How Does the World of Franchising Work?

Lance Graulich, the CEO of Eye On Franchising and an expert in franchising, shares insights on the misconceptions and benefits of franchise ownership. He addresses common concerns such as the cost of joining a franchise and the need for prior experience in a specific industry. Lance highlights the wide range of franchise opportunities available, including not only food and blue-collar industries but also business services, pets, and senior care. 

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📌TALKING POINTS

01:13 Misconceptions about Franchise Ownership

09:13 Franchise Success Stories and Earnings Claims

16:13 Franchise Opportunities in Home Services

25:18 Starting with One Franchise and Scaling

29:04 The Importance of Systems in Franchising

35:14 Benefits of Franchise Ownership

39:02 Franchise Categories and Finding the Right Fit

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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanceeyeonfranchising/ 

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Tom Finn (00:00.617)

Welcome, welcome my friends today on the show we are learning from Lance Graulich. Lance, welcome to the show.

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Lance Graulich (00:07.782)

Tom, it is my absolute divine pleasure to be here.

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Tom Finn (00:11.369)

Well, it is our pleasure to have you on the show We are gonna talk all things franchising today and how to make money because Lance is known as the king of franchising and is the CEO of Eye On Franchising now he's done this for 25 years or so helping people become wealthy through franchise ownership and he's been an owner of multiple franchises Some of those are Wingstop and good old-fashioned crispy cream donuts delicious. He's helped over a thousand individuals become successful franchise owners and in his early days, I worked with a family member to build TGI Fridays from zero in terms of revenue to $225 million, which is pretty impressive, my man. So all things franchising, let's start on the other side of this coin. What are the things that you hear, the misconceptions about franchise ownership that are the problems, the issues, the concerns that people have and how do we address them?

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Lance Graulich (01:13.542)

The biggest one starts with, Tom, why the heck would I pay a franchise fee of $40,000 or so to join a brand? And why would I pay anybody an ongoing royalty of 6 %? So that's probably the biggest one. And the answer is, why do you pay for anything? What is value to you? I always say to people, uh, have you ever joined a mastermind group? We all know that we are the total of the what five people we hang around with the most. Don't you want to hang around with some really cool, successful people? And in franchising, you get to hang around with people that are already doing exactly what it is that you intend to do. When you're a new franchisee at McDonald's and have no revenue and you're building stores, don't you want to hang out with the guy that's worth $25 million already? And find out how he did it or she did it. So I tell people it's like the mastermind fee joining a great franchise. But you have to find the right franchise and more on that later. Another misconception, it's expensive. It's going to cost a fortune. Well, again, you only have the franchise fee and the royalty. And the rest is joining a system that's going to show you how to save money through vendor relationships.

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But no, you do not have to be a millionaire to own a franchise. There are a lot more franchises than just restaurant franchises. A lot of people have no idea. We all see the brick and mortar retail type franchises, all the quick serve restaurants like Wendy's and McDonald's and Burger King. But then people also do see European Wax Center and Sport Clips and Great Clips and Orange Theory Fitness. They're all franchises, but there are a ton of franchises that are home service brands, one hour heating and air conditioning, for example, handy, all kinds of handyman services. There are about, like the stock market, there's about 4 ,500 franchises, about that many stocks or so these days. So, so those are a couple, you know, you don't have to be a millionaire and the fees exist because someone has created this model that you are going to step in and follow. It's kind of like, you know, when you buy a house, do you want to buy the land and play your own developer and do it all? Probably not. A lot of people want the existing house just to move into. And you can make a franchise your own because you're hiring your people. Nobody tells you who to hire. This is your company. This is your LLC. So those are coupled to start with. You want more?

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Tom Finn (04:00.777)

I'm going to get some more for sure. But I okay, so I love I love you hit nail on the head. So you went sort of quick serve restaurants. I think we all visualize that pretty quickly. You know, we've heard of the million dollar investment for some of these that include real estate. And most of us aren't sitting on a million dollars in cash in an account that's liquid that we can just stroke a check for a quick serve restaurant.

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Lance Graulich (04:02.214)

Ha ha ha! Yes.

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Tom Finn (04:29.545)

So let's let's just touch on that one and move quickly on. Is that where the big upfront costs are as a quick serve restaurants and real estate. Is that what you're paying those million dollar checks for?

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Lance Graulich (04:34.214)

Yes. Yeah. I mean, in some cases, a building could still be a million dollars also by the time you outfit it with the equipment, Krispy Kreme donuts in the old days, $375 ,000 just worth of donut equipment before you even wrote a check to a contractor on improvements and plumbing and electrical and mechanical and all those things. So at the end of the day, though, the quick serve type restaurants, fast food, anything with a drive through are expensive because of of that investment. But you know, the SBA will give you a loan. The Small Business Administration will give loans for all kinds of franchises, the majority of them as long as they're on the SBA registry, which most are. And then you could also get a loan for the real estate. So talk about leverage, just like investing in real estate for, you know, residential or multifamily or anything else. So there are loans where you if you have good credit, you don't even need 800 credit. You just need some cash as a down payment and a resume that shows some history of success and it doesn't have to be in restaurants.

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Tom Finn (05:45.513)

Yeah, beautiful. So you can go get a loan. You can get a loan for the real estate and you can really do this thing on a bit of a shoestring budget. If you've got some experience and you can show that you've got a head on your shoulders, you can actually put this thing together with a little bit of tape and bubble gum and get started.

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Lance Graulich (06:00.422)

Yes. You could, you could. And, and, and you know what? You just use the word start because most people end up getting stuck in the process of determining what type of business or what they should be doing. I tell people all day, there's only three major pillars, if you will, of investing. There's wall street, there's real estate, and there's a business ownership. That's really it. And in the business ownership category, a lot of people are like, well, I'm just going to start my own business. This is America. Go start your own business. But what is it that everybody is worried about? It's time. And a franchise is a system that you can save a ton of time and jump right into. 

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Time for a great story for you. HVAC, hot industry, air conditioning, heating, ventilation companies. I have one called One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning biggest in the United States. A guy comes to me with his son who has his own HVAC company that he created. And his son brought him to me. It's like, you got to help my dad. His dad started his own HVAC company eight years ago because he did not want a franchise. I said to the dad, I said, so how long you been doing this? He said, just over eight years. What was your revenue last year? $800 ,000, just over $800 ,000. Oh, that's, that's not bad. You happy with that? He goes, I'm making money. I have a couple of employees. It's, it's not a bad gig. The son's like, yeah, but he's struggling to get to the next level. And the dad's like, well, what would happen if I magically got into a franchise? So, well, my favorite franchise in air conditioning is one hour heating and air conditioning. You would have done at least 800 ,000 the first year with them. And there are franchisees that are doing four million. You know, this isn't a mystery. Every franchise has a franchise disclosure document. There's 23 items in there. They're required to update these items every year as needed. And there's an earnings claim. The earnings claim is item 19. And it says things like average franchisee does $4 million in revenue. And you could talk to these franchisees. The brand will connect you with these franchisees to see how they did it. What was their first year like? What was their toughest part? What would they do it all over again? Let me tell you another quick one. A roofing franchise. I know a guy that worked for the roofing company, the franchise or the parent company. He said, man, I'm watching too many franchisees come through our training and kill it. So this guy knows everything. He's the one training them. He becomes a franchisee. And in the first year, he did $8 million on a $250 ,000 investment. $8 million in the first year. That's why you get into a franchise. Save time and make money.

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Tom Finn (09:13.289)

So if I'm playing devil's advocate, which it looks like I'm wearing that shirt today, I'm going to ask this question. 

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Lance Graulich (09:19.622)

Ha ha ha ha ha! The devil also wears Prada, by the way.

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Tom Finn:

OK, you just, that's right. Great movie. So the examples you just gave were two blue collar examples of heating and air conditioning and roofing. And the examples of the gentleman that you just described.

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Lance Graulich (09:19.622)

Ha ha ha ha ha! The devil also wears Prada, by the way.

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Tom Finn (09:41.673)

were existing laborers in those particular spaces. So they have history understanding. They actually know how to fix an air conditioner, let's just assume, or put a roof on. So let's just take Tom or any of the folks out there that don't have that kind of experience. Can a layman start a roofing company in this example, or is it not a good idea because you just don't know enough about the business?

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Lance Graulich (09:50.47)

Yes. Yes. No, it goes back to the book, The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. There are multiple components to being a successful business owner. One of them is being the technician, in this case, the air conditioning tech. The other is being the manager. And the other third is being the true entrepreneur and visionary to plan accordingly. And at the end of the day, franchising, the best franchises have all three of those hats covered for you.

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So whatever it is you're not good at, if you're not a technician, they will show you how to hire a technician that can act as your GM. Now the investment goes up a little bit because you might have to pay your GM $75 ,000, $80 ,000 a year. You can also act as your own GM if you want to run into this full speed and be a full -time owner operator. There are a lot of these trades where you can be what we call a semi-absentee owner.

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You can hire somebody, put them in place and you could work in the business 10 to 20 hours a week, you know, work on the business, business, not necessarily in the business. So, and when you act as your own GM, because you don't have that experience, you end up hiring techs. So one of my favorite stories about this too, is my, one of my old best friends who has 19 great clips hair salons. He's bald and does not know how to cut hair, Tom, but he hired those technicians, if you will, and whoever he liked best became the GM or the manager of that particular great clips salon. And they were also the acting manager, you know, just like kind of a tech can also act as a GM if he or she has all the appropriate skills, customer service being a huge piece of being a great technician, of course. So while we think about this, we've covered food, we've covered blue collar, you're leaning into maybe professional services in hair clipping sort of franchisees. What else should we be thinking about? Give us some categories that we should be thinking about in terms of franchising. Yeah. Well, business services in general for franchises, it's a bit, it's a big area. Things like action coach. You can be a coach. The alternative board where people need help and support small business owners. Sandler, Sandler sales training. A lot of people know Sandler. It's been around for really, really long time. So I have a brand called Schooley Mitchell, $68 ,000 investment. It's a cost reduction franchise. There's several of those in my portfolio. I represent about 900 brands in every industry, but $68 ,000 investment from for Schooley Mitchell. And they will save small to medium sized businesses on virtually everything, all the expense categories, everything from telecom to credit card processing, courier, small freight, waste management, recycling, things like that, data storage and there are franchisees that net 400 ,000 a year, $500 ,000 a year. I know people at net over a million dollars a year. There's residual income. You get half the savings that you're saving the business for three years. So it is Dennis, the founder is a old CPA and it started with his clients not knowing how to efficiently produce more profit. And Dennis being a wise guy, CPA and a friend of mine.

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Well, there's two ways to increase profit. You either increase revenue or you decrease expenses. Most business owners thought they had a good handle on how to increase revenue through promotions and various other things and methods. And they all seem lost as to how to call all their vendors and renegotiate contracts. So that's where that brand comes in. So business services, a lot of great category, a lot of great businesses. Pets. Pets are hot. Pets, kids, and seniors. Three things you're always going to take care of. So the pet category is exploding. If it wasn't growing fast enough, the pandemic hit, and everybody wanted to love on a doggie or a cat. And we're talking brick and mortar. We're talking mobile, dog grooming, pet sitting, pet walking, all kinds of different things. And the kid space, whether it's a school, like LightBridge Academy or Goddard School or whatever it might be. There's a lot of schools, the educational system in the U .S. probably not going in the right direction. A lot of tutoring franchises, a lot of brands. I have a ton under $250 ,000 and you're only going to put 20 % down on these things. A lot, quite honestly, under $200 ,000. Then when it comes to seniors, one of my favorite categories, and it sounds awful, sounds like something you'd never want to do, but it's senior care in home, senior care. Remember when assisted living facilities popped up and people are buying and rehabbing these buildings and housing seniors and nurses would take care of them and all that. Well, assisted living facilities are still around, but nobody I know that wants to go there. Nobody wants to go there. Everybody wants to stay in their house and have people come to them.

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And unfortunately, my parents are gone. My uncle Bob is gone. And what do they all have in common? Senior care, in-home companion care, not even medical, just a companion that would come to the house. My mom was getting too old. She couldn't take care of my dad. I flew in as well, but she had, she had someone, an aide that came to the house to make a sandwich, fluff dad's pillow, change the remote. Cause we couldn't be there to help him 24 seven $150,000 investment. I have a guy I know, new client. He got a territory of a brand called Home Helpers where he is. Within four months of him buying this first territory, he calls me. This is amazing. I need to buy a second territory before they sell that. And the rules for Home Helpers were you can't buy a second territory until you hit the one year anniversary and you're a successful franchisee. They want you to grow with them and and you know certain brands are very careful about letting people have too much too quickly but he was a special case high performing they sold him a second territory he loves it and it's nothing specialized you have to have empathy you have to like seniors and you hire a bunch of caretakers there's a system for it that's the beauty of franchising.

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Tom Finn (16:49.449)

Sure. Yeah, let's talk about that. You hit the word system. I like to call it a process, but I think both of those words work really well. The gift of a franchise is that you get a proven system or process that has the marketing components, the functional area of the business, the vendor list, right? It teaches you step by step how to build this territory for yourself without a whole lot of room for screwing this up. Right? Isn't that how it works?

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Lance Graulich (17:39.75)

That's exactly how it works. However, there are people that don't go through the process, I guess you could say in the right way, meaning maybe they don't use a franchise broker consultant like me. Maybe they do it on their own. Maybe they only explore one or two brands. Just like a bad marriage, they get there's too much lust and not enough substance. And next thing they know, they're married in this franchise. And it's not really the right franchise for them. And I see that happen often, this mismatch where people get excited about something. They didn't do their due diligence and worse the brand allowed them to not complete their due diligence. When people are going through the validation stage where they're typically speaking to at least five franchisees, like my friend Aaron that did home helpers as an example.

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I remember he got all excited. I think it was validation call number three. He calls me, he goes, I just spoke to a guy that did a million dollars in net income last year with a home care brand. I'm in, sign me up. And I said, Aaron, first of all, slow down. That is fantastic. However, not everybody's going to do that. You obviously talk to one of the best franchisees because in that disclosure document, item 19 shows that brand, the average franchisee does whatever, $1 .8 million, whatever the number is. I don't know it off the top of my head. And every year, those things are updated. Right now, a lot of brands are updating their disclosure documents. So he ended up having multiple other conversations with other franchisees. And I always tell people, by the way, Tom, sometimes people say to me, I want to talk to the worst franchisees and find out what sucks. And I go, please don't. Please don't, because in every brand, in life, there's a bottom 10 % for everything. And in franchising, it's no different. So what I would rather you do is focus on the top 20 % of franchisees. Talk to as many as you'd like. If you're not satisfied with talking to five, talk to 10 until you feel comfortable. But a lot of times when people say certain things or don't say certain things, even the successful ones, you start to realize this might be too much work for me. Even though there's guardrails, there's still work. And you know, Tom, my favorite visual example of this is getting in shape. If somebody's 400 pounds and wants to be 200 pounds, obviously there's a visual to this as to where people are. Business ownership isn't exactly like that, but there's a ton of work involved in that, you know, you have to hire a team, essentially, a nutritionist, a trainer, if you want to get this done. That's what franchising is. You have an entire team supporting you in this venture. So I talked to a guy yesterday. He talked all about marketing for 15 minutes, a client, someone that wants me to find them a franchise. He was so hung up on marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing. And I said, well, some brands are more well known than others. So the marketing kind of precedes themselves.

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When a one hour heating and air conditioning truck rolls by you, I think it's pretty self -explanatory, isn't it? It's a big brand, but you know what it does. You know what they do. So some brands, because at the end of the day, the marketing dollars come from the franchisees and corporate is helping you. The marketing team is helping you decide how that's really being spent. But one of my favorite marketing examples, by the way, Rolling Suds, it's a power washing brand. And really home services, tremendous return on investment. Great, great potential in the home service space, very much needed. This isn't a power washing brand. Rolling Suds is not a power washing brand, like walking to Home Depot or Lowe's, walk out with one of those power washers. This is like a Robert Downey Jr. Avengers style power washer where you can clean the outside of a building four stories up from the ground level. It's pretty intense. They're doing stuff for homeowners associations and property management companies, cleaning parking garages for $20 ,000 soap attachment, bleach attachment. Like people didn't even know this service actually existed. And it really didn't until rolling suds came about. So, you know, you're looking for something proprietary rolling suds marketing. There's five different legs, if you will, to their marketing. Outreach to property management companies specifically, and HOAs and things like that. Very proactive, very methodical. This isn't just put something on Angie's list or home advisor and hope and pray. That's not exactly a strategy. You know that, right?

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Tom Finn (22:54.153)

Hope is not a strategy. We say that all the time on this show. Hope is not a strategy. It's good to have hope, it's just not a strategy.

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Lance Graulich (22:57.414)

Ha ha ha. Exactly. So I can go on and on, but at the end of the day, people value different things in a franchise. Some people just talk about the system. Other people get hung up on like marketing or what's the purchasing like. They're all great questions, but you know, like anything you look at that, the sum total of what you're looking for. I mean, every guy seems to want at least my age group one wanted Christie Brinkley in the old days. The blonde model that was 6 '1 or however tall she was. And yeah, you might get a woman that looks sort of like her, but a little shorter. Maybe she's five pounds heavier. You never get exactly what you want. And in a franchise, if what you want is to create your own business, by all means, create your own business. And you can be successful. The odds are kind of rough and stacked against you.

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Tom Finn (23:57.481)

Yeah, for sure. So we're just comparing, starting your own business from scratch, coming up with your name and your business entity and how you're going to model it and going forth. Uh, what is it? 90 % of businesses fail in the first five years. Uh, so just make sure you're one of the 10%. Uh, and then if you don't want to do that, there are these systems and setups really ready and willing to work with smart people that want to put in a little bit of sweat equity and a little bit of cash. But what we, we haven't talked about Lance is can you actually earn a living doing this? Maybe one of the other things I hear is, well, geez, one franchise is going to pay me, after all said and done, 30 or 40 grand. I can't live on that. I want to make 200 grand. I'm going to have to have five franchises and I don't have the money for five franchises, so I might as well just not get started.

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Lance Graulich (24:53.19)

Yeah. Yeah. And it goes back to return on investment for everybody. My buddy that did the great clips hair salons knew that it was 160 ,000 or so in those days to open a great clips all in working capital marketing, labor, franchise fee included, and he got one. So let's see how it goes. And he liked it. He bought another using the SBA. And then eventually got a big development agreement and was also able to buy existing great clips from people that were the poor, poor performers in the area that were giving him a deal to exit so they can get out. But at the end of the day, you have to start somewhere. And that's what it comes down to. You can't just be a millionaire overnight from doing a little bit of work, investing a little bit of money. So where it all starts, is you jump in with one. I mean, I had a guy that bought a waste management franchise called Accelerated Waste. He and his wife are both veterans. They became the number one franchisee of that brand, last I checked. And they just were able to get into a second territory. They're opening a second territory. They've already purchased multiple trucks.

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There is a way to scale in virtually every great franchise. Every great franchise has a mechanism and a way to scale. If you don't see anybody in that franchise when you're doing validation or when you're talking to the corporate folks, even before validation, that's probably not the brand for you. You know, chuck in a truck or stand in a van is the classic description of a, of a solopreneur that was some sort of technician in his or her past life and, and, and buys, I mean, I have ProLift garage doors great brand. They have quite a few people that are solopreneurs. They have their one truck, but you can do 800 ,000 a year out of one truck. And not all home service brands are like that. It might only be 400 ,000 for a truck. It depends on your average ticket and the time spent with each customer, et cetera. But then there are people with ProLift that have multiple trucks doing six, seven, 800 ,000 a year. So it's scale. I always tell people from my experiences in the restaurant business, if you could run one restaurant well, some people can't, but if you can run one restaurant well, manage your people effectively to do two is something you should, you should do. And when you master that to do three and you get into three. Once you get to three, cause you can't, you know, cut yourself in threes or even twos. So if you have to work through other people to successfully operate three locations, even in the same town, you can get to 30 easily, but you have to just get to three and that's-

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Tom Finn (28:01.577)

One, two, three, thirty. That's the math.

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Lance Graulich (28:05.094)

Exactly. That is my math. And that's how I got to 25 million a year quickly with Krispy Kreme. Because when I jumped in with my old partner, his old operations team, I helped him from afar. I wasn't full time when he opened the first location. I knew him through a family friend who had Krispy Kreme in New York. They were the first franchisees of Krispy Kreme. Now notice what we're talking about here. It was the second, we were the second franchisee for Krispy Kreme. They were old company. There, there wasn't as much demand in the very beginning. And then the demand was outrageous for Krispy Kreme as people started seeing them popping up. Uh, but bottom line is once I fixed everything in the operations for the original stores and got us even more profitable and fine tuned the systems that were in place. And a lot of times if there isn't a franchise system, remember there's a difference between the systems under a corporate umbrella with no franchisees. Then the systems now that franchisees are jumping in and investing their hard earned money. Now they have skin in the game and putting one or 10 of these locations in their area. There were a lot of systems that were not in place for Krispy Kreme. There was a recipe book in place. Recipe book is not an operations man.

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So like troubleshooting guides on how to make donuts effectively. We've all planned on, did some home baking. Things didn't go right in that kitchen, right? And you wonder what the heck happened? Well, with baking, it's all about time and temperature. And you can screw it up. Cooking a steak is a lot easier than trying to bake. So.

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Tom Finn (29:55.113)

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I resemble that remark. I love cooking anything. I can't bake to save my life because it requires structure and the exact amount and you know, when all else fails when I'm in the kitchen, add more salt, which doesn't actually which doesn't actually work in baking. I've learned. So okay, so you've owned some of these along your path, you've supported the growth of a lot of great brands. Do you still continue to own franchises yourself or are you out of that game now?

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Lance Graulich (30:08.71)

Absolutely. I'm basically out of it. I have a little piece of a Brewpub brand that I helped franchise years ago. A little quiet piece in that action. Other than that, no. Because when I got... I had a bad first divorce. And only divorced, thankfully. And I got remarried about 14 years ago. My wife is amazing. And I look at her every time I see something I get excited about, which happens fairly often. And she says, she looks at me and goes, don't need the money. We want to enjoy our time. I was one of those guys didn't take a lot of vacations. I worked hard. You know, I mean, we can, we can talk about their recipe to success also, because there's a lot of people not willing to work hard. And I'm not talking about senseless time wasting type stuff, like me being on the fryer and things like that. I'm talking about, there are just people that are not focused and probably shouldn't be business owners and probably shouldn't be managing people. There's a lot of those. And at the end of the day, I, as a broker, when I, in my retirement, because I truly believe you put yourself in a financial position to retire and you don't. When you look at successful people like Warren Buffett, why is Warren Buffett not retired?

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Tom Finn (31:35.817)

Yeah, for sure.

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Lance Graulich (31:54.63)

because he loves what he does. And people that choose to continue to be involved in the world and in their community live longer. That's a fact. There was a great show on Netflix about blue zones and those people that were living until 100 plus. And for me, this is my retirement. I love helping people where I didn't get the help. And I made all kinds of mistakes. I get to help people now and make sure they don't make the mistakes that I made. I didn't know what a franchise consultant was back in the day when I was looking at franchises. I had friends of mine when I thought I was going to retire say to me, you know, you need a podcast Lance and you should be a franchise broker. I looked at them like, what? Here I am.

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Tom Finn (32:42.025)

Here you are with a podcast and now you're a franchise consultant helping people all over the world. So let's talk about just what that is and what it means to all of the folks listening, because this feels like a middleman. And it is. It's somebody between people like myself and all the listeners out there that are thinking, how do I make more money? How do I provide for my family? How do I be a part of something really cool? And I don't even know where to start. Right? That's really where we all are Lance. If we're not you, we're going, how do I even start on this journey to even understand what the market looks like? And that's where you come in.

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Lance Graulich (33:15.078)

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And franchising is filled with people that are over -educated. I mean, I have a cleaning franchise. We didn't even talk about all the categories. I have about 28 major categories of franchising, commercial cleaning, residential cleaning. You're going to laugh when I tell you this. I have a residential cleaning brand, The Cleaning Authority, a residential cleaning brand that over 60 % of franchisees have an advanced degree, have a master's or another advanced degree in a residential cleaning brand. Crazy. But there are plenty of brands. There's no diplomas required in anything franchising. You don't have to be the brightest. You just have to be willing to put in the work. There's more stories of people that started off as a dishwasher that aren't from this country that barely spoke English when they became a dishwasher and now have a company that's worth $20 million because they followed a system and a franchise. Professional athletes that have done the same. I was talking to Jeff Fenster, who is CEO of Ever Bowl and Drew Brees owns 155 or 160 Ever Bowls for those of you that are football fans. 

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So at the end of the day, here's how it works. You're stuck. You have no idea where to start or even if you have an idea of where to start, call me. I have a free assessment on my website. I'm on all over social media, but my free assessment is my really my franchise finding formula or my franchise finding assessment step one. And it's helps me understand based on your life experiences, your mindset, your skillset. It even tells me what your comfort zone is. If your comfort zone is gigantic, you're probably not getting off the couch to do anything anytime soon. And that's okay because I've worked with people for three years to reduce that comfort zone, to get them ready to make that leap because people want a better life where they can make more money and spend less time doing those tasks that people don't want to do. So you can have more money and more time to do the things that you want, going to your kids soccer games, et cetera, et cetera. The best part about what I do and why I love the heck out of it is I'm free. That sounds bizarre. I get paid like a recruiter. It's not like real estate where you pay my fee at the end when the deal gets done. I get paid by the brand after you become a franchisee. That simple. So I'm your advocate. I could do territory checks to determine, Tom, what's near you in Newport Beach, California? What are the best brands that I know I have based on our conversations? And our conversations get deep. The more vulnerable you are, it's not scary. It's kind of like when you have a drink with that bartender, for those of you that have that cocktail, you remember the old TV shows, the bartender, like in Cheers and whatever TV show, all of a sudden you start.

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The bartender knows you best. I'm essentially your bartender on your next piece of your journey that you tell everything to. And the people that do that get that brand much quicker. Sometimes I give somebody one option based on our conversation and that's the brand they do. Obviously through all the processes in that, still talking to the brand, I make the introductions to the brand and all that. But it's a fun process. I've gotten people from first conversation in a franchise. 30 days is typically my record. I've done a couple of those. Those are people that are really giving me the information quickly and are very focused. 30 days. But it's more like 120 day process to finding a great franchise. I have a guy that just is doing a painting franchise. He's buying four territories, average territory with that brand, 960 ,000 revenue. So he's looking to put together about a $4 million a year company where he can make, you know, $650, $800 ,000 a year and more than he's ever made. And, and, oh, by the way, when you exit a franchise, you're getting three to five times cashflow. That's also very nice, although I have plenty of people that want to build generational wealth and never sell any franchises. I have friends that have owned franchises for 27 years, but I'm your free advocate. I'm your guide on the journey and I'll make sure you're protected and safe. I've been known, you can tell probably by my energy and a little bit of my, about my New York edge, originally from New York. I've actually called VPs of franchises who yell at them and say, I don't like the way you had a certain conversation with my client or, you know, and those are in some cases brands I never speak to again. It's a lot of options and franchise. So I do have my top hundred or so brands and I update that literally regularly. I just found a soap franchise Magnolia that I love. It's got a retail component but also as an e -commerce component. And it's fun. It's a crazy, simple business. And they make money. 700 ,000 in sales from a soap concept? Crazy.

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Tom Finn (39:16.777)

Nice. Nice. I love it, man. So to sort of boil this down, if you want to start a franchise, you don't have to have a ton of money and you don't have to go build a fast food chain franchise. Tons of other categories, 28 in fact, categories, 4 ,500 different franchises out there that you can be a part of. You just need somebody to guide you through the process to make sure you don't stub your toe, pick the wrong thing that doesn't match who you are as a person and then get too far down the road, you got to unwind all of that. So I think that's a big deal is having the best information upfront. The thing I love about this model, I love, by the way, I love franchises. I think they're fantastic. Uh, just personally, I don't own any, I probably will at some point, but I think they're fantastic. And I love the model of this consultant that's paid for by somebody else. So we can go to you, Lance. We can ask all our questions. We can spend a couple months of you digging in. And yeah, if we choose to buy one, awesome. If we choose to wait a year and come back to you, we can do that too.

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Lance Graulich (40:21.702)

Yeah, I had a lady, it took three years and it wasn't three years talking to her every day or every week, but it took time because she wasn't exactly ready. It doesn't matter to me. And also I work with a lot of independent business owners that have a successful brand. They don't know what their next step is. And I set them up and create a franchise system. Franchise -ors can exit in the old days for 10 times cashflow.

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And those numbers have gone up dramatically. Private equity groups love franchises. So if you have a business that has some profitability, great model, people accuse you of being a franchise already, those are some good signs. Happy to have a conversation with anybody about that. But to your point, guess what? No, you don't need fries with that. So there's a lot of other categories for everybody.

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Tom Finn (40:56.713)

Yes, they do. Yeah, beautifully said. We'll leave it right there. My man. Thank you for being on the show is awesome to spend some time with you and, uh, and learn about these wonderful opportunities that you're providing to everybody. Uh, certainly in the U S and around the globe, Lance, where can people track you down and find you when they want to take that first assessment, figure out their mindset, their skillset, their behaviors, all those things. Where do they do that?

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Lance Graulich (41:35.846)

Yeah. Well, my name, LanceGraulich.com. The assessment is easily is right there. You can do it right there. You can also DM me. I'm on Instagram. I'm everywhere. But Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever. DM me: Tom, and I know where you found me.

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Tom Finn (41:52.489)

Oh, wow. Okay, I'm in. I love it. Well, Lance, thanks. Thanks for being on the show. Congratulations on your immense success, not only in business, but in your personal life, and certainly with your own podcast. Love to have you on my friend.

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Lance Graulich (42:06.214)

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.