Voiceover Artist 0:00
Welcome to web and beyond cast, where small business comes to learn about marketing and managing on the web and beyond with your host gray Sidney-Smith. Welcome to web and beyond cast where small business comes to learn about marketing and managing on the web and beyond.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:16
I’m your host Sidney-Smith. Welcome, small business owners, entrepreneurs and community. This is Episode 14 of webbing beyond cast. On today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about franchising and how it fits into the economic development landscape. franchising is a form of small business ownership that doesn’t get a lot of attention by economic development agencies around the states. I think it could use a bit of love. So hopefully, this will spark some conversations, as well. We’ll discuss what it takes to start a franchise and some tips for picking the right franchise for you, you and your local community because that does make a lot of sense in the context, especially of what’s happening today. And so in order to do that, I brought the best I thought

Why not go for the absolute person that I would recommend anybody to talk to when it comes to franchising, and that is Faison Kemal. She’s a nationally renowned public speaker and career strategist. as CEO of the franchise pros in partnership with the franchise consulting company, facing coaches people nationwide on making the transition from employee to entrepreneur, the Tory Burch foundation named Faison as a woman to watch. She has been featured extensively on Forbes, the Huffington Post and the Washington Business Journal, among many others. Faison received her BA in women’s studies and environmental studies from Mount Holyoke College. She holds a Master’s in Public Policy and a master’s in business administration from Johns Hopkins University. She’s also a graduate of Stanford University’s acclaimed social entrepreneurship program. Welcome to web and beyond cast Faison Ray, It’s so lovely to be here with you again, my friend. Thank you. It was the long preamble to say your hot stuff. You’re amazing and I’m really glad to have you here on the podcast.

Unknown Speaker 2:00
To talk about franchising, and you recently came out with a book that I had the pleasure of getting early access to and reading and it’s been almost a year since that book came out. What does that experience been like for you? I think that’s kind of useful and interesting for folks who are new to you. Absolutely. It’s a thank you, Ray. It’s a I think it’s one of those things you never quite know, the scope of what you are opening yourself up to.

Faizun Kamal 2:30
The book truly was a labor of love. It was actually a love letter to one person. And it was a love letter to that person who may be an employee who may be in the corporate world, and they feel they’re caught

Unknown Speaker 2:45
their coldness in a lifestyle. They’re caught in work that they don’t necessarily care for.

Unknown Speaker 2:52
And they believe they don’t have any other options. It’s for that person.

Unknown Speaker 2:57
I was that person for many years, myself.

Unknown Speaker 3:00
And so when I say love letter

Unknown Speaker 3:04
it is it is me sharing my own very personal visceral story of my career path. And how I came to be in the world of franchising.

Unknown Speaker 3:14
And the work that I now do with clients very much like me corporate refugees, who are now saying, Is there something else out there for me? So the book has been amazing re Truly, I just I could not have ever imagined what would have come out of it.

Unknown Speaker 3:31
It’s available, as you know, on Kindle, it’s an E book. About a month ago, it came out on Audible as an audiobook. And then yesterday, it came out in paperback. So if you walk into your local bookstore COVID notwithstanding, you should be able to pick up a copy. And of course, you can always pick it up on Amazon.

Unknown Speaker 3:51
But really, I would say it’s, it’s the emails. It’s the LinkedIn messages that I have gotten from

Unknown Speaker 4:00
complete strangers. I’ve never met these people in my life. they’ve picked up a copy of the book, and they say, look, you know, in many ways, I am now in your shoes that you used to be.

Unknown Speaker 4:13
reading your book has given me almost a roadmap to try and figure out if there is an option out there one, if it’s business ownership for me, what would that potentially look like? It’s been absolutely gratifying. Absolutely, the book is actually entitled The right franchise for you. And, and so I will put links to this in the show notes. And so you guys can

Unknown Speaker 4:38
find it there. And I’m just really excited for people to get access to it. So let’s start off with kind of the agenda of what I plan to talk about today, which is to really cover three kind of lump sum areas. One is the alternative to corporate career. You know, as you said, You’re a corporate kind of refugee, and that is business ownership in France.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
anchises one type of business ownership, how franchising works kind of what is a franchise? How does it fit into the current economic development landscape? And what does it really take to start a franchise? And then finally, how to determine if a franchise is right for you and you have a little bit of a little tool for folks to use which will hopefully help them do that. So let’s start off with franchising as a form of business ownership. How do you contextualize franchising for folks? Absolutely, I would say Ray, and this is the description my friend I use in the you know, the weekly webinars in lieu of the workshops I used to do pre COVID

Unknown Speaker 5:41
something I always tell my my workshop participants, think of picture of shoe box. Picture any shoe box in your closet. When you become a franchisee, meaning you become you become a business owner in a particular business system. Your franchisor

Unknown Speaker 6:00
Who’s your parent company the brand, the brand essentially hands you a shoe box Ray. And they say to you, here you go Ray, as our franchisee

Unknown Speaker 6:10
everything that you need to know, all the systems, all the processes that you need to start the business and to overtime, grow it successfully. All of that is contained in this box. In essence re a franchise is a turnkey system.

Unknown Speaker 6:29
It is a business in a box. It’s a business in a box because the franchisor very clearly lays out a playbook for you. You get an ops manual that says in order for you to be successful in our business, here are the things you need to start doing. And how do you know that these things that they ask you to do are indeed what’s going to grow your business because you should have if it’s a robust franchise that you entered, you should have a whole network of other franchise

Unknown Speaker 7:00
He’s around the country, if it’s a national brand, or around the world, if it’s a global brand, who have followed the same exact playbook that you are now holding, and they have been able to create successful businesses.

Unknown Speaker 7:14
Fantastic. And so I think about franchises and frequently what happens is people have a misnomer about what they are and and how they really operate. But what you’re saying is that each of those individuals is buying into a larger ecosystem that allows them as an individual business owner, that is, in most cases, a small business owner to then operate with a tried and true method for being successful. Absolutely. So thinking about the franchise, like just, you know, me as a person who’s outside of that ecosystem. Where does the franchise model fit in? Here we are in the covid 19 pandemic. And for those of you who are listening to this many, many years

Unknown Speaker 8:00
In the future, your I hope that you didn’t have to deal with it. I hope your young people and you didn’t have to deal with it. But for those of us who are living through it, what do franchises offer as a an additional benefit or as a buffer against this kind of circumstance? Absolutely. What a fantastic question. What a timely question Ray.

Unknown Speaker 8:21
I will tell you since COVID, hit us early March.

Unknown Speaker 8:27
Almost every client who and by the way, I am busier now than I was pre COVID. And that saying something

Unknown Speaker 8:34
the people that are coming to me Ray are exactly in that boat. So they’re saying they come to me and they say, either I have gotten laid off because of COVID or I’m in fear that I’m going to get laid off any day. Now. I’m reading the writing on the wall.

Unknown Speaker 8:51
Look, I am 52 years old.

Unknown Speaker 8:56
I have done ABC for the last 20 years.

Unknown Speaker 9:00
Frankly facing I don’t know, is there a franchise out there for somebody with with my skill set? With my background? That ray is a question I get literally almost every single day with almost every single person I speak to. Here’s one of the biggest things that is so beautiful about franchising. So let’s say you come to me and you say, Zune, you know, I have been a VP of Marketing for ABC Company for the last 20 years. And this is my skill set. Here’s what I’ve been able to do. This is my day to day. Is there a business out there that fits who I am? The answer is probably yes, there is. But there’s a process that I’ll that we will walk through that will allow me to uncover if indeed there’s a franchise out there for you and to are you really suited to franchise ownership.

Unknown Speaker 9:53
So the first thing with the franchise raid that so many people during COVID I think it’d be

Unknown Speaker 10:00
attracted to, frankly, is the fact that when you go with a proven model, when you go with a brand, you are inherently reducing your financial risk. Think of somebody who gets laid off and says, Well, you know, I have done ABC for these many years. I’m going to go out there and start a business from scratch and go to consulting. Now there’s nothing wrong in doing that. Except every small business owner. You are the CEO and you are the janitor and you are everyone else in between for your business. You are nodding vigorously my friend. I Yes, indeed. Right. And yes,

Unknown Speaker 10:39
exactly right. That there’s that laugh that knowing laugh you you know you feel stretched in all directions. 24 hours is just not long enough. And there’s a reason why small business owners feel so stretched thin all the time. In franchise ownership. However, if you are going with if you if you move forward with robust growth

Unknown Speaker 11:00
The brand says something to you and they’re very clear about it. Okay, Ray, you’re now our franchisee, your These are your three to five top responsibilities as a business owner. And in most cases, Ray, it’s networking. It’s local marketing. It is doing consultative sales, whatever those key things are that that particular brand requires. The other stuff that typically as small business owners, we all do because you know, we don’t have the money to go pay someone to do it. So we do it ourselves. Those are the things that your franchisor is going to take care of for you in on the back end. I call these administrative tasks that if you as a business owner are spending your time on Ray, you’re leaving money on the table, my friend, and your franchisor is going to be crystal clear with you and they will say Ray, listen, if you are doing anything beyond these three to five daily tasks, you’re losing money.

Unknown Speaker 12:00
You’re not doing what you need to be doing, again, tasks that directly impact your financial bottom line. Those are the things and only those things that you as the franchisee should be doing. I would say that it’s probably one of the biggest advantages of franchise ownership as compared to business ownership in its other forms, the risk reduction that comes with approval.

Unknown Speaker 12:23
And are you seeing more potential franchise owners looking at different types of businesses right now because of COVID-19 are you looking are people choosing particular verticals to be in because they feel like it will buffer them against future current and future situations like this? What a great question. Let me give you a real life example.

Unknown Speaker 12:47
My client who will

Unknown Speaker 12:50
he will now have been a franchisee for two, maybe two and a half months, right.

Unknown Speaker 12:57
So he literally, he went through the process and he

Unknown Speaker 13:00
closed on his franchise as we were in the midst of the pandemic. By the way, they got a he and his wife got a scare. They thought their one year old baby boy had gotten COVID. They spent one day while he was in the middle of due diligence with me. I remember he spent the whole day driving around from hospital to hospital who would not allow them to come in. So it was I say that to you to say, these are the kinds of clients I work with. They’re motivated, they’re dedicated, they do what needs to be done, Devin, who? His background in his he used to be in the military. And he was an ops specialist. And he came to me, you know, I’m not laid off. I haven’t gotten laid off, but I have some medical issues. And I have always wanted to own my own business, but I just never really knew how and where to start. That’s a little bit about his background. So he came to me, and he ended up moving forward with a franchise that provides Pest Control services, right

Unknown Speaker 14:00
So I want you to understand an op specialist. He’s now running a pest control business.

Unknown Speaker 14:07
This is one of again, a second thing that makes franchise ownership so attractive to so many people. It’s a it’s that first question that people ask, Is there something out there for somebody with like me, somebody with my skill set? One of the key things that you and I will do, if we work together is for me to uncover what I call your transferable skill sets.

Unknown Speaker 14:30
Now, will I be able to find you a franchise where you are doing exactly what you used to do in your prior job? Probably not. But will I be able to find you a business that allows you to use the skill sets that you use every day in your prior job? Absolutely, hell yeah. And that’s what this particular client is doing. By the way, he got to profitability day 27 after starting the business, in the midst of a global pandemic, in terms of

Unknown Speaker 15:00
Vertical clients are buying businesses that provide need to have services.

Unknown Speaker 15:07
That is what I’m seeing over and over again. So if you have rats running around in your basement, if you have something running around in your attic, you’re not just going to sit and wait for the pandemic to pass. You’re going to call someone in need to have services. Absolutely. Those have gone through the roof. Yeah, I’ve definitely seen more people inquiring about all of those businesses that fall into the into the areas of essential services that that many state governments have have coined as essential services. And certainly these kinds of businesses that are vital, no matter whether or not there’s a pandemic, and I’ve, of course, in my world where I’m dealing with digital marketing, most days, you know, I see a lot more people thinking about how to how to do these kinds of turnkey, online digital commerce type businesses. And so it’s absolutely true that people are going to look for things that are key to both being patient

Unknown Speaker 16:00
demmick proof but also recession proof. And that’s really what I heard you saying in many ways is that, you know, there, if there are vermin running around my house economic downturn or not, I’m gonna go get that fixed. So I totally understand that. I’m curious from you. How do I know what it takes to start a franchise? Like, what what are the things that I should think about? If I were a potential franchise owner to kind of address that issue? What does it take to start a franchise? Perhaps right, and what a great question.

Unknown Speaker 16:35
I think let me answer it for you in two ways. The first thing that I would say to anyone listening to our conversation right now who may be thinking is franchising right for me.

Unknown Speaker 16:46
I get a little esoteric with you, my friend.

Unknown Speaker 16:50
Are you someone who,

Unknown Speaker 16:53
who always feels that they have traded their time for money?

Unknown Speaker 17:00
Do you always feel that you are beholden to the job that even if it’s a night Even if it’s a weekend even if it’s a holiday, you still have to be present and on right? This is the world we find ourselves in.

Unknown Speaker 17:15
I You Are you someone who has missed out on a lot of personal stuff, whether it’s your kids growing up

Unknown Speaker 17:22
with your spouse or partner, when you look back, these are some regrets you hold in your heart. Are you someone who happens to be in a job or doing something that you know full well if you continue in that you really are never going to be able to retire and be financially secure.

Unknown Speaker 17:43
And then very importantly, I think and this is this is a key for every client I’ve ever placed in a business re Are you really living life on your terms?

Unknown Speaker 17:54
And my friend, your terms are going to be very different from mine is going to be very different from some

Unknown Speaker 18:00
What else? But are you really living life on your terms? Are you doing work that excites you? Are you doing work that is valuable, and it pays you exactly what you know your worth.

Unknown Speaker 18:10
If you’ve answered no to any of these questions, business ownership may be a viable option for you. So that’s the esoteric piece. The non esoteric piece, I would say is, Are you someone who is okay with having the flexibility to be able to run your own business on your own schedule? Pick your own clients, but you are not.

Unknown Speaker 18:35
You’re not a Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, where you’re saying, I have to have the final say. So I’m going to create a completely new, entirely different market and commodities and services that people have never seen before. I’m okay with taking directions from my franchisor in following the playbook. Do you understand that there’s this nice little delicate dance they have to be able to do you are entrepreneur

Unknown Speaker 19:00
Enough to run a business. But you should also be okay with taking some directions. If that is not you, my friend, you absolutely should not be looking at franchises. The biggest reason re that most people will lose the shirt on their backs either unwilling or they were unable to follow the directions of their franchisor. Fantastic advice. I’m curious in terms of when we think about the the archetypal individual who is addressing that. This is not on script. Some are going off a little bit on a tangent here, folks, but I’m, I’m a little bit curious, what are the things that if if someone was not going to be appropriate for a franchise? I know that from reading your book, I learned some things as not the ideal franchise owner. I’m not.

Unknown Speaker 19:49
I I just know that about myself. I’m a control freak. everybody listening knows it.

Unknown Speaker 19:55
I’m thinking what are the things that someone can excise from the French

Unknown Speaker 20:00
Ty’s model. Right. And and I think, I think back to like Michael Gerber and the E myth, and how he talks about things, there’s still something to be garnered and gleaned from the idea of a franchise. And what do you feel like is maybe that one or two things that really a franchise model, just thinking about your own business in terms of a franchise model really helps with? I think, certainly, personally for me, Ray, it is being able to any doesn’t matter if you’re a teeny tiny business owner, you can absolutely do it the same way. A multi billion dollar corporation like Verizon is able to do and that is, when you find yourself doing something repeatedly. Perhaps you send the same kind of emails to clients when you begin working with them. Men realize that, could you use that over and over because what you’re doing in essence is you are taking out the unnecessary time of, of scripting a new email every single time

Unknown Speaker 21:00
You send that to a new client. It’s a very silly, stupid, simple example. But my point is, franchises are all about systems. What systems as a business owner do you have in place? When it’s time for you to send a client an invoice? Do you start the process all over from scratch because you never really put together in place a system for yourself? Does that make sense to do that? If you are the CEO and the janitor and everyone else in between, you know how precious Your time is. So from from a time management and I think particularly now Ray right with COVID with I don’t know, if you’re a parent, my daughter school starts on Tuesday, I am already starting to lose my mind, thinking how I’m going to run my business and have my child, you know, move, finish one class and then go into another waiting room to get into a second class because she’s not old enough to be able to do that on her own yet. So think of all of the all of the

Unknown Speaker 22:00
demands on our time now more than ever before. You’re a parent, you’re a business owner, you’re an employee, you’re a caretaker, you might have elderly parents at home, you need to be that much more efficient with your time. So systems, if you don’t have systems start thinking about what you can do in your own business. Absolutely. franchises provide this systemic approach to everything because they’re doing it for more than one person more than one business. And that’s kind of how I think about it. I think about Okay, if I had the same business in 40 different locations, not two, not three, but 40. How would I scale in that regard? And something as simple as a canned template, like an email template? You know, if you had to do that 40 times from scratch, would that make sense? And that’s the kind of thing that consistently runs through my mind whenever I’m thinking about these things. So thank you for that. I think that people who currently own a business and are listening and are thinking how can a franchise

Unknown Speaker 23:00
helped me it’s thinking like a franchise or right. It’s thinking like, how do I create repeatable systems that someone 100 times could use and find success with it? And Ray, you didn’t ask me this, my friend, but let me just make mention for your listeners. If you’re a small business owner and you have zero desire to ever be a franchise, no worries, I will not take it personally. But do this. If you can put systems in place for your own small business, when the time in the day comes for you as the business owner to exit out of your business. Think about it, my friend, most people, they will either they pass away and the business dissolved. In some instances, the business owner, it’s a legacy business, they give it to their son or daughter to manage or a family member and they they exit out that way. In other instances, when small business owners are thinking about selling their business. Typically, small businesses only sell at a multiple of one

Unknown Speaker 24:00
times total revenue.

Unknown Speaker 24:02
And the reason they do that is that most small businesses don’t have any systems and processes in place. Think of how much you are upping your monetary value as a business, when the day comes that you’re getting ready to exit out and sell the business. When you can say, Yeah, absolutely. This is what I have in place. Here’s the processes I have in place for how to get a client, how to work with the client, how to close the client, how to build a client, whatever it is that your business does. So I think you know, just beyond franchising, it is such a great, best practice, Ray. That I think and I know for a lot of small business owners, we are so caught in the day to day of running the business that What do you mean exit strategy? No, I’ve never thought about that. It may be financially worth your time to be able to do that a little bit at least now. I always think that I’m I’m just morbidly inclined because I always think about the end. I’m always like, Well what happens if I die

Unknown Speaker 24:59
and I

Unknown Speaker 25:00
Want to make sure that people are taking care of you know, I think about the end. And I think, you know, why not do the things that are going to make it easier for people on the other side. So I really appreciate that. It’s not just gold, that is platinum, in my mind, in terms of thinking about the end of these things. Were there was there any other thoughts that you wanted to share with folks, before we get to the best tool of the week, because it kind of dovetails nicely with what you’ve been talking about? I think I’ll just leave folks with a thought. And that is, and it comes from my own life and the way I transition from corporate into the entrepreneurial world.

Unknown Speaker 25:33
Whoever you are, wherever you are, remember that you are always going to be your best investment.

Unknown Speaker 25:43
It’s you, it’s no one else, you will always get the highest return from yourself. So if you think of yourself as an investment, what does that next step look like for you? And by the way, it doesn’t have to be business ownership. It could be another job, but I think far too many times Ray kind of goes back to

Unknown Speaker 26:00
So many people I work with who feel in their hearts, that they’re leading lives of quiet desperation. They don’t have any other option to, for me to say, That’s not true, you are your biggest investment, you are your best investment. So be very intentional and be very purposeful about what the next step of your career and your life looks like. I think that’s what I leave people with. That’s a wonderful piece of advice. And that brings us to our segment best tool of the week. So each week, I like to bring up something that I’m using and to give our guests an opportunity to talk about something that they have in terms of a tool or a tool they’re using. And today, a Zune you are offering a tool to folks that you use with your clients and talk to me a little bit about this. Absolutely. So you know, when folks come to me, I think I said to you one of the first questions they ask is I do ABC. Is there a franchise out there for someone like me, and how do I even know that I’d be good as a franchisee

Unknown Speaker 27:00
This is a tool. It’s a very simple questionnaire, but it’s a sales and management aptitude questionnaire, that essentially, any client who chooses to work with me, that is their first step. And what this questionnaire for me does re is it helps me start to build a very foundational picture for who you are, how your head is oriented. And very importantly, would you be suited for franchise ownership? So if any of your listeners have that particular question, I would I would share that too with them. It’s It’s very simple, it’s fully online. I can send that to folks. And it’s a great way to get a sense for yourself a self assessment really, is this something that I want to you know, more than dip my toes into? Fantastic so we will put a link to this in the show notes for folks to be able to access and so go ahead and check it out and use the client questionnaire and see whether or not franchising

Unknown Speaker 28:00
right for you. And and so my tool this week is stream yard. So for folks who don’t know, I’ve been going live every week for the past 37 weeks. So basically since January, I’ve been going live every week in kind of a pursuit of becoming more comfortable with being on camera. And being on camera. It is not difficult for me except for the fact that being on camera, when I can’t see the audience, I’m, I’m a I’m a trainer. So I’m very used to being in person with people and seeing their faces seeing when people’s eyes glaze over seeing when people get excited about something like I see the the counterintuitive perspective of somebody in the audience who looks angry, but they’re actually just really concentrating on what you’re saying. I’ve gotten to know that face and and so I’ve just been doing this every week, just to kind of get myself going. And I finally stumbled upon stream yard and I’ve been using it now for the past two months or so.

Unknown Speaker 29:00
And I have to say, I’m really pleased with the application. And so if anybody has any questions about how stream yard works, feel free to but in essence very quickly, it allows you to be able to stream to YouTube Live Facebook, Periscope, which is the Twitter live functionality and other platforms. And I am able to go live on all of them simultaneously. And that’s really, really helpful. And, and so yeah, it gives you a little studio and I could say if Faison and I wanted to go live together, I could bring her into the studio environment, it synchronizes the comment thread. So all of us are able to see the comments from all the various platforms together, which is really, really helpful. And yeah, so I’ve just been really, really happy with the platform. They recently upgraded to allow for HD video, 10 ADP, video. So just lots of really good stuff going on with the platform and I’ve just been really happy with it. So that is my tool of this week. And so with that closing out, how can folks connect and get in touch with you Faison

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Absolutely. I have been told, and you and I are connected on LinkedIn. So you would not be able to do this. But I’ve been told that apparently I’m the only physician come out on LinkedIn. So in a network of, I don’t know, several hundred million people, I’m the only face and come out so not super hard to find. I live on LinkedIn, right? That’s kind of where I am. Connect with me. They’re always happy to connect with people reach out, have a conversation, whatever you need, LinkedIn would be the place and I will put a link to all of your social profile links there on the show notes as well connect with Faison and and I really recommend it. And so thank you, Faison for joining us here on web and beyond cast. Thank you so much. It’s such a delight to talk to you my friend. Thank you always. That was Faison Kemal CEO of the franchise pros. Go find her and follower I like I said her social media links are there in the show notes and also check out her book the right franchise for

Unknown Speaker 31:00
You escape the nine to five, generate wealth, and live life on your terms. Thanks for listening to web and beyond cast where small business comes to learn about marketing and managing the web and beyond. I’m your host Sidney-Smith. Until next time, here’s to your small business success on the web and beyond.