Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Hello, everybody. Scotty, my Scott, my franchise coach.com. Hey, another podcast, all Things Considered franchisee Know, you know, and what's your why? I have a, uh, I'm really pleased to, uh, bring on a guest today that, uh, really has tenure in the franchising industry. Now, I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go into the number of years. I'll let you guys all do that on your own. But, um, you know, if, if you wanted to put your pulse, uh, finger on the pulse of the industry and all aspects, whether it's franchising a business, the franchise development, the operations side, uh, my guest today, uh, Gary Ochi Graso is probably, you know, just one of those guys that just everybody knows in the franchising industry. And I'm privileged to have him on because, um, a as Gary will tell you, he's quite busy and, uh, he just doesn't do this for anybody. So I'm kind of honored to have him. I've known Gary for a long time. We've kind of bumped, uh, into each other at trade shows, conferences, uh, educational things. So, Gary, welcome to All Things Considered Franchises. Good to have. Thank
Speaker 2 00:01:15 You. Thank you for having me, Scott. And thank you for your kind words. And, uh, yeah, sometimes it's, uh, it's a bit strange when I think back, uh, at the years cuz I'm still having fun and I'm still doing this. And for as many years as I've been doing it, I, which is about 35, uh, in my mind, I'm gonna continue to do it for another 35 years. That's, that's how much I enjoy this business and I enjoy the people in the business cuz it's filled with people like you, people who care and share and, and want to do the right thing for not only franchisors, but people who want to get into the business. And that's, you know, that's what we all sort of live for, uh, right, right. In the business. You know, I now,
Speaker 1 00:01:54 Gary, you're a, you're a managing partner of Franchise Growth Solutions. Um, you obviously have a tenured and a history and franchise development, uh, a franchise coach. Um, but your focus has been, uh, for almost a decade now, I guess is, uh, managing partner building franchise growth solutions, which, if I read between the lines, is really helping people franchise their business, scale it, but also helping existing franchises with development, operationals, uh, uh, support and really kind of putting it all together so that it's a better, I guess a, a better bucket to present to people, um, who may be interested in the brand. Is that correct? I mean, share some thoughts about your, your franchise Growth Solutions.
Speaker 2 00:02:41 Sure. And, and thank you for asking and yet No, you're, you're, you're spot on. And there, there's sort of three, uh, reasons for it or motivations, if you will, and, and how it all developed. Um, many, many years ago, uh, I was a, a franchise consultant essentially on the sales side. Um, and then one of my clients, actually, we grew to a point where I actually became part of the company. It was a grilled chicken concept in, in New York. Um, and, and i, I was quote, gainfully employed for about 15 or 18 years as a franchisor with several companies, usually, uh, in a, in a C-suite position. But, but gainfully employed. But over the years, if I would be doing a seminar or a webinar or something at a show, invariably someone would come up to me and say, Hey, I got a question, or Can you work with me on this?
Speaker 2 00:03:30 And, and I always found myself saying, well, I would like to, you know, just buy me lunch because I can't really work for you. I'm gainfully employed. It would be conflict of interest, what have you. Uh, about eight years ago, maybe nine now. Um, I said, you know what? Enough is enough <laugh>. Um, I want to, I really want to get involved in, in and do other things, uh, you know, in the industry. And, and, and my job was getting in the way, so to speak. Right, <laugh>, that's a good way of putting it. Yep. Yep. That's all I could, that's the way I could say it. So we launched Franchise Growth Solutions, really, um, as sort of, um, a four siloed company. What I had realized over the years, and I'm sure you're aware of, is that there are companies that do franchise development, meaning they'll take the, the entrepreneur that has the good idea and the, and the business model, and they'll do things like write manuals and work with their attorney to get an F D D and get them ready to franchise.
Speaker 2 00:04:25 And they do just that. And then there are companies that are referred to as FSOs franchise sales organizations, right? Yeah. And what they do is they take those already existing franchisors and what they do is become sort of an outsourced sales department for them. Yes. So I thought it would be interesting to combine that with two other things that I had been, had worked on over the years. One is building infrastructure. Cuz I had learned that emerging brands and startup brands, if they go out and they sell, and you bring in 3, 4, 5, 10, whatever number of franchisees, right? If you're a startup or an emerging brand, you probably don't have, nor do you have the financial capability to hire a director of real estate, a director of procurement, a chief operating officer. How do you set up supply chain? How do you do this? So what we do is we bring all of that to the table as an infrastructure piece, right?
Speaker 2 00:05:20 And then we also do the, the funding, the connections for funding and, and if at exit or cash infusion, the connection with private equity. So we do development, sales, infrastructure, and private equity. There's no other company in the country that does it all under one roof. Okay? We believe that it's important because if we're gonna build, let's say we're gonna build the brand, we're gonna build the franchise, we're gonna build it. Because if we're the person selling it, we wanna make sure that that is built the right way in the best way. And it validates, and that the franchisee is gonna get everything that they expect and everything they need to be successful. Because if the franchisee is successful, we get to sell more franchises cuz they validate, right? So every, it's all connected. That's basically what we do and how we got involved and what the motivation was.
Speaker 1 00:06:10 So let's start, um, let's start from the beginning here in regards to some of the listeners, people that are paying attention, uh, you know, to this, uh, to this podcast who have a small business. Maybe they have a couple of locations. Um, and they're saying to themselves, how do I scale my business? You know, uh, I'm already working, you know, 90 hours a week. I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit. Um, but somebody says, I really wanna scale it. And, you know, somebody has thrown out the idea a couple of times of franchising, why would somebody consider franchising? Because when you look at brand, when you look at, uh, brands, I can't even call it a brand because it's not a franchise, but, uh, when you look at In and Out, they've done it all their own, uh, Chipotle's done it on their own as far as corporate stores. But why would somebody really reach out and think or consider franchising the business versus taking that in and out or Chipotle approach, or even Starbucks mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, which, you know, to me it's just a mound and mound of potential issues and problems that you could have. But maybe walk us through that, that that conversation that you're having with somebody initially who's thinking about it or Sure. Or wants to pick up the phone and call Gary and say, Hey, this is what I've been thinking. Help me out.
Speaker 2 00:07:35 So, so there's, there's a couple of reasons why I guess, uh, first I'd, I'd like to address the three companies that you mentioned. Okay. Uh, cuz I have some opinions on that. In and Out Burger, as good as they are, they're not wet, they're not east of the Mississippi because they're trying to do it all on their own. So they're not a brand that, other than their cult status, they're not a brand that has notoriety in the world because they have thousands of units. And by the way, that may be exactly how they want it. So this is not about being a judge, this is about being a witness. That may be what they want. Um, Chipotle, in my opinion, could have 30 or 40,000 stores if they franchised they've gotten to the level that they've gotten as a company organization because they're a public company.
Speaker 2 00:08:17 They've got plenty of dough, they can get in there. They've got a great system of developing people. But at the end of the day, they've got a bricks and mortar business with a lot of capital expenditure on the street, tons of employees. And um, you know, there's just a lot of moving parts. Starbucks is sort of the same, is is sort of the same thing, but because of their ease of operation in terms of what they do, their, you know, their ability to grow and they also do some licensing that's, that's helped them. So, so for me, even those, even though those three companies you mentioned are successful, in my humble opinion, they would be far more successful if in fact they franchised. So why, why number one, they wouldn't be using their own capital to open up new units. They'd be using the capital of franchisees who were in, who are invested in the business.
Speaker 2 00:09:06 Number two, their labor load, their labor line. They wouldn't have tens of thousands of employees. Those employees would be the employees of hundreds and hundreds of franchisees. So that's, that's a piece. Right, that's a good point. You wouldn't be, you wouldn't be involved in the day-to-day. And this is where franchisors and startup franchisors have some challenges because what I try to preach and teach, and I learned it, you know, again, my, my sort of, my mentor is a guy named Michael Gerber who wrote the book The EMyth Revisited, which, you know, I, I literally give 75 to a hundred of those books away every year, uh, on my own nickel. Cuz I just think it's, it's something that people in the business should understand. But what I'm getting at is, is that the crux of that is, is understanding the difference between the work of the business and the business.
Speaker 2 00:09:57 So just because you understand the work of the business, you might be really good at making pizza. It doesn't mean you know how to run a pizza franchise and scale it. So the first thing you have to do is kind of cross that, cross that bridge. So this is, this is part of the, uh, the learning curve in terms of what the payoffs are. So, right, if you ultimately you get into a different business, you get into the franchise business, you don't have the capital expenditure, you don't have the, the, all of the people, all of the employees and everything that goes along with that. And you don't have the oper the day-to-day operational issues that you would if you were running all these stores on your own, so to speak. Or even your own company stores or two or three stores. So those are sort of the nuts and bolts reasons.
Speaker 2 00:10:46 There's one other very big reason, very big in my mind, and that is, I, I'm a practitioner of the idea that nothing is forever, even if you're building your franchisor company. Interesting point, interesting point. You're, you're building your company for, for, let's say you're building it for generational wealth or generational legacy. Even if that's the case, at some point in time you are going to exit that business or your children are going to exit that business. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And what I've learned from having just numerous conversations with private equity people and being involved in, in brands that were eventually sold to private equity companies and being involved in that arena in the sense that we, we get involved in those introductions. This is what I've learned. I've learned that when the bottom line, the ibida line, as we say, when that's driven by the profits of company operations, let's say you own five pizza shops, okay? Or whatever, okay, you're in the pizza business, but you own them and you've got a million dollars in EBIDA from company operations, basically profits from selling pizzas, someone who buys that business. And business brokers tell me this all the time, is probably looking at paying somewhere between two and four times the, the bottom line as a multiple, even
Speaker 1 00:12:09 A number that cash flow. Yep, exactly.
Speaker 2 00:12:11 That's, that's pretty standard. Now let's take that same million dollars, but it's not driven, it's not driven by the sale of pizza in our example <laugh>. But it's, but it's, but it's driven by royalties. The private equity companies are willing to look at that and go, wait a minute, that's an eight or a nine or a 10 multiple. So now instead of having a $3 million company, you have a $12 million company and you don't have any CapEx out on the street and you don't have a ton of employees making pizzas. Okay, I'm just using this as an example. So the kiss at the end, the exit, the value of your company is greatly increased when the profit is from royalties. Because investors, private equity companies, buyers, they look at that, they go, okay, it's endlessly scalable. I could build a thousand of these cuz I'm not in the pizza business, I'm in the pizza franchise business.
Speaker 2 00:13:06 I don't have to hire 10,000 employees to make pizzas. I just have to have enough of an organization to take care of my franchisees. So if you think about that, that's like tremendous. And at the end of the day, if I'm, I can maybe take it from 50 or a hundred units to a thousand units and find the next equity player that wants to give me a high multiple. So to me, those are the reasons you, you're doing, you're doing the business, not the work of the business. You're creating legacy of the brand. You don't have CapEx, you don't have employee issues, you don't have operational issues on a day-to-day level. And the end play the exit, the multiple at exit many times oftentimes is much, much higher than if you were to sell a business that you were simply operating day to day.
Speaker 1 00:13:57 Those are great points Gary. And I think it's very informative because, you know, somebody said to me the other day, uh, that I was talking to a, a a a, a very polished franchise development person who's very good at working with private equity groups that are looking in investing into franchise systems and you know, whether to become the franchisor or own 1520 of the brands. Uh, but they, they, they said it to me this way. They said, outside of the four walls in franchising of the $5 foot long and the golden arches, there's a lot in franchising. And I'm sure as in your tenured, polished, uh, history being in this industry and now working with organizations that want to kind of take that next step in scaling. One of the things that I've always seen about franchising in business, business in, in, in, in the franchising world, that these brands have a lot of moving parts and it can be very over overwhelming for that guy who owns two or three pizzerias who's now thinking about 10 or 15. There's just so many different parts. I mean, you and I know, but our audience doesn't know that. There's the operational side, there's the marketing side, there's the development side, uh, there's the h and r side, uh, there's the financing side. So is it safe to say that your organization now takes all these moving parts and helps consolidate it and to de departmentalize it to make it a more attractive, uh, pie to be able to offer somebody as a franchise?
Speaker 2 00:15:36 Yep. Yep. That's a great question. Thank you Scott, for that question cuz that's exactly what we focus on. Again, if we, if we think about, if we think about a few things and, and we, I mean we have brands in all categories. We have home service businesses, we have bricks and mortar retail businesses. But truth be told, we specialize in the restaurant business, right. Uh, for a bunch of reasons. First of all, a lot of people don't like it. <laugh> okay, <laugh>, uh, I happen to love it cuz I sort of grew up in that, I started out as a franchisee of Dunking Donuts. So I sort, I I, you know, I I sort of cut my teeth in, in, in that. Um, but you're, you're, you're absolutely correct. So, so what we need to do is we look at, we look at what, what are the, the compelling reasons that people get involved in franchising on a multiple level issue.
Speaker 2 00:16:24 Now that's, that's sort of taking it to the, to, to the highest level. Okay? It doesn't always start there. Obviously people come in, they buy one franchise and then they build it out or what have you. But the goal is to think about what we believe is what's going to make your brand, your, your business compelling to a multiple unit multi-brand operator who understands how to build an organization, how to deploy capital, how to develop people, right? And, and go and go and go, well if you, if you peel back the onion cuz there's a lot of BS out there and all these, you know, I've got a 10 point list and I got a 50 point. It really comes down to two things. And, and for those of us who have ever intended the multi-unit franchise conference, you know what it comes down to?
Speaker 2 00:17:08 It comes down to cost of entry and simplicity of operation. Great point. And those two, those two things are very much tied together. So how does that relate to the food business? Again, you have the entrepreneurial individual, he has 3, 4, 5 operations and maybe she's doing real well and I'm using he and she and there cuz I don't want this to anyone to think it's only guys that do this. It's plenty of women in this business that are out outrageously successful. Um, the, the key is getting them away from the mentality that in a restaurant I gotta have 60 things on the menu. Exactly.
Speaker 1 00:17:45 Because those is the point I was gonna, yep.
Speaker 2 00:17:47 Someone's gonna come in, someone's gonna come in three months from now and order that one thing. So so why do I use that as an example? Because it impacts so many things. So let's just think about that. If I have some items on that menu that aren't really selling more than say five or 6% of my overall product mix. So that's the first thing we look at, right? We teach entrepreneurs sell what's selling, don't worry about everything else. What happens there? Well, what happens there is I probably have more waste, which drives my food cost up, which makes the, the compelling, the compelling reason to invest in a franchise. The unit economics, it diminishes that. Cuz my food cost is up cuz I'm throwing stuff out that I don't sell. But I still wanna keep it on the menu cuz it's grandma's recipe. So I gotta have it on my, on my menu or that or that one customer that comes every a year.
Speaker 2 00:18:37 One, one customer. Right? Exactly. Exactly. So, so it impacts food cost now it impacts your footprint. Okay, so maybe I need a bigger steam table or a bigger cold table cuz I've gotta have 40 things there instead of 20. Okay? So it impacts my, my footprint. I need a bigger line, I need a bigger store. It impacts my rent, it impacts my prep, which impacts my labor, it impacts my supply chain issue. Cuz I can't go back to my vendor and say I've got, I'm only selling three proteins, not five. And since I'm now no longer selling three tons of chicken a year, I'm selling 10 cuz I got rid of pork and tofu and beef or whatever. Now I need a better price on that item that happens to be one of my highest, uh, components that will drive my cost down, will drive my supply chain issues.
Speaker 2 00:19:30 You know, it will allow me to, to to scale. Right? Right, right. But it all starts from the idea that I wanna do one thing and I wanna do it better than anyone else. Right. And to go back to your example of Starbucks, you know, when Starbucks fir first came out, uh, well came to the east coast cuz they, they were out, I think in 71, 72, first time I was ever in a Starbucks. I thought, okay, this is kind of cool. At that time they still had the purple couches in there and everything. And I thought the environment was very cool, but ah, growing up as an Italian, having espresso was, that was like not a big deal. Okay. <laugh>. But, but I understood, I understood what they were doing. They took, they took one product, or let's call it espresso, uh, espresso based beverages. They took that category and they collapsed their brand so small into that one thing.
Speaker 2 00:20:21 Now, of course they sell a lot of other things, but in the mind's eye of the guest, they collapsed it down to espresso based beverages. No one else was doing it. Right. And and by default they became the leader. Okay. No, you're absolutely right. They became the leader in it and now everyone was trying to be Starbucks. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. So, so you really have to understand what is your signature product? What is the things that people, people define the brand by the way, not the entrepreneur. What, what, how have people defined you? What are you known for and how can you take ownership of the words and the products around that thought? And that's what you take to the world of franchising because that's what makes you successful. Because at the end of the day, does the world really need another pizza concept or another burger concept? Exactly. Or another painting concept.
Speaker 1 00:21:13 Look, you and I have, you know, we both have extensive, uh, experience being in the food industry, both, you know, probably as an independent and you as a franchisee. I have both. But you know, one of the questions or one of the pushbacks that I always get from clients that when you start presenting food options to them, they say, well, there are just too many pizza places. There's too many chicken places, too many sub places. And I go, well, that's a good thing. And they go, why? I said, because those items are successful or those types of business are successful because they please the masses. There are a lot of people that eat chicken. There are a lot of people that love subs. There are a lot of people that eat pizza. You just have to be better than everybody else in your area. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I said, so if you're not up for that challenge, then you're probably right. Food isn't for you. But, you know, I think you and I have had this discussion before, we, we, you know, food, food is, food is not hard work, it's just long work and you gotta have thick skin <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:22:12 And quite honest, quite honestly, Scott, in, in my opinion, it's not about the food because everybody has their favorite whatever. Right. Their favorite pizza, their favorite sub, their favorite coffee. So I never play towards taste. I never, when someone says we make the best, blah. Okay, well
Speaker 1 00:22:29 It's the experience that you're touching on the experience then it's
Speaker 2 00:22:32 The experience. When we, when we interview, uh, uh, an individual who wants to franchise their business, um, I learned from reading a lot of Peter Teal stuff. Um, he's the founder of PayPal. Um, you know, Peter Teal asks some contrarian questions of folks when he was interviewing them to go work at PayPal. And so my contrarian question that I ask really any entrepreneur, uh, who's thinking about franchising, tell me and describe your business. Tell me all about your business, but you can't tell me or using the description, anything about the product.
Speaker 1 00:23:13 Interesting.
Speaker 2 00:23:14 And they freak, they totally freak out. And I tell 'em, I don't need an answer now I need you to think about it. And some of them come back and they get it. They talk about their vibe, they talk about their culture, they talk about how people feel when they leave their restaurant. How does our experience make people feel? And it has nothing to do with the food. Right? Okay. Because I might like your burger better than somebody else's burger. That's not relevant. Right. Okay. It's what are your points of differentiation? And if your points of differentiation are solely, cause I don't want anybody to get the idea that I'm saying you can sell crappy product. Okay. <laugh> at the wrong price. Okay. I'm not saying that. No, no. We, what
Speaker 1 00:23:52 I'm saying is No, I get
Speaker 2 00:23:53 It. It's not about price and product. If you compete only on price and product, you're gonna get your brains beat out because someone will always come up with a better product at a better price. So stop, stop doing that and start to focus in on how people feel when they leave your establishment or when you've performed the service for them, because that's the true point of differentiation.
Speaker 1 00:24:15 No, I agree. I think it's, it's that wow factor and the wow factor isn't necessarily the taste of the food. I mean, look, like you said, that helps, but it's really, you know, that experience, that customer service that, you know, so I mean, there are a lot of factors. Um, let's switch gears a little bit because you've, like I said, uh, a number of times during our, our conversation here, you've been kind of had your pol your finger to the pulse of the industry franchising. Um, obviously you believe in franchising. It's been good to you. Um, uh, where in, in your, in, in, in your eyes, and, and look, we've come a long way in franchising the last 10, 15, 20 years. Uh, you know, the days of spending 250, $300,000 to franchise a business are a little behind us. There's a little bit more simplicity to it, although it's still a lot of paperwork. But wh what are your thoughts about where the state of the industry is now people that are looking to franchise a business and people that are looking to become a franchisee? I mean, it, there's a great track record here, uh, you know, versus independence, uh, as far as success rate. So where do you see the industry and maybe touch on where would you like to see the industry go as far as being to make some simple changes that could make itself better?
Speaker 2 00:25:36 All right. There's a whole bunch of stuff there. Scott <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:25:39 Yeah, just take, you know, the, the, the 45 seconds, 62nd again, let's, let's, uh,
Speaker 2 00:25:44 We can always, let's unpack it. Let's, let's unpack it. I think if you're looking to become a franchisor, um, what you wanna focus in on number one is, is your concept a concept that has appealed beyond, you know, your customer base and maybe in your locale. I think, you know, companies like Franchise Growth Solutions, we can come in and we do what we call a franchise feasibility study before we ever even get engaged in a brand. And that has everything to do with the numbers as well as the concept. And what do we believe could be an outcome in terms of scalability. So from a franchisor's point of view, I think you need to look at those things. You need to exercise a certain level of patience. Uh, entrepreneurs are folks who generally see the future and they think that everybody else sees it with them and they think that it's gonna happen overnight.
Speaker 2 00:26:36 And franchising is sort of like an evolution. It it, you think nothing's happening, but things are happening. So you have to exercise in addition to all of that, you have to exercise a certain amount of patience on the franchisee side to me, um, I think everyone should be in their own business. Okay. That's, that's just me. I think that that's, you know, part of the American dream is running your, your own business. Why I, I believe franchising is the best way to do that. And the best development tool is if you are, if you do your, your homework, if you work with a consultant like yourself who can really guide the franchise buyer, navigate the labyrinth of, you know, hundreds of different franchises and you come, you, you, you come to terms with one that you feel good about management, you feel good about their track record of success, their franchisees are validating properly, and you can envision yourself doing that or building that kind of a brand.
Speaker 2 00:27:33 Franchising, to me makes all the sense in the world what I will say about both of those things, franchisor and franchisee. Cuz we always hear the, i we always hear two words. I always hear two words. I hear the word entrepreneur and I hear the word passion. Those two words can be very helpful or they can be detrimental to your success. Why do I say that? The franchisor needs to be entrepreneurial. They need to continue to create ways to help their franchisees to make money. Yep. The franchisee, when we see ads that say, be an entrepreneur, buy a franchise, I cringe because the best franchisees are not entrepreneurs. They may be entrepreneur, entrepreneurial minded, but the best franchisees are folks who follow a system, the system that the franchisor creates. So that's how we need to really look at that word. And then the other word, passion, I caution people on this passion will only get you so far.
Speaker 2 00:28:34 I am a passionate bass player and singer. That is my passion. If I ever attempted to do that in the real world, I'd be broke <laugh> and, and unsuccessful and probably not very happy. Uh, I don't know because I, I sand doesn't go up the hourglass. Okay? So, so it's, it's good to have passion for what you're doing, but you need to understand that passion doesn't get you there. Purpose gets you there. What's your purpose? What's your purpose in life? What do you really great point good at? What do you do that you find enjoyable and you bring to other people where they learn from you? What is your purpose? So if we, if we look at that from a franchisee's point of view and say, well, I'm really passionate about the food business, but I'm really bad at it and I don't know if I could follow the system because I like tinkering around in the kitchen. Maybe that's not a good business for me. And that's, you know, look, that's the beauty of what you do, right? You help guide people and keep their thinking, you know, sort of on path. Because in our business, uh, there are, uh, there are companies, folks, individuals, again, I'm not being a judge, just a witness. They're either out there to collect a commission or they're out there to
Speaker 1 00:29:48 Exactly, yep.
Speaker 2 00:29:49 They're out there because they, they want to get a fee to develop some brand and they wanna write manuals and all that other stuff that doesn't serve anyone any long-term good. And, and that to me is bad karma and carmic debt is always paid at some point. So, right. I think you gotta have a good moral compass. You have to understand the meaning of the word entrepreneur. You have to understand the meaning of the word passion, and then you have to follow a path that makes sense for you, that has some level of quantification. And again, again, I think that's where folks like you and you in particular come into play because you can teach that person who's never been involved in a business, what's the right fit for them as a
Speaker 1 00:30:29 Franchise, right. Skillset. Wow. Gary, you know, um, a lot of interesting points. Uh, I I, you know, I think you've taken this to a different perspective for our listening audience, uh, especially for people that are, uh, looking to potentially franchise their business. Um, any last suggestions? Anything you wanna mention? Anything that I've maybe forgot to ask you? Um, unfortunately our time's winding down here. Yeah. But, uh, you know, uh, hopefully we'll have you back on again and talk about some other things within franchising. But anything you wanna just mention? Any any points that, you know, uh, uh, that you think are kind of crucial as people start this investigation?
Speaker 2 00:31:11 Yeah, I, I, I would say if you are, if you are investigating the idea of franchising your business, um, work with the end in mind, you know, what is it you're trying to achieve? Not just the next step, but what is the long-term that you're trying to achieve? And if you're looking to become a franchisee, I would say work with the end in mind. Yeah. Look down the road and say, well what do I, what do I really want out of this? So for me it's understanding the long-term picture. And you know, the metaphor I use is the airline pilot that takes his take. You take off from LAX and you're flying to Hawaii. The air, the, the, the pilot doesn't see the airport in Honolulu, but he's got a flight path. He's got a flight plan. Exactly. And he or she is making minor adjustments along the way and eventually they see the runway lights in Honolulu, but if they don't have that as their goal, then they could just aimlessly be flying around <laugh> and never make it to the airport <laugh>. So working with the end in mind and having a clear picture of what you're trying to achieve would be sort of the, the last word that I would want to leave with you, either on the franchise side or the, the franchisor or the franchisee side.
Speaker 1 00:32:26 Great. Great points, Gary. Well, Gary, I appreciate your time. Uh, I know you're a busy guy and uh, uh, it's always great catching up with you and I'm looking forward to bumping into you again and hopefully we can have you, you back in the near future to talk about some other things about, uh, franchising. But, uh, at this point, this is Scotty Myles Scott, my franchise coach.com. Uh, you'll see below the information on how to get in touch with Gary or reach out to me and I can make the intro on your behalf. Uh, another episode of All Things Considered Franchising. Uh, have a great week and, uh, we'll catch up with you next time.
