Dallas, Fort Worth, And Oklahoma Are Hot Franchise Markets, And Roxanne Rapske Is A Dynamite FranNet Consultant Within These Markets
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go into business for yourself, but you don’t know where to start? Look no further than FranNet, one of the world’s leading franchise consulting networks. Nick Lopez and Roxanne Rapske dive into what makes the Texas and Oklahoma markets ripe for franchise ownership. Roxanne dives into her experience as an entrepreneur and how that has translated to her identifying franchise opportunities and who makes for a good fit depending on the skillsets of the potential owner and the day in the life required to be successful within the brand. She explains how she uses the FranNet process and elaborates on the nuances of what has given it the reputation it has in franchising. Roxanne shares some success stories and themes for what made those placements such a great fit all around. In general, Roxanne helps laid-off and transitioning corporate professionals, and as a result, she shares common themes when advising them. Additionally, Roxanne has advised many military veterans, so rightfully, she shares why they become successful franchise owners as, naturally, they are great at learning and executing a process.
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Dallas, Fort Worth, And Oklahoma Are Hot Franchise Markets, And Roxanne Rapske Is A Dynamite FranNet Consultant Within These Markets
This episode’s guest spent many years in Corporate America. She is a successful entrepreneur, regularly co-hosts the show, Unpredicted Entrepreneur, and is a very successful franchise consultant with one of the top franchise networks in FranNet. Roxanne Rapske, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
I'm glad to have you. Not everybody necessarily raises their hand and says, “I'm going to be in franchising.” How did franchising find you?
I'm a lot like my clients or our clients that came out of Corporate America. There's usually an event that takes place that causes us to look for other options. I came out of a mortgage banking background. You are a lot younger than I am, so I don't know how old you are when the market imploded and we found ourselves in the middle of the great recession but that's where it all started for me. I was in mortgage banking. I was in wholesale, not in retail. I didn't deal with the borrowers. I dealt with the brokers that dealt with the borrowers.
I was 100% commissioned. I had $10 million in loans in my pipeline. I woke up the next day and had $400,000 left because the Feds had seized all the wires going out on what they called the alternative product, which is also known as a wire loan. That was the beginning of the end for me. We were chatting about our busy lives. My son was younger. He was eight at the time and my husband and I both worked so much that my mom was living with us helping us raise him. She was like our live-in babysitter/nanny/light housekeeper.
She volunteered for the job in the middle of my pregnancy. Thank God for her because we did work so much and it was that hamster wheel thing. When this all happened, my husband looked at me and said, “We are not living like this anymore. I don't care what you do. Go back to school, stay home, or volunteer, but figure it out. I don't care if you started a business, just figure it out.” I started trying to figure it out and that's how I fell into franchising.
I was in my freshman year of college at Michigan State, but I started a paint company called Spartan College Painters. I remember going into neighborhoods and there were so many foreclosure signs. It was incredible. You are in a corporate position and your commission is tied to clearly clients. You have access to $10 million and all of a sudden it goes to hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight. That is an incredible story and a pretty unpredicted circumstance that eventually led you to franchising. I want to transition a little bit and FranNet is a big part of your story and segued from that unpredicted circumstance. What makes FranNet so special?
A little bit of background before I found FranNet, I didn't go straight from my corporate position into FranNet. I went from my corporate position into franchise consulting but as you know, there are different groups out there. They do it in different ways. When I first did it, I was not part of a franchise system and at the time, it was very much being independent. There was a little bit of training, and a little bit of support, but it was nothing like being part of a franchise system.
I did that for the first six years and I was looking at other options and got a call from somebody at FranNet that said they were looking for somebody to join their team. My name was on a shortlist and if I was open to a conversation to call them. It was night and day for me. Once I got under the fold of FranNet and the franchise system, it completely changed my business and my income.
I believe FranNet is special because it is a franchise system and there's so much support and training. If you think of things like a website when you are trying to do all that stuff on your own and manage it and that's one little piece of the puzzle. I believe FranNet puts a lot of training into their franchise consultants. I think they have been around since 1987. There are systems in place that work. They are always looking to do things better. I can't say enough about the corporate office and the ethics of the corporate office and the support they give. I do feel like I'm part of the best system.