Latest / Reframe First / Greg Mohr, Franchise Consultant & WSJ Bestselling Author | Franchise Buyers Want Time, Not Money
Transcript
- Oleksij Rak: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Reframe First. I'm Alexey and let me welcome for today's guest, Greg Moore, franchise management, franchise consultant, and working right now with the Perfect Franchise. And Greg, hi Greg, great having you here. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Well Asking, thank you very much for having me today, sir. It's an honor. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot for joining. So from what I learned, you've been in the industry for a long time. So you're not the kind of person who is retiring, decided to become a consultant. So you are with the industry for a really long time. Could you tell us about your path in the industry, what you do? And we will start from. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Well, let's see what I do is people come to me when they want to get into the world of franchising. They want to own their own business and they don't know where to start. There's so many different options out there, probably about 4,000 or so franchises out there in the US, and it's hard to pick and choose which one are gonna know where to start or how to investigate them. And that's where as a franchise consultant I come in. My services are free to my clients. The franchise owners pay us a referral fee for it. So people come to me. They they don't know what they want. They do know what they don't want usually. So I can ask them, you know, what do you want what industry do you want to stay away from? They'll tell me that. But they don't always know what they want. And getting to know my people, where have they been? Where are they at now? Where do they want to be five to ten years from now? Then I can come up with five or ten different options where franchise owers are looking for people like them. They're looking to grow into that market. And my clients are looking for these types of franchisers, these types of things that they're looking for. And I have a whole list of questions, Olesky, that I take people through. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Awesome. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: So I can start narrowing down the different opportunities that would be a good fit for their lifestyle and where they what they want to grow into. Oleksij Rak: This is something new. So you mentioned like people come to you and they know what they don't want. So what don't they usually want? So what is that? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Amazingly enough, they don't want fast food. I get a lot of people that say they just don't want fast food. Because I Lesky, I think that there's a con basic concept out there when people are driving by all the brick and mortar type franchises out there that they see a lot of fast food and a lot of the fast foods are are franchises. So they're thinking that, you know, that's the major thing is that I have to spend a million dollars like a McDonald's and then I have to do it full time, it's fast food, I don't want to work with that sort of thing. And that's just not the case. There's many different franchises in many different industries. Just about any industry you can think of, Waleski, there's a franchise in it. And they don't have to be full-time. They can be part-time, semi-absentee. they can do service industry instead of brick and mortar, so a lot less of an investment. still great money in those. It doesn't matter what you get into brick and mortar or the service industry. You can make pretty much the same amount of money. It just depends on the industry that you're looking at. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that makes sense. And what questions do you ask them? about how do you decide which industry is right for Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: What I do is I take a look at where they've been. So what is their skill set? That the what are the skill sets do they have? What have they done in the past? And what skill set do they enjoy using on a regular basis? So if they've been a salesperson in the past and really enjoy sales, well, there's lots of different types of franchises that require a great amount of sales. If they have not done sales before, they've managed people, they've managed a business within a business, so they're used to managing people and working with others, then And they don't want to necessarily do hard sales. And there's many different franchises that are that drive people to you, your drive people, clients, your clients, to the franchisee. And then what you do as a franchisee, especially in the service industry, is you just go out and you talk to people, work with people. What's the problem that you have? Here's how I'm gonna solve it. So those those sort of things are not hard sales. They're for people who like working with other people. And then of course, if you just want to build an asset, which you should and not treat it Oleksij Rak: you Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: like a job. then you what you really want to do is you really want to hire a manager as soon as possible and have the manager do it for you. So your skill set is working with teams, motivating teams, building people up. So building up your manager, building up your teams, driving people in the right direction. And it just well really comes down to is when I ask people is, you know, do they are they more comfortable with a brick and mortar, a building type thing? Or are you okay with like a service industry where you have a small office? what are your hobbies? What are your interests? What you like doing? Do you just want to spend more time with the family? So you don't necessarily want to do it full time, or do you really enjoy getting into a business and working it full time and working with people on a regular basis? all those different things that that, you know, my whole list of questions I Oleksij Rak: All Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: ask, whole bunch of questions that I ask really helps narrow down and it really helps me get to know them. You know, do you have a wife? Do you have kids? Are the kids busy with sports? Are they after school things? So then I know that you're gonna need a whole lot of schedule flexibility. in there. So you don't necessarily want to be tied down working full time in like a brick and mortar place where you have to be in that in that in that building, you know, eight eight hours a day. And then what other things are you looking at? Do you want weekends off? Do you want nights off? do you prefer nights? Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Do you prefer weekends? And what days off? all those little things kind of add up. And then based on all that, then that really helps me narrow down the list of possibilities. Oleksij Rak: It started with asking them what they want to do and what their preferences are, but in the end it got down to some demographics. The age, do they have kids, do they have a partner in life? How does demographics, or maybe even psychographics, if there is a word for that, how does it affect the choice of franchise? It probably does, and does a lot. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: It it does all escape. You've got it's gotta be a good cultural fit. So when I do the matchup, that's a challenging part. When I come in and I do the matchup is making sure that it's a good, not only monetary fit, but a good cultural fit as well. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: As far as demographics go, that's where the franchise or comes in. So once I've got all my information from my candidates, then I go back to the franchise or say, this is where my candidate lives. what do the demographics look like in his area? Is can you this franchise work in this area with this demographics? And what the franchise is gonna do is w they'll come back to me and say, Yes, we don't have anybody in that territory. They have territories defined by by demographics. So if you're in the service industry, for instance, they they'll be looking for household incomes of a hundred thousand or more, so you have the disposable income depending on the franchise. Oleksij Rak: Yep. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: And then they're gonna go for a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand homes or businesses, depending on the franchise, in their not a hundred thousand businesses, but a hundred thousand homes or two hundred thousand homes, if it's a a business to consumer type franchise, that's going to be what they call their territory. So they're going to look at the demographics and they're going to tell me this works. Or no, this doesn't work. And in this area you don't have the right demographics. So when I come back to my my candidates, then I know that these franchises, they've already checked out territory, told me it's a good territory. Don't have anybody in Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: there. So I know that is a franchise that will fit and yeah, psychographics will culture and That's a big thing in part of what I do for the matchup. Kind of like match dot com and realtor dot com all rolled into one on that. so that's a lot of different things I and that's a challenging part. A lot of different little different things I have to take a look at. Oleksij Rak: Can you tell from experience if like this person, you you met a new client who is really, really, really similar to the other guy and the other guy succeeded in some industry. From your experience, does it mean that the new guy will also succeed or is it not related? Like, you know, the profile of the candidate. So can you say that similar kind of profile will be successful in the same, in similar segment of franchising industry or is it not the case? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Somewhat Elisky, somewhat on that. basically what we're looking for is the profile that makes a successful franchisee is someone who one has got to be a little bit risk averse. It is a business or risk tolerant, excuse me, risk averse, risk tolerant. They have to be a little risk tolerant because it is a business, so there is a small amount of risk that's involved. You get involved in the franchise, that reduces that risk down even Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: more. So you have to have some risk tolerance. You have to be a self starter. Your franchise is not going to call you up in the morning and say, hey, Greg, it's time to get up and start working your franchise. That's up to you to get out there and do it. It is your business to do it. You have to be able to be mentored. You have to be able to follow systems and processes. And that that's if you've got all those down, that's pretty much a good profile for someone who will make a good franchisee. for the ones that don't make good franchisees or those that are looking at the franchise, if I start showing them franchises and they think of different ways to do it better. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: then they're probably not going to make a good franchisee. They're more of a complete entrepreneur where go out and start your own business, we'll turn it into a franchise. But if you're looking at that thinking all the different things that you could do to make it better, then you're probably not a good franchisee. You're more of the the person that's going to create that franchise and create that business and turn it into a franchise. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah. How prepared do the franchises come nowadays? Do your clients come nowadays? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: So again, I'm sorry. Oleksij Rak: How prepared do your clients come nowadays? With current tools, AI tools, they can do their kind of research and come somewhat prepared. I know from other industry, travel industry, when people come over to book something, they already know what they want to How does it work in your industry? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: I find the ones that that are best prepared listen to podcasts like yours, Holesky, where they've people have talked about franchising before, so they've got a general idea. If they've if they've listened to a podcast like yours or a couple of different podcasts on franchising, they come a lot more prepared because they have a little bit more understanding. AI can give you some information, but not not as detailed or can't prepare you as much as if you listen to some of these podcasts. And I would say that Taking the time out of your day to listen to podcasts or read some books on franchising. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: or entrepreneurship in general, actually, just entrepreneurship in general would be even better. I've had quite a few people do that. They're the ones that come most prepared and got a pretty good understanding of what's involved. So they kind of know what they're what they're getting themselves into, so to speak, or what they will be. As opposed to some people who come to me and they don't know anything, they're just thinking, franchise sounds cool. fear steps in right away when when they haven't been prepared themselves or read any books or listened to any podcasts, the the fear of doing something new and different, something they've never done before, really sets in it and it's how they manage the fear that makes a big Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: makes a really big difference on that. Because if they let fear take over, they haven't prepared themselves for it, then they're less likely to move forward. Now I try and help them with that and help them get them over their fears, but the more prepared you are, the more books you read, the more podcasts you listen to, then you start the fear starts going away. So you start getting a good realization of of what's involved, what your role as a franchisee gonna be. And then they think, Okay, that, you know, now I've learned a little bit about something. Now I know what my role can be. I can picture myself doing that now. A little less fear that way. Best to be good and prepared. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. But did it change over the last couple of years? Like, since you're for many years in the industry, the profile of your... clients that come to you nowadays is a difference than it was before or is it the same more or less. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Different, Oleski, definitely different. So my profile before was predominantly male. When I first started 14 years ago, predominantly Oleksij Rak: Okay. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: male, between about forty-five and sixty-five years old. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Generally, you know, they've been manager, director, vice president. Here lately, the demographics have been shifting down and down. So I've gotten them 35, 35 to 55 is now. about where we're at, fifty fifty male, female. And I've gotten a couple of people that are like twenty five years old. So they're looking at the corporal world and they're thinking, really earlier on, this is not the path I wanna go on. This is not the path that's gonna take me to where I wanna be. So they're realizing that now at a earlier age. So yeah, demographics have changed quite a bit. Fifty, fifty, male, female, thir thirty five to fifty five, and some as low as as twenty five. Oleksij Rak: Do you think it's a shift of generations with younger generation just willing to have more freedom and independence? Is it some cultural shift? What's the cause of that? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: I believe that it's probably they're looking at their parents and they see their parents working till, you know, retirement age, sixty five, sixty seven, seventy, and they don't have a whole lot of time to do the things that they want to do when they want to do it and the money to do it. And they're thinking that that is not the lifestyle I want for myself. I want more time. I want to spend more time with my kids. My parents didn't necessarily spend as much time as they could have with us because they had to work all the time so they couldn't show up for all our events. I don't want that for my kids. I want to be there for them. Every step of the way. Whenever something's happening with them, an event that's happening at school, I want to be there. So that's what a lot of my people are not necessarily just after money. They're more after time freedom. And quite Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: often, in addition to that time freedom, they also want something that sometimes it gives back to the community, somewhere where they can help their community out. So they're a little bit more family-minded and a little bit more community-minded, and not necessarily just after a a good money making franchise. Although I still get quite a few people that make my life real easy. They just said just I don't care what I do, just bring me the one that makes the most money. and and I'll take that one. So we I still get a few like that, but most of them are community minded and family minded. Oleksij Rak: Which franchise makes the most money? has the best return on investment? Okay, I got 100 % of my time. I'm ready to commit my time. Which is the best franchise, do you think? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: You know, essential services are what you're looking for there. You're look Oleksij Rak: services. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: you're looking for something where the most people can use it. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: so if you're looking at something like, you know, HVAC, heating, air conditioning systems, you know, practically everybody has that. Practically everybody has that and it's gotta be fixed at some point in time, it's gotta be maintained. That's an essential service, it's not gonna go away. And you got the most amount of people. Plumbing, everybody needs plumbing eventually. electrical services as a good one, restoration services. getting away from the home services like that, then what you're gonna be looking at is senior care. We're all getting a little bit older. We want to stay at home a while longer. So you send caregivers into mom and dad's home to keep them there a little while longer. Senior care has been really big for me. I put quite a few people into senior care. And then tutoring. Tutoring is a wonderful one as well. Parents are always going to spend money on their kids. They love their kids and those for those people who don't have kids, their kids are pets. So the pet industry is also just a huge Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: It's people are spending more money on their their pets and they don't necessarily have kids, they have pets instead. So Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: they they do that. So pets, senior care kids, and essential home services or business services is the same way as well. The H V C plumbing electrical and all that can be you can be business to consumer or business to business. Oleksij Rak: Why do you need to go into franchising if I am a good plumber or electrician? So why can't I post my ads somewhere and just provide my services? How will franchising help me? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: So there's two aspects to the plumbing business there. There's one, there's doing the actual work itself. So Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: you usually have a licensed plumber that's gonna work for you. So the licensed plumber, what they like to do is they like to fix plumbing. What they don't necessarily like like to do is talk to people, generate business. So you as the as the manager of that business, as the owner of that business, You're not doing the plumbing because you're not a licensed plumber. So you can't touch that. You can never work in the business. You only work on it. So what the plumber does is I just want to be kept busy. I want to get a regular paycheck. As a franchise owner, you supply that for them. So they never have to, you know, pick up the phone and talk to somebody who's got a problem. All they do is just get up in the morning, check their schedule, and they've got to be at this location at this point in time and fix that plumbing. That's what they do. That's what they do best. That's what they enjoy. They let the franchise owner Go out there and talk to the people, pick up the phone, call generate business, works out great. Oleksij Rak: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Absolutely. And yeah, and then as a franchise owner, you can just scale your business by... hiring more plumbers. Awesome. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: You got it, Husky. You got it. Oleksij Rak: That makes sense. So that should become a franchise. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: You sure, yes. Especially plumbing. Plumbing or H B C, yeah, those are great ones. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. You mentioned education and I learned that you have written quite a successful book. Could you tell a few words about the book, what it's about? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: my book, yeah. My book is my book is Real Freedom, Why Franchises Are Worth Considering and How They Can Be Used for Building Wealth. The only Wall Street Journal book, only about franchising out there today, Wall Street Journal Bestseller was just amazing that it made it to that list. This is going to walk you through step by step how to investigate franchises. I always tell people by the time you're through with me or by the time if you're through with my book, you will know how to investigate every franchise in the US. And that's got some real world examples of people that I worked with. So it's going to take you step by step Oleksij Rak: you Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: what to look for, what red flags to check out, what things to be careful of, franchise attorneys, funding people, CPAs, everything you need to know in a step-by-step process of what I will take you through and what I've taken other people through. And I show you those examples of how I've taken other people through that. It's a good way to get started, a good way to get prepped for getting a little bit of understanding of what it means to be a franchisee. And the very last chapter, chapter ten, is about turning your business into a franchise if you decide to go that route. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah. Awesome. We will put the link in the description of the video, quite likely. Great. With regards to franchises, what are the most common problems of the franchisees when they step into the business? And especially since they run a software company, what can be automated? How could software help franchisees to... Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Generating leads. That's the biggest thing that people need to do. And that's what you're looking for a franchise or to help you out with is generating the business. Especially when you have a service industry. For a brick and mortar, it software can help out a little bit by targeting people and running ads and letting people know where you're at. a lot of people will drive by and that's why the brick and mortars have to be put into like an A plus real estate location, prime real estate, so people drive by and see you. Software can help with that as well. letting people know that hey, there's a special going on over at O Olesky's plumbing supply shop, you know, stop by there. For service industry it's really important for the software systems because what the service industry does and what the franchisers do is that as a service industry franchisee, your clients don't necessarily know you exist until they need you. So we that's what you need a good software system for, good franchisers for to drive people to you when that need arises. So software is a central point in detecting who is l out there searching for, you know, my my toilet just backed up. Who do I call? So they're gonna go out there and start searching. So software system that can tag those people and send it out an ad say, call Olesky. He's got the best plumbing service in the business. He'll be out there on time or he's gonna take money off your bill if he's there, you know, one minute late, he'll take so much off your bill. Ten minutes late, he'll be so much off your bill. Things like that. where that's where a good software system comes in. Oleksij Rak: So yeah, it's sales marketing software that helps you get promoted to somewhere. Okay, okay, got it. With regards to this huge document, FDD, what do you need to pay attention to as a franchisee and what do you as a consultant help me with? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Well, if you ask my my couple of franchise attorneys that I work with, what should you pay attention to in the F D D the franchise disclosure documents are gonna tell you every single thing you need to pay attention to. Yes. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, read the whole doc in Vodka. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: So there's a few key few key things you wanna you wanna take a look at there. you wanna take a look at litigation. Up there, it's gonna be up near the top of that. what kind of litigation do they have? Hopefully none, but when you get more and more franchisees, you you will tend to get some litigation in there. But How did they how do they resolve it, the issue? do you see the same thing happening over and over again? Maybe a red flag. If you see too much litigation, red flag on there. bankruptcies. You want to make sure nobody's got any bankruptcies in there. So nobody's nobody screwed up so bad that they had to go bankrupt on there. So look for that. One thing that everybody wants to see, and the whole reason we're getting into the franchising world, is how much can I make? So look at their financial disclosures in there as well. that'll give you a good A good view of what the what the franchise are making. They usually break it down by top quartile, median qu quartile, bottom quartile. So take a look at those. and then the other one is a turnover rate, which is right after the financial disclosures. Item number twenty will give you the number of franchisees that are currently running the business and then the number of franchisees who started the business and are no longer running it. Now there could be a number of reasons why they're no longer Oleksij Rak: Yeah. you Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: running it. Doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad franchise if you see some people that are dropping out. But what you really want to look at there is 85 or 90% or better success rate on there. So it's pretty easy math to do it. You just take the number of people that failed and or dropped out for whatever reasons and then the number they're currently running it, divide them up. But you want to be a a good success rate and then ask, you know, when you're going through there and you're talking to the franchise development people in the franchise or why did these people drop out. And there's various reasons. I mean, they could have turned it over to a a a family member who it wasn't vetted out by the franchise and they ran it and they weren't a good fit for it or somebody had to move out of the area. It didn't it and and so they weren't paying attention to it. But find out for those. So those are probably the four key Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: things is the litigation, the bankruptcies, how much can I make and what's the turnover rate on there? And there's quite a few other good things as well, according Oleksij Rak: Good. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: to my franchise attorney, but those are the four things I say, take a close look at because that will be able to help you determine quickly whether or not you should continue looking at that franchise. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, it makes sense. Can I just give a to these people? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: That's part of the process. Part of the process is that the franchise development people will get you in touch with franchisees. That's an essential part of the due diligence process. It's expected of you to call as many franchisees as possible. Franchise or the franchise development people are usually going to set up those calls or help you set up those calls for you because if you you can just call them out of the blue, but when you talk to the franchisees and you just call them up out of the blue, They don't necessarily know that you're investigating that franchise. You could be a competitor just trying to bring in some business. So that's why it it's good to have the franchise development people in the franchise or set up those meetings for you and then tell them who you want to talk to. I want to talk to people that have been in the business for a long time to find out, you know, is it still you've you've been in there for for a long time, so I guess it's worth it to you. Why do you feel it's still worth it to you? How talk to the people that are making the most money. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: What do you do on a regular basis? Picture yourself doing what those top earners do if you want to be a top earner. If you can, you're on the right track. If you can't, then either hire somebody to do it for you or go to another franchise. And then talk to the people who are first started the business or just starting out. Well, everything that the franchise are told you was it true? Did they follow through with it? How are they helping you get your business up and going? But talk to a wide variety. You know some people only talk to one or two or three. And that's not a Not good. You want to talk to five or ten at least, if not more than that, if you can. And get a really 'cause what you want to do is you want to start hearing the same thing over and over again. good Oleksij Rak: Yeah Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: things over and over again, not bad things. Although I I have found that the franchisees are are very blunt. They're not having a good day, you'll get an airfall on that. But follow through with that one on that and talk to more of them and and you'll get a good view of the of the franchise. The franchisees are very, very nice. They If you're not a good fit, boy, though they'll tell you. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, because they do care about the franchise family Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Yeah. Oleksij Rak: because these are people they work with in different territories, but they still work with on the same problem. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Everybody's trying to build that business up together. The territories that the franchise Oleksij Rak: Thank Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: gives out are all usually all protective territories. So nobody's competing with each other. So everybody's Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: building the business up. So the more people that are doing great in the different areas, the more the whole system itself gets built up and the reputation gets built up. So everybody wants everybody wants their business to continue to get better and and rise up so they all work together for it. Oleksij Rak: Greg, let's say we identified that like plumbing is the best franchise segment for me, but how do you compare like 10 different plumbing franchises with each other and tell me like these two are the best? What do you pay attention to? Because other than going to and chatting with franchisees, what are... Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Going through and checking with franchisees is the absolute best thing to do when you're comparing different different franchises, whether it be different plumbing franchises or Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: just different franchises in general, because you get a real good view of of that, of what's happening out there. What you're looking for is the services that the franchise the franchise or is offering to you. So with a plumbing franchise service industry in general, look for a call center. Are you going to be the one fielding the phone calls or do they have a call center that's going to do that for you? Oleksij Rak: Okay. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Or how far is that call call center going to go when they talk to your people that call in? Are they just scheduling an appointment for you or are they going further deep into it and asking what the problem is and getting a good view of that? Some of the service industry franchises, a lawn care one that we have, for instance, will actually use a mapping software and they'll go in there and they'll map out the that particular house. And they'll get an estimate on the square footage of it. And then what they'll do is they'll give an they'll give a price to the people that have called in as far as okay, you want lawn care done, you've got 300 square feet of lawn, it's gonna cost you this much. This is what we're gonna do for you. You wanna do that, okay? Take your credit card information, everything's paid up, everything's done. You as a franchise franchisee, just send your crew in to get it done. So that's really in-depth on those. And That's what you're looking for and that's what you want to do a comparison of is how much is that franchise or helping you take care of the little stuff on that. So do that comparison and then again, always talk to the franchisees and find out just how well it's working for everybody. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, for sure. Is it part of the FDD document, of the disclosure document? How do I know that this franchise is providing these kinds of services for franchisees? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Some of it will be in the the franchise disclosure document. for the most part, most of it will be in there. but you'll go through and you'll talk to the franchise horse. You might not know all the minute details of what's happening with that one, but when you talk to the franchise horse, they'll give you a breakdown of what they do. So you do have to go in depth a little bit. It's not always something AI can do for you, but so you will have to take the time out to talk to the franchise horse and then again verify. All that information when he talked to the franchisees as well. Oleksij Rak: Does it really help nowadays with reading all these documents, identifying what's good, what's not? Especially what's not common in this kind of segment. Everybody is providing call service support for plumbing franchises. All the plumbing franchises are providing the call center support and this one is not. So it's a kind of anomaly. Is AI... capable to identify this kind of animal it is nowadays. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Somewhat. A I can give you some of the non emotional aspects of the business itself, the the technical things. But what you what you really want to do is when you're talking to the franchise horse, is you really want to get a good feel for the culture and when you talk to the franchisees. That's one thing the AI system can't do for you is is really get in in depth into the culture itself. So that's when you get to know the franchise horse and find out what they're all about and make certain that you like Oleksij Rak: Yeah. you Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: before you get in there, because those are the people you're gonna be working with for the next ten years. you do sign a 10 year contract, you can sell it anytime. that's fine. But you really want to make certain that their culture is a good fit as well. AI will give you the basic or maybe even in-depth non-emotional aspects of the offering that they have. But when you get right down to it and you're gonna be working with these folks, you really wanna get that emotional aspect and the cultural aspect down and make certain that's a good fit as well. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, so, well, I can give you some technical details, but not, yeah, not the emotional part. Yeah, yeah, absolutely makes sense. How do you know which franchises are available in this territory? So I come from my own territory, so probably I want to work here. I want to have my business here, close to where I live. Is there some database for that? Quite likely not. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Nope, no database for territories. That's where we come in as franchise consultants. Is that Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: once we narrow it what's it's we got a lot of work to do in the back. So I after I get Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: through talking with all my people, go through the list, then I have to go with the franchise or so I might go through a few of them saying, Do you have territory available in that area? They've got a mapping software where they map everything out. So they if they already have a franchisee in there, and to all know that. But there's no specific database, you know, like realtor.com. Where you can go and just look all this up and say, is this available in this area? You have to go directly to the franchise order to do it, which is qu a fair amount of work if you're trying to do it by yourself. Because then you have to go to each one and say, Is that territory is the territory available? Then you have to figure Oleksij Rak: Okay. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: out not only is that territory available, but what is your net worth requirement on there? What is your requirement for semi-passive ownership or full-time ownership? So there's a lot of little things that I work in the in the background to do it. And there's yeah, there's no at this point in time there's no real database for territory mapping on that. So just a lot of work. That's what we do. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, it sounds like that because there is a lot of work for consultants. Initially, you need to find those leads. I guess the funnel is not so good. Maybe about 1 % of them could convert. But you need to work with each of them. need to work through these questionnaires and find the right feeds for them. And for each of the feeds, need to read the documents, compare them. call the franchise or to check if the territory is available and so on and so forth. What's the most time consuming or labor consuming in your work? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Going in through and figuring out which franchises that was which group of franchises would be a good fit for them. Usually I spend you know, an hour or two at least with my people talking with them and finding out background information on them, going through their LinkedIn, asking them all the questions. But when it comes down to it, the longest part is after I get through with all that and now I've got to go through their and try and figure out which franchises would be a good fit for them. AI, I really can't do that because I can't really get into the cultural fit as well. I I can send it the technical details and it can give me a list of franchises based on their net worth, based on well just about based on their net worth. That's about it. AI can't do much more than that. I w as consultants, we really have to figure out what's gonna be a good fit for them based on their past experiences. so I don't know if AI would ever well, it might be able to if I p plugged in enough people and I plugged in enough franchises in the background of my people, it might be able to help out a little bit. But the getting that cultural fit in there. The the match dot com part of the part of the process is is what I do is really making a good a good cultural fit for And that takes a while. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, you mean finding the segment, the franchising segment of finding the exact franchises that you recommend. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: The exact franchises. The segments can be Oleksij Rak: Is it? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: somewhat somewhat easy because I can kind of figure out after talking with them which segments will be best based on their based on their input. But after I get down to the industry, then within the industry finding the which franchise that they would fit into best, that's the biggest the biggest challenge that no AI system can do at this time. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, I see. So you like sports, kids like sports, so open the gym. But with gym, it's a different part of the story. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Yeah, what's Jim? What kind of culture they have? What what's what's the background of the people doing it? Is my my person gonna get along with the people that I'm sending them to to talk with? Or are they gonna be able to work together? You know, what's the what is my franchise development person like? What's his personality like or her personality like compared to what my candidate's personality is like? Is it gonna be a good personality fit? You gotta take in all these factors. It it it takes a little while. Oleksij Rak: How do you think the franchising industry could work AI is really changing after a single industry it touches. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Well, if we could we could put in quite a bit into it. If you if we had you gotta train AI, you gotta teach it. Simple as that. So Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: in order to teach it, what you'd have to do is you'd have to give give it the background of a whole bunch of different types of people. And then the franchise systems that they decided they got into, you put all that together so you have a huge database so that the I s AI system could make a fairly accurate recommendation on the type of franchise that person would be interested in. it would just take somebody a lot of time and effort. you know, some of those personality test things that you do out there, like I think I think Oracle or something like that is one of them, or they do like a you do a personality test. If you had a whole bunch of those and the background of the people and then what franchise they decided to get into. That would be a good way to do that. That would take a lot of work. another thing what you want to do is is go through and do have the franchise owers run the give the give each one of their s really successful franchisees the that the put the personality test type things on there. that would probably be the best thing to put into the AAI system so that then it had a database, okay, this is the personality types, the background types of the people that are the most successful in these franchises. Oleksij Rak: Do you Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Yeah. Oleksij Rak: think it will differ between different segments? because it doesn't really matter if you're running a business, it doesn't really matter if you're doing plumbing or electrical works, you because like you have your employees who are doing that and your personality type is kind of entrepreneur. I guess if you take like common Meijer-Briggs index, you know, it will be like all of them quite likely will be similar between the... Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Well, you know, that's a good that's a good point, Oleski, because you know, with that certain personality type, it wouldn't necessarily matter which franchise you got into. It's just a good person it's just a good personality match of Myers Briggs thing for any of these types of franchises. Because he's just a good Oleksij Rak: It's my bit tolerance of working with people. Are you ready to sell or do you want to wait for clients passively like open some retail stores and they can buy. So maybe this kind of stuff. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: I don't know. It's interesting. I I wouldn't mind having something that would make make my life a little bit easier, but if I did then I people could just do it themselves and Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: and not do it. But I don't know. I don't know where it'll go. It'll probably go somewhere with the I system here here soon. But I'm not too sure which direction just yet or how well it's gonna be at picking out a good franchise for you. Oleksij Rak: Nobody knows yet. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Nobody knows, yeah, yeah, you're right. Who knows where it's going? Oleksij Rak: Why do you think there is no marketplace or franchises online? Me and my company have been building all sorts of marketplaces for the last 20 years, probably. I did not find anything online. The whole business is working either via consultants or via... digital agencies like FSOs, franchise sales organizations, stuff like that. If you open some online websites, it's so out of date, I would say. The franchisee is basically a product of a funnel on kind of platforms. They find you as a franchisee, they convert you, they get your contact information, and they basically sell it. It's so out of date. So why do you think there is nothing there? Is there a reason for that? Because the whole industry works in some different shapes and it's common over the internet. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Nobody's taken time to do it yet. It's probably not economically feasible to go that route yet. And nobody's figured out a way to make it economically feasible to run that sort of thing on there. Oleksij Rak: There is a real estate industry. It's not so much different from franchising. It's still like, yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: True. That's a good point. Oleksij Rak: But it's so advanced in terms of technology nowadays. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: You could probably do that easier for resale franchises than you could do for new franchises on there. Because the real estate market's all about reselling a house. So if Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: you wanted to resell a franchise that's already been in there, you could do that probably a little bit easier than you could. But then somebody's gonna have to supply you with that information. It's not information that's just out there. And that's the biggest thing is going is taking the time somebody taking the time out to go to the four thousand franchises that are out there in the US and gather that information and put it all together. And Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: nobody's found a reason to do that yet, I would appear. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, it's dynamic, it changes every year, so we need to resubmit these documents. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: True. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes sense. What, in your opinion, is the biggest misconception or the biggest lie of the industry that exists there? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Yep, the biggest misconception on franchising. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: The biggest thing I get when I go out on other people's podcasts and that people have listened to me, they've said, I didn't realize that there was franchises out there in all the different industries. I thought franchises were just like the brick and mortars, the fast food that you see, they were a million dollars, and you had to work in them full time. They didn't realize the extent of franchising and how in just about every industry out there there's a franchise in it, and that you can get in. Service industry you can get in for, you know, hundred and fifty thousand dollars total investment, give or take. And you can work some of them semi passive on there. So you keep your day job, keep your other business, hire a manager to run it ten to fifteen hours a week, depending on the franchise. they just don't realize the extent of how many different franchises out there. And they don't always know that I exist as a franchise consultant either, which is very interesting. Oleksij Rak: You're quite a famous one. got a book Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: I'd like to think so. Thanks. Oleksij Rak: and... Is it a misconception or is it true that you can run franchise business for 10 hours a Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: I would say just starting up, that would be probably a little bit of challenge. After Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: you built it up, yes. After you built it up you can. Now it's gonna depend on the franchise. I mean, there's some well, we have a a golf franchise, for instance, that's doesn't require any employees. You just send people the code when they want to go in there and they have their own little room and they can practice golf in their own little room as no employees in there. So yeah, ten hours a week is it's pretty simple on those. Oleksij Rak: of an inspirational book. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: It depends, it really depends a lot on the franchise system. Once you get it built up, it's pretty easy to get a get a r running ten, fifteen hours a week. That's why I tell all my people that is their goal is to treat it like an asset and not a job. If you treat it like a job, it will be a job. Always get somebody in there, always to run the business for you. Make certain that business does not revolve around you. It will depend on the franchise when you first start it up, how much work it's gonna be. Some are more than others. on there. So you just when you're going through the system and and you're going through the due diligence process, find out from the people if you want to do it semi-passive, semi-absentee. Talk to all the semi passive owners and see just how semi-passive it was at the beginning. Because Oleksij Rak: you Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: right at first it's going to be a fair amount of work to get things going. probably a little bit easier with some of the brick and mortar places because basically you build it and they will come and you just stick a manager in place. So those Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: are availability service industry. depends on the depends on the franchise in the service industry. There's a little bit more of a challenge to get those built up right away. So a little bit more work up front. just keep the end goal in mind that, you know, your end goal is that now you've got a great asset. Now you can decide whether or not you want to work with the rest of your life. You the end goal is to have more time to do what you want, when you want, and the money to do it, but to get there, you're going to be sacrificing time and money to you can get to that end goal. So if you can get over the fact that you're gonna be putting in a few more hours to begin with for the first year or so, keeping that end goal in mind, you got it made. But yeah, starting starting some of these up, it can be a fair amount of work. Oleksij Rak: Does it make sense to have one franchise or do people usually scale further to multiple units or multiple different franchises? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Most of most of my people that are w that want to run this as an asset, they pick up multiple territories to begin with. They start with one because that way you keep you can get a good manager in there. You can build up the sales quicker when you've got a bigger area. So it's easier to run that as an asset. I always do that. I don't see a whole lot of people picking d multiple different franchises to begin with. Very Oleksij Rak: Okay. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: rarely. I've only seen a couple of people do that. We're the same territory but just two different franchises. It's usually more than one territory. So greater geographical area. Oleksij Rak: Great, the geography also covers the whole city or the whole state with French. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: You can, yes. Oleksij Rak: It's not like this is my neighborhood, all of the restaurants are mine. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Right, all mine. Oleksij Rak: Okay, I see. Awesome, Greg, thanks a lot for interesting discussions. I learned something new today. Before we wrap it up, is there anything else you would like to add on top of it? Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Well, you gotta pay for it. So it's pretty simple to get funding for a franchise. We have funding partners that that's all they do is fund franchises. On there, as long as you got a decent credit score, the franchise orders that I bring to you have a proven track record of success. You got a good credit score, you've got it made. So I've got funding people, I've got CPAs, franchise attorneys, everything that you need in order to make a good decision and to know what you're getting yourself into before you get into it. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. Thanks a lot for the discussion and good luck to you. Greg Mohr Franchise Maven: Thank you for having me, Aleski. I appreciate it.