want the support of the franchisees, because that's where some of the best ideas come from. So that's all part of the due diligence process, right? Like you're talking to other franchisees, once you know the password and asking, like, you know, what, kind of, you know, communication, is there? And do they take your feedback and ideas? Or is everything done in a black box? And then it's just like, pushed out? Here it is. And, you
Lance Graulich12:35
know, so, so imagine the majority of owners do not have any kind of automotive experience prior prior to jumping into Midas?
Brian 12:46
Yeah, I don't, I don't know what the percentages are. I mean, I'm not like an automotive guy, by any means. I have clean fingernails, let me say, Yeah, they're pretty clean. But that's like, but that's not my skill. Like, you know, I think the thing about owning any business, it's like, it's what the skill set requires, like, my job is to, to hire like really good people who can identify talent, like at my level, right? But like, the store manager's job is to be able to communicate with customers, like what is wrong with your car, communicate with the technicians to ensure whatever they recommend is going to solve the customer's problem, right? It's the technicians job to then like, actually fix the car and be the technical person and invest in tools and training and all this stuff. And so like, you know, it's, it's like this, like, you can't be everything to everyone mentality, where, like, each in the business in any business, whether it's franchise or not, like, there's specific roles. And, you know, as the owner, your job is to, like, hire really good people and ensure we're following the processes, whether those are and so now that being said, I mean, I can I can interview a technician, I can tell you immediately if he knows what he's talking about or not like, even though I can't fix it, like, I mean, I know if he's bullshitting me or not, and if he knows what he's talking about. So, but you learn that just by being in stores and by by you know, just being, you know, a student of it, so,
Lance Graulich14:14
now I love it, you know, and look in franchising, the number one thing that people get skittish on besides getting fearful, you know, is owning a business even right for me, how do I know what franchise brand is right? For me? It's amazing across all brands, it doesn't matter whether it's healthcare or automotive or anything, a massage franchise, a salon franchise, the owners are not the technicians of those brands. I mean, it does happen that they are shooting it. Yeah, I know some air conditioning and air conditioning brand that there was an air conditioning guy that joined the Air Conditioning brand because he knew he'd have more bandwidth with marketing and support and follow up. But your example you is just so perfect. I mean, it's all about the training, it's all about the follow up. It's all about the system communication. And anybody can do almost any franchise, the question is, which franchises right? You know, for that individual. So I mean, obviously, congrats on your success and the family's success. So what's next, how many more Midas shops are you gonna open,
Brian 15:23
I don't know, we got five more in our market that we would like that are already in our existing footprint that we could acquire with like zero additional overhead to the company. So like, all the money it makes like just goes to the bottom line versus, you know, when you're in a retail business and you know, this like, as there's like the stair step approach where you can kind of, you know, build out a marquee, a fixed expense to build a market, and then you can fill it up to a certain capacity. And then it's kind of like, you know, if you go to the next level, you need then more district managers, more office support more, whatever. And so we're kind of at this point where we can fill in five more, that we are existing stores that fit in would be easy. Certainly, that's our that's our, like, easy goal next year is to get those and then it then it's a question of, you know, what do we want to do? Do we want to, it's either you continue to buy existing ones, which is the easiest, quickest path to cash. No, the brand to that's perfect. versa. But then it's like we at this point, we bought out almost all the ones that we can buy, like the other players aren't selling either. And so then we have to go to a new market. So like, do we go to DC? Like we're in Philly, right? So do we go to DC? Do we go to Baltimore? Do we go to try go up to like New York or Boston? Or do we say, Hey, we're willing to get on a plane, and then you can go anywhere in the country, right? And then, but there's another part of me that says so. So So one path is like, hey, we can have 60 stores and do want to read about 36 million now? Like, maybe we get to 75?
Lance Graulich16:47
Only 36 million?
Brian 16:49
Yep. And so yeah. The other option says, hey, well, like our best stores do about 2 million on our worst stores do about six 700,000. But the average like whatever 1.2, or whatever it is, there's just other models that hey, well, we got now we get 35 stores, but what if we can get the 35 stores to all $2 million apiece, you know, and we're doing 70 million out of our existing ones, like, we would quadruple what we're making out of these stores, like because of the volume that it drives. And so, you know, you balance hit, what's the Pat is it, it's somewhat easier to have a larger number of average performance, then, you know, fewer exceptional performance. So we got to figure out which which path or it's somewhat in parallel. But even at 2 million, there's there's mighty shops out there a base same size, doing 3 million doing 4 million, there's one guy who's like driving hard to 5 million, who's the highest, the highest in the country. So even if we think our caps quote 2 million, but there's like, there's this example of other people doing it, to do much, much more on similar size square footage stores, like they're not these monster locations, either.
Lance Graulich17:58
It's a great example, what you just brought up, it seems that in most franchise brands, if not all, you do have these, these guys or gals that are that are way out front with these really, truly exceptional stores. And it happens, and in some cases, it's the market. In some cases, that could be some special magic that they're doing within the system. But it's great, because it gives everybody a goal to shoot for that it is actually possible, you know,
Brian 18:27
yeah, in our business. And a lot of them I think it's it's people in process, like, the locations, yes, a good location, whatever. But like we could literally like we bought in stores that are doing I don't know, to 900,000 in December, and the neck we buy in December, the next year, we do 1.8 million. And like, literally overnight, we changed but we had to totally re staff the store, we brought in our best manager from another store and put him there, he brought one of his best tax, we hired a couple good ones. But like, same location, same customer can actually increase customer count has better service, but like it was the people and following a consistent process. And so that's a lot of the guys who were doing the guys who are doing 3 million, like or whatever are just more consistent at it. And we are. And so that's like, that's what we try to train on and talk about and figure out, which is our challenge at our numbers, which is, you know, you know, the more stars you get, the more diluted you get as well. And so you got to really have these good ways to do this training. Otherwise, it just, you know, it's just like this blanket effect that doesn't work.
Lance Graulich19:28
You mentioned the committee's earlier, you know, like from the FAC and all that. I'm sure there's a subcommittee on unit economics and
Brian 19:36
really stability. Yep, yeah.
Lance Graulich19:38
And how do we get how do we consistently get everybody to two and a half million or whatever that number is? You know, it's it's it but it's great being part of that system. You know, when you were talking about earlier how Midas has changed over the years. Can you imagine somebody trying to create or, you know, sort of rip off the Midas model today and Bing it all on their own trying to figure out how to do it all?
Brian 20:03
Yeah, no, it's I don't know, for me, I have no interest in an independent shop People ask me all the time like, but a lot of its exit speed to scale like you wouldn't be able to I wouldn't be the size I was if it was if it was beers Tire and Auto or whatever, just maybe we have two locations or three or four, but like, you're not gonna get the scale that level of profitability to support. But then yeah, the ideas of you know, like said that mastermind group stuff like, like, we're really big into consumer financing. So we have all these payment plans that somebody's great credit, we can get them a six months, no interest, someone has like, no credit, bad credit, we can get them programs for that, that get them getting payments that can afford. And so like, I'm one of the leaders in the country on that. And so like, I inspire others to say, Hey, we got these really good programs, so we can help make the jobs affordable. And, you know, but but like, I don't know, if I was an independent business, like maybe I wouldn't even know about that kind of thing, or, Hey, what's possible, and I think I think a lot of that then opens your eyes. And for me a cost of 5% is totally worth it. Yeah,
Lance Graulich20:59
I was just gonna say one of the one of the biggest things that I get all the time from people that don't know, they don't know, and most cases they've never even owned a business. And they're like, oh, I have to pay them 5% forever. It's like, well, yeah, they're supporting you. They're working constantly. They have a an r&d team, you know, research and development, figuring out what's the next revenue stream? So for example, for example, as I toss this answer this question to you, you know, things like EVs, you know, electric vehicle is all working,
Brian 21:32
working on an Eevee playbook, which is a whole other thoughts and theories around that. But, but yeah, what's that going to look like, you know, in 10 or 15 years, because we're a long way out, to be honest, but like, what is the train look like to get there? And how do we incrementally grow it. And also, it's the break like process the 5% like part of it, it's too for ours, it's a brand right to establish brand that people know they trust it like, I can open up I've opened up a brand new location and on day one, we've got customers on month two and three, we've we're cash flowing, like to pay pay all the rent, and all the payroll and expenses, and then, you know, hopefully cashflow positive after that. Like, if I was a new brand new location, like beers Tire and Auto that nobody knows, like, I don't know, like, maybe I get a couple stragglers in there. But like the name instantly can grow. And then that additional cash flow is like all this money, I wouldn't have had an expense of 5%. Like is, you know, it's all still incremental growth. Like yes, there's an expense, but it's all incremental growth that I didn't have before. So absolutely, that's my take on it.
Lance Graulich22:33
Yeah, no, that's that's absolutely fantastic. So what are your other observations of the franchise world? I mean, look at the way today there's probably 40 505,000 franchises in every niche. I mean, it's it's absolutely crazy. And boy, automotive is is is still an incredibly hot one. I think food and beverages still restaurants are still the most popular. But automotive boy it's it's it's an ever present every corner in America. It seems as though a franchise is doing automotive or or or restaurants or whatever. So what are your thoughts on all that on automotive specifically? Yeah. Well, besides Evie, I mean other revenue streams I mean, you could expand the carwash is next with MIDAS
Brian 23:22
they wouldn't do that. I like I like glass personally, but like I don't know I don't know it's a whole nother it's a whole nother business model but like I don't know people know us for automotive and you know we have you know whatever minds do millions of vehicles and a lot of them probably broken windshields that are getting referred to safe later whoever
Lance Graulich23:38
is last on plaster great point you're on the right committees though.
Brian 23:42
I am I'm pushing it but like one of the guys came from Safelite but he but then he there's this whole other way like you know if you don't seal the thing right and get rain in there now you've got this $10,000 insurance claim because of all the electronics and so it's not just as easy as oh, we're just gonna like you know, throw some tires on a car it's it's a lot more technical and training and but but for me like I view it as like well you know, it's mobile right? Safe life is kind of mobile and you know, with our geographical footprint even if I had like three guys that were you know, highly trained and compensated in the vans and stuff like we could we could cover all 30 stores with three people and capture that business. It's not like I need to train one guy like per location and then he quits and then we can't do you know this revenue stream. So I'm interested in the concept on a question it
Lance Graulich24:27
another vertical and another notice
Brian 24:30
that there's EV tires is huge, like tires are only 7% of our company's business like national business. It could be 30 Like there's each store could probably add a $500,000 a year and tires
Lance Graulich24:45
and inventory of tires. You have a minimal inventory and you just get them as you need them. Yeah,
Brian 24:50
it's a it's a bitch to be honest, like because there's so many different sizes. They're always changing and there's different levels of entry level mid price point, Cooper branded Michelin branded Yokohama, all that stuff. And so, you know a lot of there's there's distribution warehouses, like in each city. And so, you know, there's different different concepts, but the big big tire stores, the Firestones, the NTPs, the discount tires, I mean, they're stocking 1000s of tires, 2000 tires, which is, you know, the cost of 100 bucks a piece or whatever, 200 grand of inventory per location. And so a lot of money, you know, I don't, I don't want to invest that much in it. Maybe I'll put 30 grand into it, or 20 grand into it, because you got to turn it. But then if you're not selling off tires to turn it, it's like, where else could I put that cash to give me a better return? And anyhow, it's tires is like, it's a whole animal in itself that we have yet to crack? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the future is there, right? That's, you know, there's all these different options and revenue streams, it's not like they're instantly we're nowhere near capacity.
Lance Graulich25:49
I'm confident you'll crack it. I want to talk about staffing and labor. You know, we talked about people. So how does that I mean, look, everybody's complaining, they can't find people today. What's your sort of secret sauce? Give some tips.
Brian 26:02
Yeah I mean, we have not been able to find people for, you know, 20 years. So
Lance Graulich26:09
technically, someone that tells the truth, because everybody seems to think, oh, it's only just happened to
Brian 26:14
COVID, and the government money and blah, blah, blah. Now, like, there's been a technician shortage since the day I started 12 years ago, so like, nothing, nothing new to me, like, and so, you know, we're constantly looking at, you know, it really comes down to the culture, like, you know, once you hire somebody, because it's easy to hire somebody, like, how do you retain them? And how do you how do you feel that spot, so then, in two weeks or two months, like, you're not looking for another guy, because a lot of times, it feels like it's the last one is the first one out, and it's like, we have a core team. And then it's like, the other 25% is just this, like revolving door. And that's what we're working to solve. And we do it, you know, through trying to create this culture of just a fun place that people want to work and, you know, try to find people who align with core values, which are, they're driven to win, like, everybody's driven, they all want to win, it's different than, like, one guy wants to win, and other people just want to be lazy, right? You know, people that are, are positive to be around that, like, you know, smile and not grumpy, and like, you know, that there's accountability, or they say they, they say that they do the things they say they're going to do. And so if we focus on that, you know, we focus on, you know, the benefits of being a franchise is kind of you get this best of both worlds, where you get, like, local local ownership with owners, like my brother and I who care about our employees. And you get the benefit of having a national brand in this backing. And so, we have the best of both worlds, if someone's coming from like a Firestone or whatever, a corporate competitor, they come to us, like, we have the name brand, we've got the investment in technology and the like, all the major roads and right, all this stuff. But then we also have then local family ownership. And, you know, decisions aren't made in a vacuum and like, right, you know, if we need invest in equipment, like we just do it, right, or if someone you know, we need to help somebody out, like we do it, we just reduced our hours, like we used to close at six o'clock at all stores, we've we're not closing at five o'clock, across the open 737 30 Almost all of them, there used to be 736. Now 735. And like, even that like was, you know, other franchisees have done it and said, you know, that the by letting their employee you know, letting everybody get an hour early, and so that they can get home to have dinner with their their family. Like, at the end of the day, they were then happier, like we had less scheduled and like a work at Mavis or whatever it's like you're working till nine o'clock at night, every Thursday or, you know, whatever the these rotating hours. Yeah. And you know that the employees are then you know, work life balance, they're happier. And at the end of the day, we still get the same amount of work done. And so now we're we have less payroll, and we're open less hours, and but we're still like getting the same amount of sales, thus our profitability goes up. That's the theory and happier employees. I love it. Yeah, we just did two weeks or this is the first week to be honest with you. So we'll I'll let you know how it goes. But it's so far it's good. Yesterday was a good day. And you know, we shaved We shaved an hour off. So
Lance Graulich29:09
awesome. So Brian, you gave us some amazing information. So final thoughts, words of wisdom to those listening that are looking at business ownership, they're not sure what's right for them. Where do you start? I mean, besides reaching out to, you know, friends, broker, so you know, but like myself, and maybe you for some additional advice, of course, but, you know, give us some final thoughts or words of wisdom on that topic.
Brian 29:35
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people think that franchising is like buying yourself a job. And for some people it is like that's, but that's what they want, right? They want to just, they want to work a certain number of hours, they want a certain amount of limited responsibilities, and it's the perfect fit for them, right. There's other people that want to build something that replaces their income and they can earn a couple 100 grand a year and there's other people like the equity for yourself, right, who want to build an enterprise and like you know, we're obviously doing doing pretty well. But like it can be as small or as big as you want it to be. And it's just, you know, it's finding the right brand that fits like there's some brands, it's just it's not a part time gig, right? I don't think minus is a part time gig like to, to be at the level that I'm at, at least, like, there are people who do a part time they have w two jobs and their stores are not very profitable, and they will sell it to me one day, like that's, that's the route. But that's okay. That's the life that's fine for them. Right? There's no, there's no judgment there. So So yeah, I think it's, it can be anything you want it to be. And I think the best thing to do is you just just learn about all the different options that are out there with an open mind. And so yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, people want to connect with me, I'm on Twitter a lot at Brian beers, and I'm also on LinkedIn, Brian beers, and I have my own podcast where I interview entrepreneurs, we talk about investing, I'm actually rolling out a second series that you're going to be a part of called franchise Fridays. There'll be a second episode a week where I talk to franchisees franchisors talk about like, I don't know, 15, or whatever, minute solo episode on something about how do we find a brand? How do you run due diligence? How do you how do you have those calls with franchisees? So I think just just checking out different podcasts learning, you know, and then just just start the process.
Lance Graulich31:15
Well, Brian, this has been fantastic. Thank you for spending some time with me. And I know I will definitely talk to you probably later this afternoon.
Brian 31:24
Awesome. Sounds good.
Lance Graulich31:25
Talk to you soon. Have a great day. Bye, everyone.