We Bought A Franchise: Dan Claps on Scaling Voda Restoration and the Goldmine of Home Services

Ever wondered what it takes to build a business empire in the home services industry? Today’s guest, Dan Claps, CEO of Voda Restoration, shares his incredible journey from the early days at Murphy Business and Financial to establishing a thriving lead generation company and then scaling Voda Restoration to over 100 units in record time. With Dan's expert guidance, we uncover why home services franchises are a goldmine for ambitious entrepreneurs looking to create scalable, independently-operating businesses. We dive into the strategies that emphasize stellar customer service and value generation, ensuring long-term success without the owner having to be hands-on at every turn.

Get ready for an in-depth exploration into the profitability of the restoration business, focusing on water mitigation and its impressive returns as well as some of the challenges of insurance payments. Dan also sheds light on what makes an ideal franchise owner, emphasizing the importance of aggressive marketing and strategic brand exposure. Learn about the modern entrepreneurial lifestyle, balancing business growth with personal life, and why renting property might offer more financial flexibility than buying while building a business. We also cover the crucial role of franchise consultants in navigating franchise  approvals and territory allocations. Connect with Dan for more insights on LinkedIn and Instagram, and don’t forget to visit WeBoughtAFranchise.com for additional resources.

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Send us your questions for an upcoming episode at 305-710-0050.
From your pals in franchise ownership, Jack and Jill Johnson.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hi everyone, Welcome to the we Bought a Franchise podcast. I'm Jack Johnson.

Speaker 2: 0:15

I'm Jill Johnson.

Speaker 1: 0:17

And we are here with the legendary Dan Klaps, CEO of Voda Restoration. Dan, thank you for joining the podcast today.

Speaker 3: 0:26

Yeah, thanks, thanks for having me and, by the way, I absolutely love the title of the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:34

You know, it's one of those things, dan, where it started with us kind of just telling our story right as new franchise owners. And as it went along, it was hey, let's talk to other people that we've helped become franchise owners, and it's like you know what, let's bring on someone that is running a franchise and let's start to talk about you know what successful franchisees are doing. And also part of the reason why we wanted to have you on one is because you're just such a notable guy in the industry. But two, I think a lot of people are still trying to understand why is it that, I guess you guys are considered home services, although you have a B2B component? Why is it that home services are such great franchise investments? So I don't know, dan, maybe you can kind of kick us off, Tell us a little bit about your story and what attracted you to Voda and maybe who you are, and let's kind of take it from there. Excellent.

Speaker 3: 1:28

Yeah, well, thanks again for having me. I'm a listener of your podcast. What I love about what you and Jill do is not only are you successful as consultants, you own a franchise, you live the lifestyle that people are aspiring to do, and I just think that's great as a coach or consultant, that you're walking the walk, not just talking the talk. So I think this just is a great podcast to give back to your respective audience of franchise owners or current owners. Yeah, I'm Dan Klopp, ceo of Voda Cleaning and Restoration.

Speaker 3: 1:58

I am a 10-year franchise veteran. Got my start in franchising right out of college. It's one of the greatest gifts of my life was getting into franchising, because I tell friends of mine all the time I'm not that smart. I'm pretty driven, pretty optimistic, and franchising is a vehicle that has allowed me to just plug in and run, and so it's very inspiring getting to help see other people become a franchise owner. But, yeah, my story I started with a franchise in 2014. I joined a franchise called Murphy Business and Financial and they actually are a franchise that teaches you how to help other people buy and sell businesses and franchises. So, yeah, there's a franchise for that and so I joined that. Did that for about a year and a half and I was successful at it.

Speaker 3: 2:52

But there was two things that kind of didn't go great. It was a great franchise. They did do a lot to help me with finding customers, which I felt like is important in the value prop of a franchisor. And then number two no matter what, it's very difficult to scale that business. Customers only knew me and I'll never forget I was in the Bahamas for a wedding and everyone stayed after the wedding for like a Monday Tuesday hangout. And while everyone was on the beach, I was in my hotel room taking calls because if I didn't my listings would fall through.

Speaker 3: 3:24

And so I had this aha moment that I really was more self-employed than I was a business owner. And I tell people all the time I'd rather be an employee than be self-employed, meaning if I'm going to work for someone and trade time for money, I might as well do it in a company and get benefits, et cetera. If I'm going to own my own business, I want the business to trade value for money, not my time for money. So that's kind of my backstory. Built a lead generation company from 2016 to 2022 in the franchise space. We were known to be one of the best lead generation services in the industry. We came out for that.

Speaker 2: 4:04

I was just going to say yeah, we know.

Speaker 3: 4:06

Yeah, exactly, you guys were customers and so you know. Someone recently asked me why. I think the reality was what we did was we put the customer first. We sold leads only one time. So when you generate a lead, it's completely normal to sell leads to multiple customers and let them kind of fight it out and if you can imagine all the margin is selling it the second, third, fourth time. We only sold the lead once, which really gave us less margin, but we were able to scale a bigger business and a better service for our customers. That's the backstory. And then that was sold to PE two years ago.

Speaker 1: 4:42

So, dan, really quick, and I love your story and it's why we wanted to have you on.

Speaker 1: 4:48

You brought up something that's really interesting and it's something that really was a pain point for us in wanting to own a franchise is that, you know, jill and I have a nice franchise consulting business. We live a nice life with it, but the problem is it's like all the the only way we make money is by a franchise consulting by Jill and I, franchise consulting by Jill and I franchise consulting. And that really became just a real sore spot for us because it's like, look, we need to start building an asset that can grow and can operate and can bring in revenue without us. And it sounds to me like it's exactly kind of like where you were, where it's like, look, it can't just all be on me, I've got to build up layers that can operate without me. And I think that is why we're seeing and I think you'll agree with this, because haven't you guys already scaled Voda to over a hundred, over a hundred units at this point, am I right?

Speaker 3: 5:43

Yes, so we just we just crossed a hundred units. So thank you for asking. It's just that, if you're listening, the average franchise brand takes 10 years to get to a hundred units and only 3% do so. We're very grateful to have hit 100 units in about a year. The reason why is I've really carried that mentality so I didn't make this up. This is all Jeff Bezos being regurgitated out and like or hate him. They did build a great service for customers. 100% changed the world. Yeah, and so what? What Jeff Bezos said?

Speaker 3: 6:19

Um, and this is how I think I'm able to stay out of the day-to-day of the business, which is your point. Um, we, we just do one thing. I do one thing, which is I obsess over the customer. Um, in our business, the franchise owner is the, the customer, and it's very easy when you're leading any type of business to say, well, we're doing so much better than everyone else than the competition, the bar's here compared to the competition.

Speaker 3: 6:47

And if you focus on the competition, chances are like same with consulting, right, you guys are infinitely stronger than the average franchise consultant. That's easy to do, right? If you say how do I be, even if my candidates are somehow let down if they don't feel completely wowed I'm not saying they are, but like every time they, if they something goes wrong, how do we get better? And you're constantly competing with, like, the customer, who's never going to be fully satisfied. You'll just eventually build such a better product, and so you know that's what we've done at Voda to award 100 units. But I mean, you said it to me, jack you guys wanted to buy a franchise and build something to pass on to your son. I think that's what most people you know that buy a franchise are thinking what can they do to add value to their family?

Speaker 1: 7:36

Right, yeah, I mean, I think there's so much of what you said. You know, and look, you're a guy that owns it, like you, with your, with your lead generation company, as I recall I think. You sold it and you, you got a fair amount of money and you didn't just go sit on a beach, you went and identified a restoration franchise. This is what Dan did, guys. He didn't. He found Voda. Voda was a single, a single location. Right, where did it start? Northern Virginia, northern Virginia.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Okay, so Dan goes and I'm not going to tell your whole story because you know your story better than I do but he finds this franchise. He knows restoration is a great industry, but he finds a restoration company with an additional service. Right, how can I help my franchisees and give them something to help them start even faster? So that's where we get into port cleaning. And, dan, I was looking at your item 19 from last year. I don't know if you guys have a new FDD, but the one from last year was it a million and about 600 net, I'm estimating here. I'm rounding up, I think. Is that right?

Speaker 3: 8:44

Yeah. So to kind of answer that question, backstory is we acquired Voda, the business in Northern Virginia, in February of 2023. So in our item 19 for the previous year, 2022, the business did 1.7 million in gross sales and a 23% net profit to the bottom line after royalties, the managers and everything's paid Owner benefit. We took over and not took over, but we put our systems in place with our, you know, dragon, who's the founder of Voda, who's a partner in the company. Now we took our systems a fresh brand with boda and um and and, essentially, lead gen capabilities and we were able to take that business from 1.7 to 2.4 million.

Speaker 1: 9:35

That's the pilot location. You you helped by installing the very franchise systems that your franchisees have access to. That's right. So from your marketing, go ahead. Yes.

Speaker 3: 9:45

Yes, and so think about that growth in one year. We took over in February. We had 11 months to go from 1.7 to 2.4. And then also the profit went up from 23% to 26.8%. Wow.

Speaker 2: 9:59

Amazing.

Speaker 1: 10:00

I mean, that is a test To me, that is such a testimonial for franchising, because here we take this proven pilot location and we install the franchise systems. And by the way, for those of you listening, and watching.

Speaker 1: 10:13

Dan is a master when it comes to lead generation. He's known for it. So when you are a voter franchisee, you do not have to sweat. I mean, look, yeah, you still have to go out and get leads. But you got to know you've got it. You've got a baller behind you helping your franchise to generate leads. Dan is known for it. And you look at the brand, you look at the trucks. I mean you guys are doing it right. It's part of the reason why we bought Pinks. I got to be honest with you. I still don't know how to wash a window no-transcript. And I look at that, dan, and I'm like that's what's so cool about what's happening in home services is now we've gone from the old school kind of workmanlike brands to good-looking brands.

Speaker 3: 11:36

Absolutely. I mean, the consumer's changed, the homeowner has changed. You know, the largest transfer of wealth is baby boomers moving on out of their businesses and homes and into the next stage and Gen X and Z and millennials taking over. And millennials and Gen Z, they want a brand that they can trust, that they resonate with, and so Voda has been able to come into a market where you've got a Stanley Steamer and a Servpro and come in with a much fresher, newer look. Same with Pinkfitch, which is, in my opinion, the second best brand in the franchise, and only because I love Voda so much.

Speaker 2: 12:09

But I'm biased. No in all seriousness.

Speaker 3: 12:11

I think it's an incredible looking brand and this is what the average consumer of today wants brands that look like that, that are fresh and relevant. And you know, what I love about restoration is, you know we didn't re-event anything. If you go and look at, you know the other restoration franchise companies out there, over the past 40, 50 years it's been an industry that's been successful in franchising and so you know we were fairly certain, with the calculated guess, that the average revenue of our franchise locations would be strong, because this is just the way that industry is.

Speaker 1: 12:46

I mean, yeah, I think when people come to us and they say give me a slam dunk franchise investment for $150,000, $250,000, restoration and senior care are at the top of the list every single time. If you've got to hit a home run, if you're 55 years old and you've been laid off from your job or you're just fed up with corporate America and you've got a 200 K and you're 401k and you're going to roll it and you're going to take a chance on yourself and live the American dream, restoration is one of the best things you could ever do because you ain't going out of style. I mean, I don't care who's in the white house.

Speaker 2: 13:21

It's always needed.

Speaker 1: 13:22

It's true, it's so true, you don't want.

Speaker 2: 13:24

like I said, we were actually just talking about this on our other podcast too. It's not something that you want, but you're going to need it, Right. It's like it's, it's necessary. In those times you guys come in and save the day Right. So you got to feel good about that Well it's just like this week, dan.

Speaker 1: 13:40

Yesterday our air conditioning went out. Here we are in South.

Speaker 2: 13:42

Florida Yesterday, our air conditioning did not go out. Our air conditioning went out on Friday.

Speaker 1: 13:46

Thank you. Yesterday, we got the bad news that we need a new air conditioning unit and that'll be 10 grand, please, yes. So, Dan, here's something that I think's really I think, something I want to know and our listeners definitely want to know what are the hallmarks of a top voter restoration franchise owner? When you look at your top quartile the people that are really growing and thriving who are they? What do they embody? What are the things that they have in common? What do they do that helps them perform at a high level?

Speaker 3: 14:17

Yeah, our ideal franchise owner is very specific. We attract people that want to scale a substantial business. Restoration will pay an average of like $3,800 on a water mitigation job to extract water out of a house and, if you think about it, there's not a lot of trucks or equipment or materials. It's very profitable. The only negative is that it takes a little time to get paid by insurance. People that want to build large businesses are not afraid of AR, right, and so they're able to scale something larger. And so my point is people that are well-populized that want to build a big business. They're simpler businesses. If you want something less lucrative but easier or simpler, right, I can mow a lawn or paint the house. It might be easier, but it's potentially different than restorations upside. I'm not saying that there's not upside in those businesses too, but restoration you can really build an empire well, and so for someone that has a larger appetite, they want to build something bigger. Maybe this is not their first business, or maybe they've been very successful in corporate and they are good at managing people.

Speaker 3: 15:27

The other thing about us is you mentioned our lead gen capabilities. We're very good at helping make the phone ring. That costs money, though Not to us. I'm not saying you got to spend a bunch of money to give to Dan Klaps and the Voda team at corporate, but you got to give the money to the Googles and the Facebooks and the direct mails and the local services, right, and so you know. Our ideal franchise owners are not afraid to spend on marketing. Our minimum, guys, is $2,500 a month on marketing, or 5% of revenue. But if I wanted to take market share I would do a heck of a lot more when I first started. And our best franchise owners are coming in and being aggressive with their marketing.

Speaker 1: 16:05

We're spending. So I love what you're saying. It's you know, jill and I took five units of pinks. We spend about 7,000 a month on marketing and I think it probably gets us about 40% of our of our clients. The rest is our, our, our van being out there we're about to order. Our second um is our guys networking door knocking. But I'll tell you the facebook ads building. That's how we build the brand now, it's not in the old school and it's not like a direct lead gen.

Speaker 2: 16:38

It's the exposure and the repeat. You know, people are seeing the name, they're seeing the brand, they're seeing the quirky videos. It's like it's starting like. I had a conversation with someone the other day and they were like why do I know that name? Oh yeah, you know, and it's like, yeah, they're not even thinking, they probably don't even know what we do. To be honest, right but they like, they remember. They remember seeing something that triggered something, so like we're doing our job, but it may not result like directly.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Facebook. Now Dan has become and Jill Jill's the marketing expert on our team, by the way, but it's like you know, I'm going to date myself. But, like when I was in advertising in the late nineties, we did TV and you would say, look, you need to spend a hundred thousand a year on branding, on print ads. Okay, well, how many leads is that going to get me? No, no, no. That's not about leads, that's getting your name and building the relationship with the client, and that's where I would say, like Facebook, not only are you building the brand, but you actually can get leads. So I agree with you, I think what you said, and so I'm going to ask I'm going to go one step further If I really want to be a rock star vote, a franchise owner, how many units should I invest in? What would you recommend?

Speaker 3: 17:52

Yeah, yeah, and just to piggyback on that before I answer that you know it's funny I got a book coming out in a couple of months about scaling a home service business and franchise business, and one of the biggest things that I spend a lot of time talking about is the difference between lead gen and marketing. You know, lead gen is I spend X and I get Y. Right, for example, and you're renting the real estate. So online on the internet, you go do Google pay-per-click ads or local service ads, which I don't know if you guys do LSA ads, they're amazing, you know, in most home service businesses, but you're spending X and you should get Y. I'm going to look at the quantitative, qualitative analysis of is this working or not? Marketing? What's the saying? 50% of my marketing doesn't work. I don't know which half, though. Marketing is the stuff that you don't like. You said the employee starts working for you and you say why? And they're like I don't know. It's like well, they saw the billboard and they saw the radio, heard the radio ad. I'll just give you a personal example. Jack, I'm investing a lot of money into content right now and I'm putting it on Instagram and Facebook and Google and everything else and I don't get that many views. But you know what's funny Maybe this was conscious or subconscious, but you DM'd me to come on this podcast off of one of my videos, which means that at that moment you were probably like, oh, we need another guest.

Speaker 3: 19:10

I popped up, you sent me a DM, we're here, maybe we wouldn't have been, and maybe someone right now whoever's listening my next Voda franchise owner, if you're listening, I'm just kidding you know here's this and goes and buys, right, and you can't quantify that, and so you know. I mean, I think, to answer your question around territory, I mean you know we see, like I think, in franchising, like three is like the sweet spot three territories. We see people like yourselves that have more infrastructure and capital. Five is a number At Voda. We have not gone above five at this time, but that's because and I'm gonna be very clear about this when we launched we didn't. We had to prove it out. Now we're much more established, we've proven out more and as we go further along, we can take bigger bets or risks, right, because if someone buys six, seven, eight, 10 territories, they're taking the risk, as are we because we're giving up more inventory, and so we've been in that three to you know, three, two, three top five kind of number, and I think that's a good number.

Speaker 3: 20:18

I do this exercise, which is about your threshold. Okay, if your threshold is like a half million dollars, then that's a totally different story. But if you say I can't part with more than 300 grand, added my bank into a business before I see money, then don't buy as many territories because you have a smaller pain tolerance or threshold for money out, like where some people could spend a million dollars and they don't care as long as they see it's working. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1: 20:46

People could spend a million dollars and they don't care as long as they see it's working. Does that make sense? Yeah, oh, it makes perfect sense, and that's you know. Again, when people wonder what is a franchise consultant? Do a lot of that stuff on the front end is us. You know how much can we do? We feel comfortable investing. Let's not use all our money. Okay, 200 K is the number and we're probably looking at one unit if we're VOTA, and even then we'd rather you'd be closer to 250. So, yeah, I think that makes perfect sense and it has to be right for the investor. You know, it's so funny, dan.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Our mindset has changed so much over the years. It used to always be we only want to spend X, and now all of our investments we start with how much do we want to make? And so that's what drove our unit strategy with Pinks is what do we want to be making? We want to, you know, replace our, our income on a business within five years.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Um, and last week we had a client of ours who's on multiple franchises and he said look, I always operate my businesses semi-absentee, but I do that with the understanding that the first couple of years. I'm working for free, I'm investing in the business, I'm hiring a team and I'm okay with that because by year three the business will be juicy enough to where I can start to draw draw the money. And that's for those of you who wonder out there how can I run a business semi-absentee? And this is always a big topic. If you're going to do that, just be willing to invest in the business and the people and, as Dan said, be well capitalized enough to do it and have the right expectations you know and said be well capitalized enough to do it and have the right expectations.

Speaker 2: 22:07

Like you said, you have a threshold or you have a limit. I mean let's go into that, knowing that. I mean we do that with our clients before we send them off to you, so we try to make sure that we're not sending someone to you that has unrealistic expectations. And then you also communicate to them. So it should be very clear to them at some point what they can and can't do. So that's really important to kind of understand that and understand. You know, year one, two, three, yeah, but let's set the expectation so that they're not disappointed and they understand that you got to put the work in.

Speaker 1: 22:38

First 18 months are about investing Interesting. We feel like the ROI on Google and Facebook is much better than Angie's or Thumbtack or any of those. I mean, I think you've got to do all For the amount of leads we get from Thumbtack or Angie. It's a lot of work to get a lower paying client and this isn't to bash Angie or Thumbtack, because we're not going to stop using you. I mean, again, I think Daniel will agree with this we really need to be doing all of it.

Speaker 1: 23:10

Did you say LSA? Is that what you said?

Speaker 3: 23:13

Yeah, local service ads. They're also called Google Guaranteed. I definitely encourage exploring them. Google Guaranteed is basically Google's crack at like ANC's or Thumbtack, where they match home service. But what I love about Google Guaranteed ads is you've got to go through a background check. You've got to do all these things that the average contractor is not going to do, whereas the more sophisticated person does all the paperwork. And then boom, you're getting people that are actually like they have to scratch the itch of whatever they're they're calling about because they're going to Google and typing it in. You're paying for a phone call, not a lead. The entries in Thumbtack really do range literally per market. It's so, so specific.

Speaker 3: 23:57

But the way that I explain lead Jen is would you care if a lead was $20, $2, or $2,200, if you made whatever amount of money and the margins made sense? I come from, as you know. I used to sell leads at a higher price when I was in my previous business and I used to explain to people you didn't buy these leads because 40 people pick up the phone and chit chat with you. You bought these leads because 39 don't, but one buys and that's. All that matters is your X. You spend X to make Y or what I call. Well, not what I call, but what you call customer acquisition cost, or you know CAC, which is, you know, customer acquisition cost. It doesn't matter, angie's going to be much cheaper, but you're going to have to work a lot more leads. Where, dan? This is it. Look you guys.

Speaker 1: 24:42

This is what you're saying, antonio she keeps floating in the background my girlfriend. This is the CEO of a franchise that has hundreds of units, and look at the freedom he enjoys. You guys, this is, what's so great about the world today is that it's not like the old school days, like we're. You know our parents were in the office. You know, for 12 hours you really do all of it. Dan's in an apartment in Miami right now living like but how good is that view that you have from that apartment?

Speaker 3: 25:05

Yeah, I mean listen, it's funny. I'll tell this to you, something that I always try to explain to people. First of all, if you listen to this podcast, forget about anybody else. Forget about anyone else and their opinion of what you're going to do. Do what you think is right. So I'll give you a great example.

Speaker 3: 25:21

I've been an entrepreneur since I was 18. I own some real estate that I rent out. I rent where I live, I bounce between New York City and Florida and I pay rent and I have so many people that are like, oh, you're throwing away money on rent. Well, let me explain something. My business does not revolve around my life. My life revolves around my business. What I mean by that is, if my business is killing it and things are amazing, I might live a little bit more of a lavish lifestyle, but there's seasons and there's times where I've lived much cheaper.

Speaker 3: 25:51

When I launched Voda, I had made millions of dollars, but I didn't have a business and I put millions of dollars into Voda, right. So at 29, I'm a multimillionaire. I could go buy a house, I could go buy a condo, I could go buy a Porsche, whatever. I'll never forget my dad saying you know, what are you going to buy with the money? I said I don't have any money, this is capital. And I took the money and I transferred it from one account to another, which was the new business entity, and I rent. But my point is I did that on purpose. I didn't want to part with cash and I didn't want to be tethered to some crazy mortgage that if, like God forbid, I had to make a change, I didn't have to adapt, and so my life adopts around my business, not the other way around.

Speaker 3: 26:34

And the reason I'm saying that is no, you're exactly right. I mean the modern day entrepreneur. I mean, yeah, we're 100 locations, we have 13 corporate employees all around the country, franchisees all around the country, and you know I went for a run at 11 o'clock this morning. I was being honest, like it doesn't mean I didn't wake up and work at six. But you know we live in a world where a CEO can work from their living room and have lunch with their spouse in the middle of the day.

Speaker 3: 27:01

And I think, if you're going to own a business, don't make the mistake of buying a business and then working 100 hours a week and saying you're doing it for freedom. That's not freedom. If you're going to buy a business, buy a franchise and follow the system and build a lifestyle that you can be proud of not one that you're be proud of, not one that you know you're you're going through a ton of pain. I'm not saying when you first start you might not have some pain, but chances are. If you build a franchise the right way you can, you know you can work a pretty normal lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 27:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:29

We had a client last week say franchise ownership can be everything you dream of it being. It can take you to all the places you want to go, but you got to put in the work, Dan, I feel like we could talk to you all day long. You're such a fountain of knowledge, Dan. Where, where can people find you if they want to follow you on social media? How can they? How can they find you?

Speaker 3: 27:48

Yeah, on LinkedIn, you just type in Dan claps and I pop right up Instagram is Dan Franchise. I'm pretty big, like I'm putting our content there, but if you're interested in voting, reach out to you guys. And one last thing I'll leave you with if you're listening to this Franchise Consultant, what we've learned is you guys do an amazing job on the back end of helping your candidates like get approved by us, because, if you're listening again, not everyone gets approved by a franchise, and so when you work with a consultant, they're able to kind of help you tell your story the right way to get approved. And then I've also, when we've awarded territory, you guys did a great job with territory and helping us, you know, figure that out. So, if you're listening, reach out to jack and jill and um, you know, but follow me on instagram Instagram and we'll take it from there.

Speaker 1: 28:37

Yeah, be sure to go to WeBoughtAFranchisecom. You can subscribe to our weekly newsletter, to our podcast, to all that fun stuff. Dan, I think we've got to have you on again and just dive more into all of this stuff.

Speaker 1: 28:51

We need a part two, you know. But I love all these things that you're saying, you guys, and you're seeing it and you're hearing it as entrepreneurs. What Dan mentioned, I mean it's like Jill and I are morning, we run two businesses, but we both got our workouts in, dan got his workout in, we can have time to do school pickups and things like that. Jill and I are on our way to go to a lunch appointment. Now there's so much more freedom in owning a business and you control it. That's not always easy, and Dan said there are different seasons, and that's very true. There are moments where you are super, super liquid and other moments where you've got to tighten it. But that's the fun of being an entrepreneur. That's the American dream, it's true.

Speaker 3: 29:29

That liquidity I'll leave you. I know we got to jump. That liquidity is a mental cushion anyway, Just like we think we're secure in our jobs and get fired tomorrow. It's, it's all perception.

Speaker 1: 29:41

And just one. We both did the same thing. We, when we had our biggest year, we put all that money into a new business. When you had your biggest year, you put all that money into a new business. You guys, it's investing, it's putting into something that can work when you don't. All right, Dan, listen, dude. So great, we're so happy for the friendship and the partnership. Thank you for joining our podcast. We really appreciate you For this week. I'm Jack.

Speaker 2: 30:04

I'm Jill.

Speaker 1: 30:05

And he's Dan and he owns a franchise. I sort of bought a franchise.

Speaker 2: 30:11

It works.

Speaker 1: 30:11

Yeah, he bought the whole franchise Bought the whole franchise. So we did all of it.