Toucan Talks
Ep22 - Wes Barefoot: Franchise Opportunities and Entrepreneurial Success
Explore the world of franchising with industry expert Wes Barefoot, owner of Path of Freedom. Wes is a passionate entrepreneur with extensive experience in franchising, who now helps other entrepreneurs with proven franchise consulting processes.
From Wes's experiences at 101 Mobility to leading ShelfGenie with his wife, learn about the process of franchise ownership and how to craft a vision for your business.
His journey in franchising has significantly impacted his life and his family's. Now, Wes is dedicated to helping others gain control of their lives and achieve freedom through business ownership. Tune in for practical insights and a down-to-earth discussion on how franchising can be a game-changer in shaping your personal and professional journey.
This episode touches on strategy and markets, as well as the importance of human connection and relationship. We also talk with Wes about his podcast "Path to Freedom." Path to Freedom exists to help people learn how to control their life and create freedom through business ownership.
We hope you enjoy this episode of Toucan Talks!
Path to Freedom's Youtube
Listen to Path 2 Freedom
Wes Barefoot's Website
How to turn off the FaceTime reactions :-)
Get more from Toucan Talks!
Watch on YouTube
Follow on Instagram
Subscribe to our email list
//
Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co
Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies.
Explore the world of franchising with industry expert Wes Barefoot, owner of Path of Freedom. Wes is a passionate entrepreneur with extensive experience in franchising, who now helps other entrepreneurs with proven franchise consulting processes.
From Wes's experiences at 101 Mobility to leading ShelfGenie with his wife, learn about the process of franchise ownership and how to craft a vision for your business.
His journey in franchising has significantly impacted his life and his family's. Now, Wes is dedicated to helping others gain control of their lives and achieve freedom through business ownership. Tune in for practical insights and a down-to-earth discussion on how franchising can be a game-changer in shaping your personal and professional journey.
This episode touches on strategy and markets, as well as the importance of human connection and relationship. We also talk with Wes about his podcast "Path to Freedom." Path to Freedom exists to help people learn how to control their life and create freedom through business ownership.
We hope you enjoy this episode of Toucan Talks!
Path to Freedom's Youtube
Listen to Path 2 Freedom
Wes Barefoot's Website
How to turn off the FaceTime reactions :-)
Get more from Toucan Talks!
Watch on YouTube
Follow on Instagram
Subscribe to our email list
//
Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co
Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies.
Welcome to the Two Can Talks podcast brought to you by Kickstart Collective. Join us as we talk to local Wilmington business owners about what has led to their successes, challenges and more. No question is off limits as we bounce from topic to topic.
Speaker 2:And this podcast is brought to you by Kickstart Studios. Kickstart Studios is Wilmington's newest video podcast studio, equipped with multiple camera angles and an in-house producer. Creating a high quality video podcast has never been easier. Don't let the tech and gear learning curve hold you back from jumping into podcasting or creating video content any longer. Our team takes care of it all for you, so you can focus on the message you want to share. You simply show up record and receive the final product. No more wasting time setting it up and breaking down the gear, setting up lights or doing sound checks on your own. Our in-house producer will have everything set up and ready to go for you. Check us out at Kickstart Studios. Welcome back to another episode in season two of the Two Can Talks podcast. Today we have Wes Barefoot with us, and Wes is in my mind he's just the franchise guy. That's how like it correlates in my mind.
Speaker 2:So I'll take it. You know, introduce yourself a little bit. Let us know about you, how we know each other, and then a little bit about what you do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, so Wes Barefoot. My wife and family live here in Wilmington. I met Luke and Laura I don't know man probably four years ago, because it was or close to it. It was shortly after I started my consulting business Path to Freedom. You guys helped me film like a promo video or a brand story video. I remember walking around downtown Wilmington with you and still use that video today. It came out great and you guys helped me with some social promotion stuff as well and I guess we got introduced because you guys went to high school with Kelly, my wife, who's been a guest on season one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she wanted me to note that she was, I guess, before you.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, you guys didn't do the save the best for last in that instance. She's the brains and the beauty of our little operation. But yeah, so we have a couple business wise. We have a couple different things going on. Most of my focus is in franchising, which is why you might think of me as the franchise guy Kind of fell backwards into it after moving back to Wilmington after college.
Speaker 3:There's a company headquartered here called 101 Mobility that is actually a franchise and so they are the franchise or has kind of the headquarters of the parent company, and I met the founders and didn't know a thing about franchising but started working for them. The company was young, it was kind of in growth mode, startup you know kind of feel, and that was very different from, like, the big company I worked for for a few years right out of college, and so that went on to open many doors in this world of franchising, which is, you know, ended up being great for for us as a family and created numerous business opportunities. So when Kelly was on, she talked about shelf genie, which is one of the businesses that we own and we are the local franchisees for Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, and so I actually worked for shelf genie selling franchises, so I technically sold my wife a franchise, which has proven to been a good thing, could have really backfired on me if it didn't work out for us. But and so through you know, working for a couple of different franchise brands. Most of what I did was franchise sales and development.
Speaker 3:I interacted with franchise consultants and a franchise consultant is, I guess, the best way to explain. It is similar to a real estate agent, but working with franchise businesses and buyers of franchise businesses, or at least someone that's interested in exploring franchise ownership. So that's where now I spend most of my working time. Path to freedom is my franchise consulting business, and so I work with people that want to learn more about franchise ownership and see if it may be a direction that they want to go in. And then, on the other hand, I have relationships with a wide variety of just different types of franchise businesses. So right now I work with about 250 different brands. Most of them are not food businesses, which is what a lot of people tend to think of, contrary to the popular belief.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and food's obviously a very big part of the franchising industry, but a lot of people are surprised to realize just how many other types of franchise businesses are out there that are not involving food. And so I essentially have a process that I take people through. Part of what I like about it is that I really get to spend time getting to know the people that I'm working with and, you know, helping them get clear on their vision and what exactly they want to get out of owning a business Right, and then that's going to impact the types of franchises that I would come back and recommend to them. So that's kind of phase one of the process is getting clear on the vision, getting clear on the criteria of the right type of business for them. Phase two is me bringing back some recommendations.
Speaker 3:And then there's, as you can imagine, a lot of research, a lot of due diligence that goes into vetting any business opportunity. But in particularly a franchise where you know there's a sizable investment made on the front end to become a franchisee, there are legal agreements that you know have to be executed between franchisor and franchisee. So there's a lot that goes into it and a lot of research that should be done, and so that's a big part of my role with the people that I work with is helping to guide them through that process and help them figure out everything from funding strategies to legal guidance to, you know, tax and business entity type questions, and so I've got kind of a network of professionals that specialize in these different areas and I'm really just there kind of connecting the dots and ultimately giving people a more methodical approach to what would typically be a pretty overwhelming process to tackle on their own.
Speaker 2:No doubt, yeah, that's why people like your analogy higher real estate agents.
Speaker 3:Well, exactly, yeah exactly, and it saves a lot of time. I mean, you know, I talked to a lot of people that tell me you know, I've spent years thinking about owning a business or, you know, looking at different franchises, and most don't get beyond just surfing the internet, because there are thousands and thousands of franchise opportunities out there and, like anything else in this world, not all franchises are created equally. Right, there are certainly franchises out there that I wouldn't invest in or wouldn't recommend anyone else invest in. Right, lots of great franchises out there and everything in between. But it's overwhelming to not only know where to start, but then, you know, to start putting everything in place in the order that it needs to happen in to make meaningful progress, for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, so if you're interested in owning your own business, this might be a good podcast for you. Yeah, so for sure.
Speaker 3:For sure. I find that a lot of people that end up really being a great fit for owning a franchise were not considering a franchise until they took the time to at least look further into it and better understand how franchising works, the potential benefits that come with it and also just the extent of different types of franchises that are out there. So it's pretty rare that you know I work with someone from the very beginning that's dead set on owning a franchise and it's just a matter of finding the right one. Yeah, it's usually very exploratory in the beginning, right, and a lot of what I try to do is just educate, right, and I think that's the real estate, realistic expectations and more people than than not. Once they learn more about it, they realize it could actually be a really good good for a really good fit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. Well, if you know, everybody has seen kind of our format before. If you haven't, I'm going to tell you what we're going to do here. We're going to take these little chips. Okay, we're going to drop them from the top. It's going to land on either one or two. If it lands on one, I think that's this side.
Speaker 3:This is correct, yeah.
Speaker 2:One, one and two. There we go Cool One's business question to we like to call it our good party questions. All right, so they're just kind of fun questions. We have a few new additions this season Sweet, if you drop a chip and because this has happened so many times and it gets hung up like that, you win a special prize. Sweet If you drop it in a one or two and it hits like, let's say, you hit one three times in a row, you can pick a card from over there, the blue cards, okay, and you can ask me one of those. Or you can just random fire, give me a crazy question that I have to answer right here. I like it. Yeah, did I miss anything, josh? That's pretty much it. Okay, I remembered it. I thought I was going to forget.
Speaker 3:It's a cool concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's different. We I just you know we had to have something to keep our minds engaged the whole time, and hopefully other people enjoy it too. You can let us know if you're like this thing's stupid, just talk, We'll.
Speaker 3:I think it's cool. I'll kick it off. I've seen most of the episodes that you guys put out and I think it keeps it interesting for sure, and it keeps it moving along.
Speaker 2:So, yeah before, oh yeah, before we keep talking, let's have you drop one, all right? So, and if it flies off, do we have anything for that? If it flies? Off then I get to like slap open hand, slap them.
Speaker 3:What's the new the UFC guys doing? Slap this.
Speaker 2:Slap challenge or something like that. Yeah, yeah, we won't do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hope it doesn't fly off.
Speaker 2:That's the case too, All right, let's start with a whole party question. Something fun, let's go. We're going to go with the one in my hand, not the one I dropped, all right, so this is. This is a nice, easy, easy little softball to kick things off Exactly. What's your favorite travel experience, and then where is one place on your list to visit?
Speaker 3:Okay, let's see. Favorite travel experience Probably be Mexico, because that's where my wife and I have gone most frequently. So once we've done pretty good about once a year getting away without the kids for you know, a week or so and we like to just go to a nice resort on a nice beach in Mexico and type a trip where you have no plans, no obligations, just kind of wake up and do whatever you feel like doing that day.
Speaker 2:Man, that sounds good right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, we got to go back in September and it was. It was awesome. So we've not done a ton of international traveling yet. So yeah that's probably the best yet. Greece is the next trip that we have lined up, so it's lined up already. Well, dates, not, we were going to go, we were going to go back over the summer and we have a not quite two year olds at the time like one and a half, and as we got closer and closer to the trip, kelly just wasn't quite comfortable going overseas.
Speaker 2:So you've got kind of your spots picked out.
Speaker 3:Yes, we've got deposits in and stuff like that. It's just a matter of finalizing the date, so we're gonna go bounce around the Greek Isles a little bit. That should be cool. That sounds awesome. I've heard good things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sweet. Well, let's have you drop another one. Oh, another two. Okay, here we go. I'm gonna leave them in there, that way I can remember. I can remember. Okay, this is that. Feels like maybe it's in the wrong bucket, but we're gonna go with anyways. What's your go-to productivity trick?
Speaker 3:So in general and I've kind of gotten away from this with kids and morning schedules and all of that, but it's one of my goals to get back to for 2024. So it's a good, good question Having at least 20 or 30 minutes of quiet time in the morning, right to get up and, you know, not be on the phone, not be chasing kids around or rushing out the door, not be checking emails or have notifications going off. And you know I've done different things, from journaling to writing goals out. To you know, reviewing goals. To you know I've tried meditation. Never was very good at it, I don't think. But just, you know, some quiet time to you know, set your set your mind a little bit and more. I think, more than anything, it's start the day off on your terms instead of rolling right into chaos and pulled in, you know, however, many different directions.
Speaker 2:That and some good, non-lirical music yeah, okay, I like it for focus. I found, yeah, I love it. Yeah, that sounds like I need. I used to do that as well, like to take like at least a half hour in the morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would wake up early and like go to the gym and just have my time to like just do my thing yeah, whether it's walking or the gym or whatever, but it's like you're setting the tone of the day harder to do once you have little kids in the mix.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys go, really yeah, but we're gonna do it 2024, right absolutely yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:I might just have to wake up at 4 30 yeah exactly that actually is my time window, all right here we go well, I guess no random question for me yet.
Speaker 2:All right, it's a little biz question. Also, I feel like we really upgraded here at 2k and talks our papers more like cards talking to house, keep ripping.
Speaker 3:Last season, yeah all right.
Speaker 2:So, and you mentioned this in kind of your preface, so you can just kind of reiterate in like a brief way like how did you get?
Speaker 3:into your current line of work yeah, so it was the, the work I did for the, the franchise companies that I worked directly for.
Speaker 3:I interacted with a lot of franchise consultants. That's how we got most of our leads or referrals for prospective franchisees. And you know, I can remember early on at the, the first franchise brand I worked for, 101 mobility, being at what we call a discovery day, so that's kind of the, the final step in the due diligence process, the, the prospective franchisees would usually come in to visit with the franchise or something that that most brands do, and one of the prospective franchisees was there with their franchise consultant. I remember asking one of the founders you know who that person was and he kind of explained to me you know what their role in all of this was, and this was close to 10 years ago. At this point I can remember thinking to myself man, that's something I could see myself really enjoying and you know so learned the ins and outs of what would be required to sure be a good franchise consultant through through all of that work.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, really it was us starting our first business and having some success with that and getting some steady income coming in that then put me in a position to be able to leave, you know, a W2 job with a salary and commission opportunity and benefits to to start, you know, my own right, my own consulting business that's pretty cool perspective, though, because you kind of like got to work on the other side of your current job and see, like, what it was like from that other perspective.
Speaker 2:Like you were the pretty much like the customer, almost you were like kind of the customer you're now serving, that's right.
Speaker 3:So that's that's kind of unique experience we've been through that process of buying franchises.
Speaker 3:We had another franchise that we just sold about a month ago, so we've done it twice ourselves in terms of researching and purchasing a franchise.
Speaker 3:And then, you know, now I interact a lot with the franchise development reps for the brands, right, which is so the people that I'm working with they go through a due diligence process with any brands that they're researching and they're primarily interacting with the franchise development rep for that brand, which is what I used to be, and you know a lot of people, I think imagine you know, if you're looking at buying a franchise, it's it's like talking to a used car salesman, right, they're just gonna say whatever they need to say to make the sell and, right, some franchises treat it that way, but the really good franchises don't.
Speaker 3:It's really a mutual investigation, right. Like it's. It's a partnership at the end of the day, and so the franchise or needs to feel good about the franchisee just as much as the franchisee needs to feel good about the business and the franchise or right, and so there's quite a bit of coaching that really should happen, you know, with the person that's investigating a franchise business to make sure that the franchise or is gonna have no question in their mind that they're a great fit right. And you run into some scenarios too where there's actually a little bit of competition, because most franchises run what they call a protected territory model right.
Speaker 3:So take Wilmington yeah that's gonna be a territory, or maybe a couple of territories, depending on how the brand structures it. But once someone owns the territory it's off the map and unavailable right so for example, I just had someone I'm working with earlier this week at a discovery day for a brand and they live in an area called New Braunfels which is in Texas in between San Antonio and Austin growing area. Someone else from the same area was at the same Discovery Day looking at the same brand, right so now it's like the franchisor has options.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so a lot of what I do is coaching people on how to not only do the research, the right way to make the best decisions for themselves in terms of is this brand a good fit for me or not but also making sure that they don't get the rug pulled out from under them because they didn't handle themselves correctly through that process. I've never thought about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 3:It makes sense. It doesn't always happen that way.
Speaker 2:Right, but it can?
Speaker 3:It can, and more often than you may think. And so in that instance, I'm pleased to say, my lady got the nod and other persons in the back seat. If she decides that she's not going to move forward, then you know she may have a chance. But yeah, it can be kind of competitive sometimes. That's cool.
Speaker 2:I like. It All right, let's have you drop another one. I'm going to pull those out. We were on one last.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Oh, I thought he got one of fries there. It's a pretty good fries today too. All right, this is such a like, a such a crazy question to put in this can. In my opinion. What's your least favorite thing about Wilmington?
Speaker 3:These days is the traffic Hands down. No question about it. Traffic and too many apartment buildings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1:Everywhere you look.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I put up all the apartment buildings myself. Yeah, man, traffic is is rough, yeah, especially where like the side of town of your head and coming back in. Well, that's that bypass is going to be nice.
Speaker 3:I hope so. Yeah, we're building in Hampstead and Kelly was out that way yesterday I think it was like four o'clock, oh, she was going from Ogden into like Scotts Hill, yeah, and she was like I hope there's a wreck and it's not just the normal traffic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like I don't know, it's pretty rough up out. We're just going to have to, not come to Wilmington on a daily basis. Yeah, exactly, you're going to have to get it dialed in up there, but you guys can do that to an extent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we can work from home and we have an office building in like warehouse off of out there by the airport.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So you can, you can kind of shoot down the bypass and come in off of 40 and it's not too bad, but it'll, it'll be an adjustment, but yeah, it's. It's like you know, six half dozen, the other you're going to spend time driving from like somewhere like Hampstead or Leland in town, or even if you're in town, you're going to be sitting in the stoplight still sitting in the car. Yeah, it's it's kind of nuts Traffic Traffic First world problems.
Speaker 2:Always traffic, yeah, yeah, all right, let's drop another.
Speaker 3:Now I want this prize, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know where. I don't honestly know where to put you to.
Speaker 1:I mean, I would say there is a middle, is there a certain spot?
Speaker 2:I think yeah, and this one or this one, okay.
Speaker 3:So those are kind of like the hot ones.
Speaker 2:That's the money peg, yeah All right, this is back to a business question. What is your craziest business interaction?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a good one. Does it have to be in my consulting? No business.
Speaker 2:No, because you've got right. I mean y'all own franchises.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know you worked as a man. That's such a good question. You could do a whole podcast themed off of just like crazy business interactions and yeah customer. Right Actions. I don't think Kelly brought this up, so I'm going to. I personally wasn't involved in this, but it's a good. It's a good story. So if anyone's seen the Netflix show Tiger King, the documentary yeah, yeah of course. So there's this guy. I won't throw his name out there, but but he's in the movie, he's not.
Speaker 2:No, he's not. He's not big enough to Tiger King.
Speaker 3:I think he's probably upset that he wasn't in the documentary. Wow, because he's like what I would consider a want to be Tiger King.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:But he lives right outside of Wilmington, all right. So he's got this big plot of land with like an old house and an old building. I don't think he has any big cats, but he's got lemurs and ostriches and like all these exotic birds. Okay, the only reason we know this is he had a consultation done with our shelving business.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:And so one of our designers which is what we call ourselves people right Goes out to run the consultation not knowing anything you know is going to be out of the ordinary for a normal consultation. And it also happens that this particular designer, for whatever reason, hates birds, like she's terrified of birds, and so she walks in and this guy just free flying around the house exotic birds the way she tells it. I personally haven't been in the house. Kelly's since been in there and he has one of our closets in there now, but yeah we got to convert it, still converted the customer yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean 20, 30 birds, just of all different sizes. You know types of birds. So she said it was just sheer chaos. And imagine if you're like scared of birds walking in that incredible you know, flying right over your head and stuff. So that was an interesting one for sure.
Speaker 2:That's wild. Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine. I can't imagine showing up somewhere.
Speaker 3:There's some stuff on the internet about this guy. He's an advocate for exotic animal ownership and some stuff like that. So interesting character.
Speaker 2:Interesting character. I mean that's pretty wild, but you still got the business.
Speaker 3:Never a dull moment when you're in a service-based business and never know what you're going to run into.
Speaker 2:Okay, how does that?
Speaker 1:get me that gets you nothing. No soup for you. The clumsy award, all right.
Speaker 2:Here we go. Oh, it stalled for a second. All right, another business question, biz question. Oh, this is going to be a question from last year.
Speaker 3:Off the cards. Flimsy paper. It's one of those low budget questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's a good question. This one is what advice would you give to a person either about the start of business or early on in their business ownership journey?
Speaker 3:Yeah, find a mentor, find someone that's done what it is that you're trying to do, and not only learn as much as you can from them, but just establish the type of relationship with them where I don't know.
Speaker 3:You know they can be very candid with you and vice versa, because I don't care what the business is any business that you own.
Speaker 3:It's going to be a roller coaster and you're gonna have lots of highs, but you're also gonna have some lows, and it can be really really just refreshing to have someone that you can talk to and share more so the lows than the highs with, and then kind of talk you off the ledge sometimes and even if they're not like telling you how to solve the problem or the challenge in front of you, just to remind you that you're not the first entrepreneur to go through something like this and you know there is a way to get through it and you know little plug for franchising here.
Speaker 3:That's one of the many benefits that come with that. Right, you've got support from the franchisor, which is great, but you also have this whole network of other franchisees that are all out there running the exact same business as you and they're not competitors of yours, right. So, especially if you're a newer franchisee, you've got all these people that if you're having a problem with something, chances are they've had that same problem and they are probably gonna have a lot of good advice and suggestions as you know how to maneuver. And again, just to kind of be a sounding board and remind you that like hey, you're not the first one to deal with something like this right and you know there's a way to get through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean mentorship and it's so important I think you're not the first to have mentioned it and it's it's definitely like up there as far as one of the most important things.
Speaker 3:It's key and it doesn't have to be something you know awkward like hi. Would you be my mentor?
Speaker 3:Right, right it can just kind of be like I've not done. I'm not the smartest guy by any stretch of the imagination. One thing I've, for whatever reason, naturally been pretty good at is just seeking out people that are doing the types of things that I want to do and developing a relationship with them, and so a lot of times it's just staying in touch with people right, and not not waiting for them to like offer to be your mentor or for them to reach out and say how are things going? And you know you do that. There's a balance, right. You've got to at least try to find ways to add value to them, to not always be taking, but if you can strike that balance, you can find mentors everywhere.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what I was going to say. I mean, just figure out a way to add value for someone that has been there and done that, and that way it's a mutually beneficial relationship.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think what I've seen too is like a lot of times you don't even actually have to add value, it's more the intent that you want to and are willing to if you can, and you're not just asking, asking, asking and looking to take from them Even if they're because I mean I've got some mentors that very little I could do to help them or add value, unless it's like I'm washing your car for you.
Speaker 2:But have you ever done that?
Speaker 3:No, no, I don't think I've washed the car, but I've dog sat for a mentor, lent my boat to a mentor before, yeah, so I've done some things like that. That's value, yeah, that's definitely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sweet, all right, let's have you drop another. If you get one more, then something happens.
Speaker 3:Let's go over here and see what happens.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Okay, three ones in a row. So you can either pick a blue card to ask me or you can just ask me a random question. Is that right, josh? Yeah, that's right. Okay, I don't know what the blue cards are. I've never seen the blue cards.
Speaker 3:Well, this, this couldn't line up better with what we just talked about. So what advice would you give to a younger mentee? Oh gosh, that's pretty wild. Add value.
Speaker 2:That's pretty weird yeah.
Speaker 1:Add value.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, don't just, I mean realistically, that's exactly what I would say.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I will just briefly reiterate yeah, just add value, show up and be ready to work. Yeah, you know, and like Wes said, I mean a lot of times you can't do everything. You're not, they're not going to come like put you to work, but come ready to do something, ready to learn and do something.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, and that's a really good point, right, and even if it's not like doing work for them like you know, right, joked about washing their car or whatever but like if they, if they give you some advice and then they see that you're not willing to implement it or try it, like they're probably not going to be interested in continuing to offer up any advice. But yeah, if they see that you're the type of person to take something and run with it, even if it's not pretty right, but if they see you trying to implement and execute things that they're sharing with you, like most, most successful people that you would likely look up to as a mentor, that'll get them excited. Yeah Right. And they'll be like, okay, this guy or this girl, they're hungry, they're willing to try. This is someone I could get excited about helping because they'll they'll take it and do something with it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love it and kind of still kind of like weirded out that we just pick that card that was random, as this whole thing is, and that couldn't have been set up.
Speaker 3:We couldn't have set that up. No, no, let's go from over here and see Use the side bumpers.
Speaker 2:Oh, right One.
Speaker 3:Four ones in a row, yeah what does that mean? I don't know, do we start back over?
Speaker 2:for yeah, I think so I think we're back on one. This is a good question, Speaking of mentors Like we're just going to keep right on that thing. Yeah, who or what has taught you the most about creating business strategies? Hmm, so strategies big on strategies. This season, the two can talks.
Speaker 3:I like that. It's a great topic. You know I such a hard question to ask. Is there's so many different directions? I could go in with that book.
Speaker 2:YouTube video like influencer, like mentor, wife.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, look in general.
Speaker 3:Learning about the franchising models taught me a lot about just business strategy in general, because one of the the cool things I get to see from from my seat now is hundreds and hundreds of different businesses that are all franchises, and we're talking businesses in wildly different industries, right, and so naturally some of the strategies are gonna be different, right.
Speaker 3:But it's also pretty interesting to to see themes that you know a franchise in the fitness space over here. You know best practices and strategies that they're implementing that are similar or the same to a franchise in a home service industry over here. So for me that's been really helpful and you know, I think sometimes I almost take it for granted because I'm so close to these things all the time. But it's like you know, if we wanted to start a business from scratch, I've got so many different strategies and essentially a blueprint that we could model our business off of that I'm pulling from all of these different businesses that I've worked with and researched over the years so that I don't know how good of an answer that is. But seeing similar strategies and very different businesses, yeah, applied in work, that's that's been really helpful.
Speaker 2:I got you, so this is kind of a random question, yeah, but I find it interesting because I think you're right. Like a lot of people that aren't familiar with franchising, think like franchise pops in your head and you think McDonald's, yeah, right, but every time you know fast food, whatever, what is like one of the most surprising franchises that exists that you wouldn't think exists all right, I've got a good answer for this.
Speaker 3:Um, I had. I had this the the CEO of this company on my podcast probably six months ago. Okay, it's a franchise called Bio one. Okay, so they are a crime scene and biohazard cleanup business okay right, so something you really yeah, franchise something you don't really think about often.
Speaker 3:You're right yeah but you know if, if a murder happens or a chemical spill happens or something like that, like someone's got to come clean it up, yeah, and in most cases you need someone that's trained and equipped with the right types of materials and know, like, where to dispose it right. Yeah, like cuz what? What do you do? You know? So yeah there's a, there's a franchise for that. So if you're, you know, big fan of Dexter or any of those types of shows, then hit something like. Bio one, but yeah, that's a pretty wild one man there's a lot of other examples too.
Speaker 3:I mean there's, there's, there's franchises that you know run kid sports leagues. Right, like any parents out there listening probably heard of I9 sports. It's a franchise. Yeah, it's not what most people think of when they, right, think of franchises, but almost any service you could need done around your home, right, there's a franchise for it. Right, there's franchises that specialize just in holiday lighting. Yeah, you know so pretty rare that that you know I work with someone that is genuinely motivated to get into business for themselves. Right, and you know, there there are some financial requirements, but a lot of franchises require far less capital than people imagine. So you know there are some people out there that probably would not yet be in a financial position to get into a franchise. But, excluding that, it is extremely rare that we can't find at least one or two options that are a really good fit and check all the boxes that you're looking for.
Speaker 2:I gotcha. Yeah, that's wild. I'm just thinking like I wanted to ask you that question.
Speaker 3:From the beginning I was like I'm just gonna wait because yeah yeah, and that was that was a fun one to do because you know she had some stories like apparently, when new franchisees come in for training, yeah, they create like a mock crime scene, oh gosh, and they, they buy what did she say? It was sheeps. They buy sheeps blood and they put it on the walls and the floor and I mean they make it look like a real gory crime scene.
Speaker 2:I mean I guess you kind of got to, because what do you do?
Speaker 3:how I hire?
Speaker 3:somebody and then just send them out, but just like yeah it's like nope, sorry, so this CEO was new to the company so it was like her first training that she was a part of that you know group of new franchise owners coming through and apparently at their headquarters where they do the training. They'd also recently hired a new cleaning crew. So typically what they would do is the night before they would stage the crime scene, right, so sheeps blood, you know they come in the next morning. Yeah, the cleaning crew had cleaned everything up like can you imagine if you're like the new cleaning crew that just you know, locked down this new client? Maybe you know what they do, maybe you don't really know what they do, and you probably don't know what's going on like what happened here?
Speaker 3:well, we got to clean them up.
Speaker 2:We got, we got to clean it up can you imagine being like the cleaner on site and calling your boss and yeah, there's blood everywhere. We touch this. Clean it up or not. Call the authorities. We just got this client.
Speaker 3:You must clean it up this is a big account for us. We just signed them clean. It make it spotless. Yeah, she was like you know, I'd go to the refrigerator to get creamer for my coffee and there'd be a vat of sheeps blood, you know, in there next to it. I'm like there's something for everybody. I'm gonna get another fridge to keep that in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we just separate yeah, it's pretty wild. What are we looking at on time, josh? Oh, we're doing great. Okay, I'm gonna let you drop one more, all right, just just in hopes that it'll stall out. All right, let's, let's get a stall here. Come on, just for it, this one stop you can't just oh, it was close, dude, oh it was close.
Speaker 3:What if it's all right? That almost did all right.
Speaker 1:One last question on a party question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a dare, all right. I always get stuck with this one and it's like I always end up with, like some other man's hairy nipple on my Instagram story. But it says switch phones and posts on each other's Instagram stories just post something yeah, doesn't have to be anything specific. Apparently I don't want to look at my phone because it's been blowing up.
Speaker 3:I know that's always the worst. We're posting like a photo from our library or whatever you want to do, you can take it or you can post one library.
Speaker 2:Just don't post, yeah, okay that's coming from Santa yeah, I got it. I got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, here. Yeah, I think you know how to use Instagram, right? Yeah, I rarely do you, I'm gonna. I might just take a photo and post it there you go.
Speaker 3:I don't want to filter to make myself look better, thank you, there we go. So who posted a hairy dipple to your?
Speaker 2:Sam Steger, the owner of Mess Hall. That makes sense, yeah.
Speaker 3:I've not met him, but I've seen some of what you guys have done with him. Yeah, From a marketing perspective yeah, you can, which is fantastic, by the way. Thank you, the one where they were singing.
Speaker 2:The milkshake video.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, that was classic.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that that was a good collab.
Speaker 3:That was fantastic.
Speaker 2:Take a peek at yours. We got to set the cameras too. I like how I said stories and Wes just posted it to my own Definitely to my feed, but it was fine.
Speaker 3:That's how you know, I don't.
Speaker 2:I do the Instagram.
Speaker 3:Young Jamie. Where's the camera it's of? Pull that up, Jamie.
Speaker 2:I just figured I'd switch it off a little bit. That's great.
Speaker 3:I'll share. I'll share the camera. Got it before.
Speaker 2:And your photo is a little out of focus too. I love it. Yeah, it's just, you're the franchise guy.
Speaker 3:I'm the franchise guy and clearly need the videographer and marketing specialist, since I don't even know how to post a story on Instagram.
Speaker 2:It's not what you do, what you're good at in.
Speaker 3:I stay in my lane.
Speaker 2:I will. I'll totally show the camera, or you can you know which camera which? This one? I love it. I'll share that to my story is what I'll do. Got it. Wes is just pumping us up and I'm just posting Josh with hashtag young Jamie.
Speaker 3:I mean that'll probably get some views though. Yeah, because I'm sure that's a pretty popular yeah Hashtag, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And people are going to be like whoa did you hire for your podcast? Because Wes has a podcast. Path to freedom, right Spell it out for us.
Speaker 3:That's a debate. It's. It's. That's your website. Yes, the number two is in the website. It's to for the podcast, so we probably need to make a call on that and get it all stick with one consistent Sure. We're not a marketing and branding expert here.
Speaker 2:So for now, but we need to have to to. Freedom is your podcast. Yeah, talk, give us a quick little yeah.
Speaker 3:What do you talk about? All things? Entrepreneurship, right. So it's not exclusive to franchising. Obviously, that comes up quite a bit. I do interview a lot of the CEOs and founders of the brands that I work with. So, you know, if people are curious of some of the types of brands that I work with, yeah, a lot of the podcast episodes are kind of spotlighting those brands, but you guys have been on the podcast. Yeah, I like talking to anyone that has their own business right.
Speaker 3:Has built businesses, sold businesses there's. There's so much that I can learn, the listeners can learn, and so the goal is for the path to freedom podcast just to be a resource for any aspiring entrepreneur, to give them, you know, some insight into where to get started, how to get started, encouragement that hey, if others are out there doing it, I can too.
Speaker 3:If I really set my mind to it, but also for the existing small business owner that's just continuing to look to grow and level up, and I've had a lot of fun weaving into all of that other things like mindset training. Yeah, you know, I've gotten more into fitness and trying to get myself in better shape and have seen how that's impacted every other area of my life, right. So I like talking to fitness entrepreneurs, so all all things business and entrepreneurship, but with a, with a touch of you know how to just level up in life in general, I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've listened to quite a few of your episodes and I would say or, I guess, question how have you like, from a strategy standpoint, how have you seen your podcast affect your business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think when I initially started it, I had this naive idea that, you know, the podcast would turn into this lead generating machine for me, and it's. It's starting to do some of that, but started the podcast three and a half years ago, probably takes some time.
Speaker 3:So, you know, it has started to turn into something that's good for exposure and generating interest. Probably the most tangible thing is the brands I have featured on the podcast. There's a pretty strong correlation of me being able to place people into those brands, right, and I think there's two reasons for that. The first is that because I work with 250 brands, right, so these are all brands that I'm familiar with and they meet certain criteria that any brand has to meet in order for me to be comfortable recommending it to someone. But I don't know every one of those 250 brands as well as I know some of them, right, and a big part of it. For me, and I would say, for anyone that's going to invest in the franchise, yes, the business model makes has to make sense. No-transcript. The people behind the brand have to be the type of people that you want to partner with. Sure, right, and so that's huge for me getting to really know the people behind the brand. So when I can spend, you know, an hour, hour and a half having a one-on-one conversation with the founder and CEO of the brand, I'm going to be a lot more comfortable recommending that brand, sure, obviously, then I've got a piece of content too that I can share with someone after I recommend the brand to them. Yeah Right, and I'm more knowledgeable about it versus me just trying to explain why I think it's a good fit which I do and I tell them from my perspective.
Speaker 3:This is why I think this brand, this business model, et cetera, lines up with what we've kind of created, is going to make sense for you. But when they can hear it direct from the source before you know, engaging and having actual meetings with the brand just piques their interest. They come into it knowing a little bit more. So it's helped in that way. It's helped me make good placements, which is how I get paid. My services are free to the individuals that I work with. So, again, very similar to a real estate agent, I get paid by the franchise companies if and when I introduce them to someone that goes on to become a franchisee. So it's helped in that way, and up until like a year ago I'm pretty sure it was just my mom that listened to it. So I'm excited to see as more people keep listening to what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, you guys listen to the episode that I had you on.
Speaker 1:I'm sure.
Speaker 3:I don't think my wife even even listens to it.
Speaker 1:She's like I have to hear you talk at home enough why would I tune in.
Speaker 3:She's busy like trying to run a franchise and hanging out with kids, yeah, and we're really focusing on doing more on YouTube too. So all the podcast episodes, the full versions on YouTube and video format, but we're really trying to do more shorter form video content. That's all educational in nature. And so my oldest daughter, who's almost seven, she's got some YouTube channels that she follows. She thinks it's kind of cool that she can go to my YouTube channel and see thumbnails of dad or whatever. So yeah, that's cool. She checks it out too Occasionally. That's what's up.
Speaker 3:Hey, she thinks it's cool, I'm like hey, if you're bored view it a hundred times a day and maybe you can monetize YouTube. That'd be cool, that's funny.
Speaker 2:I was asking that question initially. I was just thinking how cool it is probably for you to have this catalog that you can send to prospective franchisees that you're like. You know what. I think this is a good fit. It's a really good hour long conversation I had with the founder of the company.
Speaker 3:It's huge for that and I think it adds some credibility as well.
Speaker 2:I've talked to the CEO, founder, whatever.
Speaker 3:And especially for because I have a lot of initial conversations with people that may not immediately go anywhere in terms of like all right, let's roll right into your process and get some brands on the table and dive into the research. It's not uncommon for me to work with someone off and on for two or three years until they're really ready or until we find the right fit for them, right. A lot of times it's a combination of both of those things. So, you know, I have a lot of conversations where the person's just curious, wants to learn a little bit more. They may come away from that conversation saying, okay, now that I know a little bit more, this could really make sense for me a year from now. Two years from now, right.
Speaker 3:And if I can just say, hey, here's this podcast. I put you know episodes out regularly. You can go through and look at all the episodes. That'll give you a sense of some of the types of franchises that I work with. Yeah, because I work with very few food brands. Yeah, right, so you can almost think of me as the non-food franchise guy. Right, yeah, and so it's a really good resource in that regard. I think it adds some credibility. It also just forces me to consistently put what I hope is good, valuable content out there and keep having conversations with franchisors, which is helping me learn these brands better, which allows me to do my job better for the people that I'm working with, makes sense Plus, it's just fun, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know. Yeah, if you love what you do, why not talk about it? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Talk to cool people about business stuff all day, just like you guys are doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of fun. It is so, yeah, and looking forward to doing more of it and hopefully, you know, continuing to grow the viewership.
Speaker 2:Heck, yeah, absolutely Well, any kind of final thoughts you want to leave us with about business strategy, franchise strategy, like what you do, anything that, like you know, a viewer, slash listener might could just grab on to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think final thoughts like we're. I don't know when you're going to publish this and if you don't want to timestamp it, take this out, young Jamie. But you know we're recording this in like mid December, so we're coming up on the end of the year. A lot of people are probably reflecting on 2023, looking at goal setting for 24.
Speaker 3:And so, speaking of mentors a guy that's kind of become a mentor of mine, whether he knows it or not on his podcast, he recently put out an episode where he talked about three things that are critical for anyone to have if they're going to achieve a goal, and the first one was belief. Right? So you've got to believe that it can be done and that you're capable of doing it.
Speaker 3:If you don't believe, then it's more of a dream, yeah, than it is a goal.
Speaker 3:The second is know how right, and the know how is not necessarily like you have to know every single thing that you need to do and how to do it to get it done. But you either have to know how you're going to go about starting to work towards that goal or kind of like we've talked about today, plug in with someone that has some know how right, whether that's a mentor that's already done it before, whether that's someone like myself that's got a process right. If it's franchise ownership, right, I can take you by the hand and walk you step by step through a methodical process to help give you the know how, whereas without that, you're probably just doom scrolling the internet looking at franchise opportunities, right, yeah, whatever it is. Fitness get a coach instead of trying to do it on your own right. They're going to help you learn the nutrition side of it, the fitness side of it. Find some know how, and there's really no excuse not to this day and age, because there's so much information out there, right?
Speaker 3:And the third is willingness right. So you've got to have the willingness to do the work, to get it done, and usually a big part of the willingness to is the willingness to step out of your comfort zone and get uncomfortable. So, as you're thinking about whatever goals you may have for the coming year and going forward, keep that in mind. That's kind of the formula. The three necessary things for making any goals a reality belief know how, willingness. And if one of those goals is business ownership, hit me up and we'll talk about franchises. That's it.
Speaker 2:That's it Awesome. Well, where can everybody get after you? Get up with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, website is path to freedomcom.
Speaker 2:It's with a number two, with a two.
Speaker 3:Yep, it's called R-D-M, so short form for freedomcom. There's some good stuff there, but most everything go to the YouTube channel. That's path to freedom. I got to fix that, we'll get you there, laura, I need your help. But, like I said, all the podcasts is there, working on putting out a lot more good, good, just educational, faq type stuff, sharing a lot of other people's stories that have had success through franchise ownership and then path to freedom. Podcast is everywhere you can listen to podcasts. I love it.
Speaker 2:And just to reiterate something Wes has said a couple times, it's not just if you're interested in franchising, yeah, that does come up. But he talks about entrepreneurship and a lot of times what happens is people figure out that, hey, my lifestyle might just be a better fit for franchise, yeah, so yeah, totally.
Speaker 3:And you know it's not Wes's franchise podcast or anything like that, because I know that most people are not sitting around thinking about owning a franchise, but as they learn more about it they realize, okay, this could actually make sense. Right, there's a lot of misconceptions out there about franchising and a lot more just types of businesses that are franchises, as we've talked about. Then. That most people realize, and you know when it comes to the podcast, you know, even if a franchise is never of interest to you or never going to be a good fit, my hope is that there's still good value and entertainment.
Speaker 2:There's still entrepreneurial value in there for sure, Because these business strategies they apply.
Speaker 3:Well, totally, and I, you know, I talked to people that are real estate investors. I talked to people that are, you know, tax specialists. I mean a lot of people that aren't doing anything in franchising at all, but I'm interested in it and you know, they've got a cool entrepreneurial story to share.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in for another episode of Two Can Talks here in season two. Thanks Wes for coming on my pleasure and remember everyone out there. We do rent out the studio space actually, so this is like a good studio.
Speaker 3:I've set up a podcast myself to be able to just walk in and sit down and start recording and then have have the back end you know of all those.
Speaker 2:Josh, there you go. That's we need to get a young Josh shirt made? Yeah, absolutely. That's the beauty you can just sit down and then you can pretty much that same day or 24 hours later have your episode just delivered to you. We don't have to know what you're doing exactly as long as you can speak, you just show up. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3:This is cool. I love what you guys are doing. Thanks, man. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we appreciate you and thanks for coming on and yeah, awesome, till next time, thanks.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning into another episode of Two Can Talks brought to you by Cookstart Collective. If you loved this episode, be sure to subscribe wherever you watch podcast and follow Cookstart Collective on Instagram at kickstartcollective.