Where most businesses are selling products and services, it's rather refreshing to see a business offer what people really desire: A Chance at Living. Because let's face it, most people are too busy trying to make sure there's food on the table everyday, and they don't have much time for anything else, let alone "Live". Why do you work? Few people get to say, "for my dreams and passion", since most people keep grinding "for survival". It seems like we always have to forego one for the other... Craig Goodliffe and Jason Stowe of Cyberbackers, the first and only virtual assistance franchise, believe otherwise! Craig is the Founder and CEO of Cyberbackers, a leading provider of first-class administrative support services from around the world, currently employing over 2,400 high-caliber “cyberbackers” and offering a unique world-class profit-sharing structure. After witnessing the company's rapid successive growth, Craig decided to start franchising Cyberbacker with the goal of making a significant difference in global poverty. The concept of Cyberbacker originally started and was first implemented in The Good Life Group, Craig's real estate company. Craig believes that equal opportunities should be given and great talents can be found from anywhere on the globe. Jason Stowe is the VP for Franchise Development at Cyberbackers. His career started in being a chef, later focused on management, which lead to a multi-unit management position with Wild Oates. His first experience in franchising started with Zuka Juice, before moving on to help Bajio Mexican Grill grow as a franchise. Later on, he became VP for Franchise Development for Costa Vida. While tending to his consulting business, that's when Jason received a call from Craig. Craig laid down such a unique concept that Jason couldn't help but jump on. Today, in just a span of four years, Cyberbackers is servicing over 2500 delighted and satisfied clients, employing the best talents across the globe, and has 28 franchisees (and growing) to date. What glues all these people to the business? It boils down to Cyberbackers' unique selling proposition. The reason you're aiming for financial freedom shouldn't be the reason you suffer or miss out on life. Are you ready to take your life back? Let's talk about it! 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/ https://eyeonfranchising.com
Where most businesses are selling products and services, it's rather refreshing to see a business offer what people really desire: A Chance at Living.
Because let's face it, most people are too busy trying to make sure there's food on the table everyday, and they don't have much time for anything else, let alone "Live".
Why do you work?
Few people get to say, "for my dreams and passion", since most people keep grinding "for survival".
It seems like we always have to forego one for the other...
Craig Goodliffe and Jason Stowe of Cyberbackers, the first and only virtual assistance franchise, believe otherwise!
Craig is the Founder and CEO of Cyberbackers, a leading provider of first-class administrative support services from around the world, currently employing over 2,400 high-caliber “cyberbackers” and offering a unique world-class profit-sharing structure. After witnessing the company's rapid successive growth, Craig decided to start franchising Cyberbacker with the goal of making a significant difference in global poverty.
The concept of Cyberbacker originally started and was first implemented in The Good Life Group, Craig's real estate company. Craig believes that equal opportunities should be given and great talents can be found from anywhere on the globe.
Jason Stowe is the VP for Franchise Development at Cyberbackers. His career started in being a chef, later focused on management, which lead to a multi-unit management position with Wild Oates. His first experience in franchising started with Zuka Juice, before moving on to help Bajio Mexican Grill grow as a franchise. Later on, he became VP for Franchise Development for Costa Vida.
While tending to his consulting business, that's when Jason received a call from Craig. Craig laid down such a unique concept that Jason couldn't help but jump on.
Today, in just a span of four years, Cyberbackers is servicing over 2500 delighted and satisfied clients, employing the best talents across the globe, and has 28 franchisees (and growing) to date.
What glues all these people to the business? It boils down to Cyberbackers' unique selling proposition.
The reason you're aiming for financial freedom shouldn't be the reason you suffer or miss out on life.
Are you ready to take your life back? Let's talk about it!
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
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
franchisees, people, backer, franchise, cyber, jason, company, craig, franchise owners, philippines, franchising, staffing company, world, successful, person, business, love, client, big, thought
SPEAKERS
Lance, Jason, Lance Graulich, Craig
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 to determine what the best businesses for you based on your investment level, mindset, skill set and life experiences. This is ion franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. I'm your host Lance Graulich. Each week we will speak to fascinating folks from the world of franchising, 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. Ion franchising where you will learn the A to Z's of franchise.
Lance 01:08
Hello, everyone and welcome back to another fabulous episode of ion franchising. I'm your host Lance Graulich. Today we have, well let's just say we have a brand and a niche that many of you have never heard of, especially in a franchise. So today let's start with the introductions. Jason Stowe. He started his career as a chef in Park City, Utah, a beautiful place especially in the wintertime for skiing. I think it's great in the summertime to Well Jason tell you more about that. eventually ended up in multi unit leadership in the restaurant space, my friends concept zuka juice. Hi, Dave. Hopefully you're listening. And let's see he moved on VP of franchise development for Kosta Vita, I leased a love Kosta Vita, but there's none near me. Then in 2014, he ventured out to his own deal helping business owners and franchisees achieve their greatest potential. So welcome to the show, Jason Stowe.
Jason 02:10
Thank you very much, Lance appreciate being here.
Lance 02:12
Awesome. lovely to have you and VP of franchise development for today's brands, cyber backer, yes. And next up is the founder, the man we've all waited for this gentleman early on his career, you know, all entrepreneurs have a story. And I don't want to spoil it all. But let's just say you find a problem or a pain point and you solve it, right. That's what entrepreneurs do. And early on in his real estate career, you know, he experienced the power of leveraging admin support with assistants who are virtual assistants. Vas is the terminology that was born. And this allowed him to increase deal flow, I'm sure cash flow certainly workflow and free up to schedule. So without further ado, the genius founder of cyber backer, Craig Goodliffe. Welcome, Craig, how you doing?
Craig 03:04
Thanks, Lance. I appreciate it excited to be here. I am not worthy of half of what you said. I don't know what they're paying you for that. But double it for me. Thank thank you for the sponsorship. Jason did pay me? Yeah, just kidding. He is He's worth it, trust me. So gentlemen, let's start off with what I tend to call the obvious fill in the blanks of what I didn't say about your backgrounds and how this all came about. As much fun stuff as possible. We have all these potential candidates or prospects that are looking at business opportunities, franchises, why your brand tell us all about cyber backer in the history here?
Jason 03:43
Well, you know, for me, I stubbed my toe early on in my career so many times because of wanting to help franchisees succeed, but not necessarily having the tools that make that happen. And so I became a systems and operations guy, because I just want if I could provide them with the systems and tools, they can make their life easier. I just found that it was a great relationship. I mean, I still have franchisees 25 years ago that I still have connections with that we talk all the time about the good old days. Isn't. That's important.
Lance 04:17
Isn't a great watching somebody that's a first time business owner just blossom. I mean, it starts with the deer in the headlights look. And then eventually, this success kicks in.
Jason 04:28
Yeah, there's nothing worse when you're as a new business owner in a franchise, and you're seeing 500 People wrapped around a building, waiting to get into your facility. And you're looking at this going. I've never cooked in my life. I've never managed people in my life. And now I'm getting ready to open doors and serve food to all these people. Yep, yeah, it was quite a thrill.
Lance 04:52
Love it. So what's the connection? How did you get involved? Were you in Craig old friends?
Jason 05:00
No. So I, you know, I've been working with the same law firm for a long, long time. And first start with Jeff Thompson in the Salt Lake market. And then his son and daughter took over the firm. And I started working with Christian, the Son, and Christian calling me up one day and said, Hey, I've got this client. He's got a very interesting concept. And he needs some help in developing it out and expanding. Do you mind if I give him your name? And number I'm like, sure. Next thing, I know, I got it, you know, Craig called me out, call me up. And we start talking and, and I became more of a coach consultant, you know, person to throw ideas out to and we talked through a lot. And then I started meeting more the people on the board and their leadership. And I really came enamored, because there's one thing that's most important was cyber backer and its people. And that's how I've always approached my business career is people first. And when our values aligned, he just said, Hmm, well, I'm thinking about franchising. And what do you think? Like, well, it's a great idea. Not quite sure how it can work yet. And we start talking, you know, so what would it do to get you over here? I'm like, twist my arm. Love it.
Lance 06:26
Love it when a plan comes together. So Craig, let's, was that all true?
Craig 06:30
Yeah, yeah. We were. We we started looking. While everything was shut down through COVID. We thought this little company cyber backer, we had roughly 150 ish people. No, no, we've crossed 250 people. Sorry. 250. Thinking about our timeline. And I called Christian wonderful franchise attorney I was looking at do we license this? Do we franchise this? How do we multiply what we're doing. And there's a lot of different uses. And we talked to a lot of different people. And COVID hits, we think the ship's going down, like a lot of companies did, we thought the economy's gonna tank we were wrong. We went into 2019, we started 2018, we ended the year creating our jobs, roughly a year to 232. Your three was 2020. We created 870 jobs that year. And the challenge is I'm only one person, I know what works in my hair. For people around me. I know how to be successful, but I don't know other areas. And when you look at how you do that, there's a model of you hire someone, you license out your systems and things like that, or you hire an employee, I really wanted someone who had just as much success as I could have. And so franchising kind of through working with Jason became our only real viable option, where I could see someone becoming massively successful and enjoying this company just as much as I did. And Jason talked about the relationships, that's really what this just drives on. And that's what feeds it. It's the values the company, we remind everybody of that. And we kind of laugh, like it's a big family. Because some days, you know, you don't like family members because things occur. But at the end of the day, you still love them, you still care about them, you still want what's best for them. And when I met with Jason, it was one of those things where you meet someone, and you're like, This person has a lot to teach me and he's right, I went ahead and I'm like, okay, he's gonna coach me and consultant, we're gonna figure out how we franchise license what we do and how we do it. And at some point, you get kind of around someone you're like, it would take me a lifetime to gather this much experience. And at that point, you have to make the decision. Am I willing to learn it? Or am I going to find someone who knows it? And through the connection, we decided to work together and it's been great.
Lance 08:48
So you mentioned COVID, when COVID hit, it seemed like everybody kind of froze, you know, with, depending on what city or state you're in, obviously, you guys are in Utah. But you know, as states started shutting down or having lockdowns, that's when everybody panic, like, what's going on other grocery stores closing, what, what is going on. And it seemed like after the initial shock of the first couple of weeks, and then eventually a month went by, everybody was kind of back to whatever that new normal was. But then you realized, I'm sure that your business was perfectly positioned, because everybody's now going to be virtual for who knows how long. And you know, why not? Right. I mean, I can imagine your business grew exponentially at that point.
Craig 09:36
Yeah, 232 jobs created. We had a goal to create a profit share program, so people from all over the world had the opportunity to retire. We went ahead and the big goal was to profit share 2020 50,000 And after COVID hit, the profits weren't there. I thought the suckers going down. We ended 2020 We without 870 jobs created we profit share too. $126,000 back to our associates, they're vested. So when they work with us five year vesting period, they get the rest of their life, they can sell it, they can, will it. So it's a big win for our wonderful cyber backers who work all over the world.
Lance 10:14
Alright, so now, okay, we got, we got to park the whole profit sharing piece, because that's certainly your corporate corporate team. So how do you do that? How do you promote that within the culture of a franchise system,
Jason 10:29
Our franchisees buy into it, it's one of the things that we tell them right off the bat, we give them the history of the company. And we let them know that our big goal, our one thing that we always talk about, and we strive for, in everything we do is profit sharing $5 million by the end of 2025, which is going to require us to have about 15,000 jobs created. And right now we'll hit that in probably 2024. Ish.
Lance 10:57
I love that you you guys know your metrics. And that's what every great franchisor does talk about putting the vision out there, and just everybody you know, it's just plug and play, just need franchisees and you have how many franchisees as of today, 2828 franchisees, and you were officially set up for franchising when March one of last of 2021. Yeah, pretty astounding achievement up until now. So how are you finding these franchisees and what were these people doing before? You know, we should also define very specifically what you're doing. I don't know if there's anybody else, like you guys, even out there at this point, really just focusing on the VA space. But I can tell you being home and I've always been home as a franchise broker. So the pandemic didn't change much. But I guess you can say I like a lot of people that were never on Zoom, I was on zoom the whole time while I was home. And I kept hearing the word VA, VA, where do you get your VA, I need help. I need assistance, I need admin support. So when I heard about cyber backer, I'm like, oh, gosh, these guys are geniuses, geniuses. So I gotta hear more.
Jason 12:12
Yeah, so I mean, the pool is very small when you consider all the industries that are out there. But there's one leading pool out there that everybody is used to leveraging themselves. And that's in the real estate sector. And because of Craig and his relationship with great people at Keller Williams, we chose to go down the route of introducing the franchise concept to all the KW family members. And we went to the ones that were already using cyber backer and had multiple cyber backers, and they were using, we considered them brand ambassadors, and we said, you're already doing this. So why not invest in cyber backer franchise? You're out there talking about it anyways, you love what's going on? Why not make some money off of this thing? And let's partner together? I think we came a very easy proposition.
Lance 13:05
Peter Drucker and I come from a Wall Street family, I think it was Peter Drucker, one of the world's most famous investors. Yep. used to say, you know, buy stocks that you already know, if you know, if you go to Starbucks, go buy Starbucks, if you go to Walmart, go to Walmart, you know, so I love your logic, because that's what it is. Let's talk about from the client side. So if you want a virtual assistant, how does it work? How does it work? You know, on the corporate side, right now we'll get into the franchise.
Jason 13:36
Well, first thing is you go ahead and meet with one of our growth backers, who go ahead and understand the scope of work because we're not promising they can do every job they can do. Almost everything provided doesn't require a physical location or a physical presence, or license or certification. And with telepresence, we're kind of working on that physical presence pays a little bit right now we're experimenting in the lab, but they meet with them and they go ahead and come up with here's what you want someone to do and can we staff, then they take that to our career team. Our career team on average right now gets 10,000 applicants on average per week. We do 3500 interviews, on average per week. From those we select less than 100 on average per week. Those are some big metrics, but we're looking for the highest people that we can better company on and when our clients come to us, they're betting their company on us. We take that very seriously. We honor that relationship. So we're looking for the best of the best we go back to the person we do a rapid fire we get to go ahead and it's like speed dating interview five people rapidly. You pick your one favorites, we want to we've already screened and we've made sure they're good. said these are the top five, you have a one on one conversation with that person to make sure you like and if you do, then it goes ahead and their training curriculum starts getting built to make sure that experience they already have we can add and compound on to it. Then they're working with the client. There's a head backer, who is going to be checking in every week making sure they attend training classes, checking to make sure the understandings there, we've got roughly 200, head backers, each of them teach two classes a month. So on average, we offer 400 classes per month. And it's a retention program, because finding them is tough it is to take it from 10,000 people down to less than 100. It's even tougher to keep up. Yeah, because that's a tough one. But when there's training that's constantly ongoing, there's a profit share program, they can retire, plus through cyber capital and the money to buy houses and cars, and we profit share the interest, make it so it's got a very, very compelling reason to stay with the company long term.
Lance 15:42
Such a great idea. Now, I guess it's an obvious question, because there are VAs all over the world. Are you using only US based or using people from everywhere, depending on the circumstance?
Craig 15:54
Well, we've we do have for internal cyber back, we've got a few different places, primarily, we go ahead and we hire the Philippines, because in some countries, one of the questions we've been asked a lot is how do I keep people from stealing from me. And there's that kind of theft thing? Because in the Philippines, according to the commercial code, section 150. If you're a foreigner, and they steal from you, without a legal entity or representation there, you can't do anything. They can take whatever they want, and you have no enforcement. This is true in a lot of countries. Wow, we've got multiple entities in the Philippines that allow us to go ahead. And they know that they're going to be just as honest as someone sitting in an office and if not, they're going to be subject to the same consequences. And because of that, we've been able to hire great people and keep them accountable and do a great job. There's a lot of companies who are attempting to do that without a an entity in the Philippines. I saw one company that I asked just as talking to the other person who started he says, Well, we have insurance. I said, does that protect the client? He says no, but it protects us when? Yikes, you can steal in the year. Okay, but the person who came to you asking for help, in a bad spot
Lance 17:02
so much for the team approach? Yeah. Yeah, crazy. So let's talk about the ideal franchisee that you have today, out of those first 20 Plus franchisees, what are those people? What did they do before? Like, why cyber backer if I was gonna interview all of them right now in a rapid fire? sort of scenario? What would they what would they tell me? Well, Lance, of course you met, you know, Jason and Craig, they're amazing. Well, yeah. Besides that, of course, why? What would they say?
Craig 17:36
So our first friend Jake, franchisee came because he approached me when cyber back was new. And he said, Hey, I've got this idea to have them go ahead and do these specific tasks. Can we work together on it, and it was going pretty good. We were having a conversation or like, this guy's name's Rich. And I said, you know, if something happens to you, our agreement is you're basically an independent contractor. And I care about you, and I care about your family. And you owe nothing. And I'd really like that didn't sit with me too well, Rich's background, he's owned multiple businesses. And he understands like a lot of our franchise owners, the different business models that just kind of make a business work from having an economic model, a budget model, lead generation model, organizational model, when they have those components, and a lot of the agents of Keller Williams, who run big businesses and real estate companies, they kind of have that. That's the one component that all of our successful ones typically have. So that's kind of their DNA and their makeup.
Lance 18:33
Yeah, so they all have some sort of sales ability, business development. They feel comfortable with people.
Craig 18:40
Yeah. And then their client, if they're not a client, they haven't used it the concepts still too foreign to them a lot of times, right, just not the right person.
Lance 18:48
Right, but not I mean, are all 23 or so of the new French, the first franchisees in the last year, connected somehow to Keller Williams, all of them. Wow, I love it. I love it. So let's talk about your franchise selection process. So as you continue to grow this, what what does that process look like? Obviously, there's a first phone call, and then it goes on all the way to some sort of validation. I'm assuming you get to talk to existing franchisees to see how the experiences so Jason, you want to share that?
Jason 19:24
Yeah, so like I said, like I mentioned before, we have an initial interview call with them to identify if they have a good understanding of business, if they're successful in the region, that they're looking at taking, you know, wanting, what their sphere of influence looks like in the network's. We obviously give them contact information for all our existing franchisees to call. We go through all the Franchise Disclosure Document in detail, to make sure they understand what they're getting involved with. It's a pretty easy process for on our end, it's on there and it's a little bit harder because they've got to identify the market. And right now, up until the end of this month, we've been offering them all a market area exclusive. Meaning that they could own the whole entire State of Tennessee, for example. And we use the market index of real estate as the top line barometer. And they are required to get to a 10% market share in your one for real estate agents, and then 15% in year two, but then we took it one step further, and we said, You know what, now that we've tapped the real estate industry, we've got all these exclusives covering the United States and Canada. Let's go to tier two, which is the next level of industries that we want to onboard. So we've identified 10, new industries or more. And then I go to those franchisees and I say, you know, what, if you know people in these industries, let's bring him on, interview him, make them a franchisee in your area, you'll get a piece of everything for mentoring and coaching them.
Lance 21:04
I love it. You guys are thinking I love this. I love the outside the box thinking well, yeah, guys,
Craig 21:11
Sorry, hotline, geographic, or toplines, geographic tier. And then it's a demographic tier. So because we have this theory that people know people in their industry, and people want to see what are successful people doing and what can I r&d, rip off and duplicate?
Lance 21:30
Right? So the territories that you guys mentioned, obviously, people love, prospective franchisees love to hear they have a big territory. Yeah, so is obviously as you get to larger states, I'm talking about by population, are you intending to split up California and six slices or something like that? Exactly.
Jason 21:53
We have, for example, we have five franchisees in Texas that took down, you know, different parts of Texas we've got, we'll end up with seven or eight. In California, right now we have four. And then we got this whole central region that's still open, but it's going to end up being split in three. So yeah, we just look at it. We either identify it by county, if it's a big area, or by state, it all depends on the economics and the, this the number of potential customers in that industry. And you know, they love the opportunity, because when they got in early with us, we're allowing them to become, pay it forward. Essentially, they're going to help other industry leaders become successful through virtual assistants, cyber backers.
Lance 22:43
Yeah, no, this is this such a great concept. Now, how much work is this for the franchisee? As you guys certainly know, by now, in the world of franchising, there are the owner operator model, there's the semi absentee model where you can work 10 hours a week and kind of hire a manager. And then there's more like the executive level? Is this something where you just have a lot of work in the beginning for the first year to lay the groundwork and spread the word so to speak in your local market? I mean, you know, Craig, why don't you talk talk a little bit about that. I mean, maybe maybe some of it goes to your vision and how you started the company.
Craig 23:19
Yeah, if you look at it, it's if you know, your area, and you know your influence, it's not a lot of work, because you could go endorse, you know, a cleaning product. And because of your name, your validation, people are going to trust that just because of who you are. Plus, if you say look, I'm also going to show you how it works. And we'll work with you to make it better as we go. People trust that. If you are brand new, and like someone just spaceship dropped you into a new area, and you're a cyber backer, franchise owner, it's going to be extremely hard for you. Because you haven't developed the influence. You haven't demonstrated the name, there's no track record. And so different franchise owners are going to have different levels of success. When we started the company, I originally was helping people who coached business owners like I do. And originally, that's all cyber backer was going to be for about the first six months, and then it just kind of got bigger, and we didn't want to stop it. So we started building an airplane walls flying what it felt like, but in that market, I just happened to have some influence because I trained a lot of the new coaches and I helped a lot of coaches along the way. And my demographic was about 384 people. In less than 90 days, we had more than 50 people signed up. And this is a brand new startup company we just said, I think I can help you let me show you how. And let's talk about how we can make it better. And that's what we did. It just they got too good and started learning from each other and cyber backers network and they got even better. So that's kind of how that started. But it's level of influence in your market and in your territory. mean really it's how good your reputation. Do you have a reputation as someone who cares about others wants to help them? Are you successful in what you do and if you do startups gonna be pretty easy See, because people aren't you know, you and they want to be like you, you know, you're
Jason 25:05
And here's what takes it over the top, a franchisee we don't leave them on their own to do this, every franchise comes with a whole support team that they get that they hire specifically for this. And so they have an immediate growth backer that takes care of all the selling and the cold the calling, they have a career backer that takes care of the paring the head back to take care of the training. Our franchisees only have to focus on 20% of the business. Their support team takes care of 80% of it.
Lance 25:36
I love it. I love it. So obviously this to sum up your you're looking for connectors, it's gotta be somebody that is a connector influencers, influencers, they already have some sort of established network, whether it's real estate, or it could be a lot of other industries. But I love the real estate example because everybody knows what somebody in real estate does.
Craig 25:59
Yeah, smiley, happy person.
Jason 26:01
Smiley, happy people. But now we're transitioning more of a we got to educate the other industries of saying, how much how much time do you waste on a daily basis answering emails, or looking at your calendar, or trying to get these bids done, because you're a contractor and you're just buried, and you go home at night, heritable to your kids, you have no time with your spouse, you are working weekends? Well, let's get your life back to you. Let us help you get a cyber backer to help you manage that. And in so many different ways. And people free up their time and then all sudden they're going well, I could do this for others. I could coach others how to do this. But yeah, now buy a franchise and let's do it.
Lance 26:45
Yep, I love it. So let's talk about the investment. So to get a whole state or territory, I mean, what is that all in investment? What is your Franchise Disclosure Document? What does that range, I guess you could say,
26:58
On the minimum on the low end, 65,000, high end 92,000
Lance 27:02
Great, very low cost investment and the ramp up the ramp up time because you're selecting the appropriate people is going to be really the most how many, three weeks, three weeks, you make you probably training make them make a list of all the people they know,
27:20
We make a make a list of everybody they know but in within three weeks, they got their growth backer hired their career backer hired, they've got the list of people to contact, they can start making money in three weeks.
Lance 27:32
This is amazing. So I mean, really, in a way. It's interesting, because there's been so many staffing companies over the years. And you know, whether it's healthcare or it retail, you know, during the pandemic, Walmart still looking, you know, targets looking for employees. So they're all these specialized staffing companies. It seems like in a way, you're just the coolest new staffing company, but it's for what everybody can practically use. I mean, that's, that's what kind of hits me today.
Jason 28:08
We're the staffing company that has staff that loves what they do, loves helping their clients succeed, shows up every day with a happy smile on their face appreciates, and is so grateful to have the work. It's a little bit different than what we experience here right now. In the culture we are we live in. Yeah.
Lance 28:30
Wonderful. So what you know that validation, I'm sure you have plenty of happy franchisees. If I was going to talk to your top five franchisees in this young franchise company of yours that's grown so quickly, I'm sure very controlled, how excited are they to share their success? I mean, this has got to be pretty life changing for some of these people.
Jason 28:54
So this is a funny story, one of our franchisees in Chicago, Amy, she called me up super excited. She's like, I just signed on a new client, like, okay, we're from, it was my chiropractor. He was crunching my back. And I told them that he needed help. I just got involved with cyber backer, and now I'm going to have them help them either with scheduling, social media, client relationship, whatever it is. That's what we're getting from our top people. It doesn't matter where they're at. They're just talking about cyber backers, and how it's helped them in their life gain time back to produce more meaningful time in their relationships. And when they say that it's a game changer.
Lance 29:41
Yeah. I love the fact that you've given this credibility to this VA space. Because, uh, Craig, as you were saying earlier, I have quite a few friends that on their own attempted to get people. You know, I heard that the Philippines is one of the best places to work with but to your exact point about the legalese of it. They didn't know how to do that. How would they know?
Craig 30:03
Yeah, it out because I had someone steal somebody's intellectual property. And when I knew I, oh, well, I made that mistake. Because, I mean, how do you learn this stuff will make mistakes, go out and just keep messing up. The thing is, though, as you grow your business, the mistakes have bigger financial consequences.
Lance 30:23
Yeah. So now this, this has been pretty enlightening. What do we miss today that you guys want to cover? We got some time.
Jason 30:31
You know, I think the biggest thing in the franchise world that you're you're very well aware of is a lot of people go for the bottom line first, right. And when you're when you're driving for that profitability, first you forget the people you forget your pride, and the product that you're delivering on. And because we're so people centric, number one, is our goal to take care of our people. Our franchisees catch that vision, and they want to create as many jobs as possible, so that they can say, I helped generate 200 of those jobs in the Philippines, or when we go to South America, or where, wherever we end up at. They're part of this, they're part of it. Whereas a lot of people in the franchise world figure out, you know, I'm just a restaurant total number, and I'm just producing a royalty, or revenue for those guys over there, and they're making money off, I'm just a number. Our people don't feel like our people feel like we're on a battleship of rowers. And we're rowing in the same direction. And if one is not rowing as quick or fast, everybody knows about it every Friday because we present our numbers. And that franchisee is gonna look out at going, oh, wait a second, I'm way behind. What is that individual is killing it doing it doing. And they contact him through the back channel and find out what's going on. And we just rise, we just all rise together.
Lance 32:04
I love it. Craig, I know you have something to add to that.
Craig 32:09
Now, this just really went ahead and this whole concept and everything is this stems from the problems I've had in just trying to be as productive as I could be in this world. And having relationships where our first person that was almost She's almost done with this 10 years. This is a woman who went ahead and got pregnant, had a boyfriend who was in some pretty heavy drugs, was at the hospital living this newborn baby and said, I don't want to take him into that lifestyle. She went home with strangers. She went ahead just has this newborn baby does that and it goes out there and says okay, well how do I work online? And through whatever channels me posting it out on Craigslist, way back when that was a thing. contacted me. I thought she was gonna scam me. She thought I was gonna scam her. It worked. And when I heard her story, I went, That's a powerful story. I've never had a day like that in my life. And so just stemming from that, right there, we're interested someone else's perspective. And I thought how do I make life better for this person. That's where a lot of this came from. And a lot of our successful franchise owners, what Jason was saying is that the perspective they take how to make life better for this person. And that's kind of ends up being the philosophy of the company overall. And I think as long as you have everybody watching out for everybody, you don't have the problems a lot of people have in their companies and you don't feel like just a number because someone cares about you. And it's very, very basic, fundamental things like, we're gonna take care of each other, we're going to care about each other, we're going to operate with integrity, we're going to be honest, we're going to be accountable. And it's just going to be the way we operate. And those really basic things are company I want to be a part of when you look at profit sharing, companies used to have pensions, companies used to go ahead and care more about their people what Jason's saying about a franchisee feeling like another number. I think a lot of people who are employees out there feel like just another number. And I think there's a big reason you see this break resignation? Because people just feel underappreciated and undervalued.
Lance 34:08
Yeah, so many people, the grazing, the resignations happen because people had that epiphany. We all know why they're sitting at home, thinking, There's got to be something else. And that's what I do as sometimes people call me the franchise evangelist, showing people the way that there are franchises out there that fit you that suit you that you can do much better for yourself and your family and have a better schedule and sure you can afford this or I helped them with financing. I got somebody a zero down franchise finance deal recently with a conventional loan, which was crazy. So I tell people, anybody can do it. Look, guys, I'm incredibly impressed with not only what you've done, but your culture that you've created. So in order to keep that culture intact, I mean, you know, Craig Assuming you have the final word on anybody coming on board, I mean is that they have to see you and have a conversation with you. I think it was a Warren Buffett or Steve Jobs that always said, you know, I can always tell when I have a meal with somebody. I mean, maybe now we're not back to having meals with people. It's more like a zoom, I get to look at them and see how they hold themselves or carry themselves. But Craig, are you the final word on all this?
Craig 35:26
No. And I don't want to be, because when you look at someone like Jason, I trust the man with business, I would bet the company on him. And you have to be the kind of leader that leads that way. And it's the same thing with our Vice President of career. It's the same thing with our vice president growth. Same thing with all the people in the company, I have to trust that they can identify good moral character. And there's been times in the past that what we learned is that they couldn't, we had to make a correction, unfortunately. But if you go and micromanage too many parts of this and people just don't have the ability to grow and think that harms the company. Now at the same time. I keep my phone open. Everyone in cyber back or all 20 519 Cyber backers have my number. They have a method to contact me we encourage it. So I get hundreds of messages every day from them. And it's the same thing with my franchise owners we oh, we welcome open communication. But I trust the leaders in this company. I mean, it's their it's their prince the battleship rowing it's their ship to
Lance 36:27
Yeah, this is fantastic. All right, gentlemen, Jason, final word.
Jason 36:31
This has been such an amazing ride. I mean, it's so new and fresh. To wake up every day so excited, not just to be a part of an a great organization but to be able to affect change somewhere in the world and see that change and witness it is amazing but also watching our franchisees I love it is so much fun.
Lance 36:54
Love it I love I love your passion and I love I love your purpose and what you guys have done Craig any final words of wisdom before we sign off?
Craig 37:02
If I'm gonna tell something just take care of other people just help them be a successful they can show them the path to living the best life possible. Making a lot of money so thing cool, show them how to make it. But life's too short to go ahead and just work job J to buy stuff you don't really want or need. And I think just old fashioned let's just take care of each other. Let's just get through life together. Let's build something great. I think that's kind of most important thing.
Lance 37:30
I love it. Well, gentlemen, Jason Craig. Cyberbacker is the franchise. We'll put everything in the show notes so people had to find you. And thank you, gentlemen, so much for being here today.
Jason 37:42
Thank you.
Craig 37:43
Thank you.
Lance 37:44
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 ion franchising, comm 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