Franchise Sales Lead Generation: How to Develop and Qualify Candidates

[00:00:00]to thrive as a franchisor in a franchise system you need Great lead generation qualified franchising candidates that share your culture are well capitalized come on board and help you grow your franchise system so how do you develop great leads how do you close great leads we're going to talk about secrets to franchise sales lead generation and very few people that are better to have this conversation than Dan claps Dan is a franchise industry leader lead generation closing deals Dan it's going to be a fun conversation today absolutely thanks Charles for having me today I love your uh I love your intro video [Laughter] yeah no I look this is this is good because then so many franchisors don't know what direction to go in right we work with so many hard-working emerging franchisors and the goal is to get them on the right track I'm a big believer in a five-year growth strategy years one and two season your franchise brand sell organically build that Foundation three to five franchisees build around them and then accelerate years three to five look for private Equity but if we're in the mix if we're thinking about startups if we're thinking about emerging if we're thinking about mature Brands like let's peel back the curtains a little I mean you have so much in-depth experience um and let's dive into the lead generation process and and really overall how do you view if you're working with a franchisor you're sitting down with the management team how do you even get them to have the right mindset in thinking about lead generation and sales yeah absolutely I think I think the start is understanding that while you might have the next greatest brand the next Orange Theory the next you know Massage Envy of your industry um even if you do the end user does not know that yet and you can't expect that just because you've got a great business and it's doing well in your local market you went out you got a franchise disclosure doc you know you go to your franchising agreements together and that the world is just going to come pouring in um because they're not they don't understand your story yet they don't know you and everything about getting to this point of becoming a franchisor you've kind of entered the the big leagues now and you're competing with all of the other franchises and so I think the first thing I would say to a franchisor is the mindset of hey look keep that in the back of your mind how great your concept is because that's what's propelling you to work hard and make it happen but for remember that no one else knows that yet and there you know you have you're gonna have to really grind and work it work at it to get that story out in the first few years it's so interesting as you're speaking because I know you've been very successful with a number of Brands and and your efforts in the franchise space it's just interesting how you refer I think you're referring to franchisees as end users or franchise buyers which you use the term energy Millennials but then I like it I'll tell you why I like it because you really as a franchisor need to sort of turn your franchise offering into a product that you're selling right right and so the mindset that you're advocating that I love because I believe everything whether it's a service whether you're selling franchises everything needs to be built as if it's a product on a Shelf with clear value and so number one I I love that you use the term end user because it's really focusing it's Shifting the focus away from you as franchisor to that franchise e that franchise candidate right and so that to me is that's pretty eye-opening the other thing I love that you say and I'm a big believer in you used its phrase they don't understand your story yet and I love that because so many franchisors don't even focus on their story and I'm not talking about something that's abstract or fake but they just jump into the franchise market and like we're a gym we're a restaurant and here's where we're going to promote you pay a six percent royalty and like oh great that's great but but like to your point like what is that story and how does that fit in with that end user that franchisee candidate right and and it's just it's realizing that they really don't know anything that's in your mind in your head they don't know about it yet and it's gonna take a lot of time to explain it I'll just give you a quick example you know I I experienced this in my own life you know I've led a couple different businesses and all kinds of things will happen over three or four months and then I'll go to a family event and some of my family would say hey how's XYZ going I'll think you know what what do you mean how's that going that was that was in the past I'm not doing that anymore didn't you know that you know we did this this and this already and the family member has no idea because all the things that are going on behind the scenes that's not out front and center and so the reason I'm making that analogy is you know you have this great business you just hired your operations team you guys had record store growth in your local market but none of that is out there in the open yet and even if it is going to take time for that story to get out to them so you know just going to the franchise lead gen side as humbly as possible knowing that you're basically starting at zero when you first start as far as your brand recognition on the franchise level not the consumer level that you've already you know grown well and then connecting the dots that your your points right so you get you enter right Dan's mindset is hey you need to know your end user you need to know your story and you need a grind right you're entering a whole new field and I think what you're advocating and your focus here is Dan's Point here too and this is something I believe is they don't know your story they don't know all the great things that you're doing inside and I look I think franchise sales websites as a part of that story should be talking about that process and procedure hey this is how we manage inventory systems this is the technology solution we're working on here's how we're going to light up sales initially and I think it's it's it's the opportunity for emerging brands that everyone's overlooking on the startup space well yeah I mean if you look at websites there's so many that unfortunately start they're they're talking about franchising but they're they're talking about how great they're you know their product is instead of the franchise which again it's going back to what you said Charles the franchise is the product now the consumer that you're targeting is the prospective franchisee I personally think and you need a totally separate website for for franchising um you know really or at least you know a really dedicated page you know the most amount of energy and time and resources really on a website standpoint should be put towards a really great a great website because again you've entered the new Stratosphere you're now competing with the big big businesses in franchising and so it's time to really if you can if you're capable of you know financially if you're able to make that investment I think an investment in the right website on the friend Dev side is is going to pay off in the in the long run I like that example with the website and sort of the end but let's reverse engineer this because I I like the points you're raising and and how you're focusing on this Dan um first of all too when when even though we're doing legal before our clients launch as we're developing the FDD we actually have a brand story Master Class you know series of videos in a workbook and the the end result for us is to try to help our clients understand hey when we come out of the gate what is the transformative headline on our website what are the three uniques real uniques right what is a part of our story and how do we create validation through the founders when we don't have franchisees yet but then in a hypothetical world because I I'm also a big believer that emerging Brands can outmaneuver mature Brands and that's my interest is let's outmaneuver them but let's just say a franchise Brand X they've just launched they have their franchise sales website I know we can't get the specifics because we're calling it Brand X what are like the things you'd want to see on that that would make you say wow these guys get it could be different and even though my candidate is looking at this larger brand these are people they should speak to well I think you hit the nail on that when you first said about that big large headline that you know really pulls you in I actually remember Charles you probably I don't know if you remember this this was years and years ago but I showed you a website I had made and you right away said where's your big headline so I actually I very much remember that and I went back and changed it uh at the time I was selling franchises and we changed the big headline too we create business owners right because what we did was we helped them become a business owner I think that big Tech headline is is important um obviously explaining your usp's unique selling proposition on how you stand out in the marketplace not just as a product but more so as a franchisor right where you're offering that that separates and I think that one right there is is a USP you know if you're competing with a large brand PE back brand and you're the the underdog or the the smaller brand that's not a negative that's a USP in a lot of cases there's a lot of prospective franchisees that want to be part of that um ground floor opportunity being early in with a franchisor there are plenty of people that have that entrepreneurial side where they realize hey you know what I'm going to get in with the founder on date you know on unit three or four versus unit you know 500. so I think on the website if that's your if that's something you have then turn it into a strength that you are a younger brand and you are going to be more involved with the franchisee um you know because you're younger well Dan let's stick with that because I think that's a great point right right owning the underdog status where I get frustration when I see Brands not getting traction is you need to be genuine right so it's not it's not just because a PR Company said this or more so I think there's ways to demonstrate right you know that Underdog status and how it wins right but I think you got to put substance behind it in terms of hey here's our technology solution here's our coaching structure here's our whatever and you're not going to get that with the bigger Brands you have unique insights into franchisee candidates right you have experienced and intercepted them at all parts of their Journey so connecting these two what are some insights about the franchisee candidate their Journey what they would want to see in terms of the underdog status and what would give them Comfort right that hey when I go to bed tomorrow night after I sign a franchise agreement I made the right decision I can do this and they're going to help me do it yeah well I think if we're still speaking to the website you know you want to have like I'll just give you an example of what I would do if I were to go out and be a franchisor and I had no units but I really had this passion for getting people into business and successful then I would sell me I would sell the fact that I am going to be you know no one wants you to make money I wouldn't say this on your website but a tone of no one wants you to be a successful no one wants you to be successful more than other than you and your family than me right because I'm only successful as the founder of this new brand we truly are Partners on the the first 10 20 you know I'm taking as much more of a risk than you are because if if you buy that franchise and fail it's gonna be really hard for me to get units two three four five uh open right or sold and so in much better language you know get a website someone to help you but um you know I think I would explain the the reality you talk about being genuine the truth is we are vested in you succeeding because we're so young too together we're we're getting into this and then the other thing with the website just what I would tell you is a website that converts is not what you maybe think would would look like and so a lot of people that go out and I think they're you know a little bit behind on the times where they make these big information websites and there's all this copy and all that's great but the start of your website's what's the point of it it's to drive track when drive when you drive traffic there it's convert it so you can get them on the you know into your funnel and so I think you should definitely there's this is a whole Niche and so there's there's Professionals in just friend Dev websites that can can help you if you're you know if you if you go that direction well and I I think one of your points there which is important is I think good franchise websites are going to have a contact form right in the top right hand side of the Mast right that's the most valuable real estate on a website and to your point what good is is a pay-per-click ad or organic contact if they're not filling out a form and raising their hand and making contact with you right so I I think that's for sure important how would you summarize I'm well I'm a franchisor and I asked you Dan what do franchisee candidates looking for like what's their thought process when they're going through this journey and what are some of the things that tip the balance one way or the other well I think the first thing now granted I work in my previous seven years of being in this space and working with candidates I've mostly worked with the candidate that comes from some sort of executive background and I think that majority of franchise Consultants Brokers whatever you want to call them that's the typical candidate that they work with so I'm going to touch on that much more than perhaps a multi-unit food owner that is a different candidate I don't interface with as much but when you look at the average executive who wants to transfer their skills into owning a business which I think is the best franchise candidate especially for an emerging brand you know they have a proven track record of managing people they have a managing process they're they're typically um professional they work in a team they have retirement funds saved up and good credit right they've had a stable career so far so they make great uh new franchise owners and what they're looking for well the first thing they're looking for and I think this is something that people kind of miss a lot of times is before you sell them on your brand sell them on or help them decide they want to be a business owner in general right so if I was a franchisor and I was talking to a candidate the first thing I would do is say look I'm a franchisor you know here you know we're we're XYZ business you know but I'm really passionate about people become business owners not everyone's cut out to be though let's talk through it and see if it's a good fit for you to look into businesses and if so we'll talk about my brand and if not there's 4 500 other ones out there and so if you know in Fran Dev if you can go into it with an approach on your website in your sales collateral Etc that we're going to help you as a brand decide a franchising for you or not whether it's with us or in general I think that's an approach that the candidate really really will appreciate because when you go on the websites on the portals or on Google and you type in how do I buy a business your phone blows up I've been through it when I was looking for a franchise it's it's very it's very daunting and overwhelming and when all of a sudden everyone's trying to sell you a franchise you're feeling pretty alone and so if you could take an approach of hey like we get it it's not easy to decide if you want to be a business owner let's talk through that first then if so we could explain the benefits of our brand I think that'll go a long way with these candidates when they're early in your funnel so which brings up and you know I love the description there of hey when you're looking to buy a franchise sometimes you could feel alone right and that alone feeling and that's where I think value and certainly you know this comes in and working with franchise Brokers we have this executive candidate right now working with a franchise broker which I think we both believe for you know good franchise Brokers create good value for franchisors and franchisees now reverse engineering a little we're the emerging franchise or good product you know we're what's the winning strategy with the Brokers because now it's tough right um I'm an emerging franchisor I'm competing with other brands that may be working with franchise sales organizations that are amazing right that have big track records that may have multi-year item 19s but so how do I enter the space build trust with the Brokers and at least ignite that conversation or become one of the few emerging Brands where the Brokers are like hey you got to check this one out sure so I think there's three elements and we're gonna we're gonna assume the brand is a great brand right that yep absolutely so let's assume the brand is a great brand and they you know have all those boxes that you know are checked so I would say you know number one you know get into the broker group networks and make sure all of your content your videos your collateral is engaging right again you're in the big leagues you're competing with lots of big big Brands so make sure you spend the energy and time you know if it's yourself on canva or that's on a marketing I don't know but make it really great marketing collateral that you're going to then put onto those websites because that's number one what Brokers are going to see number two um No One's Gonna like this answer but it's the truth you need to put money into it the broker groups are make money through franchisors being a part of their organization and the more you can sponsor or advertise or go to conferences and and get in front of the Brokers through their platforms um you know whether it's going to thrive PG there's the elite membership the other networks there's I'm sure all kinds of sponsorships I'm you know I think it does help getting at that you can if you can um my third answer is is much more Grassroots take the time with the Brokers to um to do something special so again if you can't especially if you can't do option two that I mentioned um financially which I totally get when you're starting out then win with relationship so it shows it fascinates me that there's not more franchisors that get on an airplane and meet with a franchise consultant one to one for dinner do you know how like when I was a franchise broker if you called me and you said hey I want to eat you you specifically Dan I've heard you're great consultant and I'm coming to New York and we're going to lunch no no questions asked I'm taking you out at least at that point you would have my attention at lunch to really pitch your brand not when there's all these people around not when there's you know you know I know that you have to be doing that or you paid money to have my attention but you actually took the time um to build a one-to-one relationship and that's free to do mostly so those would be my three okay so like this is our checklist for engaging Brokers right which I love so let's go through them a little and so the first point on the content the videos the collateral the engagement engagement I I I think that for sure is the most critical factor and and the thing that when we're working with our clients what I explain to them is no matter what our budget is we want the money we're spending to have enduring value so if we create engaging videos and engaging Pro right those videos are going to work for us not only this year but multiple years as we build up the one thing that again we have our course that I think so important for our clients is before you even get to that everyone jumps to you know we're really great or here's our item 19 that sort of is the same revenues as everyone else and we charge six percent royalty or you know we provide training everyone else does that right so for me even before you get to that video in collateral as a team we need to sit down and do a deep dive like what's that special feeling you had when you first opened your doors how did this transform your life which gets to your point right you gave an example earlier after we had a conversation you changed our headline to we create business owners which says to me Dan claps when he created that headline it's not thinking about him he's thinking about the transformation of his clients right so I think even before the videos do it with purpose no BS we're all Beyond it so I I think that is so critical and what I love about it it also gives the validation it's like hey we don't have franchisees but this is our story and could be yours um so I think that's critical I I recommend to our clients um six months after launch to join a broker group and I explained to him that in the first two years I'd still be focused on organic but the reason I recommend joining the broker group is to build your franchise IQ honor the process see what they care about start seating the relationship um I also tell them I don't expect them to have deals from Brokers right away unless you're a very unique but let's start building the foundation we got to earn it where I differ a little on spending that money in sponsorship number one I think that's probably two years down the line or later my problem is is when I see brands at conferences and events and they're paying for premium recognition I'm good I I think they should be at the conferences events I think the broker groups have tremendous value what I would I I get a disconnect is they're not ready to be in the sponsorship position sure because they can't carry that conversation they don't have that the things you're saying is a number one so many times they don't have that yet now maybe they use that to build it up but to me that's a little further down the line I love it right three um I think this is where the big win happens I think uh like every industry the franchise Industries in many ways becoming decentralized the value of Brokers is so apparent and the value of great Brokers you could see it I mean they're leading professionals and so yeah I mean you should be building those relationships and again that takes time so I I think that's a great checklist I mean for engaging Brokers yeah and you know Brokers will um I think a great Point too is you can get into the groups you can because Brokers will kick your ass you go to a Speed network in one of these groups and they'll hit you with these questions as a friend I've seen it your franchisor you don't have the answers ready to go they eat you live in a good way it's a it's the just like being a franchise or your franchisees are always going to push you to to keep going and make this better Brokers are gonna uh challenge you too and there's nothing wrong with in my opinion there's there's nothing wrong with going into the group learning oh wow we really do need to get a lot more of this figured out go back you know I was just saying this to someone I I've been traveling a ton and I'm about to stop because I'm going to get into the lab that I call it you know get into whatever I do next and build that head down nothing else and two years go by and all of a sudden you've got a product and you're back out promoting it and so I think kind of to your point Charles if you're a franchisor and you spend the first couple of years or the first year refining your systems you go into the broker groups maybe maybe you find out you got to make some adjustments well great you found out sooner than later go back to the lab if you will fix it and guess what you come back as long as you didn't you know egregiously screw it up with the Brokers they'll they'll hear you all wow what did you change and maybe a lot of them will actually gravitate towards you because you took their advice and and went back and humbly you know major changes yeah I then I'm on board like you build up that IQ and that's why I recommend six months in do it I the problem I see and I I get a lot of LinkedIn messages from um franchisors startups they haven't worked with us but they're not gaining traction they'll have some questions and I get a lot of LinkedIn messages hey Charles you talk about seasoning your franchise offering um what does that really mean and for me it's just you're wanting to building the brand story building the videos focusing on your organic reach and starting to uh enter the broken Market to build IQ let's learn let's get strong before we let's build up our Arsenal a lot of times they'll um and this will get into my next question which is they'll say yeah we launched we started with a development company said they're going to do ourselves well it turned out we got leads but no deals and a wasted time then we spent some time on Portals we did it ourselves kind of didn't work and then in one of the one I get the slides now but we're now joining the broker group here's our broker offering and it's you know 50 royalty six fifty percent franchise fee here's our royalty here's this I go to their website they're not going to gain Traction in the broker group just because you're offering a broker commission it's like so many levels beyond that and I think that's part of the the learning process everyone has to get to Dan you mentioned so before we because I want to ask you about a bunch of different things but like I I want to also ask you about portals but then when we started this conversation we created this broker checklist our one two three right content invest and uh that special relationship you said to me hey Charles I'm assuming it's a great brand they hit the check mark items for being a great brand or being a ready brand I'm not saying everything what are some of those check mark items of hey I'm now a franchisor I need to have these things well it obviously depends on each industry that your vertical that you're in um I think that if you're now a franchisor you need to know your numbers I meet a lot of franchisors and the first questions you ask is that when I was a broker is you know about the the numbers the average unit volume the unit economics overall and so if you don't know that that's the first thing you need to know is just your numbers gross revenue margin net margin everything of that nature how much it's going to cost to open Etc um I think that you to say that you're ready you need if you don't have any franchisees you have to really have a predictable everything's predictable everything's set up you know that you've got a a person that's gonna be able to train if it's not you then you're someone on your team that can train the first franchisee um you know if you're going to Brokers you know again you're gonna well if we're talking about going to Brokers I I do agree I think you said something about growing organically first before going to the broker channels and and I I agree I think you need to get your first units if you can through organic or through portals or any type of lead gen I I think I don't mean to make my a lot of my points about um spending money I don't think that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is in my time leading nurture assist which is a lead generation company um there were so many times where I would say to a franchise or if there's anywhere to spend money it's legit if you've got all the story and everything together it's lead generation because the good news is you're you you're most likely going to recoup that marketing spend in other words God forbid you spent I don't know thirty thousand dollars on lead gen um you hopefully should then close a deal and get the franchise fee and recoup that that money if you don't then perhaps you're going to learn a lot that you do need to stop and go back to the lab as they call it and talk with Charles or someone and figure out what the hell is going on because you know you spent thirty thousand and didn't get a deal and that may that might be very well true but it might be that you need to make some tweaks um or it could be another another thing is it could be you're not ready and you need to go back to the the business and make it stronger that happens too sometimes um Dan let's because you touched on a bunch of good things right tomorrow or today I've turned over my franchise brand to you we're an emerging franchisor uh we're in a good space strong item 19.

[00:29:54]I have no franchisees yet we have clear differentiators in the marketplace and when a candidate comes to us they're going to be engaged in a process right we have a process they're going to be engaged by our Founders they're going to like our Founders they're going to like our mission and by the way before you take on this project and we've done our homework we have great videos telling our Founders story we have great videos about our processing systems and we have a process you know candidate comes in we're gonna what I give you an imaginary budget we don't have to say the dollars but we could talk in terms of percentages right where's the where where are you going to absolutely spend money not spend any money and avoid at all costs how are you going to allocate our imaginary budget for our imaginary franchise company for this like a very amount but I mean it's a difficult conversation but I just threw it to you Dan here's our imaginary company what are you doing like and by the way Dan we'd like to I mean I'll be realistic I have two deals that I think we could close organically but over the next 18 months I wanted five other deals to close yeah well preface by saying this is this is imaginary because I don't know I don't have the ability to work with you at this current time no I got that part right yeah this is imaginary yeah imaginary but um what I would say would be so I go back to if there's anywhere are we assuming that the websites made yeah so we got I did not come like I have a website yeah focused on transformation contact form three uniques right and our uniques I'm focused on unit economics I'm focused on technology like real technology systems yeah and I'm focused on culture right culture our internal culture and why our customers love us so those are our uniques um estimated initial investment where you could we're let's just go in this case we're a retail concept you could get in for less than three around three hundred to four hundred thousand dollars I have an item 19. that is showing top line numbers gross sales 1.2 million and maybe I'm showing some gross profit at the company owned level of say hundred and eighty thousand dollars which of course I'm not paying royalties so you know if we extrapolate it's it's going to be you know after I do franchise adjustments say it's 120 000 uh margin or profit well I would say the first thing you would do is start running some lead generation because as I said the best cases you you close a deal and you've got a franchise fee and a franchisee to start with um but if you go on to social media or portals or or you know any of the the Great lead generation businesses out there I would start there because one reason you want to start there is you're going to learn what you're missing second reason you're going to start there is I'm telling you don't go and call the portal and say why is this lead doesn't the name doesn't the name is fake or the phone number's not real get over that it's the reality of lead gen if you're in franchising if you're in legal if you're in uh sell couches I don't care what you sell lead gen you got to have leads coming in some are gonna be great some are not gonna be great it's not the lead gen's fault people go on Google they type in different things they you know it's just part of legion but I would do that because another reason is again you're learning you're figuring out what people like and don't like or who might say wow this is really hard and I can't believe Brokers do this all day long and I should really figure out how to get in with the Brokers because they are very special what they do you think about it they have to take leads raw leads you know I was I was talking to someone that was part of an episode it was becoming a broker and I had given them some advice which was don't make the mistake you're an amazing salesperson don't get me wrong you're an amazing franchise development leader this this person I was giving advice to but don't forget the widget that you were part of or the platform that you're a part of right so you were getting candidates from a broker who uh kissed a hundred frogs before getting the prince and then they chose your fso to send their best candidate out of the three that they got to talk to and they sent it to you and yeah they're on the phone with you pre-qualified ready to go and you are great at what you do but don't forget all the layers that happened before they ever got to so I think if you start calling some leads yourself as a franchisor you might um like I said it might make you even more motivated to work with Brokers um but I would spend the money on the lead gen right away and even if I know you might say well what if their story is not perfect you're going to learn that as you go because you look on a zoom call and your candidates uh eyes are glassing over glossing over then go back to the lab and you know and figure out what's wrong yeah I I love that starting point and again it's about that franchise IQ right so you're learning as you're doing this lead gen um so work on those organic leads and let's do some paid social media ads I'm not a big fan of portals but like you're you know better than me so I like your mindset on it I especially like it from the Viewpoint of you're building your knowledge base and you're going to see where the holes are right which I I that's been communicated to me often and then your point then yeah for any franchisor listening to this where I cringe sometimes is where franchisor goes yeah I'm just going to offer the broker more money and I'm like whoa wait a minute yeah you gotta understand the broker is a small business owner that is spending his or her dollars every month for lead gen then building out the team to qualify these leads and then needs to know when they refer someone to you yeah that if the The Experience needs to be so great that if they don't want to buy your franchise they're going to come back to that broker right that's like that's the mindset and then the fsos I think you know the I got to give credit to the fsos in terms of the business discipline um you know they're succeeding for good reasons they're smart hard working and they're operating at a high level so yeah I think those are good points okay so we spent money social media we spent money on Portals yeah what is that going to feel like Dan I'm spending the money on what's coming back to me like what should I expect like this sucks or hey I'm getting these crazy leads or what what like what is going to be that initial reaction though oh I spent too little or what what's some of the initial feedback I'm gonna get gray hairs and stress eating okay you're gonna be stressed because you think like what the hell am I doing I listen to that podcast damn Clash told me to spend money on leads us you know I think you'll you'll feel nervous as all help you know it's a scary thing franchising you signed up to do something that's extraordinary right and it's amazing but it's hard in the beginning I think there's two Grassroots things that I would do that I didn't really talk about which number one um I was just telling this my I have a team of people that were working on my next thing or figuring out what we're doing as a team and I said to them look this is our plan I want you to go home and I want you to tell like friends and family about what we're looking for every single person you touch I want you to tell what we're looking for because our network will expand if you do that right so I think the first thing just like when you first start you know as a lawyer you go around telling people that you're an attorney I think you should get crazy Relentless like go watch the founder with Ray Kroc and how he was like signing checks on the golf course while I was friends were you know golfing at the country club they're like you know look at this weirdo you know won't stop talking about franchising but that's what I would do I would run around I would get like I I would go to my customers I would take my customer database and I would promote the franchise opportunity through email through marketing through if you're in food you know through marketing it and I'm sure you've already learned this if you've gone through a great franchise company but I would Shout at the rooftops to get my first one or two franchisees and and really promote the heck out of it to my local market and everywhere I go on the airplane at the bar I wear a shirt that says I'm a franchisor you know just Relentless and then I would um I would take time and and do podcasts like this it's amazing to me if you get on other people's podcasts and you keep doing podcasts it feels like you're like what are you doing you're wasting your time no you will find franchisees there's a great franchisor I really look up to Bennett Maxwell he's the dirty doe uh founder and what he did was he did exactly what I just said Charles he he bought the business he surrounds a bunch of people that were Executives that know how to run a franchise company and granted he's he's a sales guy but he went out there and he just sold telling everybody podcast promoting running around you know getting the name out there so a lot of this podcast I give a lot of advice on how you can do things through through broker groups or spending money but I think also to get that first or second franchisee um you could do it through Grassroots if you really put the energy into it the then and I taking that another step right from a mindset point of view you get those first one or two now you're building you know we speak about what our clients is let's build around them let's take this static operations manual and turn it into videos and live training modules let's super support them let's get their numbers great let's build up our item 19. let's tell their story and then that's where that momentum and you know that flywheel starts spinning so I think that's critical advice on that front yeah okay so in our imaginary business here right we've spent money on social media so first of all we're focused on organic our goal is one to two deals organic Network we're building up IQ now in terms of spending dollars more IQ building with possible lead gen which I agree like let's look at our processes they may suck right a lead comes in why does our process suck from what's our first conversation through you know what's our Discovery session any more imaginary dollars we're investing in we're going to join a broker group right so in in my scheme maybe we do it six months from now more IQ building any more dollars we could spend on lead gen anywhere any more dollars so we talked about the broker groups we're talking about you know social media we're talking about portals right um these are the Great lead generation companies um I think PR it depends on you know if you've got the budget for for PR because now again here's a compounding effect you're running around your neighborhood and your local area selling franchises like a lunatic like you know Ray Kroc and I'm using Ray Crocker's example just because he uh if you watch the movie he's just like all he does is talk about opening McDonald's everywhere he goes um and it paid off for him but um I think doing the pr component could be really helpful because you could take that PR and you can apply it to now when you're organically in your Grassroots marketing you can use that PR piece like um I did I was on the Jordan Belfort podcast recently and um that PR has been helpful for me for the past I don't know a couple weeks you know just I'm running around trying to find what I'm gonna do next like I just gave the advice but then I have the prps to lean into I think franchisors could do that too well and Dan I I agree so and I think there's innovation in PR also in the sense that so I have a flight tomorrow to uh Nashville right so maybe I'll see Delta Sky miles a magazine whatever so I'll see an ad about a franchisor I'm not a big fan of that type of PR I like the pr that's advancing the Brand Story like building that story arc for the exact point you're making and what we discussed earlier which is every dollar you spend has to multi-purpose so I don't want that PR piece to disappear oh that PR piece is about the founder it's about our technology it's about and then all of a sudden that flows into the communications or candidates the paid leads on my social media and reinforces so I I agree with that I you know what Dan I I think we've unlocked some Secrets I think we we've done worthy of the title here then for your podcast how could people get to that um you just Google franchise Founders podcast it pops right up it's on Apple and Spotify franchise Founders podcast you know if you're open to I'd love to do more of this and and have more conversations and by the way everyone's listening right check out Dan's podcast also when you pay for those portal leads and you're not satisfied with them and not not just portal I mean you could do social media you could do you could do YouTube ads okay yeah but yeah don't call me no Dan I I think this is uh part of the winning game plan all right thanks so much Dan