Speaker 1 00:00:04 Hello everybody. Welcome to another podcast, another episode of All Things Considered Franchising, powered by Scott Milas franchise coach.com. I am your host, Scotty Milas. All Things Considered Franchising is a podcast dedicated to the entrepreneur, people who are interested in business ownership. They would like to research and explore franchise opportunities. We also provide educational podcasts on being an entrepreneur. Scott Milas franchise coach.com is a consulting organization that I founded and president, founder, as I said, and we provide a free service helping people research and explore franchises, helping them build a business model and introducing them to the brands that actually fit what they're looking for. So today's guest is another one of those young guns, young stars, somebody who has some tenure not only in the franchise or space in development, but also extensive experience being a multi-unit franchise E. So I am, uh, thrilled to have Courtney Leopard, who is part of the, um, uh, bumblebee Blinds franchise with Force Power Brands. And uh, Courtney, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 00:01:20 Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be going.
Speaker 1 00:01:23 It's great. <laugh>. It's great to have you. You know, um, I I I've been on a roll here with a lot of, uh, what I call young guns people who are bringing a lot of excitement and, um, enthusiasm to the industry and, uh, you know, so I'm really glad to have you on because not only are you on a, the development side, and we'll get into Bumblebee Blinds in a second, but you were a franchisee, a multi-unit franchisee. Um, and, and, and I'd like you to share that story with our audience. You know, how did you get into franchising, decide to invest in franchises, and then obviously you transferred, transformed into the franchisor side. So maybe you could share a little bit about that story. I mean, that would be great.
Speaker 2 00:02:10 Absolutely. Yeah. So I grew up in a family-owned business. It was not a franchise. So kind of that entrepreneurial bug has always been in my blood. I've always wanted to do it. Um, I graduated from college and I was kind of dead set that I was gonna go to law school. I got in law school, hated it, immediately, knew it wasn't for me. And, um, I was around a franchise system. I had some friends that were starting to franchise and their energy was just contagious. They were enjoying their work. It was fun, it was exciting, it was growing. And so I took this massive leap of faith and I started launching my own franchises. Um, I launched four locations in two different states over the course of a little less than three years. And then I scaled those for about seven years. Um, and then I exited those two years ago. So I sold the locations, um, and was looking for my next thing that I was gonna do <laugh>. And having been in franchising for 15 years now, <laugh>, I got into franchise development. So.
Speaker 1 00:03:12 Wow, that is an awesome story. So, you know, let's just, you know, kind of take a little bit of a deeper dive into being a franchisee, cuz I think it's great education and it really helps us build an entry into the franchisor side. And now you helping people through a process, you know, deciding if Bumblebee or some of the other horsepower brands are, you know, something that's a fit for them. Um, when you, when you initially made the decision to start looking for a franchise, and obviously you had some friends that were in it, as you just said, what were some of the things that were important to you? And now that you're, you know, you were a franchisee that you can share with the audience that they should be looking for inve when they're investigating or deciding on whether a franchise is the right route for them to be an entrepreneur. Is there anything you could share? Any deep dark secrets or, you know, <laugh>?
Speaker 2 00:04:10 Yeah, no, that's, that's a great question. So I'll just, you know, I'll cut to the chase. You know, for me it was profitability. I knew a couple other, uh, franchise owners in the franchise system that I bought into, and they were doing very well. And obviously, you know, money talks. And so that attracted me because I obviously was, I wanted to work hard, but I wanted to make sure I was getting a good r o i on my time. Um, the other thing that I, I think at that point in my life was important to me is that I was enjoying my work. That I was enjoying what I was doing. Um, and I, I, like I said, the the work that we were doing was very rewarding, exciting. Um, and so that kind of drew me to the industry as well. And then obviously just, you know, the, the, the support that I needed growing up in a family-owned business, uh, I saw some of the growing pains of, you know, it was a successful, uh, family business, but you do see the growing pains of not having maybe the infrastructure and the support and the systems and processes kind of all figured out.
Speaker 2 00:05:11 And I was attracted to having just a lot of different things checked off the box automatically for me. Um, and so those were a few of the things that I kind of looked at and evaluated when I ultimately picked the franchise model that I did.
Speaker 1 00:05:26 To pick your brain a little bit further on that, um, just to share some information with the audience, um, validation is important. Um, most brands, some brands, I mean, most brands have an item 19, but validation isn't always about the item 19. So when you talk about the validation and the roi and then you talk about systems and support, was there any unique way or anything you can share with the audience on how you got that information? Or was it really just talking to existing franchisees and asking the right questions?
Speaker 2 00:06:03 It really was talking to, I would say, existing franchisees under their portfolio, um, and understanding their profitability and their margins and, um, how quickly they were scaling and, you know, what type of volume business they were running. Um, that is truly, I would say the, the biggest chunk of the decision that I made was just the overall profitability and margin of the business that I was looking at. That is, you know, everything else as I got into it, I was attracted to the branding and the marketing and the logos and those types of things too. But ultimately the, the big kicker for me was the, the profitability and margin of the business.
Speaker 1 00:06:42 Interesting. You know, I I, I was talking to somebody else, uh, from Horsepower and we were talking about the advantages of joining a franchise, a franchise system becoming a franchisee versus an independent. And you touched on the, the, the family challenges of being an independent. Um, there are a lot of independent successful stories there, you know, just as there are franchisees. But I think one of the things that I've learned and I try to educate my clients on is that when you invest in a franchise, you're starting to use a baseball analogy, you're starting on third base, you know, in an independent, you're at home plate with the bat in your hand, and now you're trying to get the third base. So, I mean, is that a good analogy? I mean, did you find that a lot of your experiences in the family business and knowing how hard it was to develop those systems best practices, how it was a little bit more timely and easier being in a franchise system?
Speaker 2 00:07:43 Absolutely. I mean, when I look at the revenues that I was achieving, you know, year one, year two, and year three, I, with confidence can say that I would not have hit those revenues without being in a franchise system with infrastructure marketing support, lead generation support. You know, I could have eventually probably scaled to those doing it in independently, but it, it definitely would've taken me another two to four years, I would say so, um, if not longer and, and, you know, hurdles and hiccups and roadblocks. So yes, I can, I can definitely say that for me personally, it, it totally put me on the fast track to hitting the type of cash flow and revenues and profitability that I was looking for.
Speaker 1 00:08:29 Great. Great. Well, let's switch gears because then you took all your experience, obviously you sold, uh, I imagine there was an roi. Uh, one of the things that I always talk to my clients about is, what's that exit strategy? People don't think about it. You know, do you wanna build, build a business that you can eventually sell? And obviously if you have, uh, a p and l that shows you know that that's profitable, then you can turn around and sell it. There are certain businesses that you just aren't gonna be able to sell. Sometimes consulting businesses, uh, you know, uh, we, you know, that, that, that's a different subject. But you decided to get into the franchisor part and you landed with Horsepower brands. Josh and Zach, uh, very successful franchise sales organization. Uh, I would say probably one of the top FSOs with that support mechanism for franchisees. And you're, you're working on development in Bumblebee Blinds, um, a service-based business? Uh, I would say probably primary residential or there is probably some, uh, commercial side to that business. Tell us a little bit about the business, uh, model and then we'll get into the types of franchisees that are in the business and what you're looking for and go from there.
Speaker 2 00:09:40 Absolutely. So, um, we are a full window treatment franchise. So we do everything interior, exterior, um, we do residential and commercial, like you mentioned. Um, this business model, I would say is very scalable while also being very simple. So we don't have any inventory, everything is a custom order. You only have one sales vehicle that you need. Um, and we do have both the owner operator as well as the executive model. So depending on, you know, what the, that owner owner's looking to do, whether they're keeping their corporate America job or they're wanting to run an owner operator, we do have both of those models. Um, I am excited about the opportunity because of the consumer demand in the window industry, but also just some of the simplicity that sometimes doesn't always exist in, in business models. I think there's a lot of more simplistic concepts that can be a little bit trickier maybe with some of the other models that exist out there.
Speaker 1 00:10:35 So let's talk about, um, the two models. We have the owner operator model, which is pretty much self-explanatory. Um, and we'll get into some more of the details of that. But let's talk about that executive model because, um, as a franchise coach, uh, consultant, somebody who's working with people, you know, I, it's probably 20 times a week and I'm sure you get a lot of this, you know, I'm looking for that absentee model, you know, and it's like, well, what do you mean absentee? You know, you just wanna write somebody a check and hand the keys over. Well, yeah. You know, so talk about that executive model and what it entitles as far as running the business for that order for someone who may wanna keep that corporate job and build up the business and then leave.
Speaker 2 00:11:23 Absolutely. So our infrastructure on Bumblebee Blinds is you'd have a general manager on, on salary, and the general manager is required if you're gonna be running it semi absent, they would basically be overseeing the entire business entity. And, um, we do have Recruit Z, which is our in-house recruiting agency, but, you know, this could be a different topic for a different day, but you've gotta make sure that you're comping a GM to be motivated to make the business grow because they are essentially running the entire business entity on your behalf. Um, and then for this model, you'd have a design consultant and they would be the person actually going into the homes and into the businesses and designing. And then they'd also be a w2, everyone else on this model is gonna be a 10 89 subcontract employee that you would pay either by the job or by the installation. So we have tried to mitigate some of the risk of overpaying on payroll, but to answer your question, if you're gonna run the business semi absent, you wanna have a full-time general manager in place, um, that would be overseeing the entire business entity on your behalf. Um, and, you know, we can get a little bit more into the details of who that person would be and roles and responsibilities. Okay. But you definitely wanna have a GM in place for sure.
Speaker 1 00:12:36 Good. Uh, we're talking to Courtney Repper, who's a franchise development manager for Bumblebee Blinds, a, uh, um, horsepower brand, uh, um, in the, in the Horsepower brand portfolio. I'm Scotty Myles, the host of All Things Considered Franchising, Courtney. Um, a lot of businesses have a lot of moving parts, some businesses don't have a lot of moving parts. You mentioned there's not a lot of inventory or it's special order. So let's talk about that owner operator role, cuz we just touched on the, uh, the absentee. Um, how many employees are we talking about? You mentioned two, a designer and salesperson. Uh, if it was an owner operator model, or is the owner gonna start out doing those two things? Is the, until the business grows and supports that, uh, to be able to hire a designer, a salesperson, maybe explain to our audience a little bit more about that. The, the the owner operator model and, and the moving parts as they say.
Speaker 2 00:13:32 Absolutely. So as an owner operator, you would not need a general manager. You essentially would fill the roles and responsibilities of a general manager. You would need a design consultant, and that essentially would be your sales manager going out, quoting jobs. And obviously their goal is to book those jobs to get business and revenue coming in. Um, same thing there, everyone else from an installer perspective, so the people actually installing the window coverings would be a 10 99 subcontract employee. Um, so as an owner operator, you would only have one W2 employee. Um, and then just kind of branching off of what you said, there is no inventory with the business, so everything is a custom order. So you're getting your cost of goods plus your margin and everything covered. Um, you know, right, basically upfront we do offer customer financing. Um, but that would be a vendor that essentially that the customer would work with, right? And the franchisees is still getting their upfront payment on that, and then the customer would work with that vendor to do a monthly payment plan. Um, and then you just need the one sales vehicle. So this is not super equipment heavy. There does not trucks and trailers and vans. You just have the one sales vehicle that your design consultant uses to show up to those jobs to quote and hopefully get booked on behalf of the business.
Speaker 1 00:14:47 Now, one of the beauties, uh, and advantages of being part of the Horsepower family is the, and, and you touched on this and one of the decision drivers for when you got into franchising was the support levels that you're receiving. Uh, a lot of SF FSOs, I shouldn't say a lot, but there are a large percentage of FSOs that they help get that person into the system and then it's a handoff back off to somebody else and it's like, Hey, thank you very much, it was great working with you. Talk to you later. With Horsepower and knowing Josh and Zach and everybody, you know, pretty much everybody involved, it's a lot different because you're a full support fso. So not only do you have the recruiting side that you mentioned, but I have learned and know that you also have the marketing side, the kind of like an a an ad agency side, a call center side. So maybe you can explain how those services that, uh, horsepower offers ties into someone who becomes a Bumblebee franchisee.
Speaker 2 00:15:50 Absolutely. So one of the beautiful things, just like you said about working with Horsepower is we do have all of our vertical support in-house. One that allows us to offer our franchisees a lower price than what typically a third party vendor would wanna charge. So we can lower those in-house prices, so we're after a more profitable franchisee, um, and so we can offer better pricing. And then secondly, we can give franchisees access to all the data, um, because we have access to it. Um, so that's a big part of, you know, we wanna make data driven decisions, we wanna make sure that we have access to it, and then we wanna give it to the franchisee as well. Um, and then third I would say is accountability. Um, you know, we're not just sending our franchisees to a third party vendor and crossing our fingers and hoping everything works out. You know, if something is not working, um, I always joke that, you know, our Mark, our marketing team sits three doors down from our c e o, so you know, if something isn't working, there's gonna be somebody that's gonna get involved and say, how do we fix this? How do we pivot? What do we need to change? Um, because that's affecting our, our franchisee community. And so right accountability for each end, individual vertical support to perform, to get results, um, and to continue to obviously approve and adjust as needed.
Speaker 1 00:17:04 Great. Great. Um, you talked to a lot of people, uh, you know, people that are interested in Bumblebee franchising. Um, what are some of the ideal characteristics you see, uh, or think are necessary for somebody to be a successful franchisee business owner in Bumblebee? Uh, because one of the things that always that comes to my mind is that ability that sales aptitude. Now I'm not talking about being, and I mentioned this and always in my podcast, you're not a Willy Lowman, you're not dialing for dollars, you're not knocking on doors. But there has to be, especially if you're gonna be an owner operator, it sounds like, to have that sales aptitude, that ability to network, make a presentation. So what are some of the characteristics, uh, of a successful bumblebee or what you're looking for to bring somebody into the Bumblebee family?
Speaker 2 00:17:53 Absolutely. So, you know, one of the advantages of working with horsepower is we do have a lot of in-house support, and the biggest thing we look for is the right personality. And so that personality is just someone that has a strong desire and motivation to wanna be an entrepreneur. You're determined, you're willing to problem solve, you have a positive attitude, um, and you, you kind of have more of that empire builder mentality. You want to build or create something for yourself and your family. Um, I, I would say it's that will to succeed and to create something, uh, that is the type of person that we're looking for. You don't necessarily have to come in with a specific background or anything like that, but, um, obviously sales aptitude is great experience and leadership is great, but it's just the overall, you know, grittiness and the desire to wanna be successful, to overcome obstacles. Um, and just the drive and motivation to, to want to be an entrepreneur and, and kind of be your own boss. That's probably the most important factor out of anything.
Speaker 1 00:18:57 Now, one of the advantages of a, of, of a brand like Bumblebee is that you're not selling just one product. There are multiple revenue drivers here. Uh, window treatment, window coatings, window dressings, however you want to define it, uh, is, is more of a need than a want, although there may be some want in there, but it's primarily needs. What are some of the products or product lines that you're servicing, uh, for residential and commercial businesses?
Speaker 2 00:19:26 Absolutely. So again, we do everything interior, everything exterior. Um, we do shades shutters, we do custom drapes that are made here in the United States. We have two really awesome vendor partners that we work with that offer a limited lifetime warranty on their products. Um, and then we're also launching, we're in the process of launching our own Bumblebee Blinds white label right now. Um, so we'll actually have our own product line that we'll be distributing to franchisees. Um, but as far as product line goes, so pretty much when it comes to window coverings, if there's a a product for it, we can do it. So again, it would be, you know, blind shades, shutters, custom drapes, um, anything interior, anything exterior. And the cool thing is, is we can actually showcase all of that on a visualizer tool. So we have a, a tablet that we can take a picture of window coverings or your windows in your home or business and all those products are downloaded on there and we can kind of, you know, play around, show you the different types of products, the different types of colors, so you can see it in real time.
Speaker 1 00:20:26 Right, right. So you, somebody gets, you get that visual effect. That's great. That's awesome. Again, we're talking to Courtney Repper, who's a franchise development manager over at Bumblebee Blinds, which is a horsepower brand. Um, Courtney, just maybe educate our audience a little bit on the item seven investment level. Um, you know, uh, what it would, what it takes to get in financially requirements, uh, you know, a as far as being an investor, uh, franchisee within the business model.
Speaker 2 00:20:56 Absolutely. So our item shows that we're right between two 13 and 2 49. From an investment perspective, keeping in mind that Horsepower brands has more of a front frontload approach. So we actually front more frontload more into that initial investment. We find that it helps franchisees get cash positive faster and that way the first year, especially in business, pretty much all of your expenses are frontloaded into the loan. So that way you can just focus on scaling and growing the business versus having some of those monthly expenditures pulling out of your, your cashflow. Um, and then from a liquid capital requirement, we're about 70,000 in liquid capital, is what we require for the brand. Um, it is the lowest investment brand of any of our seven current brands under the portfolio. Um, and so we, we attract a lot of people that are, obviously they love all the bells and whistles of horsepower brands, but maybe they wanna get into that in a lower investment price point. That's exactly what Bumble Wave blinds would be.
Speaker 1 00:21:55 Yeah. Just to educate our audience on the front load part, um, and, and, and correct me if I'm wrong here, Courtney, what you're talking about is, is that when you take your item seven, the two 13 to 2 49, your front loading marketing expenses, cash flow, expenses, uh, maybe it's some vehicle, but I mean there are different front loading versus just saying you need X to start the business and then once you get started, you're gonna need everything else. Cuz I think as a franchisee, a former franchisee, multi-unit owner, you know that one of the reasons that franchisees fail or people fail in business is they're not funded correctly. They run outta money too soon, um, or didn't fund enough into their account. So I think, am I correct in in educating the audience on what you mean by front loading?
Speaker 2 00:22:46 Yes, yep. Putting more into the initial investment. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:50 Great. Great. Courtney, anything else you wanna add to the brand or anything I might have missed asking about Bumblebee? Uh, you know, uh, you know, in in, in regards to, uh, product line services? Uh, anything else you want to add?
Speaker 2 00:23:04 Yeah, so we just launched the brand and well, we've been working on the brand for over a year, but we officially started accepting candidates to look at the brand in February. Um, so we've been live for about four months now. We've already awarded just under 50 territories, and that is not accepting everyone. Um, so we're actually being a little bit picky with who we're bringing onto the brand, but we do have a lot of excitement and traction. Um, so far for June, we have 10 confirmed, uh, candidates coming out to look at the brand. So again, just really good traction, a lot of interest, and I would love to talk to anybody about the brand share more information. Um, it's, it's, it's a really cool concept and something that I, I'm excited for the future of the brand and where I think this this is going to go. So
Speaker 1 00:23:53 Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it. I mean, and, and I, and I think, you know, I, for people who know me and have worked with me and people who know me as, as a person, I am a, uh, uh, uh, less is more kind of guy. So, you know, uh, that, that simple painted picture or that simple model, uh, really this leans leads into that category. So, uh, you know, uh, multiple territories scalable, um, again, there is an exit strategy here. Eventually at some point you can build up a business and, you know, eventually sell it. So there's a great exit strategy here. Courtney, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you in regarding, uh, the brand, uh, bumblebee, what would be the best way for them? Would they just go to the Bumblebee website? Would you want them to connect through you on LinkedIn? What would be the best way for someone to reach out to you, um, to get more information about Bumblebee?
Speaker 2 00:24:44 Absolutely. You can email bumblebee leads horsepower brands.com that will get you directly in check with our team. They'll be able to give you information about the brand territory availability to ensure the market that you're interested in is still available. So that was Bumblebee
[email protected].
Speaker 1 00:25:07 Okay, good. Good, good. Well, Courtney, um, believe it or not, our time is up here. Um, and, and, and again, I hope we can get you back in the next six months or so and you can give us an update on the brand. Any last minute thoughts? I mean, uh, you know, you've been in the franchising space as a franchisee franchisor, uh, for somebody who is out there considering a franchise at this point or thinking about it, any, any last minute thoughts? I mean, I always believe in telling people, put yourself in a position to wanna learn and wanna know and then make a validated decision. Um, I, if you're not gonna put yourself in a position to wanna learn and want to know, then you'll never be successful. I mean, it's, it's, you gotta educate yourself.
Speaker 2 00:25:50 Absolutely. I agree with that. And I would say truly try to give the process your dedicated focus and time, because I don't think you learn everything you need to know about a brand without, uh, really focusing and, and, you know, trying to hone in on, on what you need to learn and grow from from there. So I would agree with what you were saying. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:26:10 Good. Good. Well, this is Scotty Milas, your host, uh, all Things Considered Franchising, uh, powered by Scott Milo franchise coach.com. Uh, feel free with any questions to reach out to me at 8 6 0 7 5 1 9 1 2 6, or email me Scott at scott milo franchise coach.com or visit my website Scott milo franchise coach.com. Uh, contact Courtney directly if you want some more information about Bumblebee, uh, blinds. If you're interested in additional horsepower brands, feel free to reach out to me. This is Scotty Myis, all Things Considered Franchising. Thanks for joining me and until next time, make it a great day.
