November 14, 2024 • 47 mins
Franchising legend Jeff Dudan joins us to share his incredible journey from a young athlete in Chicago to becoming a powerhouse in the franchising world.
Discover how Jeff's entrepreneurial spirit was sparked during his college years at Appalachian State University and how it led him from a humble painting business to the founding of AdvantaClean.
Jeff's story is one of focus, change, and balancing business with family life. He shares invaluable insights on aligning personal values with business goals, offering lessons that are essential for both aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs.
As a successful franchisor, Jeff draws fascinating parallels between coaching youth sports and building a thriving business. He reveals how the lessons learned from the field, such as conflict management and teamwork, are directly applicable to franchising. Jeff also emphasizes the vast opportunities within the franchising sector, highlighting innovative ventures like Window Hero and Top Rail Fence, and exploring financial considerations crucial for franchise owners. These insights underscore the potential for personal and professional growth through franchising, providing a rich tapestry of experiences for those eager to explore this dynamic model.
Discover the power of franchising as a vehicle for wealth creation and personal development. Jeff's conversation touches on the economic advantages of franchising, showcasing how it can serve both seasoned investors and newcomers alike. He highlights the importance of active engagement in your business journey vs a passive income stream. With stories of successful franchise owners, Jeff underscores the importance of aligning business brands with personal values to ensure sustainable growth.
Jeff's insights offer a compelling look into the realities and benefits of the franchising world.
Text: 305-710-0050
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the we Bought aFranchise podcast.
I'm Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Jill Johnson.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
And we are here today with a franchising legend.
His name is Jeff Duden.
He is the CEO of HomefrontBrands, Jeff.
Welcome to the show, Jack.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
if I was a legend.
You wouldn't have to say myname, they would already know
who I am.
I really, really appreciate it.
Really excited.
You know we worked together.
We were we were both presentingat a conference last summer and
I really appreciated the thingsthat you shared during your
talk.
It was great.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Jeff, let's be clear.
I opened up for you, you werethe main act, well, and the same
is true Like your presentationwas great and what I remember
from it was that all theequipment like went south on you
and you're like you know what,don't sweat it.
And you took everything off andyou went out to the audience
and you've interacted withpeople and look, I mean, you've
(00:52):
been in this franchising worldnow for 25 some years.
You've got an incredible story.
I'd love it if maybe you couldstart us off and just tell us
what got you going into therealm of business ownership and
let's take it from there.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I had forgotten aboutthat, though.
Like we're at Disney, right.
So it's the magic of Disney,where everything works but
nothing worked.
The presentation didn't work,it all went down and I and I you
know you got 200 people orwhatever staring at you and it's
just like, well, let's just,let's just go with it.
So quick background.
(01:26):
I grew up in Chicago.
I was an athlete, primarilybasketball, came to football
late my junior and senior year.
I wanted to chase it.
I thought it was the bestopportunity for me.
So I chased it up to auniversity in northern Iowa for
a year, dropped back to a juniorcollege in Chicago, got a
scholarship out to AppalachianState University, located in
(01:46):
Western North Carolina on top ofa beautiful mountain.
Hurricane Helene has reallyimpacted that area, so we're
working tirelessly to supportthose people up there.
It's really rough right now,sitting here in November of 24.
But, yeah so.
But when I showed up there I hada football scholarship, so that
takes care of you during theschool year, but I couldn't
(02:08):
survive during the summer.
I didn't have any resources.
But I had worked the trades inChicago and one of the things I
had done was I had worked for apainting contractor.
So my roommate had a truck andI knew how to paint so we got a
ladder and it's a very lowbarrier to entry business.
We got a ladder and it's a verylow barrier to entry business
(02:30):
and we started the paintingbusiness where, started doing
some houses for people in thefootball office but ultimately
met the property managers whowere running all the student
housing apartments.
They struggled to get all theirapartments painted.
They asked us if we could put acrew together.
So the next summer, over abouta three and a half week period
two weeks in May and a week anda half going into August, the
end of July we had put togethera crew of athletes that were
(02:50):
taking classes over the summer.
So basketball players cuttingin the ceilings without a ladder
was great, wrestlers on thebase moldings and then football
players rolling the walls and wewould paint 15 to 20 apartments
in a day and my partner and Isplit about $76,000 in that
three and a half weeks and thatwas $1990, man, so that was
twice as much as I could havemade as a football coach and so
(03:13):
that kind of got me the bugthere.
And then this Hurricane Andrewhit South Florida and a buddy
called me and said we need helpdown here.
It was 1992.
I went down there, cut my teethin the insurance restoration
business for about 18 months andthen moved up to Central
Florida to start at Vantaclean,which I would sell some 24 years
and 11 months later with 240locations and 37 states.
(03:34):
So started that in 94, 95,moved up to race, start a family
and get married in theCarolinas with our second
location, became a verysophisticated government
contractor, big box contractor,and then also opened up local
offices doing things like moldremediation, emergency water
damage, those types of things,and then bought out my last
(03:56):
partner in 04, 05, responded toKatrina and I was on my way back
from there and I realized thathistory was repeating itself.
I was never home.
So I decided at this inflectionpoint which, by the way,
inflection points have threethings.
Number one they always involvepeople.
You don't always know them whenyou're in, but they always
involve people people that youare responsible for, people you
(04:19):
care about, people you want todo something with or sometimes
people that you want to get awayfrom.
The second thing is there's anadventure or an opportunity at
hand and then there's a risk ofloss, meaning you've got to give
something up to get somethingbetter, even if it's you
sometimes have to give somethingup to get just the opportunity
for a better life or a betterfuture or a better opportunity.
And what I realized drivingthrough Atlanta in the middle of
(04:42):
the night that I was missing mykids growing up.
And the reason I was driving inthe middle of the night was
because I was missing my son'sfirst football season.
So I decided in that moment tosell all of our company stores
under a franchise model, which Ihad tried to get going, but I
had not been able to because ofthe lack of focus of our other
business.
And any time you have a lack offocus, it will always lead to a
(05:02):
lack of greatness, and anytimeyou have a lack of focus, it
will always lead to a lack ofgreatness.
So I sold our company storesunder the franchise model in
2006, 2008, 2009,.
Launched to the marketplacewith AdvantiClean as a franchise
offering, and I sold thebusiness January 1st 2019, with
240 locations and it was greatand from there got a little more
broad across franchising andadvisory and investing and
(05:24):
consulting capacity.
And then, about three years ago,my son and my brother and I
decided to launch this conceptof home front brands.
Really, if we were going to doit again and I'm purpose driven
so I had to have a reason to dothis.
And as I was looking across thecountry and seeing the things
that were going on, I justrealized that entrepreneurship
on Main Street USA, helpingfamilies with financial security
(05:45):
and economic freedom, was oneof the three things that we
cared greatly about.
The second thing is childrenand children's literacy.
I coached over 30 seasons of mykids sports when I came off the
road.
And then the last thing istransitioning veterans.
We're about 60% of where weneed to be with our military
forces.
Patriotism is down from 70% to30%.
So I said you know, I can makean impact in these things by
(06:05):
building a great business andhelping people, aligning people
that are up to something andgoing somewhere and giving them
an opportunity with greatbusinesses to create something
meaningful and to impact all ofthose things.
There's been at least onequarter where I think we're the
fastest growing franchiseplatform in North America.
We've over a 15-month period,we put about 180 new owners
(06:25):
across five businesses and we'relaunching number six here this
quarter and number seven secondquarter next year and we have
incredible franchise owners.
You've helped us so much infinding great people that can
join the journey and align withus in building home front brands
and all the great brands thatwe have, so I'm very thankful to
(06:47):
be here and to personally getto tell you both.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I mean you're.
You're more than welcome, thankyou.
We have a client who recently,you all awarded a top rail
franchise to top rail fencingand uh, to my understanding,
he's off to a very nice start.
In fact, he added a second unit, um and uh, he's.
I mean, from what I understand,he's, uh, he's very happy.
(07:13):
So thank you for taking care ofhim.
And also compliments to you.
I think it's you that we soundthe same.
Yeah, I know People always makethat mistake.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Well, we have three great kids, and you know, my
wife, we like to kid that.
You know, when you multiply twonegative numbers together, you
can get positives, that'sawesome.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Well, I mean, look, you know, I mean, as we look at
this journey and I go back towhat you said at the beginning
of the podcast, when we talkabout the event that we were at
at FranServe, and when all theequipment goes south and you're
faced with a moment right, and Ifeel like as business owners,
we're faced with those momentsalmost every single day.
And it's one of the things thatI think Jill and I have come to
(08:04):
realize.
It used to be when we startedas franchise consultants.
It was let us help you find theperfect franchise.
Right and perfect doesn't exist, but as we've gone along, it's
really become more of let ushelp you identify the right
franchise, but more than that,let us help you understand what
you're in for.
And you're going to think I'mcrazy, but what I say to people
(08:26):
is, six months from opening,you're going to want to quit.
You're going to want to quit.
It's going to be hard.
You're going to still beinvesting in the business.
And they're like why are yousaying this to me?
Why would you ever say this?
And I'm like, because I'd muchrather we stop now.
Then you come to me in sixmonths and say I'm out of money.
I'm scared out of my mind.
I'm getting divorced.
If we can prepare people so bythe time we send them to you
(08:47):
guys, that they know whatthey're in for, that they know
they're in for a season ofinvesting in themselves and
investing in businesses we canprepare them to be better
entrepreneurs.
And that's, jeff.
Frankly, that's why we startedthis podcast.
Jill and I wanted to share ourjourney of building our own
pinks franchise and, you know,letting people ride shotgun with
(09:07):
our ups and downs.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I can't tell you how much I appreciate that and we
are so aligned in that I mean itis, giving people a realistic
expectation about what businessownership really is is the very
best way to steal their resolveand to get them, you know, get
them girded.
And I just walked out of twohours and 15 minutes of training
.
I do our first two hours and 15minutes of training because I
(09:31):
want them first and I want togive them the expectation and I
want to give them the tools andI want to give them the
perspective about what this isreally going to be and then why
they should be fearless in doingit.
That you know, gun to theirhead they could do twice as much
in half the time that there'sgoing to be some change
management that they're going tohave to do.
But ultimately, you know, ifthey stay the course and they
(09:52):
stay in the game, that this is agame that they can win.
But it's going to be up to themto really to execute on the
model that's been given to themand everybody's going to
approach it a little bitdifferently and sometimes the
more experienced people are incorporate America, the more
things they have to change to bean entrepreneur because you've
got these hard-coded businesssystems and beliefs that you
(10:14):
have.
So but I love it.
I mean, I'm a coach at heart.
When I came off the road and youknow we decided to pursue
franchising, I was able to coach30 seasons of my kids sports,
which you know is reallymeaningful for me, and it's the
same.
And, by the way, I did thatwhile I was building
AdvantiClean as a franchisesystem, because it was the same
messages.
How do you get a group, how doyou understand that, like,
(10:37):
there's only one football andnot everybody can have it?
How do you get people to playfast and loose and happy?
How do you get people to alignupon a set of values or a set of
principles, or a mutualunderstanding as to, like, how
we're going to resolve conflicts?
I mean all of these things, thethings that you would work with
a 10, 11, 12 year old group ofpeople over a four month season
that lead them to success, isthe same thing that you would
(10:59):
lead a business owner to thefirst four months of their
business, introducing theirbusiness to the marketplace.
It's just, it's the greatestplace I believe I get to operate
at, the greatest place, youknow, for me anyway in getting
to work with all of thesefranchise owners.
You know in that and again it'syou know, and then business is
(11:20):
full contact and you get outthere in the real world and now
it's adult stuff, right, it'sit's contracts and it's it's
employees and it's all of thesetypes of things.
But, man, if you have the rightview and you understand that,
like, none of this is fatal, youknow, the only thing you're
going to have if you don't do itis regret, and the only thing
that's going to happen to you isyou're going to learn faster
from all the experiences and themistakes and the road rash and
(11:44):
the scabs, and you're going tobecome resilient.
You're going to become betterthan you ever were before and
you can take that in a franchisemodel which are relatively low
cost to get in and also anopportunity to transition out.
You build a great business forthree to five years and then you
take everything you've learned.
You take what you made alongthe way and anything that you
(12:04):
walk out the door with which, ifyou do a good job, uh, and then
, and then you, you go on toyour next adventure as a, as a
better operator, a better person, an entrepreneur with, with
perspectives you would havenever had.
I mean, to me that's anexciting opportunity.
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, we talk about every day how what we're going
through is such a learningopportunity for just everything
the good, the bad, the ugly.
You know everything.
We can take something away fromevery piece of it, and that
just ultimately makes us betterhuman beings.
You know business people.
It's just.
And, again, I think what youguys are talking about is this
(12:40):
preparation.
You know the telling.
Whether it's your 11 year oldsor your new franchise owner, you
know what to expect and gettingthem where.
There's something comforting inthat too and that's one of the
reasons people go withfranchising is to have a little
bit of that support and thatbackground and to kind of hear
that you're not alone.
You know this is going tohappen within your first, you
know, six to 18 months.
(13:01):
You know it just kind of getsyou out of that hole and saying,
okay, we expected this, we knowthis is happening.
So you know it's so importantto do that, and I just don't
think a lot of people fullyunderstand that.
So I love that you do that.
I'm, you know, really happythat we do that with our clients
.
Um, I just think it's somethingfor people to really, you know,
latch on to and apply indifferent parts of you know
(13:22):
their business and even theirlives.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
It's a great, you know.
I mean, of course, all of usare in business to to make money
.
We want to build something, wewant to build a legacy, we want
it to be successful and beprofitable, but it is um, it's
great for personal growth, um,it really is.
You know, learning to lead ateam, to have urgency, to drive
sales, to work with differentpersonalities, it's, it's again
(13:46):
it's.
It's a whole.
It's just a whole other worldthat opens up.
But I think to your point, Ithink having the right
mentorship, having the rightsupport you know you talk about,
you know, growing up in Chicago, I've been watching a lot of
film on the Chicago Bears thisweek and they've got issues with
their quarterback and withtheir coaching, and really the
coaching has put thatquarterback in a really bad
(14:09):
position.
You look at the receiversthey're not open right, the
route concepts are not good, theoffensive line is not good, the
team hasn't put things togetherthe right way, and to me that
is an example of a bad franchisethat has not done the right
things to help its players.
And that too can happen ifpeople choose the wrong
(14:29):
franchise that doesn't have allthe right support and tools to
help them go next level.
So I mean again with that.
I'd love to just transition,jeff, and talk a little bit
about some of your other brands,the brands under the Homefront
umbrella.
And I do have an interestinganecdote for you.
We were working a project withour pinks franchise that was a
little too tall for us.
(14:50):
Our tallest ladder couldn't getup there, so I actually called
your local window hero and saidhey, do you guys have your drone
?
Because can we, can we do a dealwhere we subcontract with you?
And I guess the drone was itwasn't yet, he hadn't yet gotten
it.
But just, I think that's agreat story for people to know
that just because we might havecompeting brands, franchising is
(15:12):
still a good fraternity,sorority, where we do all help
each other.
So anyways, I'll kick it overto you.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, absolutely so.
The franchise you refer to isWindow Hero.
So it is a exterior housewashing, gutter guard, gutter
cleaning and also windowcleaning business.
And that was when we acquiredthe business.
It's a 2006 vintage businesswith a great founder and he had
about 13 locations.
And we've augmented thatbusiness with really moving it
(15:41):
assertively into the commercialspace through the use of drones.
We have an exclusive with LucidBots, who is a drone
manufacturer, and these thingsare great and the franchise
owners are taking delivery oftheir drones kind of on a
group-by-group basis for the oldpeople, but the new people all
start with one of the commercialdrones in place.
(16:02):
Then we've also put into placesecurity film and window tint.
So commercial buildings.
We just did an entire schoolbrand new school for Melissa
Gibbs, who's Joe Gibbs'granddaughter-in-law or
daughter-in-law, and you knowshe has turned a huge church,
like a 70,000 square foot church, into a school, a trade school,
(16:24):
and they wanted security filmas one of their fundraisers.
So all of our franchise ownerscame in from all over the region
and for no charge at thatschool we installed security
film and of course we gave thema little freshen up on the
outside with the drones while wewere there as well.
So that's a great business.
Lots of recurring revenue.
About 76% of the clients arerecurring, so it's a recurring
(16:46):
revenue business.
Year after year.
You just get them on theschedule and as you build your
book of business, yeah, I meanjust to jump in on you there.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I mean I'll agree, you know, being on the window
cleaning business ourselves,it's a ton of recurring business
thing and I think I was naiveto this, and it's a champagne
problem.
But one thing all businessowners, franchise owners, need
to be prepared for, when youhave at least 50% commercial, is
that our accounts receivable onsome of these bigger jobs
sometimes can be four to sixweeks.
And so, again, this is aconversation Like I had someone
call me the other day and say,hey, I want to do a pinks
(17:19):
franchise and after I pay myfranchise fee, I've got, you
know, 30 grand.
I'm like dude, no, that's notenough, because you need to be
able to see yourself, you know,through there's going to be
periods where, sure, you've gotenough cash, the residential
clients pay immediately, but thebigger commercial jobs, like we
just had, um, a lot, I meanwe've got we just got the checks
(17:40):
in today from a ton of justreceivables that we were waiting
for.
So again, for those of you thatare thinking about this type of
business, window hero isexcellent, um, but just remember
, anytime you've got heavycommercial, you or you are going
to have longer term ar and soyou want to make sure you just
have the cash to prepare you forit.
Okay, jeff, back to you, yeah100%.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
And then you also mentioned that you play somebody
with Top Rail Fence, which isresidential, commercial,
agricultural fencing business,subcontractor model.
So it is employee light, it's asales game.
I mean you're running salesappointments every day.
You're selling fences, you'reordering the materials, you know
, using the technologies thatwe've made available to the
(18:19):
franchise owners to order thematerials and to run the
business.
It's been generally quick torevenue.
You know, in terms of, you knowthe ability to find customers
and to drive leads and to findcustomers into the marketplace.
So you know, and it's a, butyou know it's a contracting
business, Right, so it's on aproject by project basis.
You're selling projects, you'rehaving projects done, versus
(18:40):
kind of the window hero businesswhere a lot of it's recurring
and you're just going back tothe same thing.
It is a lighter staffing modelbut again, very reasonable
investments on these businesses.
I mean they're they're, they'reso affordable to get into these
service type businesses.
I just it's a great place to be.
And then we have temporary wallsystems, which is kind of first
(19:02):
of its kind.
It is a rentable, high-endcontainment systems that you
might see in airports orhospitals, anywhere that there's
a construction site.
And we've recently worked withour manufacturing partner to
roll out a brand new productwhich has different features set
to it, which expanded ourmarketplace into many, many new
(19:23):
market segments.
So it's a lower cost product.
It doesn't meet some of therequirements that you need to
have in a hospital or an airportor things like that.
So we're very agile in terms ofthat.
We've got great alignment withour manufacturing partner.
They actually operate 17 tempwalls in Canada for us, so
company I've worked with almost30 years.
(19:43):
They're a family business.
We used to buy our restorationequipment from them, so very,
very tight connection with themover decades.
Family business, we're a familybusiness, so it just gets along
well there and you know thatthat's a business.
That is is fascinating in theway that our franchise owners
have been able to really build amarket and get into a market
(20:06):
and get sharp elbows and get inthere and really introduce this
product to the marketplace.
So we're very excited the waythat that brand is rolling out.
Very sophisticated owners acrossour whole franchise system
Unusually high sophistication,high net worth franchise owners.
I think when people come intoHomefront Brands and they see
the technology, they see theleadership team and then they
(20:28):
see how carefully we've pickedthese brands with certain
criteria so that they can buildsomething meaningful inside of
these brands.
There's lots of great brandsout there but they don't all
meet the revenue requirementsthat a sophisticated owner is
going to be interested in.
So we've been very prescriptiveabout the inventory, and
(20:51):
temporary walls certainly meetsthat criteria.
Designery is our retail locationkitchen, bath and closet
concept, Teledesignfunctionality flat-packed we
assemble through a manufacturingplant and ship the jobs
directly to the job site.
So it's low inventory model,low staffing model.
Does have a retail, very AppleStore-type, little retail
(21:13):
location design center, but theyonly need to come in once and
then we have tele designfunctionality to continue the
project with them online.
So again, very lean, very slick, very the.
You know we one of our mantrasis start well and go well.
So what we've done is we'vemoved all of the revenue
generation activities evenbefore training so that people
(21:37):
are even trading business orwinning contracts before they
even come to training.
And we've done the things toenable that.
Because when have you ever beeninvolved with something that
didn't start well, that wentwell?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Never so starting well matters.
Well, you know.
I mean, look, first of all,here's the thing I'm amazed
about, and it's really comeabout in the last two years.
I'd say fencing is a greatbusiness.
Fencing numbers are just blowmy mind.
They really could.
For what?
I just didn't know that theneed was there.
I honestly didn't.
And you never built it.
(22:13):
You're right, Actually, no, wehaven't.
No, we've never built it.
You're right, actually, no, wehaven't.
No, we've never built.
I would know the first thingabout building a fence, but but
but that's you wouldn't do it Iwould call top rail, but I'm
amazed what a great business itis.
And the same is true like windowwashing.
I'll never forget when weinvested in pinks and we're
having dinner before we open.
I'm like, oh shoot, you know,we've never actually paid anyone
(22:35):
to wash our windows.
Is someone actually going tohire us?
And of course, you know yougrow and it happens, you grow a
business.
And now it's like, um, we'vegot, you know, knock on wood,
we've got more businesses we canhandle right now.
Um, now the challenge is andI'm sure this is what your
franchisees face it's, it'sfinding people, um, finding the
contractors, it's finding theemployees.
Our biggest challenge now is,with as much business as we have
(22:58):
on the books right now.
And you know about south florida, what happened was we.
We opened in march, we got offto a really fast start.
I'm like, yeah, okay, let'sorder second band.
And then everybody leaves forthe summer, right, everybody
goes up to new york, and thenthen business died, right.
Then it's like it's so slow andit's so scary and it's hot.
Yeah, nobody's here.
You know, in South Florida,when you can walk into any
(23:21):
restaurant you want on a Fridaynight and get a table, and it's
dead, whereas now you're bookingyour reservation two weeks in
advance.
And the same is happening withour business.
Is that we're flowing with theseasonality of South Florida?
So you know, know, it'sinteresting.
It's all these little lessonsyou, you learn, right, sure all
the fun.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Jill has thoughts no, but but it's true.
I mean like there's a lot thatyou know and, again, there's a
lot that we're prepared for anda lot that we're not ready for.
So, um, it's kind of going withthe flow and not giving up and,
you know, just towering throughit.
But also you know, like Jacksoneven reaching out to you guys,
you know, when we needed helpwith the drone, like there's
(24:01):
always a solution to something.
Yeah, just knowing, you know wemay have to think outside the
box, which is fine, it's betterto do it that way, but it gets
you through those harder times.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Look, you know so, some people get paid by the hour
.
Look, you know so, some peopleget paid by the hour.
Some people get paid commission.
But business owners like us, weget paid by the conversation
and our ability to have theright conversations.
Look, every business has adollar per person, right?
So it's like if your leadershiplid allows you to build a team
(24:32):
of 10, that's going to determinethe size of your business.
Because in our businesses, inour service businesses, it's a
function of people.
I was in a marketing mastermindin Orlando and there was a $35
million HVAC contractor in thereand I said, okay, what do you
do in terms of do you doresidential, do you do
commercial?
Do you do controls?
What's your book of business?
And he told me and I said, okay, so you're probably 70 lead
(24:55):
techs with 70 trucks and 35helpers and this many in
dispatch and whatever he goes.
Yeah, that's exactly Becauseonce you understand the dollar
per person in a business, thenit's a matter of can you lead in
such a way that can alignpeople?
And it doesn't have to be allemployees.
Part of it is stakeholders,referral partners,
(25:16):
subcontractors, but at the endof the day, everybody has to be
on the same page and you've gotto create a world and a dream
that's big enough for others'worlds and dreams to fit inside
of it and make it worthwhile forthem, to help you build your
vision and your dream.
And in doing that, it'saligning them with what's
important for them at this phasein their life.
So it's a leadership play andevery business has those
(25:39):
opportunities.
You don't have to have a sexyor new first of its type type
business.
And, by the way, you're inproperty services, we're in
property services.
Property services are, of the72 franchise segments, property
services, in my opinion, is themost durable.
There's going to be 100 millionmore people in this country by
2050.
There's already a housingshortage of types of homes
(26:01):
people want to live in in manymarkets.
So there's increased migrationthrough remote work and when
somebody leaves a house andmoves into a house, there's work
that's got to get done.
So and the supply and demandcurve is in our favor, where
there's less kids that are doingthese services now.
So you know, the people thatcan actually deliver upon these
services are going to get tocharge a premium, because that's
(26:23):
just what it's going to takefor people to get these services
done and, like you and I said,we don't do these ourselves.
You know, I don't cut my ownhair anymore.
I threw out my Flowbee.
I don't wash my own car.
I don't wash my own car, Idon't cut my own grass.
We are a have it done for yousociety and if so, if you want
(26:44):
to get into a business that'sgoing to have a compound annual
growth rate assuming that youcan lead it and you can attract
people and you can staff it andyou can sell then you'll never
find a home front branch nestledcomfortably between a
Blockbuster video and a Curbsfitness franchise, because
there's no obsolescence inproperty services.
So, if people want to get intosomething that's going to be
here and really, you know, benCarson said something great.
(27:06):
He said the person that has themost to do with what happens to
you is you.
If you want to, if you want tostrap on a business to have
personal growth, uh, and andcreate personal wealth, um,
property services is by far, uh,I think, the safest and it has
the most tail winds, uh, todayin our, in our economy and in
our franchise landscape.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I mean I, I um of all people.
Jeff, we were having aconversation with our accountant
last week uh, after theelection, and we put the
politics aside I'm not talkingabout what side anyone's on but
he said the next five years.
You look at what's going tohappen now with with taxes.
He's like go make money youdon't know if, if this is just
(27:48):
only the next five years, but gobuild, go open up more
locations, go do it now.
This your your moment to go doit.
And I thought that that I'mlike this is.
He's like go invest in anotherunit, go get another van because
you got to go build.
Now he's like because you're,you're the way the taxes are
going to shake out.
Is you're going to keep so muchmore of your money?
(28:10):
And that's just a fact.
It's not.
It's not you know what's side,who did you vote for?
It's just a fact.
So for business owners and forpeople thinking about business
ownership, put the politicsaside, this environment.
We already saw a rate, so nowSBA loans are coming down.
I heard there's going to beanother one in December.
We are back in favorableterritory for investing in
businesses.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, 100% amen.
On that.
I have nothing to add.
I think you said it perfectly.
Let's go.
You know, and franchising isthe greatest wealth creation
business model ever invented.
I mean it is, it is.
It is.
Franchising is an acceleratingat an accelerating rate, and for
people that want to, you know,I mean so many people are
(28:52):
finding ways to create onlinebusinesses Franchising is just
another way for people toparticipate in the American
dream and take control over whathappens to them.
And now we were going to havereal favorable economic climate
and tax climate for the nextfour years to be able to do this
.
So very, very excited andcouldn't agree more.
And you know, if you just keeptrying hard enough and you live,
(29:14):
live long enough, eventually,uh, it's something that looks
like luck happens to you and you, you're in the right place at
the right time.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
And then it's what you do with it, right, that's uh
, you know, and, like you said,you've got to be the one that
goes in and makes it happen.
And that's the other thing thatI'll say to all of you out
there that aren't yet clients,that I'll say to all of you out
there that aren't yet clients,um, uh, and what we say to our
clients is, at the end of theday, we can, we can, you know,
connect you with home frontbrands.
You can become a top railfranchise owner, a window hero
(29:44):
franchise owner.
They can give you all thisgreat training and support, but
you, you the business owner, wethe business owners, we've got
to make it happen.
And you know it's, it'sinteresting, um, whenever a
client who's been open forbusiness for, you know, a set
period of time, messages me andsays, hey, can we catch up,
there's usually two reasons one,business is through the roof
(30:05):
and they want to add anotherunit, or two, it's not going as
well as they want it to, and sowhat I do before the meeting is
I always go and look at theirlocation.
How many google reviews doreviews do they have?
And if they have two Googlereviews, I know what kind of
conversation I'm in, but I alsoknow what my role in the
conversation is, which is to say, dude, you got two Google
reviews, no crying, whereas theother fella or gal has a hundred
(30:28):
Google reviews and you're like,I know what kind of
conversation I'm going to have.
So again, to all of you outthere who are thinking about
this, it is going to be hard butit's going to be worth it
because you're going to buildright.
If you, you, you build a coupleof top rail units during the
first year or so, yes, you'reputting money into the business,
you're putting time into thebusiness, but by year three,
(30:49):
you're going to see it starts tobecome easier, more predictable
.
It becomes that asset thatyou're going to see.
It starts to become easier,more predictable, becomes that
asset that you're no longernecessary to the business.
And to me, jeff and I don'tknow about you there's no more
powerful feeling on earth than abusiness that does not require
me.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, that is so smart about the Google reviews.
I really like that and it'srefreshing to hear that you're
letting people know that.
It's like who starts a businessand on day one you're just cash
is just raining on you.
I mean, this is nobody knowsyou, you don't.
You don't have the referralsLike you.
You have to go, introduceyourself to the marketplace.
(31:25):
The digital work, the digitalis important.
Obviously, we all buy on theinternet, but the biggest jobs
you're going to get are the onesthat are going to come from
customers or referral partnersthat know who you are and just
say you've got an important job.
I wouldn't use anybody but thisperson.
If you're going to have asurgery, you're going to have
your knees replaced.
Are you going to just picksomebody out of the yellow pages
(31:47):
and hope that they're good?
Are you going to call everydoctor you know and say you know
who's the best?
I mean you can be if you're thelast person in your class, uh,
in medical school and you barelyuh, squeaked by.
They still call you doctor, bythe way, but but it's probably
(32:07):
not the doctor that you want togo through for life-changing or
life-altering surgery.
So I mean it.
It.
You know being X.
You know, your reputation issimply your relationship with
people that you have not yet met.
And you, as a business owner,have to go out every day and
work to expose your brand, yourvalues, your story to people so
that they can remember that andthey can articulate that and
(32:30):
have a real compelling reason todo business with you.
And it's so important in ourbusinesses, especially in in in
in you helping and me attractinguh, new, new business franchise
partners into our businesses.
It's, it's absolutelycritically important that they
know who like.
If they don't like me or theydon't like something about our
brands or homefront brands orour position, then they should,
(32:50):
they should join something elseLike.
You have to put it out there sopeople can choose whether they
want to roll with you or not.
The business owner it's notsitting in front of your
computer and waiting on a leadto fall into the bucket and
watching it happen.
You can't be a passenger inentrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You've got to be a driver.
Yeah, you're so right, and Ithink that's where in COVID, I
think franchising really wantedto be absentee.
That was a word that was reallygetting thrown around for a
while.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
And we don't use it.
We don't use it.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, and I think it wanted to be right.
I think that franchisorsthought they could do it, and
the issue is this they thoughtthey could hire it.
Right, we'll hire someone torun your business for you or
help run your business, but theproblem is, when you hire
someone for 50 grand to runsomebody's business, you're not.
You're not bringing the urgencyand the hustle, and so you're
(33:48):
not going to get the same resultthat you would when your ass is
on the line and you've got tomake payroll and and you got to
make it happen.
And that's the part thateverybody forgot about.
Um is that ultimately it itcan't be put neatly into an hour
a day.
I may spend two hours a day onpinks, but it's not in a neat
box.
Um, you know my GM's blowing myphone up about something right
(34:10):
now.
It's going to happen at themost inopportune time, um, and
that's business.
And so that's when people callus and they say listen, I want
to, you know, diversify into abusiness and maybe I could
squeeze an hour into it.
After you know work hours.
I'm like dude, go into realestate no, even you can't.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
You can't even do real estate like that too.
I mean, that's the thing withthe real business like that it's
not.
You cannot schedule your timeI'll be working on this business
from you know two to three.
Yeah, it's not going to happen,um, for many reasons right so
if you know.
Yeah, I guess that's settingthose expectations and
understanding, and I thinkstraying away from absentee has
been key because it just gaveeveryone the wrong impression of
(34:49):
what could be done.
But also there's joy in owningand having a part of it too.
And so if you come in and youthink I'm just really going to
be hands off, I'm going to letsomeone run it I mean, it's your
baby, it's your business andyou it is hard to find that
unicorn that's going to run yourbusiness exactly the way you
want them to do.
So you are more involved,especially in the beginning, as
(35:10):
you're ramping up and they'regetting to know you and the
business and all of that.
It's just it's not.
It's not what the expectationswere.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
No, and that's why franchising has had such a year
of reckoning, because it's it'scome back to its roots, which is
you get to be an entrepreneur,you get to go, build a business.
Yes, as you scale you can startto pull back, but you're you
know again, it's never going tobe something that completely
goes away.
Maybe, jeff, if you sell yourbusiness and you sell or finance
(35:37):
it and you arrange a deal wheresomeone's paying you for it
over time, then maybe that canbe considered absentee, but you
should want to put the time in.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Yeah, I couldn't agree.
I couldn't agree more on howrefreshing it is to hear you say
that.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Jeff, I know what I want to ask you.
You've got an excellent book.
Can you tell us?
Speaker 3 (36:04):
first of all, tell us a little bit about the book,
and I want our listeners to knowwhere they can go to get it,
how they can get a copy of yourbook, and what it will give you
is.
It will give you models ofthought, meaning situations, and
how I resolve those situations,what tools, techniques and
tactics I use to resolve those.
(36:25):
Because models of thought aresimply experienced-based things
that we learn over the course ofa lifetime applied to
present-day.
So and that's basically whatwisdom is when you say this
person is so wise, they're wisebecause you bring them a problem
and they're able to tell you astory and relate that to a
situation and share theirexperience.
(36:46):
You never should ask people foradvice.
You should only ask people fortheir experiences.
If people don't have experiencein what you're talking about,
they should not give advice.
I mean, it's amazing how peoplego to their father-in-law, who
worked for the city or somebodylike that, to get business
advice from somebody that'snever owned a business, never
(37:08):
run a business, never seen abusiness.
So there's a lot of that inthere.
And then it's about really youknow our the quality of our
decisions.
It impacts the quality of ourlife and the velocity of our
business.
There's there's no neutraldecisions and business is about
probability.
So every decision that you makeeither increases or decreases
your speed and your success.
(37:29):
So a bad decision is, you know,going to take away from it and
a good decision is going togoing, you know, accretive to it
.
So, basically, you know whatare the filters in making good
decisions and I go through aseries of filters that basically
say you know, here's how I madethis decision and here's the
filters that I applied for,whether it be a set of values or
(37:49):
set of principles or thingslike that.
Because the, you know, one ofthe one of the greatest things,
one of the greatestresponsibilities in as business
builders, is to remove latencyfrom our business, and latency
is simply from the moment thatyou understand an action, that
it is apparent that an actionneeds to be taken or a decision
needs to be made, like, how longdoes it take for that to get
(38:13):
implemented?
From awareness to action, andyour ability to to make
decisions, and to make gooddecisions based on things that
you already know or alreadybelieve, or principal
foundations that you have laid,allows you to make those
decisions faster, without regret, and to iterate and move
forward thing with Elon Musk,right, it's basically launching
(38:33):
rockets.
I mean, the first 25 or 50rockets he launched just blew up
.
But he knew that the fasterthat he blew rockets up, the
faster that they would learn.
And the next thing you know,you know he's got a skyscraper
landing in a set of pinchers.
You know, and, and you know,and reusable.
So you know he iterated soquickly through that process.
(38:54):
And part of that is, too, isyou know how you build a
business it's about.
It's about really removinghesitation, you know, and
creating clarity around what agood decision looks like and
then underpinning it with a setof principles and models of
thoughts and values and filtersfor you to make the best
decision possible.
So that's basically what thebook does.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I love it and can people just?
Can they find it on Amazon?
Can they go to your website?
Where can they go to get it?
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yes, you can go to Amazon and just put in a
discernment by Jeff Duden and itwill pop up.
There's literally dozens ofcopies in print.
Or you can go to.
If you go to my Instagram andgo to my link tree and if you
give me your email address, Ibelieve is all you got to do and
I will actually email you anelectric cop, an electronic copy
immediately to your inbox ofthe book.
(39:40):
So for free, just cost youremail, maybe a phone number, but
you know, so it's just JeffDuden is the Instagram handle,
and and then also too, you getthese links on our on the home
front podcast.
We have a great podcast.
It's very.
I mean, we just had FranklinGraham on.
I think I got Bobby Kennedycoming on next month.
Wow, yeah, I was just with himin Phoenix so got him coming on.
(40:04):
But we've had, I mean, we'vehad Ben Carson, we've had Andrew
Zimmer and we've had Brandon.
We've had all the big names onthe show.
So it's a really goodentrepreneurship show.
And then in the show notes youcan always find a link to, to,
to, to sign up and get a copy ofthe book.
I like printed copies of thebook.
It's, it's not expensive.
We didn't price it up oranything.
(40:25):
So if you want to get one foryou or it's really good for like
20 something people, I've had alot of people come back to me
and say I gave it to my son andhis business partner.
They're just starting abusiness.
And then now they asked me forboxes.
Where can I buy a box?
Because I want to give it tohis whole class or their whole
business community or whateverit is they're doing.
So if you're new to businessand you want to set up an
(40:48):
infrastructure that's going tobe durable, there's some good
stuff inside of discernment tohelp you do that.
It's on our coffee table.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
All right.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Is it because your coffee table was wobbly and it's
under the leg?
Is that what it's for?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
No, it's a great looking book.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
I love it.
I love the cover.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
You know, and you're right, it is fabulous.
And for those of you, by theway, that would like to explore
some of the home-prem brands andyou'd like our help, you know
the drill text does at305-710-0050.
And that way we can help figureout which one of the brands or
maybe you want to explore all ofthe home front brands that's
not a bad idea either, jeff.
I want to end on one, one lastpoint, which is you know and
(41:29):
it's something you kind ofpointed us in the right
direction of people ask me allthe time why shouldn't I just
start my own painting businessor window washing business
versus a franchise?
And my answer usually is youabsolutely can.
But and we own, we ownfranchise insiders, which we
pretty much had to figure outourselves.
(41:50):
And when you figure, when youhave a business where you figure
things out yourself, you'regoing to make mistakes, and
those mistakes are expensive.
With a franchise, you avoidthose expensive mistakes.
Now, the nice thing is justlike Elon with the rockets If
you learn from those mistakes,you get better, you get smarter,
you become better at your craft.
But a franchise has alreadymade the mistakes and they can
keep you on the right path andbelieve you know.
(42:11):
Again, people say well, whatabout the royalty To me, that
royalty check that we run?
We don't write a check that yousay, see it out of our
accountant but every single week, first of all, it tells me how
my revenue is doing.
Right, if I'm not looking at mysales report I'm like, oh,
we're paying a high, it'sbecause we're doing well revenue
wise.
But it it is so worth it tohave that playbook, that support
(42:32):
, that infrastructure and ithelps you avoid mistakes and it
gives you the sounding boardwhich only a franchise can do.
So I don't know.
That's my perspective on it.
I'd love just to hear yours.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Franchises have certain characteristics and I've
already mentioned that it's thegreatest wealth creation
business model ever invented.
I mean, Jerry Richardson wasthe founder of the Carolina
Panthers.
He was Johnny Unitas' tight end.
They wanted to pay him $250 agame.
He wanted $500, so he quit andhe bought a Hardee's restaurant.
He ended up with 400 Hardee'sfranchises Wow.
He sold that.
He got into real estate andinsurance and he took that money
to basically be the majoritylead investor and owner of the
(43:11):
Carolina Panthers NFL team,which is also a franchise.
There's over 880,000 franchiseestablishments in this country.
One out of every nine peoplealmost nine million people work
by or for a franchise system.
It's amazing.
Franchising is a subset ofsmall business.
Small business is 46 to 60% ofour GDP.
(43:33):
Small business implies theoverwhelming number of people in
this country.
It's just.
It is a very proven businessmodel.
And, number one, it's a leverageplay, meaning that you don't
have to shoulder the wholeexpense of building a brand.
It's shared learning management, shared CRM, shared technology,
(43:53):
shared brand, shared customeracquisition, so you're paying a
fraction of pennies to getaccess to things that would take
you a decade to build yourself.
The second thing is it's atransitional and
transformational meaning ifyou're new to entrepreneurship
but, like we have a lot offamily office, we have $50
million business owners thathave invested in home front
(44:14):
brands because businesses are ahigh class asset and they want
to diversify their portfolio.
Or you're a first time businessowner, transitioning it's a
great way to transition intobusiness ownership, with some
guardrails up.
Then the last thing there's acommunity of people that are
building the same business asyou are, just in different
markets that you wouldn't haveotherwise.
So I mean it's a whole differentbusiness model than building
(44:35):
your own business, because youcan add businesses, you can add
territories, you can buy yourneighbors, you can play that
monopoly game inside of afranchise system that is
well-defined and grow it as bigas you decide to.
It's only limited by yourself-limiting beliefs.
So franchising is a greatbusiness model and it's
successful for all of thosereasons.
Whatever it is your listenerschoose to do, I just encourage
(44:57):
them to do it with great focusand great intention and do it
with all their might, and I'msure they will be successful.
I think that's perfect, perfectadvice.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I think that's wonderful, very well said, you
know.
And even if the first onedoesn't work, humans are
resilient.
I mean, we've talked toentrepreneurs that you know
people's worst fears, right?
What do people say?
Oh, what happens if I go bellyup?
We know successfulentrepreneurs that have looked
that in the eye and still founda way to succeed.
So humans are very resilient,don't you think?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yeah, no, and I mean sometimes you have to fail a
couple of times to really learnand advance and win.
So it's okay.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
What did they call that Failing forward?
Speaker 3 (45:36):
fail, fast fail forward.
Yeah, and also um uh, in thebook discernment you will see,
uh, how we use values I have myown personal family values in
there and how we use those to tobuild.
You know you mentioned Zachworking with him.
You know he's a, he's a productof, of, of our environment.
He's just a great, great youngman, very talented, and all of
(45:59):
that.
And then our business valuesand how we use those as a real
tool.
Your values break your ties, soyou're going to be faced with
tough decisions that end up onyour desk as the business owner,
and you have to know what yourvalues are, because it'll inform
you as to how to make adecision.
Where it's not, may not beclear otherwise.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Awesome, jeff you're uh, you're a good dude.
Thank you so much for being onour podcast and sharing your,
your wisdom and expertise.
It really is an honor to uh tobe here with you and uh to
continue to work with you andyour family.
Again, like you said, I meanwe've got a client who recently
came on board and is so thrilledwith how things are going.
So listen everyone, these guyswalk the walk and definitely, if
(46:43):
you're looking into franchiseownership and if you're looking
into home services, Jeff's an OG, he's been doing it for a long
time and he's built up a goodcompany, and so if you'd like to
talk to them, text us at305-710-0050.
Jeff, thank you so much forbeing on the show today.
We really appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Yep Jack Jill, always a pleasure to see you both.
Thank you so much and Iappreciate being on.
Thank you.
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the we Bought aFranchise podcast.
I'm Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Jill Johnson.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
And we are here today with a franchising legend.
His name is Jeff Duden.
He is the CEO of HomefrontBrands, Jeff.
Welcome to the show, Jack.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
if I was a legend.
You wouldn't have to say myname, they would already know
who I am.
I really, really appreciate it.
Really excited.
You know we worked together.
We were we were both presentingat a conference last summer and
I really appreciated the thingsthat you shared during your
talk.
It was great.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Jeff, let's be clear.
I opened up for you, you werethe main act, well, and the same
is true Like your presentationwas great and what I remember
from it was that all theequipment like went south on you
and you're like you know what,don't sweat it.
And you took everything off andyou went out to the audience
and you've interacted withpeople and look, I mean, you've
(00:52):
been in this franchising worldnow for 25 some years.
You've got an incredible story.
I'd love it if maybe you couldstart us off and just tell us
what got you going into therealm of business ownership and
let's take it from there.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I had forgotten aboutthat, though.
Like we're at Disney, right.
So it's the magic of Disney,where everything works but
nothing worked.
The presentation didn't work,it all went down and I and I you
know you got 200 people orwhatever staring at you and it's
just like, well, let's just,let's just go with it.
So quick background.
(01:26):
I grew up in Chicago.
I was an athlete, primarilybasketball, came to football
late my junior and senior year.
I wanted to chase it.
I thought it was the bestopportunity for me.
So I chased it up to auniversity in northern Iowa for
a year, dropped back to a juniorcollege in Chicago, got a
scholarship out to AppalachianState University, located in
(01:46):
Western North Carolina on top ofa beautiful mountain.
Hurricane Helene has reallyimpacted that area, so we're
working tirelessly to supportthose people up there.
It's really rough right now,sitting here in November of 24.
But, yeah so.
But when I showed up there I hada football scholarship, so that
takes care of you during theschool year, but I couldn't
(02:08):
survive during the summer.
I didn't have any resources.
But I had worked the trades inChicago and one of the things I
had done was I had worked for apainting contractor.
So my roommate had a truck andI knew how to paint so we got a
ladder and it's a very lowbarrier to entry business.
We got a ladder and it's a verylow barrier to entry business
(02:30):
and we started the paintingbusiness where, started doing
some houses for people in thefootball office but ultimately
met the property managers whowere running all the student
housing apartments.
They struggled to get all theirapartments painted.
They asked us if we could put acrew together.
So the next summer, over abouta three and a half week period
two weeks in May and a week anda half going into August, the
end of July we had put togethera crew of athletes that were
(02:50):
taking classes over the summer.
So basketball players cuttingin the ceilings without a ladder
was great, wrestlers on thebase moldings and then football
players rolling the walls and wewould paint 15 to 20 apartments
in a day and my partner and Isplit about $76,000 in that
three and a half weeks and thatwas $1990, man, so that was
twice as much as I could havemade as a football coach and so
(03:13):
that kind of got me the bugthere.
And then this Hurricane Andrewhit South Florida and a buddy
called me and said we need helpdown here.
It was 1992.
I went down there, cut my teethin the insurance restoration
business for about 18 months andthen moved up to Central
Florida to start at Vantaclean,which I would sell some 24 years
and 11 months later with 240locations and 37 states.
(03:34):
So started that in 94, 95,moved up to race, start a family
and get married in theCarolinas with our second
location, became a verysophisticated government
contractor, big box contractor,and then also opened up local
offices doing things like moldremediation, emergency water
damage, those types of things,and then bought out my last
(03:56):
partner in 04, 05, responded toKatrina and I was on my way back
from there and I realized thathistory was repeating itself.
I was never home.
So I decided at this inflectionpoint which, by the way,
inflection points have threethings.
Number one they always involvepeople.
You don't always know them whenyou're in, but they always
involve people people that youare responsible for, people you
(04:19):
care about, people you want todo something with or sometimes
people that you want to get awayfrom.
The second thing is there's anadventure or an opportunity at
hand and then there's a risk ofloss, meaning you've got to give
something up to get somethingbetter, even if it's you
sometimes have to give somethingup to get just the opportunity
for a better life or a betterfuture or a better opportunity.
And what I realized drivingthrough Atlanta in the middle of
(04:42):
the night that I was missing mykids growing up.
And the reason I was driving inthe middle of the night was
because I was missing my son'sfirst football season.
So I decided in that moment tosell all of our company stores
under a franchise model, which Ihad tried to get going, but I
had not been able to because ofthe lack of focus of our other
business.
And any time you have a lack offocus, it will always lead to a
(05:02):
lack of greatness, and anytimeyou have a lack of focus, it
will always lead to a lack ofgreatness.
So I sold our company storesunder the franchise model in
2006, 2008, 2009,.
Launched to the marketplacewith AdvantiClean as a franchise
offering, and I sold thebusiness January 1st 2019, with
240 locations and it was greatand from there got a little more
broad across franchising andadvisory and investing and
(05:24):
consulting capacity.
And then, about three years ago,my son and my brother and I
decided to launch this conceptof home front brands.
Really, if we were going to doit again and I'm purpose driven
so I had to have a reason to dothis.
And as I was looking across thecountry and seeing the things
that were going on, I justrealized that entrepreneurship
on Main Street USA, helpingfamilies with financial security
(05:45):
and economic freedom, was oneof the three things that we
cared greatly about.
The second thing is childrenand children's literacy.
I coached over 30 seasons of mykids sports when I came off the
road.
And then the last thing istransitioning veterans.
We're about 60% of where weneed to be with our military
forces.
Patriotism is down from 70% to30%.
So I said you know, I can makean impact in these things by
(06:05):
building a great business andhelping people, aligning people
that are up to something andgoing somewhere and giving them
an opportunity with greatbusinesses to create something
meaningful and to impact all ofthose things.
There's been at least onequarter where I think we're the
fastest growing franchiseplatform in North America.
We've over a 15-month period,we put about 180 new owners
(06:25):
across five businesses and we'relaunching number six here this
quarter and number seven secondquarter next year and we have
incredible franchise owners.
You've helped us so much infinding great people that can
join the journey and align withus in building home front brands
and all the great brands thatwe have, so I'm very thankful to
(06:47):
be here and to personally getto tell you both.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I mean you're.
You're more than welcome, thankyou.
We have a client who recently,you all awarded a top rail
franchise to top rail fencingand uh, to my understanding,
he's off to a very nice start.
In fact, he added a second unit, um and uh, he's.
I mean, from what I understand,he's, uh, he's very happy.
(07:13):
So thank you for taking care ofhim.
And also compliments to you.
I think it's you that we soundthe same.
Yeah, I know People always makethat mistake.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Well, we have three great kids, and you know, my
wife, we like to kid that.
You know, when you multiply twonegative numbers together, you
can get positives, that'sawesome.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Well, I mean, look, you know, I mean, as we look at
this journey and I go back towhat you said at the beginning
of the podcast, when we talkabout the event that we were at
at FranServe, and when all theequipment goes south and you're
faced with a moment right, and Ifeel like as business owners,
we're faced with those momentsalmost every single day.
And it's one of the things thatI think Jill and I have come to
(08:04):
realize.
It used to be when we startedas franchise consultants.
It was let us help you find theperfect franchise.
Right and perfect doesn't exist, but as we've gone along, it's
really become more of let ushelp you identify the right
franchise, but more than that,let us help you understand what
you're in for.
And you're going to think I'mcrazy, but what I say to people
(08:26):
is, six months from opening,you're going to want to quit.
You're going to want to quit.
It's going to be hard.
You're going to still beinvesting in the business.
And they're like why are yousaying this to me?
Why would you ever say this?
And I'm like, because I'd muchrather we stop now.
Then you come to me in sixmonths and say I'm out of money.
I'm scared out of my mind.
I'm getting divorced.
If we can prepare people so bythe time we send them to you
(08:47):
guys, that they know whatthey're in for, that they know
they're in for a season ofinvesting in themselves and
investing in businesses we canprepare them to be better
entrepreneurs.
And that's, jeff.
Frankly, that's why we startedthis podcast.
Jill and I wanted to share ourjourney of building our own
pinks franchise and, you know,letting people ride shotgun with
(09:07):
our ups and downs.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I can't tell you how much I appreciate that and we
are so aligned in that I mean itis, giving people a realistic
expectation about what businessownership really is is the very
best way to steal their resolveand to get them, you know, get
them girded.
And I just walked out of twohours and 15 minutes of training
.
I do our first two hours and 15minutes of training because I
(09:31):
want them first and I want togive them the expectation and I
want to give them the tools andI want to give them the
perspective about what this isreally going to be and then why
they should be fearless in doingit.
That you know, gun to theirhead they could do twice as much
in half the time that there'sgoing to be some change
management that they're going tohave to do.
But ultimately, you know, ifthey stay the course and they
(09:52):
stay in the game, that this is agame that they can win.
But it's going to be up to themto really to execute on the
model that's been given to themand everybody's going to
approach it a little bitdifferently and sometimes the
more experienced people are incorporate America, the more
things they have to change to bean entrepreneur because you've
got these hard-coded businesssystems and beliefs that you
(10:14):
have.
So but I love it.
I mean, I'm a coach at heart.
When I came off the road and youknow we decided to pursue
franchising, I was able to coach30 seasons of my kids sports,
which you know is reallymeaningful for me, and it's the
same.
And, by the way, I did thatwhile I was building
AdvantiClean as a franchisesystem, because it was the same
messages.
How do you get a group, how doyou understand that, like,
(10:37):
there's only one football andnot everybody can have it?
How do you get people to playfast and loose and happy?
How do you get people to alignupon a set of values or a set of
principles, or a mutualunderstanding as to, like, how
we're going to resolve conflicts?
I mean all of these things, thethings that you would work with
a 10, 11, 12 year old group ofpeople over a four month season
that lead them to success, isthe same thing that you would
(10:59):
lead a business owner to thefirst four months of their
business, introducing theirbusiness to the marketplace.
It's just, it's the greatestplace I believe I get to operate
at, the greatest place, youknow, for me anyway in getting
to work with all of thesefranchise owners.
You know in that and again it'syou know, and then business is
(11:20):
full contact and you get outthere in the real world and now
it's adult stuff, right, it'sit's contracts and it's it's
employees and it's all of thesetypes of things.
But, man, if you have the rightview and you understand that,
like, none of this is fatal, youknow, the only thing you're
going to have if you don't do itis regret, and the only thing
that's going to happen to you isyou're going to learn faster
from all the experiences and themistakes and the road rash and
(11:44):
the scabs, and you're going tobecome resilient.
You're going to become betterthan you ever were before and
you can take that in a franchisemodel which are relatively low
cost to get in and also anopportunity to transition out.
You build a great business forthree to five years and then you
take everything you've learned.
You take what you made alongthe way and anything that you
(12:04):
walk out the door with which, ifyou do a good job, uh, and then
, and then you, you go on toyour next adventure as a, as a
better operator, a better person, an entrepreneur with, with
perspectives you would havenever had.
I mean, to me that's anexciting opportunity.
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, we talk about every day how what we're going
through is such a learningopportunity for just everything
the good, the bad, the ugly.
You know everything.
We can take something away fromevery piece of it, and that
just ultimately makes us betterhuman beings.
You know business people.
It's just.
And, again, I think what youguys are talking about is this
(12:40):
preparation.
You know the telling.
Whether it's your 11 year oldsor your new franchise owner, you
know what to expect and gettingthem where.
There's something comforting inthat too and that's one of the
reasons people go withfranchising is to have a little
bit of that support and thatbackground and to kind of hear
that you're not alone.
You know this is going tohappen within your first, you
know, six to 18 months.
(13:01):
You know it just kind of getsyou out of that hole and saying,
okay, we expected this, we knowthis is happening.
So you know it's so importantto do that, and I just don't
think a lot of people fullyunderstand that.
So I love that you do that.
I'm, you know, really happythat we do that with our clients
.
Um, I just think it's somethingfor people to really, you know,
latch on to and apply indifferent parts of you know
(13:22):
their business and even theirlives.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
It's a great, you know.
I mean, of course, all of usare in business to to make money
.
We want to build something, wewant to build a legacy, we want
it to be successful and beprofitable, but it is um, it's
great for personal growth, um,it really is.
You know, learning to lead ateam, to have urgency, to drive
sales, to work with differentpersonalities, it's, it's again
(13:46):
it's.
It's a whole.
It's just a whole other worldthat opens up.
But I think to your point, Ithink having the right
mentorship, having the rightsupport you know you talk about,
you know, growing up in Chicago, I've been watching a lot of
film on the Chicago Bears thisweek and they've got issues with
their quarterback and withtheir coaching, and really the
coaching has put thatquarterback in a really bad
(14:09):
position.
You look at the receiversthey're not open right, the
route concepts are not good, theoffensive line is not good, the
team hasn't put things togetherthe right way, and to me that
is an example of a bad franchisethat has not done the right
things to help its players.
And that too can happen ifpeople choose the wrong
(14:29):
franchise that doesn't have allthe right support and tools to
help them go next level.
So I mean again with that.
I'd love to just transition,jeff, and talk a little bit
about some of your other brands,the brands under the Homefront
umbrella.
And I do have an interestinganecdote for you.
We were working a project withour pinks franchise that was a
little too tall for us.
(14:50):
Our tallest ladder couldn't getup there, so I actually called
your local window hero and saidhey, do you guys have your drone
?
Because can we, can we do a dealwhere we subcontract with you?
And I guess the drone was itwasn't yet, he hadn't yet gotten
it.
But just, I think that's agreat story for people to know
that just because we might havecompeting brands, franchising is
(15:12):
still a good fraternity,sorority, where we do all help
each other.
So anyways, I'll kick it overto you.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, absolutely so.
The franchise you refer to isWindow Hero.
So it is a exterior housewashing, gutter guard, gutter
cleaning and also windowcleaning business.
And that was when we acquiredthe business.
It's a 2006 vintage businesswith a great founder and he had
about 13 locations.
And we've augmented thatbusiness with really moving it
(15:41):
assertively into the commercialspace through the use of drones.
We have an exclusive with LucidBots, who is a drone
manufacturer, and these thingsare great and the franchise
owners are taking delivery oftheir drones kind of on a
group-by-group basis for the oldpeople, but the new people all
start with one of the commercialdrones in place.
(16:02):
Then we've also put into placesecurity film and window tint.
So commercial buildings.
We just did an entire schoolbrand new school for Melissa
Gibbs, who's Joe Gibbs'granddaughter-in-law or
daughter-in-law, and you knowshe has turned a huge church,
like a 70,000 square foot church, into a school, a trade school,
(16:24):
and they wanted security filmas one of their fundraisers.
So all of our franchise ownerscame in from all over the region
and for no charge at thatschool we installed security
film and of course we gave thema little freshen up on the
outside with the drones while wewere there as well.
So that's a great business.
Lots of recurring revenue.
About 76% of the clients arerecurring, so it's a recurring
(16:46):
revenue business.
Year after year.
You just get them on theschedule and as you build your
book of business, yeah, I meanjust to jump in on you there.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I mean I'll agree, you know, being on the window
cleaning business ourselves,it's a ton of recurring business
thing and I think I was naiveto this, and it's a champagne
problem.
But one thing all businessowners, franchise owners, need
to be prepared for, when youhave at least 50% commercial, is
that our accounts receivable onsome of these bigger jobs
sometimes can be four to sixweeks.
And so, again, this is aconversation Like I had someone
call me the other day and say,hey, I want to do a pinks
(17:19):
franchise and after I pay myfranchise fee, I've got, you
know, 30 grand.
I'm like dude, no, that's notenough, because you need to be
able to see yourself, you know,through there's going to be
periods where, sure, you've gotenough cash, the residential
clients pay immediately, but thebigger commercial jobs, like we
just had, um, a lot, I meanwe've got we just got the checks
(17:40):
in today from a ton of justreceivables that we were waiting
for.
So again, for those of you thatare thinking about this type of
business, window hero isexcellent, um, but just remember
, anytime you've got heavycommercial, you or you are going
to have longer term ar and soyou want to make sure you just
have the cash to prepare you forit.
Okay, jeff, back to you, yeah100%.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
And then you also mentioned that you play somebody
with Top Rail Fence, which isresidential, commercial,
agricultural fencing business,subcontractor model.
So it is employee light, it's asales game.
I mean you're running salesappointments every day.
You're selling fences, you'reordering the materials, you know
, using the technologies thatwe've made available to the
(18:19):
franchise owners to order thematerials and to run the
business.
It's been generally quick torevenue.
You know, in terms of, you knowthe ability to find customers
and to drive leads and to findcustomers into the marketplace.
So you know, and it's a, butyou know it's a contracting
business, Right, so it's on aproject by project basis.
You're selling projects, you'rehaving projects done, versus
(18:40):
kind of the window hero businesswhere a lot of it's recurring
and you're just going back tothe same thing.
It is a lighter staffing modelbut again, very reasonable
investments on these businesses.
I mean they're they're, they'reso affordable to get into these
service type businesses.
I just it's a great place to be.
And then we have temporary wallsystems, which is kind of first
(19:02):
of its kind.
It is a rentable, high-endcontainment systems that you
might see in airports orhospitals, anywhere that there's
a construction site.
And we've recently worked withour manufacturing partner to
roll out a brand new productwhich has different features set
to it, which expanded ourmarketplace into many, many new
(19:23):
market segments.
So it's a lower cost product.
It doesn't meet some of therequirements that you need to
have in a hospital or an airportor things like that.
So we're very agile in terms ofthat.
We've got great alignment withour manufacturing partner.
They actually operate 17 tempwalls in Canada for us, so
company I've worked with almost30 years.
(19:43):
They're a family business.
We used to buy our restorationequipment from them, so very,
very tight connection with themover decades.
Family business, we're a familybusiness, so it just gets along
well there and you know thatthat's a business.
That is is fascinating in theway that our franchise owners
have been able to really build amarket and get into a market
(20:06):
and get sharp elbows and get inthere and really introduce this
product to the marketplace.
So we're very excited the waythat that brand is rolling out.
Very sophisticated owners acrossour whole franchise system
Unusually high sophistication,high net worth franchise owners.
I think when people come intoHomefront Brands and they see
the technology, they see theleadership team and then they
(20:28):
see how carefully we've pickedthese brands with certain
criteria so that they can buildsomething meaningful inside of
these brands.
There's lots of great brandsout there but they don't all
meet the revenue requirementsthat a sophisticated owner is
going to be interested in.
So we've been very prescriptiveabout the inventory, and
(20:51):
temporary walls certainly meetsthat criteria.
Designery is our retail locationkitchen, bath and closet
concept, Teledesignfunctionality flat-packed we
assemble through a manufacturingplant and ship the jobs
directly to the job site.
So it's low inventory model,low staffing model.
Does have a retail, very AppleStore-type, little retail
(21:13):
location design center, but theyonly need to come in once and
then we have tele designfunctionality to continue the
project with them online.
So again, very lean, very slick, very the.
You know we one of our mantrasis start well and go well.
So what we've done is we'vemoved all of the revenue
generation activities evenbefore training so that people
(21:37):
are even trading business orwinning contracts before they
even come to training.
And we've done the things toenable that.
Because when have you ever beeninvolved with something that
didn't start well, that wentwell?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Never so starting well matters.
Well, you know.
I mean, look, first of all,here's the thing I'm amazed
about, and it's really comeabout in the last two years.
I'd say fencing is a greatbusiness.
Fencing numbers are just blowmy mind.
They really could.
For what?
I just didn't know that theneed was there.
I honestly didn't.
And you never built it.
(22:13):
You're right, Actually, no, wehaven't.
No, we've never built it.
You're right, actually, no, wehaven't.
No, we've never built.
I would know the first thingabout building a fence, but but
but that's you wouldn't do it Iwould call top rail, but I'm
amazed what a great business itis.
And the same is true like windowwashing.
I'll never forget when weinvested in pinks and we're
having dinner before we open.
I'm like, oh shoot, you know,we've never actually paid anyone
(22:35):
to wash our windows.
Is someone actually going tohire us?
And of course, you know yougrow and it happens, you grow a
business.
And now it's like, um, we'vegot, you know, knock on wood,
we've got more businesses we canhandle right now.
Um, now the challenge is andI'm sure this is what your
franchisees face it's, it'sfinding people, um, finding the
contractors, it's finding theemployees.
Our biggest challenge now is,with as much business as we have
(22:58):
on the books right now.
And you know about south florida, what happened was we.
We opened in march, we got offto a really fast start.
I'm like, yeah, okay, let'sorder second band.
And then everybody leaves forthe summer, right, everybody
goes up to new york, and thenthen business died, right.
Then it's like it's so slow andit's so scary and it's hot.
Yeah, nobody's here.
You know, in South Florida,when you can walk into any
(23:21):
restaurant you want on a Fridaynight and get a table, and it's
dead, whereas now you're bookingyour reservation two weeks in
advance.
And the same is happening withour business.
Is that we're flowing with theseasonality of South Florida?
So you know, know, it'sinteresting.
It's all these little lessonsyou, you learn, right, sure all
the fun.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Jill has thoughts no, but but it's true.
I mean like there's a lot thatyou know and, again, there's a
lot that we're prepared for anda lot that we're not ready for.
So, um, it's kind of going withthe flow and not giving up and,
you know, just towering throughit.
But also you know, like Jacksoneven reaching out to you guys,
you know, when we needed helpwith the drone, like there's
(24:01):
always a solution to something.
Yeah, just knowing, you know wemay have to think outside the
box, which is fine, it's betterto do it that way, but it gets
you through those harder times.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Look, you know so, some people get paid by the hour
.
Look, you know so, some peopleget paid by the hour.
Some people get paid commission.
But business owners like us, weget paid by the conversation
and our ability to have theright conversations.
Look, every business has adollar per person, right?
So it's like if your leadershiplid allows you to build a team
(24:32):
of 10, that's going to determinethe size of your business.
Because in our businesses, inour service businesses, it's a
function of people.
I was in a marketing mastermindin Orlando and there was a $35
million HVAC contractor in thereand I said, okay, what do you
do in terms of do you doresidential, do you do
commercial?
Do you do controls?
What's your book of business?
And he told me and I said, okay, so you're probably 70 lead
(24:55):
techs with 70 trucks and 35helpers and this many in
dispatch and whatever he goes.
Yeah, that's exactly Becauseonce you understand the dollar
per person in a business, thenit's a matter of can you lead in
such a way that can alignpeople?
And it doesn't have to be allemployees.
Part of it is stakeholders,referral partners,
(25:16):
subcontractors, but at the endof the day, everybody has to be
on the same page and you've gotto create a world and a dream
that's big enough for others'worlds and dreams to fit inside
of it and make it worthwhile forthem, to help you build your
vision and your dream.
And in doing that, it'saligning them with what's
important for them at this phasein their life.
So it's a leadership play andevery business has those
(25:39):
opportunities.
You don't have to have a sexyor new first of its type type
business.
And, by the way, you're inproperty services, we're in
property services.
Property services are, of the72 franchise segments, property
services, in my opinion, is themost durable.
There's going to be 100 millionmore people in this country by
2050.
There's already a housingshortage of types of homes
(26:01):
people want to live in in manymarkets.
So there's increased migrationthrough remote work and when
somebody leaves a house andmoves into a house, there's work
that's got to get done.
So and the supply and demandcurve is in our favor, where
there's less kids that are doingthese services now.
So you know, the people thatcan actually deliver upon these
services are going to get tocharge a premium, because that's
(26:23):
just what it's going to takefor people to get these services
done and, like you and I said,we don't do these ourselves.
You know, I don't cut my ownhair anymore.
I threw out my Flowbee.
I don't wash my own car.
I don't wash my own car, Idon't cut my own grass.
We are a have it done for yousociety and if so, if you want
(26:44):
to get into a business that'sgoing to have a compound annual
growth rate assuming that youcan lead it and you can attract
people and you can staff it andyou can sell then you'll never
find a home front branch nestledcomfortably between a
Blockbuster video and a Curbsfitness franchise, because
there's no obsolescence inproperty services.
So, if people want to get intosomething that's going to be
here and really, you know, benCarson said something great.
(27:06):
He said the person that has themost to do with what happens to
you is you.
If you want to, if you want tostrap on a business to have
personal growth, uh, and andcreate personal wealth, um,
property services is by far, uh,I think, the safest and it has
the most tail winds, uh, todayin our, in our economy and in
our franchise landscape.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I mean I, I um of all people.
Jeff, we were having aconversation with our accountant
last week uh, after theelection, and we put the
politics aside I'm not talkingabout what side anyone's on but
he said the next five years.
You look at what's going tohappen now with with taxes.
He's like go make money youdon't know if, if this is just
(27:48):
only the next five years, but gobuild, go open up more
locations, go do it now.
This your your moment to go doit.
And I thought that that I'mlike this is.
He's like go invest in anotherunit, go get another van because
you got to go build.
Now he's like because you're,you're the way the taxes are
going to shake out.
Is you're going to keep so muchmore of your money?
(28:10):
And that's just a fact.
It's not.
It's not you know what's side,who did you vote for?
It's just a fact.
So for business owners and forpeople thinking about business
ownership, put the politicsaside, this environment.
We already saw a rate, so nowSBA loans are coming down.
I heard there's going to beanother one in December.
We are back in favorableterritory for investing in
businesses.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, 100% amen.
On that.
I have nothing to add.
I think you said it perfectly.
Let's go.
You know, and franchising isthe greatest wealth creation
business model ever invented.
I mean it is, it is.
It is.
Franchising is an acceleratingat an accelerating rate, and for
people that want to, you know,I mean so many people are
(28:52):
finding ways to create onlinebusinesses Franchising is just
another way for people toparticipate in the American
dream and take control over whathappens to them.
And now we were going to havereal favorable economic climate
and tax climate for the nextfour years to be able to do this
.
So very, very excited andcouldn't agree more.
And you know, if you just keeptrying hard enough and you live,
(29:14):
live long enough, eventually,uh, it's something that looks
like luck happens to you and you, you're in the right place at
the right time.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
And then it's what you do with it, right, that's uh
, you know, and, like you said,you've got to be the one that
goes in and makes it happen.
And that's the other thing thatI'll say to all of you out
there that aren't yet clients,that I'll say to all of you out
there that aren't yet clients,um, uh, and what we say to our
clients is, at the end of theday, we can, we can, you know,
connect you with home frontbrands.
You can become a top railfranchise owner, a window hero
(29:44):
franchise owner.
They can give you all thisgreat training and support, but
you, you the business owner, wethe business owners, we've got
to make it happen.
And you know it's, it'sinteresting, um, whenever a
client who's been open forbusiness for, you know, a set
period of time, messages me andsays, hey, can we catch up,
there's usually two reasons one,business is through the roof
(30:05):
and they want to add anotherunit, or two, it's not going as
well as they want it to, and sowhat I do before the meeting is
I always go and look at theirlocation.
How many google reviews doreviews do they have?
And if they have two Googlereviews, I know what kind of
conversation I'm in, but I alsoknow what my role in the
conversation is, which is to say, dude, you got two Google
reviews, no crying, whereas theother fella or gal has a hundred
(30:28):
Google reviews and you're like,I know what kind of
conversation I'm going to have.
So again, to all of you outthere who are thinking about
this, it is going to be hard butit's going to be worth it
because you're going to buildright.
If you, you, you build a coupleof top rail units during the
first year or so, yes, you'reputting money into the business,
you're putting time into thebusiness, but by year three,
(30:49):
you're going to see it starts tobecome easier, more predictable
.
It becomes that asset thatyou're going to see.
It starts to become easier,more predictable, becomes that
asset that you're no longernecessary to the business.
And to me, jeff and I don'tknow about you there's no more
powerful feeling on earth than abusiness that does not require
me.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, that is so smart about the Google reviews.
I really like that and it'srefreshing to hear that you're
letting people know that.
It's like who starts a businessand on day one you're just cash
is just raining on you.
I mean, this is nobody knowsyou, you don't.
You don't have the referralsLike you.
You have to go, introduceyourself to the marketplace.
(31:25):
The digital work, the digitalis important.
Obviously, we all buy on theinternet, but the biggest jobs
you're going to get are the onesthat are going to come from
customers or referral partnersthat know who you are and just
say you've got an important job.
I wouldn't use anybody but thisperson.
If you're going to have asurgery, you're going to have
your knees replaced.
Are you going to just picksomebody out of the yellow pages
(31:47):
and hope that they're good?
Are you going to call everydoctor you know and say you know
who's the best?
I mean you can be if you're thelast person in your class, uh,
in medical school and you barelyuh, squeaked by.
They still call you doctor, bythe way, but but it's probably
(32:07):
not the doctor that you want togo through for life-changing or
life-altering surgery.
So I mean it.
It.
You know being X.
You know, your reputation issimply your relationship with
people that you have not yet met.
And you, as a business owner,have to go out every day and
work to expose your brand, yourvalues, your story to people so
that they can remember that andthey can articulate that and
(32:30):
have a real compelling reason todo business with you.
And it's so important in ourbusinesses, especially in in in
in you helping and me attractinguh, new, new business franchise
partners into our businesses.
It's, it's absolutelycritically important that they
know who like.
If they don't like me or theydon't like something about our
brands or homefront brands orour position, then they should,
(32:50):
they should join something elseLike.
You have to put it out there sopeople can choose whether they
want to roll with you or not.
The business owner it's notsitting in front of your
computer and waiting on a leadto fall into the bucket and
watching it happen.
You can't be a passenger inentrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You've got to be a driver.
Yeah, you're so right, and Ithink that's where in COVID, I
think franchising really wantedto be absentee.
That was a word that was reallygetting thrown around for a
while.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
And we don't use it.
We don't use it.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, and I think it wanted to be right.
I think that franchisorsthought they could do it, and
the issue is this they thoughtthey could hire it.
Right, we'll hire someone torun your business for you or
help run your business, but theproblem is, when you hire
someone for 50 grand to runsomebody's business, you're not.
You're not bringing the urgencyand the hustle, and so you're
(33:48):
not going to get the same resultthat you would when your ass is
on the line and you've got tomake payroll and and you got to
make it happen.
And that's the part thateverybody forgot about.
Um is that ultimately it itcan't be put neatly into an hour
a day.
I may spend two hours a day onpinks, but it's not in a neat
box.
Um, you know my GM's blowing myphone up about something right
(34:10):
now.
It's going to happen at themost inopportune time, um, and
that's business.
And so that's when people callus and they say listen, I want
to, you know, diversify into abusiness and maybe I could
squeeze an hour into it.
After you know work hours.
I'm like dude, go into realestate no, even you can't.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
You can't even do real estate like that too.
I mean, that's the thing withthe real business like that it's
not.
You cannot schedule your timeI'll be working on this business
from you know two to three.
Yeah, it's not going to happen,um, for many reasons right so
if you know.
Yeah, I guess that's settingthose expectations and
understanding, and I thinkstraying away from absentee has
been key because it just gaveeveryone the wrong impression of
(34:49):
what could be done.
But also there's joy in owningand having a part of it too.
And so if you come in and youthink I'm just really going to
be hands off, I'm going to letsomeone run it I mean, it's your
baby, it's your business andyou it is hard to find that
unicorn that's going to run yourbusiness exactly the way you
want them to do.
So you are more involved,especially in the beginning, as
(35:10):
you're ramping up and they'regetting to know you and the
business and all of that.
It's just it's not.
It's not what the expectationswere.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
No, and that's why franchising has had such a year
of reckoning, because it's it'scome back to its roots, which is
you get to be an entrepreneur,you get to go, build a business.
Yes, as you scale you can startto pull back, but you're you
know again, it's never going tobe something that completely
goes away.
Maybe, jeff, if you sell yourbusiness and you sell or finance
(35:37):
it and you arrange a deal wheresomeone's paying you for it
over time, then maybe that canbe considered absentee, but you
should want to put the time in.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Yeah, I couldn't agree.
I couldn't agree more on howrefreshing it is to hear you say
that.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Jeff, I know what I want to ask you.
You've got an excellent book.
Can you tell us?
Speaker 3 (36:04):
first of all, tell us a little bit about the book,
and I want our listeners to knowwhere they can go to get it,
how they can get a copy of yourbook, and what it will give you
is.
It will give you models ofthought, meaning situations, and
how I resolve those situations,what tools, techniques and
tactics I use to resolve those.
(36:25):
Because models of thought aresimply experienced-based things
that we learn over the course ofa lifetime applied to
present-day.
So and that's basically whatwisdom is when you say this
person is so wise, they're wisebecause you bring them a problem
and they're able to tell you astory and relate that to a
situation and share theirexperience.
(36:46):
You never should ask people foradvice.
You should only ask people fortheir experiences.
If people don't have experiencein what you're talking about,
they should not give advice.
I mean, it's amazing how peoplego to their father-in-law, who
worked for the city or somebodylike that, to get business
advice from somebody that'snever owned a business, never
(37:08):
run a business, never seen abusiness.
So there's a lot of that inthere.
And then it's about really youknow our the quality of our
decisions.
It impacts the quality of ourlife and the velocity of our
business.
There's there's no neutraldecisions and business is about
probability.
So every decision that you makeeither increases or decreases
your speed and your success.
(37:29):
So a bad decision is, you know,going to take away from it and
a good decision is going togoing, you know, accretive to it
.
So, basically, you know whatare the filters in making good
decisions and I go through aseries of filters that basically
say you know, here's how I madethis decision and here's the
filters that I applied for,whether it be a set of values or
(37:49):
set of principles or thingslike that.
Because the, you know, one ofthe one of the greatest things,
one of the greatestresponsibilities in as business
builders, is to remove latencyfrom our business, and latency
is simply from the moment thatyou understand an action, that
it is apparent that an actionneeds to be taken or a decision
needs to be made, like, how longdoes it take for that to get
(38:13):
implemented?
From awareness to action, andyour ability to to make
decisions, and to make gooddecisions based on things that
you already know or alreadybelieve, or principal
foundations that you have laid,allows you to make those
decisions faster, without regret, and to iterate and move
forward thing with Elon Musk,right, it's basically launching
(38:33):
rockets.
I mean, the first 25 or 50rockets he launched just blew up
.
But he knew that the fasterthat he blew rockets up, the
faster that they would learn.
And the next thing you know,you know he's got a skyscraper
landing in a set of pinchers.
You know, and, and you know,and reusable.
So you know he iterated soquickly through that process.
(38:54):
And part of that is, too, isyou know how you build a
business it's about.
It's about really removinghesitation, you know, and
creating clarity around what agood decision looks like and
then underpinning it with a setof principles and models of
thoughts and values and filtersfor you to make the best
decision possible.
So that's basically what thebook does.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I love it and can people just?
Can they find it on Amazon?
Can they go to your website?
Where can they go to get it?
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yes, you can go to Amazon and just put in a
discernment by Jeff Duden and itwill pop up.
There's literally dozens ofcopies in print.
Or you can go to.
If you go to my Instagram andgo to my link tree and if you
give me your email address, Ibelieve is all you got to do and
I will actually email you anelectric cop, an electronic copy
immediately to your inbox ofthe book.
(39:40):
So for free, just cost youremail, maybe a phone number, but
you know, so it's just JeffDuden is the Instagram handle,
and and then also too, you getthese links on our on the home
front podcast.
We have a great podcast.
It's very.
I mean, we just had FranklinGraham on.
I think I got Bobby Kennedycoming on next month.
Wow, yeah, I was just with himin Phoenix so got him coming on.
(40:04):
But we've had, I mean, we'vehad Ben Carson, we've had Andrew
Zimmer and we've had Brandon.
We've had all the big names onthe show.
So it's a really goodentrepreneurship show.
And then in the show notes youcan always find a link to, to,
to, to sign up and get a copy ofthe book.
I like printed copies of thebook.
It's, it's not expensive.
We didn't price it up oranything.
(40:25):
So if you want to get one foryou or it's really good for like
20 something people, I've had alot of people come back to me
and say I gave it to my son andhis business partner.
They're just starting abusiness.
And then now they asked me forboxes.
Where can I buy a box?
Because I want to give it tohis whole class or their whole
business community or whateverit is they're doing.
So if you're new to businessand you want to set up an
(40:48):
infrastructure that's going tobe durable, there's some good
stuff inside of discernment tohelp you do that.
It's on our coffee table.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
All right.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Is it because your coffee table was wobbly and it's
under the leg?
Is that what it's for?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
No, it's a great looking book.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
I love it.
I love the cover.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
You know, and you're right, it is fabulous.
And for those of you, by theway, that would like to explore
some of the home-prem brands andyou'd like our help, you know
the drill text does at305-710-0050.
And that way we can help figureout which one of the brands or
maybe you want to explore all ofthe home front brands that's
not a bad idea either, jeff.
I want to end on one, one lastpoint, which is you know and
(41:29):
it's something you kind ofpointed us in the right
direction of people ask me allthe time why shouldn't I just
start my own painting businessor window washing business
versus a franchise?
And my answer usually is youabsolutely can.
But and we own, we ownfranchise insiders, which we
pretty much had to figure outourselves.
(41:50):
And when you figure, when youhave a business where you figure
things out yourself, you'regoing to make mistakes, and
those mistakes are expensive.
With a franchise, you avoidthose expensive mistakes.
Now, the nice thing is justlike Elon with the rockets If
you learn from those mistakes,you get better, you get smarter,
you become better at your craft.
But a franchise has alreadymade the mistakes and they can
keep you on the right path andbelieve you know.
(42:11):
Again, people say well, whatabout the royalty To me, that
royalty check that we run?
We don't write a check that yousay, see it out of our
accountant but every single week, first of all, it tells me how
my revenue is doing.
Right, if I'm not looking at mysales report I'm like, oh,
we're paying a high, it'sbecause we're doing well revenue
wise.
But it it is so worth it tohave that playbook, that support
(42:32):
, that infrastructure and ithelps you avoid mistakes and it
gives you the sounding boardwhich only a franchise can do.
So I don't know.
That's my perspective on it.
I'd love just to hear yours.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Franchises have certain characteristics and I've
already mentioned that it's thegreatest wealth creation
business model ever invented.
I mean, Jerry Richardson wasthe founder of the Carolina
Panthers.
He was Johnny Unitas' tight end.
They wanted to pay him $250 agame.
He wanted $500, so he quit andhe bought a Hardee's restaurant.
He ended up with 400 Hardee'sfranchises Wow.
He sold that.
He got into real estate andinsurance and he took that money
to basically be the majoritylead investor and owner of the
(43:11):
Carolina Panthers NFL team,which is also a franchise.
There's over 880,000 franchiseestablishments in this country.
One out of every nine peoplealmost nine million people work
by or for a franchise system.
It's amazing.
Franchising is a subset ofsmall business.
Small business is 46 to 60% ofour GDP.
(43:33):
Small business implies theoverwhelming number of people in
this country.
It's just.
It is a very proven businessmodel.
And, number one, it's a leverageplay, meaning that you don't
have to shoulder the wholeexpense of building a brand.
It's shared learning management, shared CRM, shared technology,
(43:53):
shared brand, shared customeracquisition, so you're paying a
fraction of pennies to getaccess to things that would take
you a decade to build yourself.
The second thing is it's atransitional and
transformational meaning ifyou're new to entrepreneurship
but, like we have a lot offamily office, we have $50
million business owners thathave invested in home front
(44:14):
brands because businesses are ahigh class asset and they want
to diversify their portfolio.
Or you're a first time businessowner, transitioning it's a
great way to transition intobusiness ownership, with some
guardrails up.
Then the last thing there's acommunity of people that are
building the same business asyou are, just in different
markets that you wouldn't haveotherwise.
So I mean it's a whole differentbusiness model than building
(44:35):
your own business, because youcan add businesses, you can add
territories, you can buy yourneighbors, you can play that
monopoly game inside of afranchise system that is
well-defined and grow it as bigas you decide to.
It's only limited by yourself-limiting beliefs.
So franchising is a greatbusiness model and it's
successful for all of thosereasons.
Whatever it is your listenerschoose to do, I just encourage
(44:57):
them to do it with great focusand great intention and do it
with all their might, and I'msure they will be successful.
I think that's perfect, perfectadvice.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I think that's wonderful, very well said, you
know.
And even if the first onedoesn't work, humans are
resilient.
I mean, we've talked toentrepreneurs that you know
people's worst fears, right?
What do people say?
Oh, what happens if I go bellyup?
We know successfulentrepreneurs that have looked
that in the eye and still founda way to succeed.
So humans are very resilient,don't you think?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yeah, no, and I mean sometimes you have to fail a
couple of times to really learnand advance and win.
So it's okay.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
What did they call that Failing forward?
Speaker 3 (45:36):
fail, fast fail forward.
Yeah, and also um uh, in thebook discernment you will see,
uh, how we use values I have myown personal family values in
there and how we use those to tobuild.
You know you mentioned Zachworking with him.
You know he's a, he's a productof, of, of our environment.
He's just a great, great youngman, very talented, and all of
(45:59):
that.
And then our business valuesand how we use those as a real
tool.
Your values break your ties, soyou're going to be faced with
tough decisions that end up onyour desk as the business owner,
and you have to know what yourvalues are, because it'll inform
you as to how to make adecision.
Where it's not, may not beclear otherwise.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Awesome, jeff you're uh, you're a good dude.
Thank you so much for being onour podcast and sharing your,
your wisdom and expertise.
It really is an honor to uh tobe here with you and uh to
continue to work with you andyour family.
Again, like you said, I meanwe've got a client who recently
came on board and is so thrilledwith how things are going.
So listen everyone, these guyswalk the walk and definitely, if
(46:43):
you're looking into franchiseownership and if you're looking
into home services, Jeff's an OG, he's been doing it for a long
time and he's built up a goodcompany, and so if you'd like to
talk to them, text us at305-710-0050.
Jeff, thank you so much forbeing on the show today.
We really appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Yep Jack Jill, always a pleasure to see you both.
Thank you so much and Iappreciate being on.
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.