Latest / Reframe First / Rashmi Airan, Keynote Speaker & Franchise Consultant | The One Big Client That Cost Me Everything
Transcript
- Oleksij Rak: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Reframe First. I'm Alexey and let me introduce our today's guest, Rashmi Aron. Rashmi is CEO, keynote speaker, author. There is a book standing behind. Rashmi: Yeah. Oleksij Rak: And franchise consultant and much more. So, hi Rashmi, it's great having you here. Rashmi: Alexi, thank you so much for having me. I'm all the way from the states talking to your audience. Thank you. Oleksij Rak: Thanks a lot for joining. Maybe could you tell us briefly about the book standing behind you? Rashmi: Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I I know we're gonna talk a lot about franchising today, but I I've had a sort of a very interesting journey. I ac I started my career first actually as an investment banker, but I spent most of my career as a lawyer. And so I was a lawyer for decades. And then at one point back in 2007 I had my own little real estate practice and I was an entrepreneur like many franchisees are. and so when we're entrepreneurs, we're wearing so many hats and we're hustling and we're under a lot of pressure and we're trying to go fast and we're trying to make all the ends meet. And I was a mother of two young kids. You know, I was the major breadwinner. My husband at the time was a firefighter. So I was definitely making more money. And in that context, in 2007, I had the chance to meet a big client. in real estate and I essentially was so hungry for the client and I and I we'll talk about this in a little bit with franchising and how it relates, but I was so hungry to get the client, right? To get that one big thing to give me financial stability that I ended up making some bad decisions. And seven years later I was indicted for bank fraud. And then I ended up serving I was sentenced to a year in prison. In the States. And so I spent I ended up spending just about I spent less than that in prison. It's a long story behind why I got out early. But I was in prison for six months while my kids were nine and ten. It was a very, very hard experience. I lost everything. I lost my marriage, my bar license, my freedom, my money, my right to vote. And so through that journey, it's been a decade. And through that journey, actually, when I came home, that's when I became a franchise consultant because I had to figure out how am I going to make money? How am I going to survive? so I've been a franchise consultant, you know, for the last, I would say, five to six years. and to be honest, my whole family, I have so many people in my life that are in the franchise world. My uncle in Texas is the largest subway owner. My sisters-in-laws are one of the largest Duncan Donuts owners, and then along the way, they own all Various people own different franchises. So I'm very familiar with franchising. But I be ended up becoming the motivational speaker to share this part of the story and how all of us will struggle, all of us will go through some sort of failure, all of us will go through a moment where we wish we would have made better decisions. How can we now go through those moments and become stronger and better? more evolved humans. That's what the book is about. That's what all a lot of my thought leadership and speaking is about. So we can talk a little bit about this the work I've done with some big franchise companies. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, for sure. That's a strong story. So thanks for sharing. What's the psychology change when you go into franchising? When you leave the big corporate world and switch to franchising, what do you need to Rashmi: I mean I think Oleksij Rak: step over? Rashmi: yeah, I think the biggest shift, whether you're working for a company as a at any level, right? When you leave any sort of nine to five job, W two, and you leave and you become and you make the choice, I want to have the privilege of controlling my life. I want to have flexibility, I want to be able to run my life, right? Becoming an entrepreneur. The mindset of an entrepreneur is very distinct. And, you know, I've been a serial entrepreneur essentially my entire career. After I I did a couple of years at a big law f two big law firms, and then I became an entrepreneur. And being an entrepreneur requires a growth mindset. It requires like a I call it a beyond success mindset, which I talk about in my book. And beyond success mindset means, you know, you Most of us set goals, right? If you're if you're in the world in the business world or you want to become a franchisee, you have a goal that you set for yourself. I want to buy one unit or I wanna buy 10 units in this territory, and I wanna have these goals and I wanna make this kind of money, right? But you achieve the goal, let's say, right? You work hard, it takes a few years, you get to the goal. If you just get to the goal and you're like, okay, I succeeded. We d we stop growing. So beyond success mindset is we have to we should be, I think, continually challenging ourselves and saying, Okay, now what next? What else do I need to learn? How else can I challenge myself? How else can I innovate and be creative and think differently? And how what are those decisions I'm gonna make? Oleksij Rak: Do it, it, instead of just relaxing, you know. I've achieved everything in my life, I'm fine. Rashmi: I mean, I well, I do think that most franchisees have that entrepreneurial mindset. It is if you're not in that space of constantly trying to do the next thing, trying to learn the next technology or marketing or process or product, or how can you make whatever it is that you do? So if you have a franchise business in the childcare space, let's say, right? And you have 10 units and you provide childcare services across various communities, maybe the next up level is, okay, so we have this incredible community of we're serving our kids. What else can we do to serve maybe the parents? You know, can we create programming? Can we bring in speakers? Can we bring in some holistic work? Can we do some wellness? There's always another up level. And if we don't do the up level, I believe the business will not succeed. There, if we stop growing and just stay stagnant. You there's so many examples we can point to that no business can survive if it just stays stagnant. And it's I think it's incumbent upon the owner of the business, the entrepreneur, to keep thinking and having that mindset. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, for sure. But like, I'm personal entrepreneur, but speaking with people from franchise industry, I doubt I could be a franchisee of any kind. Rashmi: Well it's different. Why do you why do you think it's different? Oleksij Rak: It's about following the system and I'm the one who is following the system. Rashmi: Okay, so that's interesting, right? Because I do think that franchisees Oleksij Rak: and Rashmi: have a unique balance that they're doing, right? On the one hand, you're an in you're independent, you you run your territory, you have your budget, you hire your people, you you create your culture, you f hire and fire and pay and like you create all of that. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Rashmi: On the other hand, depending on of course the franchise or that you work with or that you're you're aligned with. The franchise will be dictating values, marketing, branding, you know, maybe even how things are done, the product, the service, you know, depending. And so I think those that become franchisees want that balance. Because the the alternative is I want to do it all myself. I want to come up with my own idea, and then I want to figure out my own logo, and then I want to come up with my own branding and marketing and invest in that. And the benefit you get by being a franchisee is you don't have to you're saving there's a there's an economy of cost. You don't have to then pay for the the marketing costs, right? You don't have as much because the franchise or is already doing a lot of the marketing for the brand that you're buying into. let's say you work for Subway, right? You have a Subway franchise. So you're getting the benefit of Subway running national campaigns, TV, you know, everything radio, online, internet, everything. it shows up in AE, you know, CIO, what's it called? AEO, GEO, all over Claude. It's also going to show up in just like you get the legacy of people knowing what Subway is, right? And so it's it's like a reliable product. I know that no matter where I am in the world, I've been to Subway in India, anywhere in the world, I can go to a Subway and I know that the product is reliable, right? I know the bread, I know the meat or the cheeses or the sauces. and so I think those that go into entrepreneurial ventures. in the franchise space, do it because they get a really good balance. They have the support of a franchiseer for the concept or the product or the service with all of the marketing and branding and all of that, right? And the infrastructure. But then they also have the ability to be entrepreneurs and run their own business as part of it. So I think that there's a very happy balance that you get by being in the franchise space. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, but still we need to this mixture of bit different opposite skills. Probably it's really good for people who need some structure, to help them. Rashmi: You know, it's so I I I would say I don't know if it's just structure because it's beyond the structure. It's also all of the other materials that you're getting with it that's not actually structure, but it's like the the support that you're getting from this organiz from this franchise or and every franchise is different, they have different ways of for supporting Oleksij Rak: How do you choose the right franchise for you? Rashmi: How do decide? So when I do this with clients, the the the Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Rashmi: the the way that a franchisee, a potential franchisee, is going to select the right franchise company is a pretty long, you know, it's a pretty thorough, not long, it's a thorough process. One, you know, you first gonna start with: do you want a brick and mortar? Do you want a mobile franchise or do you want a home-based franchise? So that's like you start with that. of course you have to look at financials, how much are you willing to invest? Do you want to own or operate it? So you yourself are going to be putting in all the time that, you know, into making this franchise work. Or are you, or do you want to do like owner operator? You want to have an operator and then you just own it. So you learn, but then you hire an operator. Or do you want to, you don't want to do that at all, you just want to hire somebody, right? So then there's that level, then there's the investment level, then there's like, what do you enjoy doing? You know, like you're you're you're buying into a business. So do you want to do childcare because you're passionate about kids and you want to give, you know, help create the next generation of leaders in your community, right? Because that's a very much being part of the community. And then you got to be able to deal with harassing parents and annoying parents, but also the joy of all of that. So let's say that's childcare. On the other spectrum, and that's obviously brick and mortar, right? On the X other spectrum, you could have like a a mobile. lawn care business or a mobile pest Oleksij Rak: Thank you. Rashmi: control business, right? And that's you have a van and you know, so you get the support of all the, you know, then the marketing, you get a van. And then so your investment in in in infrastructure is is around, you know, the the van and and all the things that would go into it. And then you have to get certified to do all the things. and then you have home base, like home based care services for elderly or, you know, something like that. So I or home home based Bookkeeping services, home-based tax planning services, home-based, you know, nanny services. I mean, there's so many different types of franchises. And so it comes down, it's not a one size fits all. It takes a lot of I think, probing and asking a lot of questions and understanding like, what is it that you are interested in doing? How can I support you in figuring that out? And and then kind of sending people. Usually what I'll do is I'll I have like a very I'll usually have two very long conversations just to understand what they what they're interested in, what's their background, what potentially they could be good at, where what are their certain skill set, right? And then I will go back into my, you know, sort of database of it's over like 4,000 franchise orders that that I work with. And then I can go into that database and and ascertain and sort of select, hey, okay, here are some brick and like if somebody says I I want a brick and mortar. Then I will only go to the brick and mortar options and then I will say, okay, here are your top five brick and mortar options. And if it's Oleksij Rak: Yep. Rashmi: mobile, it's mobile, right? Same. And all of them will be hopefully in this in an industry or t type of business that they I think that they would enjoy and that their skill set would would apply to. I will then submit it, you know, and obviously there has to also be financial alignment. So if somebody has a $50,000 investment available. invest that's very different than if somebody has a $350,000 investment. So that, you know, so there's also that consideration. you know, you you kind of weed out certain companies if they don't, if somebody doesn't have the right certain type of investment. and then I'll submit those to the to the client. And then the client really has to take time to do the research, see which one, if any of those align. If none of those align, we go back to the drawing board and I send five more. and so it it's a it's a give and take process. It doesn't happen overnight because it's a big decision. How who what business do you want to go into? What what industry do you want to go into? Do you wanna, you know, find a location and then go into leasing a space and go into essentially going into real estate? So there's, you know, there's a lot to consider. Oleksij Rak: Do we start this kind of conversation with just asking certain set of questions or do we just... choose if I want brick or brick and mortar or if I want... Rashmi: Yeah, yeah. I mean I have a whole line of questions that I that I have written out that I just Oleksij Rak: Is it retail or is it services? I'm not sure. It's Rashmi: Yeah. Oleksij Rak: something psychology based, like the psychology of the person, like the psychotype. Is there any relation? Rashmi: I I don't know. I mean, I think that if somebody comes to me and says, hey, I'm really interested in being a franchise, can you help me find the right company? Their mindset has already decided. They're ready to be an entrepreneur. So I don't then need to deconstruct it and figure out, okay, do you have a growth mindset? Like that's not my job, right? At the end of the day, the franchiseur in determining whether or not this is the good match will do a lot of that. So my job is to connect a franchisee with a franchisor based on all the things you talked about, you know, financial net worth, time available, location, industry, all of that. Then the conversation between the franchiseor and the franchisee potential franchisee will determine is it a good fit psychologically? Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned working a lot with franchisees and being keynote speaker for them. And how does it look from the other side, the franchisee side? How does it look to choose the right franchisee for them? Because it's also about the right choice because as a person that will be representing their name in certain region, how does it work for them? Rashmi: To choose the franchise company? What do you Oleksij Rak: Yeah, to choose the right franchisee. Rashmi: So the fran so I've done a lot of work from the franchise space as a keynote speaker and a leadership consultant. And what I know about franchisors is that their focus and priority is making sure that every franchisee is aligned with their core values, is aligned with their mission, is focused on growth, is focused on maintaining the reputation and the purpose of whatever that organization is. so I'll give an example. Last year I worked with a childcare, like I mentioned, a child care franchise and the childhood academy kind of franchise. And when we were in, we had several planning calls, because I they asked me to come in and be their keynote speaker at their annual conference with all of their franchisees, as well as lead lead a leadership workshop. So in the planning for that, there was a lot of conversation back and forth. Between me and basically their president, vice president, and head of people, you know, essentially talking about how do you How do you make sure that the franchisee philosophically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, is committed like to what those missions and values are? And a lot of times what happens is a franchisee is gung-ho at the beginning, right? And they're super excited and they come in and they, they you know, are are ready to do what you know, whatever, whatever Excuse me, whatever a franchiser wants them to do, right? But then you have, you know, like an entire Let's say two years go by. Okay. Life happens. You're an odd the franchisees' own kids are having issues. Maybe they start having married having marital issues, or maybe the market starts to go decline. And so now they're seeing a decline in their participation rates. Or you if we go back to the childhood academy, you know, less parents are able to pay for childhood, k childcare. There's so many variables, right? Or like Talent is hard to find. Okay. There's so so many options. COVID hits and now you can't even have a school. So Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Rashmi: then so then you have these moments, right? How do you make sure that your franchisee, A, stays committed and then B like is continuing to try to figure out how to grow? So from the franchise perspective, I think one of the reasons they do have these annual conferences is to, you know, like keep motivating and inspiring and reminding franchisees. This is what the goals are. And you know, there's always award ceremonies to motivate people and inspire people and incentivize people. But it I think it's just like any other corporate culture from that perspective is you there has to be a constant level of like inspiration, motivation, reminding, empowering. This is what we believe, you can do it, you know, all of that. Oleksij Rak: So it's basically spreading the corporate culture. Rashmi: Yeah, for sure. Oleksij Rak: What do you think is the biggest lie in the franchisee industry? Rashmi: I think the biggest misconception of franchisees is coming into it they believe that that the franchise Oleksij Rak: Thank you. Rashmi: is going to do it all and I can just put the money in and get a space and it'll take care of itself. Especially if you buy like a you buy a franchise company with like a big name, right? So then you think, well I'm buying a subway. People will show up. It's a subway. But it's not always that. You still have to market. You still have to find the right people to run it. You still have to have the right employees. You still have to make sure that your space is clean. There's still so many other things that you have to think about. You have to make sure the budget, you have to have the inventory. You have to have the right, you know, I I don't know, cleanliness. Like there's so many other options, other aspects of being a franchisee. And most not most. Some franchisees, I think, have not thought about the sort of holistic global reality of like this is what it takes to be an entrepreneur. It's not supposed to be easy. You know, yes, you will likely make a lot of money, but it's not supposed to be easy. It takes w it's just like anything else in life. It takes hard work. Oleksij Rak: I've heard the misconception of passive income. Is it possible to at all have a passive income or semi-passive income in being a French? Rashmi: Well, I think it is. I think it is. But I it takes there's a lot of franchise companies, franchisees that have a significant amount of passive income. But it comes after years and years and years of hard work. I think you get to the passive income phase when you get to a certain number of units, when you have the systems in place and the processes in place and you've figured out the business and the modeling and you you know, like it doesn't just happen on year one. Passive income takes time to get to and when you get to it it's huge, but it takes time. Oleksij Rak: You need to build your own system basically. Rashmi: Yeah, of course. Just like anything else. Oleksij Rak: As a franchise or especially as a new franchise, I don't know if you had the chance to work with some newer ones who have like 20, 30 units. How do you all sell your franchise? Because for promoting here, the market right now is market of franchisees. So it's like they do choose who they want to work with. As a new franchise, how do you sell your franchise to? potential franchises. How do you find the right ones? Rashmi: If okay, so the question is if you are a new franchiseur, how do you find potential franchisees? Okay, so Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. Rashmi: that is I think the benefit of working with a consulting company like mine, because when you have When you're a new franchise or it's very hard to understand how to find the right people and where do you go? And you know, like you have no act like let's say you just you know, first of all, the first step is have you done all the right legal documents? Do you have all the the franchise agreement? Do you have all the things in place that you have to have in place legally? Right. So that's the first step, which my team helps with. But then on the second side, you have the other aspect of, okay, now that I have all the documents in place and I'm sitting in Miami, how do if I want to go expand to Tampa, how do I find somebody that's in Tampa? And so Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Rashmi: that is the beauty of the work that we do is like being able to sort of start to expand into our network. We we have franchise conferences in all sorts of various cities where people will come to. and so there's other ways of of reaching out to people Oleksij Rak: When exploring some online tools, online services, I was trying to search for some marketplaces or franchises and to explore at all which franchise to choose. But in the end, it feels like I'm being a product of a funnel rather than a customer of these tools. I got this perception. it's like... All the online tool set in the franchise industry screams like the beginning of 2000s with that level of service. It does not really feel like some service, some modern current service. And I'm feeling like I'm being a product of this funnel. So I coming over there and they ask me immediately for some information. You want some information about franchise? Leave your contact information. You want some FDD? Leave your contact information and they will sell you to the franchise. So all of this online tool set, like this franchise gate and all of the tools, all like that. What do you think? Rashmi: I understand the question because I I think when somebody is approached, let's say, by a consultant to look and see if they are interested, hopefully the person that's approaching them is coming from a place of wanting to add value and wanting to help. If there's somebody that's being really salesy, then that's not gonna ever work. It doesn't work in any business. So I'm not exactly sure, like if you've had a different experience. It shouldn't be that way. I you know, what should happen is if you're interested in pursuing some level of franchising, that's usually the space where I would walk in. I would come in. it's funny because I've had people reach out to me on LinkedIn. saying, do you want to be a franchisee? You know, you still you look like to be a great entrepreneur. It's funny because they clearly have not looked at my LinkedIn to see that I'm a franchise consultant already. you know, and it's it's just comical to me. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I see. I was rather asking about the online tools, not about working with directly with Rashmi: online tools. Oleksij Rak: online tools, no, not about working directly with consultants, but like just exploring online. That's what a lot of people are probably... Rashmi: I don't even know there were online tools, if I'm being honest. So I clearly don't know. So which online tools is it online tools to find the right franchise cons business? Oleksij Rak: Yep. Rashmi: Yeah, I don't know what those are. Now I have to go look. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, sure. What is the most like asking about franchise consultant? What are the biggest like challenges for franchise consultants or being franchise consultant? What? Rashmi: I I you know, I think the biggest challenge for any business person is finding somebody that's interested in in what you have to do in your product. So as a franchise consultant, it's finding somebody who is looking to be a franchisee, right? So so Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Rashmi: targeting people, whether it's on LinkedIn or at a conference or friends, you know, and and then having a real conversation with them. That's the hardest part is to start is just open the door. to to see if somebody is ready to leave their corporate job to become an entrepreneur. That's the hardest thing, I think. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, finding customers. What was most consuming part of being a finding customers? Rashmi: Also that. You know, I I well, yeah, that's definitely the most labor like time consuming part. I mean, of course, once you f once you identify somebody that's interested, Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Rashmi: then the process of getting to know them, it takes a lot of time, but that's the enjoyable stuff because you're actually then really fine-tuning and and want you know, it's like it's like you wanna help somebody. You wanna help them get the right, like the find the right fit. That's the best part. Oleksij Rak: Okay, with regards to like modern age of AI and all these AI tools, are any of these tools useful for like choosing the right franchise? And doing the analysis of these documents or choosing the right franchise for you? Is there any penetration of AI tools into the franchise industry nowadays? Rashmi: So you know, my my take on AI is that AI definitely helps us be more productive. It makes us more efficient. It helps us Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. Rashmi: find patterns. So, you know, I have, let's say, if I record a a conversation with a potential client who's interested, I have uploaded that that transcript into like Claude, let's say, and then Oleksij Rak: So, yeah. Rashmi: ha ask Claude to identify any patterns, any any sort of industries that he that AI can identify within the conversation that this person or this potential entrepreneur or franchisee would be good for. So it it does help because AI, I think, is able to see, have pattern recognition that we always can't we can't always see. And that's I think very helpful. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, awesome. Well, I'm a bit out of question. Rashmi: huh. Oleksij Rak: Thanks a lot for interesting discussion. Before we wrap it up, there anything else you would like to add on top of it? Rashmi: You know, I think what's what's really fascinating, and you know, I don't know who who listens to your podcast, if it's like, but I know you said business people, people interested in franchising. I think it's I have a I have I come from a very different perspective as a former lawyer and banker, then franchise consultant, and somebody who's now a key enough speaker. My perspective on the franchise world, because I'm a serial entrepreneur, is very unique and different. and so, you know, if any of your listeners are out there and are looking either for a franchise or keynote speaker or consultant in leadership or franchising space. I have a lot of knowledge. I've been doing this for thirty something years. I'm happy to help. Oleksij Rak: Wow. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks a lot, Rashmi, for the discussion Rashmi: Yeah. Oleksij Rak: and best of luck to you. Rashmi: Good, thanks.