In this episode of The Level Up Show, Nick Lopez sits down with franchise disruptor and influencer Lance Graulich to explore what it truly means to build a legacy through franchising. Lance shares his passion for referrals, the joy of helping families secure second and third franchises, and his unapologetic commitment to spreading the franchise message—whether people are ready to hear it or not. From his disruptive mindset to his deep desire to educate and empower, Lance embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship and the American Dream. If you’re curious about franchising or looking to make an impact, this episode delivers insights, inspiration, and a whole lot of heart.
—
Our guest is a powerhouse entrepreneur, multi-unit franchise owner across multiple states and multiple brands, a talented matchmaker and the Founder of Eye On Franchising, Lance Graulich. Welcome to the show.
Mr. Nick, thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure to be here.
Let’s do this. I was certainly excited to have you on. Talk about somebody in franchising that exudes love for franchising. I certainly love your content. The more I dug in and learned about you, the more I realized that you’re just a good old entrepreneur. I respect that but Lance, nobody raises their hand and says, “I’m getting into franchising.” More times than not, people think of McDonald’s or fast food. They don’t even realize something like a painting company that could be franchised.
As I always say, I had a mentor. He said, “As long as it’s legal, moral, and makes money. It can be franchised.” I know you certainly, and maybe you did raise your hand and intentionally choose franchising but more times than not, it has a way of finding you. Lance, I’m curious. What’s your story? How did franchise find you?
Nick, you’re right, franchising found me. I was working on Wall Street for dad. I had my economics degree and was being groomed to do my Wall Street gig with the family business and I was bored. It wasn’t exciting. I didn’t want to sit at a desk. I did have restaurant experience and had a crazy uncle call me. A crazy successful uncle. He made money in tech before anybody else did. He said, “I heard your board. Come join me in Arizona. I want to build a billion-dollar restaurant company.” This was 1989.
He said billion, the B word in 1989. I said, “Sure. Let’s do it.” We got up to about $225 million within about five and a half years. After that, I went along my merry way to do my own things. He had gone back to Asia to go build another tech company and I consulted, which is what you do when you have knowledge and no real job. Eventually, I landed with Krispy Kreme as a franchisee and a partner in that two -state franchise Wingstop.
We can peel that back how you wish. The idea of franchising found me because my uncle was doing a whole bunch of TGI Fridays restaurants in the old days when Fridays were still great. Clearly, it’s not what it used to be. Neither is Applebee’s and Chili’s. The fast casual business interrupted that whole space where casual dining used to be. That’s a whole other story, maybe for another episode.
No kidding. It’s funny how franchising is such an incredible growth engine and you talk about the restaurant space and what TGI was and now just how franchising transformed that industry in what was just about a blink of an eye. You had all these diners and mom-and-pops. The customer wins when they get a great product and that’s what franchising does by combining all these skills and talents across an ownership group that is committed to serving a customer and improving that experience in the market. That is why franchising is such a powerful tool. Lance, I had no idea. That’s one of the reasons, I should say, one of many but I had no idea that you worked on Wall Street and grew a family company to just about $250 million in revenue. That is certainly inspiring.
In 1989 dollars, Nick. That’s probably well over $400 million now.
That was in the tech space.
That was the uncle. The uncle had the tech business, but I’m just saying in the TGI Friday’s business that we had. $225 million now is probably close to $400 million in this dollar. It’s pretty incredible to see that happen and have a part in it. We did a lot of acquisitions and a lot of news store development as well, and started expanding to multiple states. I would like to say I got my MBA in restaurant franchise 101 or 301, if you will. It was blast.
No kidding. What a ride. I missed that piece there, Lance. You helped found and grow TGI Fridays.
That franchise. We were the largest franchisee of TGI Fridays.
Talk about an industry transformed by franchising and your family was right in the middle of that. It’s so neat.
It was great. Franchising is the perfect business for anybody that’s a first-time business owner but it’s also a great industry for successful business owners that want the easy route. Franchising is all about the accelerated path. You want to skip some steps, suffering and developing a business model, you join a franchise. My favorite example. There was a gentleman I was talking to. He told me it took them eight years to give birth to this independent air conditioning company he created.
It took him years to get to $800,000 or so in revenue. He was very proud he was making great money. He doesn’t pay anybody royalties and never paid a franchise fee. He figured it out on his own with no experience. He said, “Why would I have joined the franchise?” It’s because my favorite air conditioning franchise, you would have done $800,000 to a million or $5 million in year one and you would have paid a $43,000 franchise fee and 6% royalties. Who cares? He looked at me and it was a total mic drop moment.
All of a sudden, the light bulb went on and he realized but there are so many people out there, Nick, 75% of America, depending on what survey you listen to, want to be their own boss. The truth is, a very small percentage of those people ever even act on it. A percentage that are going to act on it are listening to all these gurus on the internet talking about, “Find an existing independent business. Do that.” A lot of people are anti-franchise. They don’t know. Some of them are not that bright. Some of them are very bright but they think being an independent business owner is the only path and the best path and it’s just not true.
What do you think of being a successful franchise owner throughout your career? What are the traits that make a successful franchise owner?
If you are working by yourself, then it’s focus, discipline, following the plan, trusting the process and being the best student of business that you possibly can be. Now, there are plenty of business owners, so let’s use the example of someone working on their own without a team. There are people that try to reinvent the wheel. There are people that are lazy. Maybe they were lazy as employees as well and they choose not to get out of bed, work hard and focus on their business.
There’s a certain discipline to being your own boss. Now, if you have employees, nobody ever built an Empire by themselves, so my suggestion is you add employees and you build your own empire and train employees. I talk to a lot of people that are scared to death of having employees because apparently, everybody thinks nobody wants to work anymore. That’s all bullshit. The reality is, there are plenty of great employees out there.
The question is, you have to start with the mirror test. Look in the mirror, look at yourself and see are you the person that people should work for? The answer is, a lot of people, even when I started, I was not a good boss. I was told by some folks at TGI Fridays back in the late ‘80s when I was a hot shot out of college. I thought I knew everything. I was told, “You’re real A-hole. We don’t want to work for you. You might be smart but you don’t support us. You don’t listen to us and don’t seem to care about us.” That was a wake-up call.
The reality is, I got smart quick. I listened, paid attention and got better. That’s the reality of what separates great franchise owners from bad franchise owners. Can you build a team? I learned to build a team when I was at Wingstop and at Krispy Kreme. I was a top 1% franchisee. Why? It’s because I learned. You hear all about failures and learning from mistakes. I did. I made all those mistakes, got rid of those and I moved on. I learned and learned.
The reality is, if you’re a great leader, if you’re a great manager, even if you’re not in the beginning. If you pay attention, and you learn, you read and you get mentors, that’s the beauty of franchising. You’re going to get trained and mentored by folks at corporate. Corporate lime as an example. However, some of your best mentorship could come from collaborating with franchisees in the same system that you’re in, what I call the Mastermind effect.
People join Tony Robbins’ Mastermind and you’re working with people from all backgrounds and all different Industries. Not even in the same business as you but there’s some nugget, you’ll probably learn from that. It’s like a ladder approach where somebody’s going to pull you up that rung of the ladder. That’s what franchising is. You want to work with that franchisee that’s doing $5 million or $10 million a year and listen to everything he or she might have to say so you get to understand, how do I get to that level?
In franchising, consider looking in the mirror. Start with that. Anybody can do it. It doesn’t matter with college degree or not. You just have to fill in your deficits. Surround yourself with people that know more than you about a lot of things you don’t know about, which is why if you join an air conditioning franchise, for example. You don’t need to know anything about it, but you better be supportive of your team and learn the metrics and key performance indicators to understand what it’s like to run a good business in the world of HVAC in this example.
You mentioned a lot of things there that I appreciate. The core of it is executing and following that process and building a team of folks to execute on that process while leaning into masterminds and the training and support that is provided from the professionals to help you to get off to the races as a franchise partner.
I love all of those simple ways of talking about being a successful franchise owner, but you mentioned something early on. It was along the lines of lessons learned. It just made me curious, Lance. What were some of those lessons that stand out to you that didn’t allow you to be a top performing franchise partner or maybe it held you back or slowed you down? What were some of those traits that didn’t allow you to be a top performing franchise partner?
A lot of business ownership and Leadership is again all about the team. When you’re charging up a hill, so to speak, like in war or in the military. You want to make sure your troops are behind you. If you’re not a good leader, you’re going to come across the hill and realize nobody’s following you. You need a team. You need those troops. The reality is, as I mentioned a story earlier where I wasn’t that supportive guy but I am very competitive. It’s just my nature. My family’s nature. Both of my grandfathers were entrepreneurs and my father.
I had no chance to be employed in life for a long period of time because I was going to be an entrepreneur like the family. The reality is when you make mistakes, if you’re smart, you adapt or you die. I learned quickly as an example I gave you earlier. There was an employee named Karen who is very well respected and she was one of the first people to pull me aside and say, “You’re just not treating the staff or the team the way they need to be treated. That’s why you’re not getting the response that you need.”
That was one of my first major life lessons in leadership. You have to respect the team. You have to show mutual respect and you have to listen. You have to be approachable. I feel like all of this is one giant checklist. If nobody ever told you this, and I read this stuff in books way back when but hadn’t experienced it in life because clearly and culturally speaking, I was from New York. I ran a valley parking company when I was back in New York, before I ever got on a plane and went to Arizona.
Arizona is a different environment than New York. You treat people differently. You talk to people differently. There are certain expectations. I’m a fast talker because I’m from New York, not because I have low Integrity. There are perceptions to the contrary when you’re talking to New Yorkers. I even had to change my accent so I could, let’s just say, have more comfortable conversations with people so they didn’t think I was some crazy New Yorker. The reality is, it’s all up to you. There are ways for you to be a top performer but you are going to make mistakes and it’s okay. The quicker you make mistakes, the quicker you’re going to get the better result that you need.
Business is the ultimate personal development course. It’s always revealing to you where you need to level up and people are at the core of that. How you lead them is critical and that’s generally where a lot of folks start. That’s why franchising is an awesome way to get started in business. As you mentioned, you can learn how to build and scale teams and grow as a team builder in a professional setting. That is the core of being a business owner and it requires so much humility.
You talked about growing a founding location for nearly a decade. I could relate to that. I took so much pride and not taking a Saturday off in my twenties. I don’t even think I went on a vacation. If I did it, it might have been no longer than a few days. I certainly had to learn how to lead folks and interact with folks. As you were talking, I was thinking about that season for me because once I got into my 30s and not that I’m too far in but that lone wolf approach as we started at scaling nationally. I had to start working with a heck of a lot more people.
Those were some humbling growing pains most certainly and it didn’t happen in my initial endeavor. I started my first painting career in 2008 but there certainly are all of these seasons of leveling up. When you think you’re great at leading folks and every time you maybe go from being a single brand owner to a multi-brand to a single state to a multi-state, you get stretched. Even though you may have leveled up and developed that team building and leadership skillset to get to the next level. You’re reintroduced with some of those areas where business loves to show you where you need to level up.
Eventually, much like anything else, you do something long enough, it builds confidence. That is entrepreneurship. Keeping promises to yourself while going through growing pains and leading people certainly is a big part of that. Speaking of leading people and franchise empires, a lot of folks want to get into business because of the generational wealth that it creates. Beyond all the other things like independence, freedom and owning an asset. You name it. There are so many areas. You can talk about legacy but when you’re talking generational wealth, how do you think they approach that from a franchise investment standpoint short-term and long-term?
First of all, I want to comment on something you said a little while ago. When you own a business, like in sports. I love sports. I was good at sports and I’m very competitive. I mentioned that. I’ve always been competitive. When you own a business, you also have a scoreboard. The scoreboard is all about your revenue, your profitability and your turnover of your people. Those are great metrics to look at on a regular basis. When people are looking to get into their first business, franchising is filled with tons of people getting into their first business.
I don’t necessarily think of generational wealth. While it is on the list of things that people consider, people are always looking to get out of something. They don’t like their boss. They hate their schedule. Maybe they travel too much. They haven’t received a bonus or raise in quite a long time and they feel like they’re wasting their time. They’re not getting to see their kids play sports on a regular basis or the dance recital or violin recital. Whatever it might be.
It’s this lack of control that the average person in America has, being an employee. The first part of this dream that we can make reality in franchising is that people have an opportunity to do better than their currently doing. More money, more flexibility, more control and build a better future for the family. A lot of people talk about freedom. There’s time freedom and money freedom. That’s the ultimate in business ownership.
When you’re good and you’ll learn to be good. Generational wealth is something as we go. There’s a lot of people out there that are talking about being a billionaire. I have a friend on the internet that’s always wearing a shirt, “Billionaire in training.” If you had $50 million, that’s not enough? Come on. Give me a break. The reality is, I focus on with my clientele, do better than you do it now. You make $200,000 a year. Let’s get you making $300,000 a year then your business is going to be worth a multiple of that cashflow.
If your goals are quite lofty, have another business. I have many friends that own multiple franchise brands in multiple States. They’ve been doing it for 25 years. As you know, franchising is very contagious. Once you get in and you see this success and how easy it can be. Nothing’s ever easy. The 400-pound guy that wants to get back in the gym finally to get to 200 pounds again. Is that easy to do? No. Why? There’s work. You have to get uncomfortable in the first place and it’s the same thing in business ownership. That’s my take.
Executing on the model and being present and satisfied with the journey and the process. You have to start somewhere.
Everybody’s got to start somewhere. There’s a lot of people that are uneasy and nervous about where they start. Again, it’s an uncomfortable feeling. Most people I work with are shocked that they end up selecting a brand that they know nothing about. They didn’t expect it. I would imagine most people that have joined LIME as a franchisee realize, “I never thought I’d be an owner of a painting franchise.” Fill in the blank. It doesn’t have to be a painting franchise. It could be home care, senior home care franchise or restaurant franchise.
I didn’t think that’s what I wanted, but it’s an amazing process when we start working with people and start to understand, “You have skills. Your skills are transferable.” What does that mean? You could do a lot of things. My favorite story is my friend that was bald and did not know how to cut hair but he ended up owning nineteen Great Clips hair salons. His initial reaction to Great Clips was. “That’s silly. Why would I be shown Great Clips as an example? I can’t even be a customer. I have no hair,” but it fit him. It fit his budget and his skills. It was something he ended up liking. It was fun. You don’t necessarily know until you go through the process.
That’s clearly an important part of growing generational wealth through franchising and finding a place that you can call home.
Some people’s homes are a big company or big brand like Great Clips with thousands of locations. In most cases, it’s not the case. There are people that are jumping into LIME or Voda, when it was brand new or Rolling Suds or that one painter. All of these brands. You got to start somewhere. I got into Wingstop when there were only 60 locations. At Krispy Kreme, we were the second franchisees. The brand had been around for 50 years. It wasn’t exactly set up for franchising. They weren’t sure what they were doing. They knew how to make a donut but that was about it. It wasn’t a business around it that was appropriate.
Being involved with a brand early on and throughout its entire history as a franchise partner. It’s important to be a part of the innovation and in the direction of the brand. That’s the power of a franchise. The entire system working collaboratively in a structured approach so that they can level up the customer experience. That grows enterprise value. That’s about the power of a franchise model, going wide, going deep and that is how you become the number one provider in your sector.
I know that at the core of what we focus on at LIME and generally, healthy collaboration with any franchise organization. It’s done through a franchise advisory council. You’ve been involved as a franchise partner with so many brands. Can you talk about that from a franchise relations standpoint and the power of a franchise advisory council?
It’s such a great question and I don’t get this asked a lot, so I’m glad you’re asking it. When there’s a franchise advisory council, it’s pretty darn powerful. I was elected to the franchise advisory council by my peers and then I was immediately voted president and held that almost the entire time I was a franchisee. In the early days of Wingstop, there were some things that certainly were correct. Wing prices were through the roof.
Every time chicken prices moved a nickel a pound, that was $5,000 a month that I lost. Pretty insane. Imagine paint moved $3 a gallon. What would you lose every month or the equivalent? I lost $5,000. Sucked out of my bank account just because chicken prices went up a nickel a pound. We needed to add other products but not just add for the sake of adding. It had to fit the core. The advisory council in my case helped to guide Wingstop to what it became. I remember years later somebody contacted me about the newer CEO of Wingstop who was getting all these accolades.
I’m like, “It’s amazing.” We changed the course of Wingstop many years before. It started having million-dollar locations and a million and a half dollar units. Two million a year, we would do in some locations as small as 1,400 square feet. We knew we got to see what Wingstop would become by giving the customers what they would want but also giving franchisees an opportunity to make great money and volume cures everything in the business world.
The more volume, the more people you can get through the door. In this day and age, it’s all about the internet. It’s unfortunately about third party delivery in the restaurant space. Thankfully, in painting, you don’t deal with that but nevertheless, the advisory council is an incredibly valuable piece. You do need to have a decent sized franchise. Even if you had ten franchisees, all ten of those franchisees can be considered the council until such a point you get bigger and trim it down to maybe five.
It’s always a good thing to take into consideration the regional or geographic layout of the country, whether it’s the West Coast or the East Coast. For example, California is just a difficult climate to do business in. That’s just the nature of the beast. You might want to have somebody on the council representing the State of California and all its franchisees to hear from their perspective. It’s a great idea. For those reading that aren’t aware, it was franchisees at McDonald’s that created the filet of fish and the Big Mac because on the filet of fish side of things, a franchisee in the Midwest said many years ago, “We need a fish on Fridays.”
I spent a lot of time in the Midwest for the Brew Pub brand that I own a piece of and I heard it from them on a regular basis. In Wisconsin, you need to have fish on Fridays on your Pub or bar or restaurant menus. The filet of fish became a hit. It was suggested by a franchisee and it became an everyday menu item. Collaboration is the key to success in franchising for sure.
You’re getting that in the field and in the market direct feedback in terms of what needs to be levelled up in the business.
These are partners. Franchise partners is typically a terminology a lot of brands are using because we have skin in the game. We own a piece of this or all of our market, so to speak.
Some best practices with the FAQ, the anonymous voting is key. Being voted on by the peers. We did a hybrid. Everybody was voted on but we picked some home office representation for people and then everybody voted for four representatives one from each time zone. They kept it simple and that’s how we did it. I always love sharing tips to help folks level up. That’s what is beautiful about the franchise space.
At LIME, we don’t have any competition. We are the only luxury painting brand nationally in. When we’re working to level up our brand with our partners, we’re working to be the number one provider in our market. That is done through healthy collaboration and having that representation with the home office. Our franchise owners love it. They can go to their representatives, talk to them and get that feedback loop or talk directly to anybody of course.
I want to point that out, Lance. I know that’s an area that you’ve been honored to serve as president and voted by your peers. That is so awesome. Again, Lance, you’re dropping so much fire. I tell you I was excited to have you on the show. Thank you for helping me level up and I know our audience is as well. With that being said, Lance, what are some red flags if I’m reviewing an FDD? What are some things that I should be aware of when doing my due diligence as I’m finding the right home for me?
It’s a great question. Item nineteen, the earnings claim used to be called the financial representations. It’s very important. If a brand is not showing anything in the item nineteen, it might mean that their numbers suck or they’re embarrassed. Whatever it might be. If the item nineteen doesn’t show good numbers or nothing, that is potentially a problem. Item twenty, the growth or retraction. It is fairly normal in big brands to start having a 5% retraction where people might not be successful. They have to close locations. It does happen.
The viewers and readers need to understand that in all business there are failures, but I’d like to say that in great brands, the failures generally happen because the brand selected the wrong franchisee. It’s just going to happen just like in any great company, they’re great employees and shitty employees. It’s the nature of the beast. They’re not all great employees. They’re not all great franchisees, but the biggest red flag and the way you’re going to look for it, is when you have an opportunity in the validation stage to talk to existing franchisees about their experience.
My services are free. I get paid by the brands. I tell my clientele to talk to at least five franchisees and ask them about their experience. Ask questions like, would you do this over again? Is the marketing great? Are you making money? Is it meeting your expectations? What was the hardest part? There’s a whole host of questions that I could send to you to make sure that you’re asking the right questions of franchisees. The franchisees are the best way.
Imagine if you’re getting married. What’s the best way to know if you have the right future spouse? You talk to her friends or his friends and the family. You get to understand who you’re marrying. I saw the red flags with my first wife but I made a mistake and got married anyway. I got married again though, Nick, many, many years ago and found the perfect wife. Relationships, whether it’s in business or personal, are difficult but when you pick the right people to spend time with and do business with, it could be a dream. It could be the best thing you ever did in your life.
It isn’t difficult to pick up on the red flags but what happens is people start to get emotionally attached to something and ignore those red flags. People fail in franchises simply because they pick the wrong franchise. They missed the red flags. They didn’t see things that they should have seen. I had a young guy that came to me all excited about a particular brand. There’s nothing wrong with the brand that he wanted or he thought he wanted. The issue was, the brand was brand new, experienced leadership, but brand-new brand.
He literally had one franchisee to talk to. That was it and that franchisee was so new he didn’t have anything to say that was constructive yet. He had no constructive feedback. I said, “You’re a young guy. I want to set you up for success. Let’s get yourself into a more mature brand where there is support and there’s franchisees for you to learn from. It’s not just you jumping into a brand. I don’t see the value of you jumping into a brand that’s too new.” That’s some of my advice.
In all of your years in franchising, specifically from the land of a franchise partner. What is it that you look for in an opportunity that you would invest in?
It always starts with great leadership. When I join Wingstop, the new ownership group were all a bunch of gray-haired guys that had a ton of experience in the chicken space specifically and the restaurant business. That impressed me. Although, Wingstop at the time, their item nineteen and their numbers were garbage. When I looked at that item nineteen many years ago, it showed 600,000 average unit volume and food costs or cost of goods sold that was through the roof are terrible but I like the story. There’s always a story.
In this case, I like the gray-haired experienced leadership team. I like the uniqueness of the niche and nobody else was in that niche, specifically. It wasn’t like a Buffalo Wild Wings, which was five times the cost and it was a big bar concept. The food quality wasn’t as good as Wingstop. I did the research. I talked to franchisees. There weren’t that many super successful franchisees in those days so I understood that. There is a process that I take my clients through and it’s all about the franchise fit. That fit starts with budget, your skills, your goals and objectives. It goes to everything, your lifestyle and everything we’ve already talked about so far. How hard do you want to work?
It turns out the restaurant business is the hardest place to be, so I don’t recommend it a lot for a lot of people. If you’re a high-net worth person and you have money to throw around, the restaurant space can be good. However, there’s more ways to lose money to make money in the restaurant business. It’s just too many variables. LIME is a great example. The home service space is fantastic. I consider that easy compared to everything else I have done, less moving parts. Franchising is still the best bet.
Now funny story, Nick. I had a guy asked me, “What’s the failure rate in franchising?” What I will tell you is the failure rate of my favorite brands, if you consider the failure rate of independent businesses. There are some stats out there that 90% of independent businesses fail within five years. In franchising, I did a little personal anecdotal, statistical research-based project on my twenty favorite brands and of those favorite brands, the failure rate is anywhere from 5% to 8%. That’s it. That’s all it is. Five to 8% failure rate or you can flip it around and say up to a 92% success rate but much higher than that potentially.
The people that fail in those great brands it’s because they were not right. There’s a lot of people and you know this. You might even have a franchisee like this. When people are getting interviewed for a job or even for a franchise, they talk and talk and some of what they say is not true. They just want to get the opportunity. They want to get the franchise or the job and then when they get in, they realize, “This isn’t for me. This is not what I thought. It’s too much work or whatever it might be.” At the end of the day, again as I said earlier, franchising or business ownership isn’t for everybody.
As you were talking, I was thinking about you joining Wingstop, being elected by your peers and helping them to add more value for the customer and that being your home but there were some red flags up front. As much as there was an opportunity, there were also red flags. Why did you steal move forward? You not only moved forward. You went to the other side. You became a partner, but you became an instrumental part of collaborating with the direction of the brand, which led to higher average volumes, folks doing things they’d never done before and thinking differently. It’s such a fun period but I want to make that distinction. That wasn’t done yet.
People know the riches are in the niches. People want to get into a niche that works. I knew the niche was fantastic. I knew the history in the story was not as good as it should be because of maybe franchisees that they should not have selected. I did validation and speak to a bunch of unhappy franchisees at Wingstop. I realized within a short period of time of speaking with them that they weren’t good franchisees to begin with while they belly ached about the company but that’s up to you.
Not everybody can discern between a bad franchisee and a bad company. I had learned enough to know what I was listening to at that time. The reality is, there was a great leadership team. Now, I speak to people all the time in my capacity as a franchise broker that say to me, “I want to look. Show me the ten best brands with the best item nineteen.” It doesn’t work like that. It’s not all about the numbers and that’s when I give my example of Wingstop.
There are great companies like City Wide Facility Solutions has one of the best item nineteens I’ve ever seen. Top 25% of franchisees are doing like $15 million a year on a $300,000 investment but it’s not right for everybody and they’re not going to accept everybody if you don’t have B2B sales experience. You will never get even in that brand and that’s another misnomer. A lot of people think that they can just join any brand they want. Maybe there are some franchise brands that will take your money even if you’re not right.
City Wide has been around since 1961. They’re not going to take your money unless you fit everything and check off every box. That still doesn’t guarantee that all 100% of their franchisees are successful. They’re probably still going to have a few on the bottom if you going to rank them best to worse. There’s still a couple on the bottom. The reality is, I get to know my clientele and what makes them tick. At the end of the day, Nick, everybody wants to make more money than ever and build generational wealth but there’s a lot of brands you can make money.
It could be a mosquito repellent brand that you can start with one and buy more. Get a resell of a good franchise territory near you. There’s a lot of ways to build cashflow and build wealth. The distinction is what is best for you and I always tell people, the more brands that I introduced you to, the more conversations you have with people, the more comfortable you’re going to get. It’s like working out. We can talk about getting in shape and doing certain exercises. Until you’re doing it on a regular basis and get that flow, you have no idea how it feels.
Everybody’s interpretation or lens is different and what their skills are made up of our different. Frankly, their definition of generational wealth, legacy, freedom, and lifestyle and you can go down the list. That’s why you and your experience in franchising and entrepreneurship. I just love it because that is what makes you a special matchmaker. As I mentioned, I was very excited to have you on the show and to help me and viewers to level up. I have one final question for you, Lance. Why do you love franchising so much?
I love it because it still seems to be an unknown to so many people. There are people that don’t know anything about franchising. They think there’s so many other things to look at in business ownership. Franchising should be your first stop when it comes to business ownership. I did it multiple times. I have helped multiple friends do it, family members, fraternity brothers and countless clients. My goal is funny. I tell everybody this, “I want you to get into the best franchise for you and your family. Do you know why? I want you to refer people for the rest of my life. I want you to send me people.”
I have my clientele that are happy and successful people in franchising send me so many referrals. It’s incredible and rewarding. I love it. I’ve helped multiple families get into their second and third franchise already. I’m doing this forever. I love it because I am a disrupter. I am a franchisee influencer. I love telling anybody where they want to listen or not, that they need to consider a franchise and educating them and giving them the right information to make the best decision for themselves and their family. That’s it.
Thank you for your service and your lifelong commitment to franchising. You’re certainly changing lives and providing folks the American dream. I too am on this journey and love franchising. I admire your style, Lance. Check out Eye on Franchising. I certainly enjoyed having you on the show. Thank you for being on.
Thanks for having me, Nick. I appreciate it.
If you have enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe. It’s how we are able to continue to grow and bring thought leaders like Lance. Drop a comment. Let us know what you thought of this conversation and as always, level up.
I am an experienced start up entrepreneur. While I have owned multiple franchise like Wingstop and Krispy Kreme. I launched my own brand called Pinkbox donuts(2010) that is a huge success today!
While I was a top franchise owner of 2 brands…when a friend suggested I should be a franchise broker, I was intrigued. As a successful top franchise broker years later….I continue to build my personal brand & I continue to strive to be the #1 Authority in Franchising.
I am experienced in all aspects of franchise and independent restaurants.