Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, everybody and welcome to All Things Considered Franchising podcast. I am your host, Scott Scotty Milos and I've been around the franchising space. Well, seems like a lifetime. So welcome to the show.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Just a little FYI.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: I help people explore franchise ownership, see if it's the right path for them, and more importantly, provide an educational journey to see how a brand that fit can fit your goals and lifestyle. I also educate my clients on how to validate and make a logical business decision as well as an informed decision.
On this show, you'll hear directly from franchise owners as well as franchisors, leading exciting brands and people within and in the industry of franchising. You can always connect with me at scottyeperfectfranchise.com that is my email address.
Visit the websites at the perfect franchise.com or Scott Milo's franchisecoach.com. you can also text and call me at 413-935-5111. Now let's get into today exciting episode.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Hello, hello, hello everybody and welcome to another episode of All Things Considered Franchising. Kicking off our third season here.
Got an interesting guest today.
Well, first of all, I am your host, Scott Scotty Milos. I am the founder of All Things Considered Franchising, also the owner of ScottMylasFranchiseCoach.com which is powered by the Perfect Franchise. We're an organization that helps people research and explore business ownership, preferably franchising, but helping people build the business model roadmap, but then introducing them to the opportunities that potentially fit and helping them through what we call the validation process so they can make an informed decision one way or another.
I'm really excited to have this next guest because I've gotten to know him over the last few years. We've actually done some placements together. We've had a couple of successful candidates working out.
I'd like to introduce you to Gab Tupin of Spray Net out of our lovely Canadian neighbor up in Canada Quebec area, although he is down in Florida.
Gab, welcome to the show.
[00:02:16] Speaker C: Thank you, Scotty. Thanks for having me. Very much appreciated.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, your brand has had some exciting things happen over the last few years. There's a lot, been a lot of transformation.
You've had extensive growth in Canada and then decided many years ago that you wanted to tap into the US Market. I still scratch my head and wonder why anybody would want to work with the US at this point, but that's a whole other subject. I'm only kidding. But let's Talk franchising for a second because you have an extensive background in franchising, especially with a Spraynet. If I'm correct, you're going on 14, 15 years with Spraynet, is that correct?
[00:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm actually 13. 13 years and six months in now with Spraynet. So it's been a little while. I've been there since almost day one.
Our founder had started the business about a year and a half before I got into this beautiful brand.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: What got you into it was something that franchising was on your radar, or is it just, hey, you know, happened to belly up to the bar somewhere and next year was the founder of this company and said, hey, you should come work for me?
[00:03:27] Speaker C: That's actually a really good question. And it's a. It's a story I haven't.
I haven't told in a little while. So thanks for asking that, Scotty. So my grandfather actually owned paint stores. So I've been born and raised in the painting industry.
Painting industry. And Carmelo, who's our founder, was actually one of my customers. I was his rep at the paint store. And Carmelo was a different entrepreneur. He was not the conventional, you know, typical painting guy that you would see walk into the store, paint all over his. All over his clothes, you know, on the phone, swearing. It was very. He was kind of like a different breed of painters. He was more of an entrepreneur. So he really stuck out in the painting world immediately.
And, Carmen, I were speaking for a little while and he knew I loved what I was doing. And he's like, man, I need a sales rep. I need you to come and help me grow this business.
And after a little while, he's like, listen, Gab, come to my office today at 4 o'.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Clock.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: We need to speak. I show up at his office and he's like, listen, do you want to work for a multinational or do you want to help me build a multinational? I am going to franchise this thing and we're going to go across the world. And I was just, like, blown away.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: And I'm like, so what, what did you know about franchising at that time? I mean, nothing. So, yeah, I mean, so you knew that, you know, McDonald's and Subway were pretty much franchises. And that was, at that point, you probably thought that was the extent of franchise, right?
[00:05:08] Speaker C: Exactly. We're very used to seeing, like, the restaurant brands. Right. So.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: That's all I knew about franchising. And I was like, all right, let's go for it.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Right.
It's safe to say Gab that building a brand from the ground floor up, turning it into a powerhouse in Canada, then bringing it to the US and building it. You've been very successful here in the States as well, is a challenge, and it has its challenges.
What? Just real quickly, where do you see.
Where were the challenges? And how did you overcome these challenges? And then we'll get into some of the details about the brand, the services, and what really kind of separates you and makes you unique within the category that we're speaking of.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: Absolutely, Scotty. So, actually, funny story, we were on Dragon's Den in Canada, which is equivalent to Shark tank, about. About 10 years ago, and at this point, we had, like, two franchisees. We had literally just started franchising. So we were basically, here's your truck, here's your trailer. All right. Call us if you have any questions. Right. That was kind of like the extent of our training at the begin, we really didn't know what we were doing.
And the night the episode aired of Shark Tank with Spraynet on it, we got so many clicks to our website that Microsoft actually closed down our website because they thought we were getting hacked.
We got, like, 2,000 franchise requests, like, in 48 hours. It was something absolutely crazy. And we ended up selling out Canada from coast to coast that year. So we all of a Sudden had, like, 30 franchisees from coast to coast with absolutely no processes, no structures, nothing in place. So that was one heck of a challenge, right, for the ones who know, you know, all the. All the work that goes behind the scenes of, you know, being able to work and put the processes in place for your franchisees. It's a lot of work. So we basically took the next six years to build out all our processes, put coaches in place, training programs. Right? Really get ready for the franchisees that we had, but then also for a US expansion. So that was, I guess the first big milestone was when we sold out Canada. We had absolutely nothing in place. So that was definitely a big learning curve for us coming into the US Market.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Wow, that's interesting. You know, every brand goes through a change cycle.
It has its growth spurt, and then it realizes, well, wait a minute, you know, we're growing too fast. We need to be able to support our franchisees. We need to keep up on technology. We need. And in your case, your brand, the science side of it, because that's what makes Perrynet you need is science.
When you look back over the last 14, 15 years with the brand, and you have had some cyclical changes, things that you had to change.
You had to let some franchisees go or kind of help them out because it wasn't working to their best interest. And of course the brand.
When you look back, do you still say to yourself, we wish we had done things a little bit differently or are you comfortable with your growth pattern at this point and where you are and where you're going?
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a very good question, Scotty.
You know, I think, I think we always have tendencies of looking back and saying, what is it that we could have done differently right now that you know. Right. It's, it's very easy sometimes to go back and try to pinpoint areas where, you know, you're like, ah, maybe this decision wasn't the right one. Right. I think that happens to all of us.
But I think one of the biggest learnings for us was, you know, we do have an owner operator model and not a semi absentee model.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:05] Speaker C: And we definitely, we definitely realized that when we started our US expansion and we're very grateful that we caught on to that fairly quickly and that we made the changes, you know, to be able to. Because our goal is to make our franchisees successful. Right, right. That's our number one responsibility. We coach, we support, we train, we want to make sure that our franchisees, we give them all the tools, all the resources for them to be successful. Right. And the owner operator is really the model that we see the most success with.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: All right, good, good, good. So let's talk about. Well, first of all, we're talking to Gab Tupin, who's heads up development for Spray Net, a unique painting company. A three in one painting company, I think is the best way to put it. So let's talk a little bit about Spray Net. And by the way, the brand has had accolades from organizations like Forbes, Upflip, Entrepreneur, hgtv. So this is not a, this is not what I would call that far reaching mad scientist. You know, somebody sitting behind a desk thinking about what we can create. This is actually something that's working.
You promote yourself as a three in one brand.
Traditional exterior, interior painting, cabinet refinishing. And the big one now is of course the roofing coating. The extension of adding a coating to a roof to extend the life of the roof, the warranty on the roof. So talk to me about, because when I know I present Spray Net to my clients, I am presenting them as a science backed company.
There's technology, but a lot of this is science. And if I am correct, according to one of my clients, you do Actually have an in house employee who was a scientist who's helped creating these formulas, I guess, these paints, these coatings. So tell us more because it's pretty unique.
[00:11:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, Scotty is definitely very unique. And to the person you are referring, referring to, who calls him the mad scientist, I call him our super chemist.
So Piman actually has been with us for eight or no, 10 years now. Yeah, he, he's essentially the head of our R D team. He works in lab in our, in our distribution and manufacturing facilities in Canada.
Essentially. This gentleman and his team have created 13 proprietary coatings. So essentially what we're doing at Spray Net that is completely different than conventional painting companies is we are offering a permanent factory finish solution on exterior siding, doors and windows, kitchen cabinets. And now our newest revenue stream which is for asphalt shingled roofs.
Let's talk about the asphalt shingled roofs newest revenue stream. We're extremely excited about it. Essentially what happens with roofs is the granules fall off the shingles.
Eventually what happens is the roof starts to curl up. Right. Or it becomes brittle, starts falling apart. Well, we've created a true resurfacing system. This is not a sealant, this is not a paint. It's essentially a system that will regranual the actual shingles itself and extend the life of the shingles for at least 15 years. So what we've done is we've created a coating, we integrate the granules inside the coating, we apply them directly on the asphalt shingles and it'll essentially increase the impact resistance, the wind resistance and give a whole new life to your, your roof for about 40% of the cost of replacement. So homeowners save money and they extend the life of their shingles. They don't have to replace. It's an absolutely phenomenal revenue stream that works. Extremely excited about.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Interesting, interesting. So walk, walk our listening audience through kind of the life of a franchisee. So I have an appointment with a Spray Net franchisee. They're coming to my house because I want to, I want to get my cabinets refinished.
I explored traditional people have, you know, said hey, I could do this, we got to take the cabinets off, we got to do this, whatever it may be. Walk me through the process that a Spray Net, the differentiator, when it comes time to maybe getting cabinets refinished, like I said, or you know, the, the exterior coating for painting or something. I mean I, I think you understand what I'm trying to say. But where is the differentiator? How is this being explained to the consumer that person, that franchisees client.
[00:13:43] Speaker C: Absolutely. So there's a couple things that we can speak to a little bit like the actual sales process when they show up. But what's important to understand is at Spraynet, what we've done by creating these 13 proprietary coatings, each one of our coatings is specifically tailored for one surface.
So what happens is when we deal with like these paints, right. When we go to Sherwin Williams, it's kind of like a one size fits all with one paint. You could paint wood, cement, aluminum, you could paint it. All right. It's kind of like a master of none.
So what we've done is we've taken these characteristics of these surfaces and we've tailored our coatings and have the properties that are needed to be able to offer something that will last forever. So we have one coating just for brick, one coating just for doors and windows, one just for cabinets. So they're extremely tailored to that one substrate. So if our franchisees show up at a customer's house to give them a quote. Right. Well, they'll show up with their actual samples. They'll be able to provide samples to the customers. They'll be able to show them what their cabinets will look like with our online visualizer tool. So they take a picture of the home. They'll be able to see exactly what their cabinets will look like.
And essentially what happens is because the coatings are tailored for that one substrate, they'll never come off. And the customers benefit from a 15 year warranty.
So that's the big advantage that our customers get with the spray of service.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: I'm sure the question that's going through a lot of minds right now in the listening audience as they listen to this and is that, wow, this sounds great. This is awesome.
Adds 15 year, 15 year warranty, the coatings for the roofing and everything. But boy, what am I going to pay for this? I mean, is this, am I, am I paying five times more than a traditional painting company coming in? And again, I don't want to separate you that.
I mean, it is a kind of that Rolls Royce service product. I mean, you are stepping up. But does this fall in line with a traditional, you know, paint re job for a house or. I mean, I think you understand what I'm trying to ask is that where does this go for the consumer?
[00:15:50] Speaker C: Where does it, where's the value?
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Where does it fall for the value for the consumer?
[00:15:54] Speaker C: Absolutely. So it's funny because we kind of fall in this bracket where we're giving the same result as new. So it's the same almost as if you were doing replacement, but you're paying almost the same price as a conventional painter. And depending on the substrate, sometimes we're actually the same price as a conventional painter. Sometimes we're 10, 15% more expensive than a conventional painter. So for the homeowners, the value proposition is extremely high. You're getting the same result as new for almost the same price. And you're getting a 15 year warranty. Right. You're getting a very professional service also very tailored to their needs as well.
You know, Scotty, 43% of our customers leave a five star review.
That is insane. Our net promoter score, not sure for the ones who know what that is. All of our customers receive a survey every time they complete a job with Spraynet and it asks them to evaluate their experience on 1 to 10. And that gives us a net promoter score. Our average net promoter score across the board is 89%.
In the home service industry, that is very high. Right. So it speaks a lot to the value and the service that our customers get.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: So let's talk a little bit about the entrepreneurs, the franchisees that you have in your system. Because, you know, I, I can see the wheels turning with a lot of people right now saying, wow, you know, this is great, but there's a lot of science, chemistry and I, and I'm not the kind of guy that likes to do renovations or home or, or. I mean, where's the background from your franchisees? I know David is a corporate refugee. He got so fed up with corporate, I mean, other than knowing how to use a hammer or whatever, no really experience in renovations. But where do you see the expertise for your franchisees to be successful?
[00:17:43] Speaker C: That's a great question and I love that you referenced David because David actually posted a story, I think it was earlier on this week, which is one of the candidates Scotty and I have, have a place together last year. And he was speaking about how he's been working at an office his whole life and he was on a job site just showing the sunshine. And he was expressing like this is.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: I think it was on top. I think it was the top of the roof. He was on the top.
[00:18:11] Speaker C: Yeah. Right. So, so expressing like how happy and content he is now, you know, choosing his environment that he decides to work in. And he was on a job site with one of his teams.
So, Scotty, I would say, like, we're looking for entrepreneurs, right? We're not looking for blue collar individuals that necessarily, you know, that have painting Experience. We have an extremely well organized and put together training program. We actually train our franchisees and their staff.
Even their staff doesn't need to have any painting experience. We actually prefer sometimes that they don't. It's easier to teach them the spray Net way. Spray net. We use different technologies. Our coatings are different than conventional paint, so it's a little more specialized in terms of application. So that's why our training program is built out the way it is.
Funny stat, Scotty, this year, and actually some of them came from, from your team at the Perfect franchise. But 60% of the franchisees that we signed are actually engineers.
So that's actually an interesting stat. And to add on to that, not sure if you know this, Scotty. The fbr, the franchise Business review organization. So we use their services this year and they sent out a survey to all of our franchise owners and obviously we got a really good score.
But we won the culture award at Spray Night.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Interesting. Congratulations.
[00:19:35] Speaker C: Thank you. So, yeah, we're very proud of that one because it speaks a lot to the franchisee, franchise or relationship and how we treat our franchisees.
But the big part that I think attracts especially engineers is we actually just won last month the award for innovation.
Interesting award.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Okay. All right.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: We actually had the highest score that FER executives had ever seen. So we're extremely proud of that one. So the innovation part at spring and I think is really what sets us apart, right. The fact that we're able to offer something that nobody else is able to offer. The permanent solution, the 15 year warranty, the three really different revenue streams that our franchisees get to benefit from.
Our R D, our custom chemistry. Right. These are all the things that really set us apart and that attract individuals that like innovation, that like a business that is creating something that nobody else is able to do.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Right, interesting. So, you know, as we get ready to wind down here, Deb, just to kind of peek inside the, you know, behind door number one, door number two and door number three, anything new coming out? I mean, should we expect that spraynet is going to continue to develop and be innovative and bring new products on for the franchisees? You know, kind of in what we call in business is additional revenue drivers to, you know, help build business. I mean, should we expect that with spraynet?
[00:20:55] Speaker C: Oh yeah, I love it. I might get in trouble for this one.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Well, you don't have to give away treats secrets. But I mean, it's safe to say then you are developing new products, coding services that you can.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: Yeah, we're actually testing a new product. Our team's very active, our ops team right now testing a new product.
There's two, actually two different revenue streams that we're trying to add on later on. The thing is, we already have a lot, right. We want to make sure our franchises are able to utilize.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:25] Speaker C: Everything that we have. But yeah, the reality is we have a visionary as a CEO and founder and he can stop. And actually, one of our sayings internally here at Sprint is can't stop, won't stop. Right. So we're always pushing and we're always trying to find new things and, you know, create tools and situations where we're gonna find ourselves setting ourselves apart from anybody else. Right.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: That's great. Well, Gab, it's always great to catch up with you and looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks down in Florida.
But any closing thoughts, you know, anything you want to share, anything. I might have forgot to ask you about the Spraynet, Scotty.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: I think that's great.
You know, we have our, our headquarters in Canada and in Florida as well. Our, our distribution center and training facilities are in Florida.
If anybody who's listening is looking for, you know, to be part of a team that is, we like to say, new generation, franchising, young, dynamic people who care about your, your success. And if you want to be part of an innovative group, give us a call. Let Scotty know and make introductions and we'll speak.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: Great. Great. Well, we've been talking to Gab Tubin of Spraynet, heads up development.
I guess, as some people would say, he's been there for a lifetime.
It's, you know, going on almost 15 years, but it's been great chatting with you. I am your host, Scott Scotty Milos again, founder of All Things Consulting, considered Franchising. Also founder of scottmylasfranchisecoach.com which is powered by the Perfect Franchise. If anybody has any questions regarding SpringNet, feel free to reach out to me at 413-935-5111 or email me at Scotty the Perfect Franchise.com Two websites to visit ScottMylasFranchiseCoach.com or the Perfect Franchise.com.
the 413 number is also a SMS text messaging so you can text me as well.
So until next time, we hope to get back on the show, Gab. But it's been great talking to you. And this is Scott Scotty Milos and saying until next time, another episode of All Things Considered. Franchising. Check us out on all the podcast channels and of course. All things considered. Franchising.com website. Thanks much Gab.
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Thanks Audie.
