Today we are joined by Adam Baker, franchisee with Schooley Mitchell. After you listen to this episode head on over to episode 14 and listen to the conversation with the founder of Schooley Mitchell, Dennis Schooley. Just hit the link here; https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eye-on-franchising/id1587910359?i=1000539386934 Adam has been helping organizations reduce costs and improve operations for the last 15 years. He has worked with all types of organizations – from the Federal to local Governments, and for profits to non-profits and utility companies. He is a former military officer and holds a Master of Science degree in Leadership and Business Ethics from Duquesne University, which he uses daily as he consults businesses on effective cost reduction strategies through his Strategic-Partnership with Schooley Mitchell. We learn in the episode how important it is to do your due diligence when you are searching for the correct business that suits you and one of the best ways to do that is through having outside support, like a franchise broker will offer you. We also get to learn a little bit about what it takes to succeed as a business owner. Follow the processes and systems that have a proven track record within a franchise and then just do the work. This is Eye On Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. 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 we are joined by Adam Baker, franchisee with Schooley Mitchell. After you listen to this episode head on over to episode 14 and listen to the conversation with the founder of Schooley Mitchell, Dennis Schooley. Just hit the link here; https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eye-on-franchising/id1587910359?i=1000539386934
Adam has been helping organizations reduce costs and improve operations for the last 15 years. He has worked with all types of organizations – from the Federal to local Governments, and for profits to non-profits and utility companies. He is a former military officer and holds a Master of Science degree in Leadership and Business Ethics from Duquesne University, which he uses daily as he consults businesses on effective cost reduction strategies through his Strategic-Partnership with Schooley Mitchell.
We learn in the episode how important it is to do your due diligence when you are searching for the correct business that suits you and one of the best ways to do that is through having outside support, like a franchise broker will offer you.
We also get to learn a little bit about what it takes to succeed as a business owner.
Follow the processes and systems that have a proven track record within a franchise and then just do the work.
This is Eye On Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future.
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
franchise, franchisee, mitchell, people, ftd, opportunity, adam, hear, money, dennis, business, business owner, utilities, thought, service, clients, friends, wife, process, franchising
SPEAKERS
Lance Graulich, Adam
Lance Graulich00:09
Hello everyone and welcome to another fabulous episode of ion franchising. I am your host Lance Graulich. Today I have a wonderful new friend and franchisee and we're going to talk about what it's like being a franchisee. So, former military guy, a former military guy, two times we'll hear about that. And he's got a master's degree. Not not too often I see franchisees with master's degrees. That that's that's pretty impressive for sure hailing from Pennsylvania, franchisee of Schooley, Mitchell. Hello, Dennis Skoolie. By the way, Dennis is the founder. He's been on the show as well. My good friend Adam Baker. Welcome, Adam.
Adam 00:55
Thank you, Lance. I tell you what, I might hire you as my hype man, that might have been the best intro I've ever gotten.
Lance Graulich01:02
I need a good theme song.
Adam 01:05
I was just thinking I feel like I should be going and getting ready to go into the corner now.
Lance Graulich01:09
Yeah. It's like It's like wrestling or boxing or something. Anyway, welcome, Adam. I'm excited to have you here. You know, my listeners frequently asked and my clients, candidates, etc, that come to me because I'm a franchise broker. I help people for free, find their perfect business. And Schooley Mitchell is a hard one. And, you know, but People frequently ask, they go, what are real life, franchisees look like? I don't know what they look like, I don't know what they what did they do before? You know, they became a franchisee? Why did they pick a franchise? You know, what was their thinking? So I look forward to diving into that stuff with you today. So Adam, give us your backstory. Let's talk about your upbringing, the military two times and all that good fun stuff.
Adam 02:00
Yeah. So Lance, the the military thing was kind of funny in that my mother had taught us we were very, very poor part of the system in the projects. And she had always taught us you know, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If someone gives you something, you pay it back. And there were four of us in when we turned a team, we all joined the service. You know, my older brothers joined the Marines. My sister joined the army, I joined the Air Force. And we always joked my mom and said, you know, you roll with such an iron fist that, that all four of us thought it would be easier to go through basic training than it would be to live another day with you. And I love her. But it was it was that kind of mentality of you know, you don't just take take take that you got to give back. And so that's what we did. When we turned 18. I joined the Air Force, I did very, very well on my ASVAB. So I chose a nice job, went down to Mississippi for about a year to do my training to work on radar equipment. And I got an assignment to Enid, Oklahoma. And I had to look at a map. I said, Where is this place? And on your dream sheet, you can say hey, this is where I'd want to go. And I put all East Coast and all Europe I wanted to go explore. And I ended up in the middle of the United States. And in a small little town. It was how you rated way back then. Oh, for sure. For sure. Because everyone else was getting Germany and England and Florida and I got Oklahoma. And it was the best assignment in the world for me. Because there was nothing going on. I was this young kid I had a little bit of money in my pocket. Fortunately, I had nowhere to spend it. And I had a bunch of time. And I had some really great leaders that they said, Hey, Adam, you're gonna be here, you're gonna be here for a while. We want you taking college classes. And we want you volunteering. So so I kind of got involved. And I did really, really well. My first year I was I was awarded airman of the year and they said, hey, you know, there's an opportunity for you to get a scholarship, get out of the Air Force, get a scholarship, they'll pay for your degree, and you can come back in as an officer. And I said, Sure, you know, I'll take it. So I was awarded, there were 350 applicants, seven were accepted. I was one of the seven. And I got out early on a scholarship, went to the University of Pittsburgh, got my degree, did ROTC there and was able to come back in as a second lieutenant and start doing some leadership there. As I was in I had an opportunity to deploy to Iraq as a team that was 2008. So you gotta imagine the Iraq war had been going on for five years now. And it was just grinding on the service members. And so DoD looked and said, Listen, this war is very expensive and it's a drain on our manpower. What can we do to reduce the cost of the warfighting effort, reduce the impact on our service members, but maintain our operational efficiencies out there still be able to fight the wars we can. So I went on versus a team that looked at okay, how do we how do we do this? How do we solve this issue without negatively impacting our warfighting capabilities, did that it was a great experience came back and my wife said, We're never doing that again, said, You know if you get on the service, we'll move anywhere you want to go. And I grew up in north of Pittsburgh, I just want to watch the other games again. So I said, let's head back to Western Pennsylvania. And so we ended up here, I joined the utilities, and I did a lot of the same things I was put into leadership roles, but constantly putting on teams for cost reduction.
Lance Graulich05:33
So when you say you join the utilities, what does that mean? Exactly?
Adam 05:36
So when I left the service, I ended up joining the utilities group. So you know, at first energy, it's one of the largest utility groups out there by joining them, and working as an employee for them and then working my way up to ultimately I was leading one of their metrics and performance improvement divisions. And so what we were doing is looking at how do we improve our efficiencies? How do we reduce our costs?
Lance Graulich06:00
Wonderful. And at what point How long were you there? 12 years, 12 years? And at what point did you say, Huh? I wonder if there's greener pastures, somewhere where I can be my own boss.
Adam 06:16
It was the second time they brought in a international consultancy group. And so they brought in a group of consultants to help us you know, the first one was based on safety. The second one was built on efficiencies and reducing costs. And what I learned through both consultancies were that they would come in, they would be able to generate ideas from the employees, but all of the labor, all of the work was put back onto the team, everyone that worked there, the consultants were really just driving the the information. And what I saw was, the consultants would say, Hey, this is where we expect you to get. But all of the work went on the backs of the employees, while they're balancing that with everything else they're doing. So you never quite met the goals that consultants had thought that you'd reach. And I thought, you know, there has got to be a better way to do this. And, and they say, you know, when when the students ready, the teacher will appear. Franchise broker reached out and said, hey, you know, are you interested? And I said, Yeah, and we came across Schooley, Mitchell. And that's where it really I made the connection with Schooley, Mitchell, because they do the consulting, but they do all the work, you know, and that's how they guarantee their effectiveness versus asking the employees which are already taxed to do the work, right. So that's, that's kind of how they lined up for me. So this just makes sense.
Lance Graulich07:42
So what kept you thinking about really being your own boss? Because it's one thing to think, oh, there's got to be a better way to do this or that. But to go out on your own? I mean, look, your wife, as anybody's wife or spouse, certainly has a hand in the decision making. And, you know, clearly, there was a conversation.
Adam 08:05
There certainly was. So based on my military service, my master's degree, how is performing the utilities, I was continuing to be promoted. Well, it was going to get to the point where my next promotion wasn't going to be in Erie, Pennsylvania. And the things that my wife really didn't want to do. She didn't want to be globetrotting. You know, that's one of the reasons she wanted to get out the service. She wanted to plant roots. And so it says, Okay, there's a better way to do things. There's an opportunity to control my own destiny. And there's an opportunity to do it right here where I live in I would have that stability
Lance Graulich08:39
and create your own schedule. Correct. So, how many of the brands did you look at besides Schooley Mitchell, do you recall
Adam 08:46
I looked I looked at eight initially, and then I asked for I narrowed those down to say okay, I like this, I like this, I don't like this, find me some more like this. So they found me four more like that. So 12 total.
Lance Graulich09:01
Gotcha. And what was the process like with Schooley, Mitchell that got you to become a franchisee give me the highlights?
Adam 09:12
You know, it was great. So, first, it was just an introductory, like, Hey, this is who Schooley Mitchell was, this is what they do. And so we did that. But then I started doing calls with Dennis, and just kind of better understanding asking the questions and everything kept checking the box, check, check, check. And so finally sat down. As I said, Listen, I said, I know nothing's always sunshine and rainbows like you know, there's gotta be there's some downfalls to this, you know, and he was able to level six and hey, this is the downfall that we've seen. But other than that, it's exactly what you get. And so I appreciate that. I appreciate the honesty and I appreciate being able to connect directly with with the franchisor.
Lance Graulich09:54
So as a franchisee, as a business owner now how Have you noticed that? Even within Schooley Mitchell because I've asked Dennis, this type of question as well, you know, who is not successful in a franchise and as a business owner? And Dennis had an interesting answer, he said, Man, people just sometimes don't work. They love the idea of being a business owner. And they know what the plan is, but they just don't do it. And I hate to compare everything to diet and exercise. But the average individual knows what they should be eating, and how they should be exercising. But for some reason, it doesn't happen either. And in some cases, so what what are your thoughts on that? What are, you know, as the listeners are hearing you, you're obviously a bright guy, you come from, you know, humble beginnings, and you've had an incredible life, obviously, that you've laid out for yourself, and now you have the ultimate freedom. But what are those? What are those tips? Who can be a business owner? anybody?
Adam 11:07
Anybody can be a business owner, but I don't think anyone could be a successful business owner. How about that?
Lance Graulich11:14
unravel that a little bit.
Adam 11:15
You know, I heard on one of your podcasts, one of your guests, I can't remember what he said he, but he was talking about the intrapreneur and intrapreneur, being, you know, and I really thought about that. And I say, You know what, he's exactly right. I think entrepreneurs who, who want to do everything, and they want to make all the rules? And do I think they might struggle on a franchise system, because the beauty of the franchise system is, is the parameters are already laid out there. If you know, I don't want to say to paint by color, but I mean, it's a successful model. So I would say that the people that are successful are those intrapreneurs, the people who who are in an organization, and they said, Hey, these are the policies or procedures, and I found a way to be very, very successful while operating within those confines. And I think those are the people that if they say, You know what, I'd be interested in knowing my own destiny, those would be the people I think would be most successful.
Lance Graulich12:08
Yeah, that's that's all great stuff. You know, it by the way military, military folks like yourself, veterans, or or former military, make up 14% of franchisees. It's pretty, pretty huge number considering the general population is obviously well, below that. Yeah, 14% of franchise owners, are veterans and pretty incredible, obviously goes to show that, you know, once you're in that sort of organization, you still like that type of structure, you know? Yeah. And look at him. I've told people and you've heard it on other podcasts that I've mentioned this many times, anybody could start their own business. People have a certain passion, but there's money, there's time. And there's knowledge. And most people either don't have the knowledge, don't have the money, or certainly don't want to spend the time. So franchising becomes that that perfect avenue, you mentioned something else. You know, I know there's always anybody can be a business owner, in my opinion, however, we have to find them the right business for you, the gentleman that you're the person that you worked with, I'm not sure who you did, but but the person that you worked with, obviously, queued in and drill down to what what are Adams skills? Let's talk about that. You know, because now you've met other Schooley, Mitchell, franchisees Your skills are obviously transferrable to whatever it is you're doing next in life. Is that fair to say?
Adam 13:40
That is a yes. You know, there were a couple of different tests that I took some personality assessments and some interest assessments. And those kind of lined up. And we did that first in order to get the the original eight that I selected, or that I was able to select through. So yeah, there were there were, some deep diving and possibly some soul searching there to see what would line up because you're right. We've all had that job where we just didn't match with, you know, but, that's a no risk, you can walk away from that. What you don't want is to enter into a franchise agreement with something that you don't mesh with, you know, so you take that due diligence to make sure you're in the right place.
Lance Graulich14:23
Right. Well and talk a little bit further about that. We were talking a little bit about process. You know, you have an initial conversation and then you get handed a Franchise Disclosure Document. Was that the first time you ever saw a Franchise Disclosure Document obviously with Schooley Mitchell or a previous brand and you were like what the heck is this? It looks like the size of my mortgage.
Adam 14:44
It was i for i've never even heard of it so years ago, you know, just a email I got about hey, explore franchises, right? And I was like, and I remember thinking about like, I don't even I've never even heard this franchise. How do I know it's a scam? Am I right? And I just thought people were Fly By Night franchises, you know, it's in and I didn't know about, you know, the FTD, or anything like that. And so when I was handed this, I said, Oh my gosh, there is actually a process that manages this to make sure that people aren't just selling franchises willy nilly. You know, in that's important to know, because there is trust in that, you know, that that is you're going through a credible franchise that says, Okay, this is this is everything that we need to tell you about the business, this is how we've performed, you know, there's a lot of information in there that you're not just making a decision blind.
Lance Graulich15:39
Such a great point that you brought that up, because it really is about trust the process, and then also trust, but verify, because franchising is regulated by the federal government, the federal trade commission, specifically, and there are 23 items in that disclosure document. And one of them item number 19 Is the earnings claim. So obviously, if it's a brand new franchise, more than likely, they will not even have an earnings claim. So I know of situations where people get excited about a brand, just like some people get excited to get married, love at first sight. And they there's no earnings claim, and then item 19. And they make all kinds of assumptions on their own, of how successful they're going to be based on Unfortunately, nothing. So that's why the critical thing is that I as a franchise broker, play matchmaker, because I can also take the emotion out of it. Pardon me, I can take the emotion out of it and make sure that people get the brand with that solid profit path, as I call it, you know, so that's, that's awesome. So you got the FTD? Did you use a franchise attorney to review that? Or?
Adam 16:53
I did even even though because I look, I said, Okay, there's, you know, almost 200 franchises, so this has to be pretty good. But I still want to make sure for my peace of mind that we put it through its due diligence. So yeah, I still got a franchise attorney to look through it.
Lance Graulich17:08
And of course, I have a lot of friends that are franchise attorneys and the key takeaways, and hopefully this is what you learned as well, is it's, it's just really for your protection. So you fully understand what you're getting yourself into, right?
Adam 17:23
Correct. Yeah, you don't because you think you understand and say, Okay, well, you know, there's not a whole lot. And then you say, Hey, these are the questions that you should go back. And you should be asking, you know, and it was good, because they aren't, as you're new to this process, you don't know what you don't know, and you don't know what you need to know. So it was good to have that and everything, you know, it's still once I got the information, I sent it back to him. He said, okay, yeah, that looks good.
Lance Graulich17:47
Yep. And I do a lot of advising of my clients and candidates for what they should be asking. I even provide some questions, they can ask franchisors about the FTD and otherwise, but I always have that disclaimer, at the end, you know, I do suggest you consult a franchise attorney, here's a list of attorneys that I can suggest, and some of them might charge different fees, you know, and some are all inclusive, some are not. But, you know, I might sound like an attorney sometimes, but I just only play one on TV. So they tend to, like my honesty, I guess, but, uh, after that, so besides the FTD, at some point, you have an opportunity to do validation, which other people don't necessarily even know exists as well, which, to me makes franchising so safe, because you look at the FTD and you look at it and go, Well wait a second. If I can hit these numbers, that's really good. And then you talk to existing franchisees, they hear your experience and like, shoot at me, you should be making, you know, $200,000 in no time and 300,000 thereafter. So how did the validation process work? And, you know, what, what got you excited about that?
Adam 19:02
The validation process was nice in that, you know, I was able to talk to some folks in a couple things, you know, the money, and this is gonna sound very crazy. I wasn't too concerned about the money because I was more concerned about the process because if the process work, the money would follow. And so I really wanted to know, does the process work for you guys? And as I called them, I talked to him and the things I took away was there was certainly a team atmosphere Schooley Mitchell every franchisee was willing to you know, say hey, yep, that's tuck in. And they love it because the more we grow the brand, the easier it is for us to so yeah, we love that. asked him about any issues with head office note no issues with head office. If we have any issues, we can easily reach out get that resolved. So everything I was hearing from everyone was very, very good.
Lance Graulich19:53
It really checked all the boxes.
Adam 19:55
It did but there was a there was a piece of my due diligence. what's missing? And I reached back out to Dennis and said, Dennis, everything is good here. But I'd really like to talk to some franchisees that have failed, and that have closed up their franchises. And so he was able to, I was able to get in contact with with a few franchisees who they didn't make it. And in the first one I talked to, he had personal issues that were going on in his life that it just happened that way. So Okay, the next one I talked to, he said, there was nobody that was interested in his community. Like he didn't he didn't sign a single client, no one's interested. I said, I find it hard to believe that everyone else I've talked they found. I said, Okay, so he's most likely the anomaly. I feel good that that of the franchises that have closed, they aren't because the process failed. And, and last, that's the thing, franchises in general, but very specifically Schooley Mitchell that I loved, is that a franchise if you follow the process, it's very easy to identify what isn't working, it's most likely you as the business owner. You know, as an entrepreneur, you're trying a lot of different things to make things stick, you don't really know what it is that isn't working, because you have nothing to compare it to. As a franchise, you can look at every other area that the franchises are operating and say, What are they doing differently than I'm not doing because they're following the same process? You know, a Big Mac and Aries the same as a Big Mac in Massachusetts. They're the same thing. So what is it that you're doing differently? With Schooley, Mitchell, that is even more so because Schooley Mitchell doesn't have territorial limits, we can operate anywhere, you know, I have the same opportunity to clients is the franchisee down in Austin. So if he's having success, and I'm not it's very easy to look and say, Okay, there's only one thing that's different here.
Lance Graulich21:52
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of sad, you brought it up. And I'm glad you did. Because it's kind of sad that there are people that do fail in franchises. But these are people that for the most part would probably fail in any franchise, they just either don't follow the system, don't put in the work, don't really have the traits to be successful, maybe on their own. And they might have talked a really good game to get into the system, because Dennis and the team is not taking on no great brand takes on franchisees so they can fail. That's more headache than it's worth. All you want is obvious success within the brand. So there are absolutely going to be failures. I always use the silly example. You know, think of your favorite full service restaurant, buy your house where there's food servers, waiters, waitresses, etc. And is there a favorite server that you have or two, you know, there's probably a couple of favorite servers. And there's got to be five servers that are the bottom of the list that for some reason, are the ones that you're like, Oh, please don't wait on me. Please don't wait on me. So in life, whether it's franchising or food service, there's the top 10% And sadly, there's the bottom 10%. So now let's flip it and talk about the top 10% As you were getting into the brand, and now that you've been in the brand, you've been in the brand, how long now? A year this year. Well, happy birthday, happy anniversary. So if you think of the best franchisees that make the most money and Schooley Mitchell has people making over a million dollars a year, net income. Everybody hear that out there? A million dollars a year net income from a $68,000 investment in a home based business. So but you have to have sales ability and the ability to do business development, of course. So but the top franchisees, what do they all have in common? I'm assuming they're all from all walks of life. That's something that people always get crazy about, Well, what did they do before? Well, not everybody was like Adam and worked in utility public utilities and what have you, that seems to seamlessly flow right into being a Schooley, Mitchell franchisee, but what are those traits? Give me Give me some of those traits that you've noticed.
Adam 24:23
One of the big ones is their ability to build relationships. Schooley Mitchell is very unique and that we don't do any marketing we don't do advertising the way we acquire clients is through relationships with other people. So for instance, if you know Lance by came and I did you know an assessment for you and I was able to save you money you're gonna say Adam, I love you. I want to introduce you to other people. Right now if even if you have a good experience, but we don't have a very good relationship with my Sam's great saving money but you know, it is what it's what the the best franchisees are able to do is the right Want to really build that relationship? So you say, You know what, Adam, I like what you did. More importantly, I like you, I want to see that you're successful. I want to introduce you to other people. So that's one of the big things because what we found in Schooley Mitchell is that that referral is so important that introduction to the next business is really critical. In the ones who have been successful. They're very, very good at doing that. They're very good at building those relationships and getting those introductions. Yeah.
Lance Graulich25:27
Yeah. I mean, it's all about people, right? I mean, that's really the business. It's all it's all about people. And I mentioned restaurants, I've owned quite a few restaurant franchises. So that's how I relate the most. And at the end of the day, you're creating those raving fans, those people that really love your service. Whether you're Schooley Mitchell, or whether you're a restaurant and have to tell people have to tell 10 friends
Adam 25:51
in a way that you would understand Lance, like what we do we offer, you know, there's no risk to using us, we're either going to save you money, or we're going to let you know that you're that you're, you know, paying the least amount for the service that you need.
Lance Graulich26:03
Speaking of that, Adam, let's take it back a step and explain everybody, I just realized we really didn't lay out what Schooley Mitchell is. So why don't you lay out what Schooley Mitchell is and who it serves,
Adam 26:14
okay. Mitchell, is North America's largest independent cost reduction consulting firm. So what we do is we go into organizations and we look at what they're spending on certain things like utilities, Telkom shipping, waste, credit card processing, if they have a fleet, what they're spending on fuel. And what we'll do is, first we'll make sure that they're not paying for things they don't want or need. And we see it all the time, or a lot of people, they've, they've got these add ons that they never thought they had. So we'll get rid of that. The next thing we'll do is we'll look to see, are there any errors on their bills. And you know, and you'd be surprised how many times we find that. The third thing we do, and probably the most important is we go back and we renegotiate lower rates for our clients. And we do this because this is what we specialize in. Because we have relationships with the vendors. And because we do it every single day, we're able to get lower rates for all of our clients, or for most of our clients 90% of the time that we sit down with a business, we're able to find them savings. So that's ultimately what we do. The piece that that I really liked. And this goes back to my my original comment about working with consulting firms, is that we do all the work, it takes maybe two hours on the business side for us to gather the information that we need. And then we've got a team of analysts, they do all the work behind the scenes. And then we come back and we say, hey, we were able to create the savings, would you like us to go ahead and implement for you? And if they say yes, then we run point on implementing that forum. But that's what enables us to guarantee that if we say, hey, we found you this amount of savings, we firmly believe that we'll be able to achieve that for you.
Lance Graulich27:59
And part of what you receive is residual income, which everybody loves that word, I want residual income.
Adam 28:08
Yes, yes. So the way we work, we only get paid. If we don't find any savings, we don't get paid. But if we're able to find or create savings that we do is we share that savings 50%. And we do that over the course of 36 months. And the reason that we do it over the course of 36 months is twofold. First, we don't just want to come and save you money and then walk away and leave you because anybody can save your money. But what kind of service are you getting? So when we're tied together for 36 months that let you know, okay, we're gonna be here with you, we're walking with you through this process, you can feel confident that whoever we get you with is going to take care of you because we're with you for 36 months. The second piece is is that we then manage that vendor for you. So when you have an issue, you know, you can call us and we'll handle with the vendor. Again, that's why we want to make sure you get where you get really good service for a low costs, because we're gonna end up dealing dealing with it for you. And then during the course of the 36 months, we'll continue to go back. We're going to monitor the bills, make sure there's no errors, but also continue to go back to look to see is there cheaper rates did something changes now we can get cheaper rates.
Lance Graulich29:19
Yeah. All great stuff. One thing I wanted to go back to I was just thinking about, so when you decided you were in the process of investigating Schooley, Mitchell maybe you hadn't even talked to Dennis yet. And you obviously had keep kept your wife in the loop. And you might have told friends and family what you were doing you were investigating having a beer on a Friday night, telling them and looking at franchise opportunities. What were the comments? Do you remember the comments you might have gotten? Obviously you remember your wife's comments, but
Adam 29:55
everyone thought I was crazy. Everyone you
Lance Graulich29:59
know Adam, I love this response because you can tell everybody listening. We didn't set this question up. I didn't give you any candidate questions or anything. Because that's exactly what I experienced as a franchise broker. There's a lot of occasions I have a first phone call with somebody. And then I don't hear from them for a while. And I find out that the real answer is after they get off my first the first phone call, super excited about their future. They tell everybody they know what they're going to do. And what all of them tell them exactly what you said. You're crazy. You don't have money. You don't know anything about that. In your case, Adam, you know everything about you knew a lot about that industry, which is kind of unusual. Most Schooley Mitchell franchisees don't, but tell me more. So people, what did they say specifically other than you're crazy,
Adam 30:52
I can remember one time I went and I got a beer with one of my friends. He was a co worker of mine. And he said, Well, Adam, you know, how do you know this is financially going to work out, you're gonna, you know, you're giving up your pension, and you're giving him this that. He said, it just doesn't make sense. And they said, You know, I said, I just don't see if you put the work in how it doesn't work out. You know, I just I don't see that. Because the growth in this is with any franchise, the growth is really unlimited. There's opportunities to keep growing as long as you're doing well. So so that was that the conversation with my wife was, you know, my wife and I are two ends of the spectrum, I'm a throw caution to the wind kind of guy, you can't turn apart ship. So just get moving. And my wife is like, very, very risk adverse in. And so and so it was mine. If it weren't for her after the first call of the franchise bar, say, okay, the silent that's getting the money over to you that's go, you know, and she's like, Whoa, I get a lot of questions. You know, if she, she had a lot of questions that we could just kind of went through in. And fortunately, she's a wonderful, wonderful woman. And we just kind of laid down the one thing that we really had to get our arms around was my working hours. And that's because when I was worked for the utilities, you know, I would I 16 hour days meant nothing to me, I just I would go and work said listen, I'm afraid that because this is now your own, it's going to be 20 hour days. Yep. You know, and so we really had to kind of figure out, okay, what kind of hours am I gonna put in that? I feel like I'm dedicating enough to it. But I'm also not taking away from our family, you know, and that that was like the big hurdle internally.
Lance Graulich32:33
Yep. Remember the old expression, you rather work 80 hours a week for yourself than 40 hours a week for someone else. But the reality is, there's a lot of jobs that are a lot more demanding, like you said, you work in these tremendous hours before. So that was great. Thank you for for sharing all that. So what is your friends? What are your friends saying now that you've made it so to speak?
Adam 32:55
They're happy for me. They said, Man, that's great. And actually, I was just talking to I was out on the golf course I did a golf outing for a nonprofit I'm involved with. And my old, my old boss called me just to check in on me see how things are going and he said, man, he said this, you know, he's just glad that it's going so well. You know, it's it's just trusting the process, though.
Lance Graulich33:16
That's amazing. Well, what are your final thoughts for today? We covered a lot and I really appreciate this as your how's your future looking? We know it's bright with Schooley, Mitchell, you got three young kids, your wife is obviously happy with what's going on your home more often
Adam 33:36
than I am. So, so final thoughts ultimately, it was very funny. i The ink wasn't even dry on my agreement. My contract that I signed with Schooley Mitchell, and my CPA who also works with franchises, he set me up with some exit strategy, folks. And I'm like, I haven't even started working day one, you know, and love it. opportunity because because when I sat down with him, I said, Listen, one day, one way or another, you are going to sell this franchise somehow, someway, it's going to happen and what you need to realize is you don't want to sell a job. You want to sell a business. Absolutely. And so your goal should be to work yourself out of that job to where you're running a business and you're not working it because it's going to make your business so much more profitable. So that's ultimately the goal is to work myself to the point where I'm out of that job and just running the business.
Lance Graulich34:29
Yeah, you bring up a pretty amazing point that I haven't covered in any detail yet and we could touch on it right now because you brought up an amazing point. There are quite a few exit strategist financial advisors and what have you a very good friend of mine and fraternity brother I had a conversation with about this the other day. He just helped franchisee exit, because you have to figure out tax ramifications. What do I do with my money? I mean, these are all great things to have and Ah, you know Schooley, Mitchell even though it's a $68,000 investment or so, there are multiple people that have exited for 1,000,005 million 6,000,007. And then most recently, a Canadian franchisee for Schooley Mitchell is well over three and a half, 3 million plus three and a half million by the time he converted to US dollars, I should say. Pretty, pretty, pretty amazing. And to a lot of listeners, what I can invest 68,000 Well, depends Are you add them? Nobody's at him, but you know, they're, they're amazing opportunities. So I'm glad you brought that up. So what is your long term plan? How many years I mean, you're young, how many years you plan on planning on working next.
Adam 35:50
Next, I plan on working the next 40 but probably not with Schooley Mitchell, you know, I really so the way I've gotten the plan set up is year nine is when I would not long I would no longer be working with you know, my ultimate goal is to purchase a couple more locations right around Lake Erie. That way I can kind of have this whole area, because there are some stipulations for where you can hire your sales force, things like that. But ultimately end up with two more locations and have a nice little Salesforce that runs this whole little region right here. Ultimately hire someone to lead them and me just let it go.
Lance Graulich36:25
Love it. Well, that sounds like an amazing plan. Adam, thank you so much for being here. You were awesome. Thanks
Adam 36:32
for having me. I appreciate it.
Lance Graulich36:33
You got it. We'll talk soon. All right. Take care.