Responsible Franchising with Joshua Tree Experts

you are impacting people's lives and that's got to be a huge part of the franchise to be responsibly franchising but it's exciting but I think the challenge as I think you're what you alluded to is that you have these people's lives now that you feel ultimately responsible for even though people are responsible as franchise owners they're independently owned and operated but you do feel that sense of uh responsibility to having them succeed don't you I do 100% I gotta think it's like we're not a small investment model we're not we're just below 600,000 to get into this system and a lot of that has to do with you know we're very heavy earned equipment and vehicles that you know to to launch a franchise system so you do have instant Assets in the business but when you're talking that type of money and it's not I don't look at it like hey man you're not rolling the dice we know how to operate in this space yeah we have great people at the I've been in the industry for what is it 32 years this year or 33 years and it's like I know what works I know what don't work you know you're having those deep conversations with with people where it's like they kind of want to Veer off the system a little bit and we're those are challenges that we face every day where someone's trying to do something different it's like hey I respect that but it's not going to work we tried it you know we've tried and and and it it can be a very disaster road that you're trying to go down here it's like this is what works be patient too we're not a a get quickr business we're not you know people that are thinking hey man I'm gonna you know be you know well off in year one it's like that's not how this system works give it year two you're give it year three and you're going to start seeing some excellent Returns on it and then give it year 10 you are going to see you know whether you have an exit strategy or not you're going to see the benefits of what this business can do for you but it is man it's like getting someone up and launched it's like you got to have that empathy of what are they feeling lot of anxiety lot of fear comes in and a lot of wins too though there is there's a lot of winds that we always got to remember it's like hey man I know times are hard but look at the winds yeah we're up you had a you know first you know production week where everything went well it's like these are great things these are really wins we got to remember that too did you find it surprising that when you got into franchising and started you know awarding franchise owners um locations that you found yourself doing more coaching counseling than you anticipated um I listen really well to people and I think that was kind of like a lot of the messaging that people were giving me so I kind of had an idea probably not to the level of where it's at right but I like that I do I I really like mentoring I like Consulting with people I do love coaching I've looked at growing my corporate business where you know at one point you're making so many decisions but then you get to a point in the business where it's like I need to formulate a leadership team we need to adopt an operating system that we can can follow consistently how we're going to communicate with such a large company listen to our business is complex Frank it is you think about we have three different businesses in one uh it's great in the fact that you have this huge you know client pool of uh clients that you can cross sell all these different services to but it's like you got clients you got equipment you got vendors you got product you got Warehouse you know what I mean it's like there's a lot to it and what's really good about that it's not made for everybody so there's it's not an overly saturated business when you're doing this and when you have the right people that have the right mindset you can blow it up right really your business is not a a you know a low investment um by any means who is your your ideal franchise owner I'll tell you what someone that who has money because that's really important because we've met a lot of people that I want to partner with but they don't have the money and I mean that we have some really great people that we had to deny because they they they would have been able to get a loan and up and launch I can tell you mostly what we see coming into our system is the 40 to 50 year old corporate working person I love the owner operator model I absolutely do we have two franchises that are in our executive model right now that want to transition after two years into owner operator but those folks that can get right into the business and learn the business if someone came to me Frank and said hey man I want to go climb trees I'm going to say go get a job because we don't want our owners out there working in the field doing that type of Labor work hey you want to learn how to sell the work we can teach you that we absolutely can but we really want more of this backend manager Office general manager type mindset and someone that wants to scale the business if someone comes to me and says hey man I I have a great operating territory uh I want to get to a million dollars and freeze I'm going to say that's not the right person for us my vision my long-term vision is that we deliver 1 million servic that's a lot but my Partnerships with franchises that includes them having to continue to ramp up scale the business get on the additional services that we offer to be a to be able to fulfill that Vision so you know if we can get that right mindset person knowing that this is a longer traction keep going kill it after two years and you're going to reap the benefits and understand that that's who our people are okay can you clarify for the audience difference between the the executive operator model versus the owner Opera model so your executive model is that 15 to 20 hours a week it's really coaching and mentoring your team you're giving the support that they need as in you know you're dropping the marketing you're going to make sure that their tools are replenished when they need that uh you're doing all the backend support is maybe you're going to be doing all the AR all the AP you're meeting with the team maybe once a week for a breakfast or something talk about what's working what's not working the owner operator Mo role is hey you're there every day you're acting as the general manager you are seeking out you know all the new hires you're doing all the interviews with them you are working specifically in and on the business to launch and then transitioning to really working on the business when you get to maybe a two three person crew you're adding on the additional services and you can scale from there that owner operator probably more that 50 Hour Week type 40 50 hour a week type person executive saying hey I'm going to take the profits from this business and I'm going to put either a general manager in place or I'm going to hire an account arborus manager that's going to sell and can also be more of our operations manager at the same time what about um from a staffing perspective am I am I launching all three businesses at at once or is there some sort of stage that it's a scale so that's part of our scalable model where in year one when you come it's a general tree care plan Health Care Services our equipment packages designed specifically for that I don't want to teach two businesses in one year and and even with like Lawn Care at our corporate location we're a seasonality business sure we're up in the Northeast Lawn Care isn't you know 12 months out of the year it's more like a nine and a half 10 month service that we do but when you launch you have to be specific on when you launch because 65% of our sales happen in March April and May where subscription based so we sell by the program most Lawn Care people are calling when weeds are starting to pop that's what kind of triggers them to call a lawn care service to come out and perform the application but all lawn care companies they sell by the program after May is over we start cross- selling telemarketing different people taking current clients and offering them and upselling them on different services but your lawn care sales really drop off so as we're launching for instance as we're launching you know in the next couple of weeks here we have some launches coming up we miss out on the lawn care part of it so we know it' be on the tail end of the marketing we want to ramp them up to say hey be ready to go you know spring of 2025 marketing can drop and you can launch successfully but you're also adding more equipment you're also adding another person at that time you also definitely need some warehouse space on where you're actually going to put your products coming in so that's all part of the scalability where it's like hey our model is General tree care plan Healthcare to launch you can park at a storage open parking lot facility all those trucks are designed to hold all your tools and products so you don't need a warehouse then in year two approximately we want you to get into the lawn cost control thank you for tuning in to the emerging franchise Brands podcast for additional insights guest applications and to stay connected visit us at efb podcast.com the emerging franchise Brands podcast is for entertainment purposes only and the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of emerging franchise Brands it's host Frank fumi or emerging franchise Group LLC any discussed franchise or investment opportunity requires thorough investigation obtaining proper disclosure documents and expert consultation before making any investment decisions the podcast and its host do not offer professional advice or endorsements and they hold no responsibility for actions representations accuracy or consequential damages related to the podcast content [Music]