Kyle Heck - Building a Franchise Ready Home Service Business

Summary

In this conversation, Branden Sewell interviews Kyle Heck, a franchise consultant, about the process of franchising a business. They discuss the importance of building systems and processes in a business to make it less reliant on the owner, the value of buying into a franchise for guidance and support, and the different franchise models available. They also touch on the need for business owners to think beyond the day-to-day operations and consider exit strategies such as selling the business or handing it off to family members.

Keywords

franchising, business systems, exit strategies, franchise models, guidance and support

Takeaways

• Building systems and processes in a business is crucial for its long-term success and to make it less reliant on the owner.
• Buying into a franchise can provide guidance and support to navigate the challenges of running a business.
• There are different franchise models available to accommodate different preferences and skill sets.
• Business owners should think beyond the day-to-day operations and consider exit strategies such as selling the business or handing it off to family members.

Titles

• The Value of Buying into a Franchise
• Exploring Different Franchise Models

Sound Bites

• "Building a business where it's not revolving around you opens up opportunities like franchising or selling your business."
• "Most franchises are not household names. They're often in niches you wouldn't expect."
• "When you turn your business into a franchise, you're running a very different business."

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Background

01:13
The Role of a Franchise Consultant

03:24
Building Systems and Processes for Business Success

05:20
Becoming a Franchisor: Advice and Considerations

08:26
The Value of Buying into a Franchise

09:25
Running a Different Business as a Franchisor

10:10
Technical Difficulties

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Transcript

Kyle Heck (00:02.126)
Okay, so where was I? So really the critical things when let's see where exactly was I so I was talking about the

Branden Sewell (00:11.559)
You're talking about, you're talking about, you know, just in the when you're becoming a franchisor.

Kyle Heck (00:17.197)
We're talking about having systems in place, being in a different business as a franchisor. Yeah. Yeah, now we're not selling burgers, we're selling kitchen. So, all right. So as a franchisor, other aspects that you may need to consider is what can you do for the franchisees to actually take work off of them?

Branden Sewell (00:24.231)
You're now in the business of training others that you're talking about the kitchens metaphor.

Kyle Heck (00:47.214)
A major development we've seen in the last eight years with home service franchises is implementing call centers. So, they'll have a home office that's actually taking inbound calls from people in all the active markets and putting appointments on the owner's calendar or the salesperson's calendar. So, they don't have to be there to pick up the phone at every given moment and even doing outbound leads. And...

And incorporated with that is a lot of the marketing. Now you do expect when you're a part of a franchise brand to get some marketing assistance, and you absolutely do. And a major advantage when you're helping get someone going is all of the pictures that you've taken of projects, all the work you've done, they can benefit from that when they're getting started, even though they haven't had any projects to show off at that point. They're showing off the brand.

that they are now a part of. And so that's another major advantage that you're able to provide as a franchisor.

Branden Sewell (01:52.455)
Yeah. A thought that I have when you know the whole franchising thing in general is I think as a franchisor, you have to focus on bringing tremendous value to your franchisees. And because that royalty that you're going to charge for that person to join in and

Kyle Heck (02:09.325)
Thank you.

Branden Sewell (02:22.471)
get access to everything that you have to offer, it better be valuable and worth their investment. Because if you have somebody who is a skilled individual who has the ability, right, to, if they wanted to, right, you mentioned that they're basically buying into short -cutting that three to five years that can be very challenging for a business owner to overcome.

Kyle Heck (02:29.132)
Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Kyle Heck (02:38.891)
We'll see you next time.

Mm hmm.

Branden Sewell (02:52.839)
So if they feel like you're a disservice to them as the franchisor, you're not really alleviating their pain, they might as well just go start something themselves, save themselves that, you know, let's say six to 10 % royalty or fee and just do it themselves, right? And...

Kyle Heck (03:15.242)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (03:22.567)
So I think that just to add on to what you're saying, that's why it's so important that you build value in your business through your systems, your processes, make things as streamlined and efficient as possible. Make sure you do have a great brand, great messaging. Make sure you have, you know,

Kyle Heck (03:43.85)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (03:48.775)
all of that stuff already figured out because what you don't want to do is create this franchise where it's like you're not solving those points, those pain points for these franchisees. So I think that's a good way to look at preparing yourself if franchising is like a direction you want to go. You want to

Kyle Heck (04:14.154)
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And one of the one thing to keep in mind is build a system.

Branden Sewell (04:18.567)
think to yourself, man, how do I make this as like plug and play as possible, take away all of the like guesswork and you know, there's those difficulties of building and growing a business.

Kyle Heck (04:43.241)
from the start that's intended to be transferred to someone else, something that is teachable. And so you are collecting royalties on the long term. And so you should be able to quantify the value that you're providing for franchisees because everything that you are doing for them and on their behalf, things like the sales center or product development and marketing.

Those are things that they could have either spend the time and money in house or hire third parties to do it for them. So you at least make sure that what you're able to provide is saving money versus what they're hiring a third party person to do by doing it in house. And as you said, if you're not providing that kind of support,

then the people that are looking at buying your franchise are also going to speak with your current franchisees. And nobody's more honest than honestly a franchisee about the system that they're in. If it's great, they're getting tons of support, they will want to let everybody know. And if they're struggling and they're not getting what they were promised, they're going to want to let everybody know. So it is a lot of responsibility that you take on as a franchisor. But...

Having that in mind as you systematize your own business and thinking of how would I teach this to somebody else that isn't me, that doesn't share my common sense, that's the attitude that you need to have as you work on your business and develop it in that direction.

Branden Sewell (06:19.463)
Yeah. And so I think that looks like just systematizing every aspect of your business. You know, just you kind of just got to walk through your entire business and what it takes for it to run day to day and think, how do I systematize this and make it teachable? You know, so you think of, you know, just from the start, like, how do you even, you know, introduce a new business to a new market?

you know, what is the system and process for that and how is it laid out? You know, you have to go and file with your city, your state, your county, you have to get licensing, you have to get insurance, you have to do all of these different things just to have a business entity that can legally operate in a particular market. So like you got to have a system and process for that. And now it's like, okay, well, how do we bring this product and service?

to the market, how are we going to, what's going to be our system and process for marketing? What's our approach? How are we going to get this out there? Who's going to do it? How are they going to do it? What's the budget for it? You know, all of those different things. You know, you think about your vehicles, your equipment. It's just a long list, right, of everything that has to be done and...

Kyle Heck (07:36.933)
Thank you.

Kyle Heck (07:44.904)
And for capital expenditures like that, yeah, it can be a tremendous benefit then to have negotiations done ahead of time. So as your franchise grows, you're going to be buying in larger and larger bulk. So if you already have contracts with whoever they're going to buy the vehicles through or whatever equipment is required and even

Branden Sewell (07:47.303)
so I think if you can.

Kyle Heck (08:08.964)
maybe even have some in inventory if it's long leads so that you can help people get their business open that much faster, that's a lot of value that you're providing. So, and like you said, the insurance, that can be huge and the markets or requirements are different in every state, but having a guide to show you these are the kinds of things that you need to be looking at. And then having people that are going to help you make the right contacts.

But if you can provide them like a group business insurance for everybody that's in the franchise, that's another benefit that they can all enjoy. And then another aspect of just having so many more businesses open under the same umbrella that are all pulling in the same direction. They're working on the same business together. That means you can even experiment with different things in different markets.

And so you can figure out what works and what doesn't work. And so rather than having 10 ideas you have to try out, if you have 10 franchisees and each try one idea, then you keep the ones that work and spread that around the system. The ones that don't work, nobody has to waste their time on it. The tremendous leverage.

Branden Sewell (09:22.567)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's so good. I mean, it's funny, I didn't really think about how much leverage you could create, you know, just even with your vendors and suppliers and things like that by saying like, Hey, we have this mass amount of business that we're going to bring you. So that's really good. So I think that.

Kyle Heck (09:41.506)
and I think that's a great way to start a conversation. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a summary of what we've been doing. So, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of

Branden Sewell (09:47.143)
You know, just again, emphasizing go through your entire business and just don't don't leave any stone unturned. Just really, I mean, I've been doing that since I started. I try to create like documentation from just every area of my business on how it operates and how we do things. And I mean, it's it's not perfect, but it's a start and like just get started. Start doing those things and.

You know, it's going to grow and develop over time, but, you know, the possibilities begin to open up, I think, when you start to do the things that we're talking about. You know, systematize, operationalize your business, document everything, document all of your systems and processes, try and make it simple and teachable.

Kyle Heck (10:30.528)
Which even if you don't franchise, it's going to, yeah, even if you don't franchise, doing those activities is going to make your business function that much better.

Branden Sewell (10:45.287)
Right. Yeah. And if you're going to get off the ladder, you have to do those things like just to operate efficiently to be able to not lose your mind as a business owner. Right. Like I think scaling and scalability happens in those in systems. Right. When systems are in place, scaling becomes easier.

and more efficient, right? And I think you can do it at larger scale, the more, you know, systematized you are, and, you know, the better you're operating, you can really take on growth. Because if you take on growth, and you're just, you know, fragmented and all over the place, it's just like, you're opening up a door to chaos. And,

Kyle Heck (11:33.599)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (11:45.383)
So that's why it's so important. And you know, the other thing that I would say is you don't have to do it all yourself as the business owner. Like you might be listening to this and thinking like, wow, I don't, I'm not good at creating those like vendor relationships. I'm not good at, you know, these administrative things. I'm not good at,

You know, I wouldn't be good at setting up a call center or training CSRs. I wouldn't that that wouldn't be my strength. And so I think some people might think like, well, that sounds too hard for me to do, so I can't do it. But, you know, what I've experienced as a business owner is there's a lot of stuff that I delegate out to get done for the benefit of my business and making it, you know, cleaner and more efficient, if that makes sense. So.

Kyle Heck (12:37.689)
Yeah, well, you know, a lot of, yeah, a lot of people that can give you support, you know, third party and development and like, it's a call center being a good example. If they know that you're on the path to becoming a franchise, well, then they're pretty eager to work with you and develop in the things that you're going to need for that system because.

Branden Sewell (12:42.215)
Don't try to do it yourself.

Kyle Heck (13:02.556)
this one client that you are could potentially go on to become five clients, become 10 clients, become 50 clients. If they are embedded into your system from the beginning, that's then just going to be multiplied.

Branden Sewell (13:16.423)
Yeah. Let me ask you this. I want to ask two questions. I'll start with this one. Are there particular personalities or, you know, business leaders that are best suited that you found for the franchising model? And are there some that you would be able to like ask some pretty simple question, be like, yeah.

Franchising would probably not be your thing if there is any insight into that Could you share that?

Kyle Heck (13:49.751)
Certainly, so if you have a passion for mentoring other leaders, that really tends to go along well with people that become very good franchise owners because that is a major part of what that role is. And a lot of people do that naturally. Maybe they do that in their church or they do that in their communities and they don't think of that being a function of a franchise, but that's exactly what

a franchise or especially getting started has to focus on. Now, if you are an extremely hands -on, you know, you've got to have everything under your own control. It could be very much the opposite because you are helping somebody else build their business with your system, but they are not going to be you. So if they do something maybe that you're not expecting or isn't what you had instructed them to do either,

there's a gap in the system that you didn't realize you have to go change. Or they're not following the system because you found somebody else that needs to be really hands -on and do it their own way. So it's very important to understand how to take that sort of leadership mentoring role with franchisees because you are helping them to build their business.

Yes, it's your brand, but it's their business and it's their passion and they've come to you to give them that kind of guidance. So expect that that is going to be really your primary role.

Branden Sewell (15:25.511)
Now, what would you say to the person who is like, because you kind of mentioned like, it's your brand, but it's their business. What do you say to the person who is like, I could never franchise because I've worked so hard to build this brand and there's like this fear of letting somebody else.

Kyle Heck (15:33.785)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (15:52.615)
you know, use that brand and potentially tarnishing the reputation or the image of the brand. What would your advice be towards that?

Kyle Heck (16:00.824)
That's a very common, very normal concern to have. And something to put your mind at ease at least is that you are the one selecting your franchisees. You don't have somebody that's going to the business store, picking your franchise off the shelf and taking it to checkout, right? You are interviewing every potential franchisee to make sure that they're going to be a match. So it's not just going to be some random yahoos that are coming into your company that are going to mess things up.

Branden Sewell (16:19.111)
Hahaha.

Kyle Heck (16:30.231)
You can be extremely selective. You can just limit it to just a handful of franchisees ever if that's the way that you want to do it. But the franchise agreements, they are always written in a way that it's very one sided towards the franchisor. And so that's protecting the brand. And it's not just protecting the franchisor. It's protecting all of the other franchisees that are in the system. So if you have, you know, you know,

Branden Sewell (16:38.791)
Mm -hmm.

Kyle Heck (17:00.022)
use an older example like where Chipotle, what was it, maybe 15 years ago and they had just some locations in Boston where they weren't following the proper food safety guidelines and they had some issues. Chipotle as a system has never recovered from that. Really, I mean they were so much bigger and then they just had a huge drop off that they never quite bounced back from. And so that's a great illustration of

how you do need to make sure that it's in those documents and you have the quality control in place to know that they're going to do the things that are critical to the business the right way. Now, if there are some things that have some flexibility and marketing strategies or maybe certain product offerings or features that it's good to let them have a little flexibility and freedom because when they discover something that works,

Branden Sewell (17:39.111)
Yeah.

Kyle Heck (17:52.725)
then they bring it back to the franchise and then everybody's going to benefit. And hopefully you have a franchise system full of people that are able to proactively share those kinds of developments that have been very positive to their business. Because, you know, whatever your business model is today in 10 years, it's going to be very different whether you're franchising or not because the world is rapidly changing. So it's extremely important to rely on them to be testing things.

And if somebody has a good idea or if you put your faith in them, give them a little bit of leeway. So there's definitely a balance. And you're ultimately going to have control over the key aspects of the business. You're going to want to protect the brand for everybody that's involved. But at the same time, give them the flexibility to try some things safely that could be a benefit for everybody.

Branden Sewell (18:48.295)
That's good. So another question that I'm going to have before I get to the next topic is what kind of support does the franchise consulting company, a franchise consultant like yourself, bring towards making sure all of those different things are covered? Do you guys even, because obviously different markets can be very nuanced on like,

Kyle Heck (19:02.312)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (19:17.991)
what they require for a particular industry. For example, here in Florida, I think now it might be like two or three counties in Florida require a painting license and then there's all the other ones only require you to have an occupational license. Does the franchise consulting company help to find out or do the research?

Kyle Heck (19:25.779)
So, I'm going to go ahead and start with you, and then we'll go ahead and get to the next question.

Branden Sewell (19:45.351)
to find out what the different requirements are in different markets and making sure the companies are staying compliant according to different laws and state regulations and things like that.

Kyle Heck (19:56.467)
Well, we are going to put in place the systems that you will need to make sure that you're helping franchisees and other markets get everything set up properly. And so the franchise attorneys that we work with, they have been through basically every type of industry that's creating a franchise. So they have their own checklist to make sure that everything is covered.

They're not going to know where you're going to sell your franchises. So they can't go address every single county in the country or in the state right up front, but they're going to make sure that you have everything that's in place as part of your system to evaluate that for franchisees that are coming into the system. So another good example is like the senior home care industry. Some states have a cap on the number of licenses that are even available. So.

They're going to make sure that if you're in that kind of a space, you are looking at those states to say, you know, which ones are we going to be able to go into, which ones are going to be much more of a challenge. And so that the franchisor doesn't spend their time with somebody not realizing that there's restrictions to somebody moving into the state. I had somebody that was trying to buy a moving company in Illinois a number of years ago.

turns out there is a cap on the number of moving companies, nice little cartel, but they say unless they can demonstrate a need, you can't open a new moving company. And unfortunately, they'd spent several weeks going through that process. So that was just, that was a little bit of early learning in my franchising career actually, but what we do, and there was this void, I would say around 2018 when we started focusing on the franchise creation is,

Branden Sewell (21:26.759)
Wow.

Kyle Heck (21:46.192)
The whole point of a franchise is that you're buying a proven system, but nobody had really systematized the process of becoming a franchise. And so that's why we wanted to put together all of those elements to make sure that you've got the right type of legal documents in place. You've got the right operations manuals, everything documented. You've got the right training manuals and make sure that those are available to everybody at every level. So there's going to be different training for the franchisee.

Branden Sewell (21:51.175)
Mm -hmm.

Kyle Heck (22:14.032)
There'll be different training for the managers. There are going to be different training for every individual laborer that's within the company. And so making sure that those are, you know, ideally online and accessible to everybody that needs all of those. And then we work on the marketing side of really, that's the hardest part getting out the gate with a new franchise is how do you get in front of the right people? So making sure that you understand.

Branden Sewell (22:40.999)
Mm -hmm.

Kyle Heck (22:43.151)
What is that role of the owner that you're seeking to fill? Do you want to build a system that's reliant on somebody with a lot of financial experience? Or do you want to build one that's reliant on somebody with a lot of direct sales experience or operations experience? And make sure that you've built that profile and clearly delineate where the responsibilities are going to be. Because there's some things that you are.

you're giving to the franchisee saying, you execute this, and then there's other types of support that you're taking on yourself. And you don't want to have too much overlap to where you become inefficient. So that's really critical. And then we have over 150 consultants across the globe that are interacting with different entrepreneurs that are looking for businesses. And so as you educate us,

to understand what it takes to be successful in the system that helps us to identify the right entrepreneurs to bring to you.

Branden Sewell (23:44.807)
That's so good. Yeah. So I remember you had talked to me before about this and like how you guys help to prepare, you know, somebody who wants to become a franchise and bringing it to the market. And, you know, you talked about your trade show and you talked about all of those different things that you guys do. So I think that's really unique and, and obviously would be very helpful to somebody who wants to go and franchise their business and get it to market. So.

Kyle Heck (23:50.03)
Thank you.

Branden Sewell (24:14.119)
and attracting those franchisees. That's good stuff. So the other topic that I wanted to jump into and you had mentioned it briefly was call centers. And just before the show, you had mentioned a couple things, chat bots and obviously what's all the hype lately is AI. And so I was just wondering if you could just share.

from your own research or experience on how AI is going to kind of change call centers, potentially replace the position of CSRs and how that will all play out in the home service industry.

Kyle Heck (24:58.674)
Yeah, so when you see everybody within an industry going in one direction, you got to believe that they're doing it for good reason. So what we saw in the last number of years is that they were all adopting in -house call centers or call center services that they were aligned with and getting their franchisees set up that way because it freed up the owners from having to do all of especially the initial calls,

and take incoming calls and schedule those appointments. And every home service system basically is designed around them meeting at the appointed time and not calling every single lead. And that's something that's very easy to centralize. And that's something that could be done. That doesn't even have to be a franchise. And there's a number of call centers that will do it for multiple companies. They just get...

They get a call in on that number, they know exactly which company they're representing when they pick up the phone. And then they have their systems, they know how to take down the right information and certain script of questions that they can answer. Now, really last year, what we saw with, you know, Chad GPT really started to change the world. And so we've seen a lot of developments in that space. In fact, we for a short time tested out an outbound

calling AI bot and it was surprisingly effective honestly at connecting with people, setting appointments and getting the right information from them. And even some studies say that it can be better than a human in the way that they're trained. And it sounded like it was a real person that you were speaking with unless you had

already had some interaction knowing that they were a bot. Now there was some, I guess, campaign controversy where they were imitating a voice of certain candidates. And so the, I think it was the FEC or something, or FCC came in and said, you can't do outbound AI calls anymore. So that squashed that. But the inbound calls, they're free to handle all they want. And so there's quite a few services that are rapidly developing. I don't,

Branden Sewell (26:52.787)
Mm -hmm.

Kyle Heck (27:16.998)
have one that I can recommend at the moment, but I would say just every month, it's like they're taking another large leap forward in what they're able to provide, honestly, at a far reduced cost to what you would get from even a traditional call center. And especially if you're gonna compare it to your own time that you're going to spend handling those calls. And so especially for just getting the basic information, setting appointments,

having people's initial questions covered. I think that that is an area that everybody that's in a type of service industry needs to pay very special attention to because if you don't do it, all of your competition is going to do it and they're going to be the ones that are lowering their costs.

Branden Sewell (28:06.343)
Yeah, that's really good. And I think too, when you think about it at scale, if you're going to be trying to obviously keep multiple locations running through your franchisee locations running, speed to your leads, speed to service is like the name of the game, right? And I think even more so in today's...

Kyle Heck (28:29.829)
Okay.

Branden Sewell (28:35.591)
you know, society, it's like we're so used to like Amazon Prime type service, right? It's like you want to call, you want your, you want the phone to be answered and you want that service as quick as possible. And I think most people would agree with that. And so one of the things that I think what you're talking about with these call centers and chat, chat bots and AI is you're going to be able to eliminate a lot of human error.

right, and delays in that initial call to actual service that happens, right? So, which is obviously going to help to keep that business flowing and keep customers happy and you'll be able to maximize your return on investment for your marketing dollars because you're not having, you know, things come in, get missed, people not get followed up with, you know, this...

Kyle Heck (29:04.388)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (29:33.383)
this AI is going to be on top of that. So I think that anyone who is like resisting AI in any form right now with as a business owner, you're really doing yourself a disservice. So like me, I use AI in a lot of different ways in my business right now, not to the extent of using a call center or chatbots, but

I use AI for a lot of other things. And so I think you can either resist it and get left behind or start to research and implement it in any way that you can so that you don't find yourself five years from now and way behind the curve. So one thing that I try to do is follow a lot of home service leaders who are, you know,

Kyle Heck (30:07.139)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (30:32.803)
just light years ahead of me in their success and their journey and learn from them and implement as much as I possibly can from what they're doing. And I talked about this like a couple episodes ago, just in the fact that like these guys who are doing like let's say 200, 300 million in revenue and have

30, 40 locations all over the nation, they're doing something right. You know, it's like, who am I this like little peon like to like say, like, they're not getting it right. They're wrong. It's like, it would probably behoove me to take what they're doing and try to implement it into my business, right? And instead of being like a critic of what they're doing.

Kyle Heck (31:02.658)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (31:29.703)
I can't tell you how many.

Kyle Heck (31:30.531)
The kind of people that try to criticize Elon Musk, you know. That's good.

Branden Sewell (31:35.495)
Right, right. It's like who like what, you know? I think it's just that old adage like success leaves clues, you know, so it's like, if somebody is doing something that has made them successful, there's obviously a reason why. And if you aren't on the same level of success, you should probably not get too critical, but look at it and really evaluate.

Kyle Heck (31:59.374)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (32:03.367)
And I think some of it can come down to just simple mindset and our own like mental blocks that we create. And some of those can be intentional and some of those could be unintentional. But I think we can just go to this place where we like create these blocks, right? And we're like, I'm not doing that. And sometimes it's like, you don't even know why you're saying you're not doing it. But you're just like, you just.

Kyle Heck (32:28.545)
Thank you.

Branden Sewell (32:31.975)
you know, kind of resolving your mind, I'm not going to do this, but little do you know, it's actually the very thing that is holding you back from the next best thing for your business, for yourself, for your family. So, yeah, I think that I, and I'm guilty of it too. Like I try my best to, you know, take a humble approach in my business and say like, okay, how can I learn? How can I get better?

Kyle Heck (32:42.529)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (32:57.991)
What am I not doing that I could be? What am I doing that I need to stop? And what mindsets do I need to change? How do I need to change my paradigm to be able to go to the next level? And unfortunately, sometimes, like I said, we just either intentionally or unintentionally have these like, roadblocks or mental blocks that we put up. So anyway.

I think that to be able to create a business that can eventually become a franchise, you have to work through those things and implement the things that we're talking about. To be attractive to people who are going to be very driven, ambitious, big thinkers, want to be able to step into something that's going to

Kyle Heck (33:51.297)
Yeah, yeah. And you know, thinking of the future, you talked a little bit about the exit strategy at the beginning and one of the things that you should consider as you're planning for the life cycle of your business.

Branden Sewell (33:52.903)
provide opportunity and obviously a future, right? Financially and in many other ways, so.

Kyle Heck (34:14.241)
Yeah, it could be that your kids don't want to take it over. And it's very rare that a business successfully gets handed down more than two generations. So either you need to train somebody up that you're going to hand the business over to, or you may be putting yourself in a position where the business just closes. And unfortunately, every business owner thinks that their business is going to sell for a lot more than somebody is actually willing to pay.

But the way that franchising helps with that, and the real concern is going to be a buyer, they're thinking how much of this business's success is because that owner is in the seat every day. And now I'm buying the business, but I'm not buying that owner. That owner's about to leave. If they are the key to the business's success, what am I actually buying in that case? If you've become a franchise,

Branden Sewell (34:40.615)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (34:55.463)
Mm -hmm.

Kyle Heck (35:05.281)
And that business is currently is collecting royalties from say 10 franchisees from around the country. Then you buy the franchise. You are you're not taking the key person out of that role at any of those individual businesses. So they're looking at as a consistent income stream that's going to be staying in place.

and they're just there to then take the franchise to the next level. So the multiplier that you will get for a business just by the mere fact of it being a franchise is going to be quite a bit more. So having that in mind as you're looking to the future towards that exit is very important.

Branden Sewell (35:50.023)
Yeah, that's good stuff. I mean, that kind of stuff is what keeps me driven as a business owner is thinking about those possibilities and is really what wakes me up every day and makes me want to work on my business and make it better, right? It's just the possibilities of if I can build something that doesn't rely on me, I could...

Kyle Heck (36:02.465)
and I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that you're doing. And I'm going to be able to talk to you about the work that

Branden Sewell (36:19.015)
you know, turn it into a franchise, potentially sell it one day. Like you're talking about, you know, for me, a guy who came from, you know, you know, my mom was a single mom raising her own kids and my oldest sister's kids and a lot of like, you know, financial insecurity and all of that stuff. When you when I start to think about those possibilities, that's what drives me to.

Kyle Heck (36:47.905)
Yes.

Branden Sewell (36:48.871)
You know, build a business where I'm off the ladder and do all of these things that we're talking about. And so I hope that like anyone who's listening to this podcast, you know, today or whenever you listen to it is encouraged and maybe even broaden the mindset of the possibilities. Right. Because maybe there's people out there who listen to this and they don't even they don't even realize like.

that they could turn their business into a franchise. They didn't even realize that you could sell a franchise to another franchise or who wants to buy up your market share. So it's definitely something to think about, definitely something to broaden your horizons as a business owner and really think in a bigger way.

Kyle Heck (37:38.561)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (37:45.287)
you know, not to like keep yourself closed in to, you know, just, you know, basically creating a job for yourself, you know, don't create a job for yourself. You know, and that's unfortunately, I think a lot of business owners end up doing that, you know, they, they create a job that they end up working for, you know, 30 years. And unfortunately, they don't they can't even retire, like, legitimately, they've,

I know some friends that are up in age who are approaching the end of their careers as business owners and they've never invested. They've never trained up anybody else. They've never done anything. So all they have is maybe the cash value of their business account and tools and equipment and that's it. And so that's kind of scary to me.

to think that that's a lot of business owners who do that, you know, that get to the end of a 30, 40 year career and nothing, you know, that's just.

Kyle Heck (38:53.113)
Exactly. There's another option for people that are kind of in that situation is also to look to convert into a franchise. So to stay the only business but then join with the franchise that's going to take on a lot more of that work and ideally build your business so you can take more of a semi absentee role. So that's there's.

Branden Sewell (39:03.335)
Mm -hmm.

Kyle Heck (39:17.497)
That happens quite a bit. I'd say like you're familiar with like Mynicki and Mako. Those are driven brands and they've built their their whole network basically on buying mom -and -pop shops for their franchisees. So the business is already operating. It's got all this everybody knows where to go for those services. It's just gonna have a new sign in the door and then they're gonna get a much different experience as they go in because it's a more professional organization.

Branden Sewell (39:24.487)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (39:29.607)
Okay.

Kyle Heck (39:43.961)
But that's something that a lot of small business owners will do is look for a franchise that's in their space and being successful. And, you know, for oftentimes they can negotiate even a better franchise fee because they don't have to get you trained up in everything that you do necessarily. And it's a benefit to them that they're not going to have to wait for a long time before you're open because they can start collecting the royalty stream.

Right at the beginning so there's can be certain incentives for people to take a look at if if they're in that Situation where they're they're kind of at the end of their days of being able to climb the ladder To look at maybe joining up with a franchise. That's that knows what to do

Branden Sewell (40:26.151)
Yeah, that's good. And I would just emphasize that if you're in that place where you're coming to the end of your career, you would want to give yourself a little bit of time to do that and not become the... Because what I'm, I guess, trying to emphasize is those owner -operators who it's just them. It's like, literally, I'm the person who takes all the phone calls. I'm the person who...

Kyle Heck (40:33.913)
Thank you.

Kyle Heck (40:44.569)
So good.

Branden Sewell (40:54.055)
does all the sales, does all the work, and it's literally just a one person, like a solo printer. Unless you were to like maybe contact a bigger company and help them for like maybe two or three years to like add in some employees and get it less revolving around yourself, you'd probably be pretty high and dry at the end. So anyway.

Definitely just good things to think about, right? Think about as a business owner, your exit strategy, just realize that franchising is one of those options. Kyle, if you could, as we're bringing this to a close, could you share, if somebody is listening to this and they just want to reach out to you, maybe get more information, maybe see if franchising is a good fit for them.

Kyle Heck (41:41.617)
Yeah, absolutely. Easiest way is to go to my website. This is for the race fans. It's greenflagfranchise .com.

Branden Sewell (41:50.407)
Could you share how they could get in touch with you and contact you if they would like to?

Kyle Heck (42:04.373)
So that's if you want to learn how you go into franchising, green flag franchises where you start in. So that has some information and it has a contact link so you can get something scheduled with me and we can start having those discussions. But we have people all over the country that are ready to get to know what kind of business you've got going, especially if it's in maybe a special little niche that nobody else is doing. Those are the kind of things that we really love working with.

But even if it's the tried and true, if you've got a painting company or if you've got a pressure washing company that you think you've got something special, that's something you could teach to somebody else. That's the kind of thing also that we wanted to look at franchising with you.

Branden Sewell (42:50.791)
Awesome. Well, Kyle, is there any last thoughts that you want to leave with the listeners about franchising before we go?

Kyle Heck (42:56.148)
Certainly, well, I would say whatever questions that you have about franchising, you will probably be surprised at the answer because that is about 90 % of what we do is clearing up misconceptions. So if you have any thoughts about what it would be like, have the conversation.

and you'll at least know what the reality is like once you get into franchising with a business like yours.

Branden Sewell (43:28.775)
Awesome. Well, hey, yeah, if you're listening today, I would encourage you at least reach out to Kyle. I've been talking to him for years about franchising and just the possibilities and all kinds of stuff. So Kyle's a great guy. He's definitely a great source of information. And I would also add, you're definitely the kind of person who just has a helpful...

Kyle Heck (43:42.676)
You know, I think that we have to be very careful when we're talking about the future of the community. And I know that we all have to be very careful when we're talking about the future of the community. And I think that we have to be very careful when we're talking about the future of the community. And I think that we have to be very careful when we're talking about the future of the community. And I think that we have to be very careful when we're talking about the future of the community.

Branden Sewell (43:56.359)
personality about you. It never feels like high pressure to make any decisions or anything. It really just seems like you have a heart to serve and figure that out. So yeah, I just appreciate you being a person to talk to about that kind of stuff over the years. And I would encourage you to reach out to Kyle. And yeah, so thanks for listening to this episode of the Off the Ladder Podcast. I hope that you've gotten something out of it today.

Kyle Heck (44:12.63)
and I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you. I'm excited to be here and to be able to share this with you

Branden Sewell (44:26.183)
If you are watching on YouTube, I'd really appreciate if you'd subscribe to the show, like this video, comment on this video, share it with somebody, turn on the notification so you can see the next episode when it comes out. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please rate and review the show that will help us to reach more people and hopefully help other home service business owners to get access to this information.

Kyle Heck (44:40.052)
So, we have a lot of people that are going to be very, very busy. And I'm going to talk about a couple of things that we do. We have a lot of people that are going to be very, very busy. And I'll talk about a few things that we do. We have a lot of people that are going to be very, very busy. And I'm going to talk about a few things that we do. We have a lot of people that are going to be very, very busy. And I'm going to talk about a few things that we do. We have a lot of people that are going to be very, very busy. And I'm going to talk about a few things that we do. We have a lot of people that are going to be very, very busy. And I'm going to talk about a few things that we do. We have a lot of people that are going to be very, very busy. And I'm going to talk about a few things that we do. And I'm going to talk about a few things that we do

Branden Sewell (44:56.551)
Lastly, we have now the ability for you to support the show. So down in the show notes, there is a link that you can click to support the show for as little as $3 a month. And that really just those funds would go towards helping to make the show better, to be able to continue to bring on guests and bring this valuable information to all of you. So thank you so much again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the Off the Ladder podcast.

Kyle Heck (45:09.94)
and the other is that we have a lot of people who are not going to be able to get the job. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we're going to have to do that. So, we

Branden Sewell (45:27.879)
And if you could stick around for one second.