Jeff Dudan
Appearances
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You are in control. Every decision that you make, every action that you take determines the slope of your line. It determines the velocity of your business. It determines the quality of your life. And you can do that in a franchise model. You can do that in your personal life. You can do it in direct business. But at the end of the day, man, it's body of work.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So like part of our job as business owners is to create space so the universe can organize itself and we can calm the swirl around all the opportunities that we have. And so, you know, I shared that with you and you had shared something similar with me. And then we're at this great party. Right. And I was I held off for a little while.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And then I and then and then it's like we went to the VIP dinner and it was a special drink paired with a special. So I had I had to have five drinks with five courses. Right. So that was out the window. Right. And I – he said, how did you do last night?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, I said, I tried to stop after 1, but it was actually 1.30.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
It was so fun. My other one was I tried to figure out if I could make an old-fashioned last night, but I couldn't make one. But I could make four.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, I mean, they'll do $1.5 million to $2 million in a location, but they'll make $500,000 or $600,000. And just on, you know, who cancels $10? Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, $12.95. It costs you more in gas to drive over there and cancel than it does to cancel.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You're pretty close to the Tiger Woods of home service. Yeah. But not to glaze you like a donut, but – Nice. But, okay, so the fourth thing I did during this last 120 days, and part of it was, again, creating the space. Then I was coming home from Vegas. I was out there doing Ryan Pineda's podcast. Yeah, yeah, Ryan's the man. And I got COVID. Oh, you did? That was just two months ago.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, I got COVID, and I got walking pneumonia after that. So I was down. So what I did was I went deep into David Goggins.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Can't hurt me. Yeah, so here's the great thing. He says... you know, you're performing against your own standards. And he goes, if you can perform against your own standards, void of any purpose, most people go to train for a marathon, and then that's because, oh, I'm going to train because I'm training for a marathon. No, man, you just train, you just push yourself.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So, you know, really, it took me a good bit to understand, because he says the same thing just over and over and over again. And it took me a good bit to understand, but like, we are just competing against our personal standards. I'll give you an example from this morning. And I Probably shouldn't, but I'm going to do it anyway. All right. So I get checked out of the room.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Great workout this morning. Got up, worked out. I had a sauna. Great. I get my stuff packed together. I'm like, all right, I got just enough time to grab something to eat and then to get over here and be on time. So I go down to this little kiosk and I get a breakfast burrito and a cup of coffee, which is sitting right here.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Now, are you talking about franchisors or franchisees?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And I and I shove that thing down my face and I'm heading back into the hotel to go down to the first floor and catch an Uber. And there's a homeless guy sitting there and he's just got one sign just says food question mark. And then he's got this dog.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
OK. And I go in and I'm standing at the elevator and I'm like. Right outside is a kiosk. They have these beautiful sandwiches. Or I just go and I make sure that I'm here five minutes earlier. And I'm like, screw it. What are my personal standards? I left my luggage there. I went out and I bought two. I said, do you have anything for dogs? They said, no. I said, give me two ham sandwiches.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, so 4,000 actively growing franchise brands, 90% of franchisors fail within 12 years, and there's good reason for that. So, yeah, every day roughly one comes into business, and every day roughly one goes out of business. Which is crazy. But I don't know. Is that any different than traditional small business, stuff like that? Maybe not.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
They had these beautiful, big, fat ham sandwiches there. And I just walked them over and I gave them to the guy. I just did it because, like, number one... Take an action. And number two, what are your personal standards? And like probably nine times out of ten or before 120 days ago, I'd have thought it and not done it. But like you do it, man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You have to do that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Or are you taking control of the rest of your life?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. So I got two things on that. Number one, you pay people here by the hour. I know you pay a lot of commission because you allow people to make a lot of money within your organization. Performance pay. Performance pay. But we get paid by the conversation. Yeah. The quality of the conversations we have, the caliber, with the right people in the room, that's when everything moves forward.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I mean, I met the founder of Chirp. We're back and forth. And I said, well, we would like to use Chirp, but it doesn't integrate with our thing. He goes, oh, don't worry. I'll do it. And just meeting him yesterday, you know, and he said, oh, okay, well, then he'll do it. The second thing is, you know, one of the things I think that's rare about your company is the execution and the implementation.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Like ideas are great, but ideas unimplemented mean nothing. So, you know, the ability to – so when things are going well for you, you can move your gaze out farther strategically and think about new opportunities, new businesses, your water treatment business. But when things start falling apart, business owners have to go in. They've got to jump back in.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You've got to get right back down and figure out what spring or what sprocket fell out to allow this to happen. So now the more capable organizations we build – the more time that we get to spend out there going to places like this. Because my job in our platform is to be out and understand. Visionary. Well, what's cutting edge?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
But look, franchising is a – it has to be a certain passion play because there is so much collaboration that has to happen with these franchise owners. They all have, they come from different places. We have a high sophistication, high net worth franchise owners, and then we got people coming out of corporate America for their very first business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I actually hate that visionary word because it's just like, you know, I love it when people put it in their LinkedIn title.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I'm a visionary and I'm letting you know that I'm telling you to call me that. But but, you know, like like our our job is to be on the cutting edge. Like what's you know, we're both in the genius network. Like what's happening six to 12 months from now that we need to make sure that we're ahead of.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Where was the inflection point where you were an operator of a garage door business And then in the next day or the next week, you were a business builder, a visionary, and an entrepreneur.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And every action that you take or every inaction that you should have taken that you didn't, it's a plus or a minus check, man. And at the end of the day, there's a tally. At the end of the week, there's a tally. And at the end of your life, there's a tally.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And you've gotta be able to meet them all where they're at. So a lot of times people franchise their business and they don't realize that it's gonna take upwards of maybe a couple of million dollars of investment ahead of their revenue to be able to build the systems and the processes and put the people in place to meet these franchise owners when they're emerging.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. Best business question. Gun to your head, if you had to do twice as much in half the time, figure it out.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So unfortunately, a lot of brands get 5, 10, 15 owners and then they realize what it is and then maybe they decide to discontinue it. But ultimately, look, franchising is accelerating at an accelerating rate. There's 829,000 franchise establishments in the United States. One out of every nine people employed works by or for a franchise system, almost 9 million people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, no, I was ready. I'd built the business for 25 years. I was 50. I knew that there was more to do, but like I couldn't I was not good enough to extract myself from the business. And plus, man, you have a business for 25 years. All my personal real estate was handled by my business office. I mean, everything was mine was really actually for as well as we did. It was a lifestyle business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I mean, I probably worked the minimum that I needed to build that company. I coached all my kids sports. I prioritized my family. I did all of that kind of stuff. And if I knew then what I knew now, it didn't have to be mutually exclusive. I could have built five times that business if I had the right attitude that I have right now.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
and still not sacrificed any of the other stuff that I felt was important to me. But I didn't make a decision to sell the business until I got into something called YPO, Young Presidents. And then what I realized was everybody in YPO had sold the business. So I just hadn't been in the right rooms. Because I was, to your question, man, when I went to sell the business, like,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
It was a no-brainer, and I never thought twice about the decision, but that doesn't mean it wasn't hard to basically take my identity and strip it away from this business and then go into nothing. And I did fill it with a lot of business activity in which I learned some stuff, but I probably should have followed some advice and maybe taken six months sabbatical and but I took three days.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Oh, I would have focused on – look, we franchised our business and we didn't hire one person that had experience franchising. We figured it all out. We went and got like the guidelines from the government and we wrote our own thing. I mean it's like we were so proud that we were doing it ourselves, which was the stupidest thing on the planet. So if I would have just got two or three –
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Like your guy that came in here, if I would have if I would have been humble enough, smart enough to do that earlier, that everything would have been different. Now, I have no regrets. Like, you know, I'm a big I've come I'm big on this concept of body of work.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
OK, every action that we do every single day, every conversation we have, like it's either additive or subtractive to who we are in our body work. And at the end of the day, at the end of our life, like we got to be good with it. Like we we it's just this huge it's just this huge ledger of pluses and minuses. How do you spend your time? What do you do?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And, you know, your body of work, you know, like like you're you mentioned it. You're very giving. You got you got home service freedom. You got your vertical track. You like you're like, hey, if you can execute on what I do, God bless you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, so you don't even have to worry about giving everything that you know because you know darn well that almost nobody's going to be able to do it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, and nobody's going to catch you, so you're fine.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And it's a significant part of small business GDP, which is generally 46% to 60% of our GDP. So franchising is giving people entrepreneurial opportunities on Main Street USA for their families. So, you know, when you're scaling a big direct business, you can go fast because you make the decisions. You say, we're going to implement this. I'm going to pay for this. This is the way it is.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And you're not grabby.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, man. So like body of work at the end of it, you want to go back and you want to be in business with people that you like. You want to have made a difference. You want to have impacted their lives. You want to. I mean, so, you know, everything we do, man, is and, you know, people are so sloppy and lazy and undisciplined with how they invest their time and energy and their money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And, you know, so, yeah, man, 15 years ago, I would have given up so much more to get the right people around me and focused on growth.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
It's been, yeah, I don't have any heartburn about it, but, like, you know, it's, yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, and we have great people. We've got really strong brand presidents that are proven in the industry. We've got a really strong C-suite. And, you know, honestly, that's one of the reasons that, like, fundamentally, whenever it is at the end of the day, when whoever it is looks at this business, like private equity, this thing is ticked and tied from day one.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Every document legally – I mean, usually when you get into emerging franchisors, like, everything is a mess. Territory policy is a mess. Like, they've just – you know, like I tell –
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Whenever I talk to emerging people, I'm like, the decisions you make in the first six months are going to, if you make the wrong decisions in setting up your program and then you go out and award 100 franchise owners, you've just cut 75% of your exit off just because of the structure of what you've done. You had the territory policy wrong. You didn't charge right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You made all these concessions, and it's just a mess. So, like, we did set the foundation of this business up with excellence. And, you know, we haven't been perfect in everything we've done. I mean, there's definitely some marketing things. Like, we got, you know, you launch five brands. You got to rebrand four of them. And all of a sudden franchise owners just start pouring in.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You're chasing your tail. And the interesting thing, one of the probably the biggest difference between a direct business like yours and a franchise business like ours is, you know, if you want to roll out Chirp, you just roll out Chirp. If I want to roll out Chirp, I need to have some sort of a consortium of franchise owners that are going to get on the program with that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So if I'm willing to pay for it, then I can do it. But in our model, there's things that the franchise owners need to pay for. And again, you've got this wide distribution of people that have different outcomes. Some people are like, hey, I want to build a $500,000 or $1 million business, and I want to make a couple $300,000 a year and have a nice lifestyle and manage three or four people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
But if you took your employees here, your cross-section of your employees from your C-suite to your directors all the way down to your techs, and you gave some random 50 of them a franchise, think about what you'd be dealing with.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And then there's other people that just want to be monsters and want to build a $50 million business. So you have all of that, and they're all going to take a different approach when I say, we need to do this. So if I really want to do something, then I've got to shell it out. And then over time, you can make it mandatory, but it has to have proof.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Well, we get paid at the closing table.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. You've got to be careful on your rollback. Like you have to know what you're rolling back into. There's things that I've learned.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, so, you know, I had the top two people that were in my deal at the end. One was paying a little bit more. But what I didn't really fully appreciate that like we were a tuck-in. prior to them reselling. So my hold time on my rollback was short. Whereas the second place person, you know, I probably would have somebody else sold to them about the same time and they 5X their rollback.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So, you know, like just that one little thing and I roll back eight figures, right? So, I mean, it was a big chunk of money and it would have, yeah, it would have sat in there for another three or four years, but like I would have 5X that money. Knowing, looking back at it, I don't, I probably could have – I don't think anybody could have known.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
But what I – the fact that I did have is that this one was – I could have got the information that they were already in process and that we were a tuck-in and that we were – whatever I rolled in was going to roll back relatively quickly. And I could have acted on it and said, well, this $8 billion private equity firm is really growing this other thing. I would have been one of the first people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
investments in there and now yeah you come in early yeah i mean i was i was relatively early and now you know they're a 2.2 billion dollar company they're the ones that own uh clockworks and everybody yeah so um yeah so like i would have been third company in at the beginning yep And so like that – the amount of economics that – so like know who you're selling to.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And there's another private equity company that I recently met. Now, there's probably one of the – like one of the more famous ones and – They do a lot in franchising, and they're huge and all of that. Now they want to fly in and meet with us. And we're not in the market or anything like that, but they just try to get to know you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
They want to get to know you and all that. But, you know, in that particular one, I mean, they have 10-, 15-, and 20-year fun lives.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, which I heard you talk about the other day, which I was going to ask you about. But the reality of it is, then, if it's not going to flip in three to five years, when are you going to get your second?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And anything I do, no, close. But they've done a great job, by the way, with their investment in ServPro. I mean, they've 3X.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
They've 3X'd their revenue. So they've done a really, really good job with them. I can coach people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, but nothing is going to change your life from here on out.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. Do you think it's rare that your equity partner gives you this much latitude to do whatever it is you want? Or was that the deal going in?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, yeah. Actually, I'm probably rolling out an education business in that space just because – You know, I do care about expanding the reach and relevance and the professionalism of the franchise industry. I mean, I've heard you say before, you know, hey, it's a lazy way to do it. If you can't do it, you know, it's a lazy way to build a business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. And while people get big eyes. Right. And they say, well, I got this donut shop and, you know, there should be a thousand of these donut shops. But they really don't understand what it takes. But, you know, they get around somebody that and the bottom line is families get hurt. Like many franchise owners invest their life savings in a business. And it's really important that it's done well.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Let me ask you this, man. Three years from now, who's the CEO of A1?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Well, I think you're going to be like the Empire Carpet guy. You know who I'm talking about?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, like 588-2300. I grew up in Chicago. That's where that guy's from. And it used to be him. When I was a kid, that was him. But now he's dead. So now it's a cartoon guy. But it's still the same guy. One day, you'll still be all over the face of this and probably many other businesses. But it'll have to be the cartoon.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. So I tell my kids, like, when they want to buy something, like rims or something, I'd say, okay, you're going to spend $1,000 on this. Are you willing to give up $65,000 25 years from now? Because that $1,000, if you put it in the spreadsheet and you hit it with 8%, Right in that 25-year range, it turns into $65,000. And I'm like, are you willing to give that up?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I mean, compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. I mean, you're young. Thank God I invested in a lot of real estate young. I was just kind of a contractor. And I know you did apartment buildings, but I was just building houses and owning rental property. And everywhere I went, we bought an office building and stuff like that. And thank God. That adds up. Thank God.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I mean, over time, it's just, you know, you couldn't afford to buy this stuff today for what we bought it over time. And, you know, it's the same thing for them. They need to be putting together these assets. But, like, people don't do it. And then what happens is, right, they have just enough to live. And all of a sudden, we go through an inflationary period. People are in their 50s and 60s.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
They don't have the same earning potential or the energy. And next thing you know, like, my mom's still living, right? And she is tight. I mean, like one rotisserie chicken, three days. And she's got some money. And I told her, I said, please spend your money. I'll take care of you. You know, you don't have to worry about running. Your house is cash.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
We bought her a house for cash when she moved to North Carolina three years ago. She's got money in the bank.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Let's see. She was born in 44.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I'll make it up to you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And I'm prepared for it. All right. You're already a billionaire, just not today. But it's destined. The die's been cast. And you get your family going. By the way, you'll never regret. doing that. You'll never regret it. It's the greatest thing. That's my legacy. I hang my hat on that. We're three for three with our kids. And I'll never regret anything that I sacrificed for that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Look, franchising – like let's think about like retail-based locations. OK, if you want to make real money in franchising, if you're in a retail-based location, it's hard to do it because a fitness studio or a sauna or something like that might have $500,000 of revenue. So if you want to do what some of these – now there's a lot of big multi-unit owners in there.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So you're a billionaire. You got that going. Do you think you'll do the giving pledge? Because to your point, when people get billions and billions and billions of dollars, like 75% of these people, whether they're like Ryan Jumaville. You know Ryan?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
OK, I need to introduce you to Ron Jumaville. I think he's—sorry, Ron. I think he's probably, I don't know, $4, $5, $6 billion. Or if they're the $100 billion people, they sign up, man. They say, I'm giving away 90 percent of this by the time I die. Because at the end of the day— I mean, how many hundreds of millions of dollars?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I think, was it the Rockefellers are the ones that kept their money the best?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And it's wrapped around a charitable trust. Right. So they're the ones, but at the end of the day, I have two different sets of trusts. They're both dynastic in nature. My daughter, who's in law school right now, at one time said, when do we get our money out? And I'm like, never. And she's like, well, why'd you do it for? And I'm like, I'm not sure.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
But I want you to have enough to do something, but never enough to do nothing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
At the end of the day, I don't know why I made all this money. I mean, it's great, but, like, I don't have things. Like, I'm not a big fan.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
It does, but also they – Sometimes they don't want to go. Because they really didn't go through what you went through to get it. So they're not going to get the same out of it that you do. That's true. But it's very noble. And I think that's why you're going to be a great dad is because you care so much about your employees. You have a massive heart for people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I think that's one of the keys to your success. I mean, every time we talk, it's like my employees can be doing this for them. I'm doing that for them. I want these guys to, you know, not only go to Disney but do the Fast Pass. And, like, at the end of the day, man, it is a giver's gain. You can make money and still do right by people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And I think if you do it the right way, you can even do better by taking people with you. And that's perfectly said.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
They wouldn't leave. They wouldn't leave. Why would they?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
inside of these retail. So they'll have 100 or 200 or 300 restaurants or Hardee's or restaurants, things like that. So you can make real money in retail-based franchising. You can build a big team to support all those things. And people do it all the time, especially in food, haircuts, retail, all these lash lounges and things like this, all these retail services.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, well, I used to say my LinkedIn, but, man, I got a company working in there now, and a lot of messages get gone. But should I get my email out on a show this big? I'm not sure.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
All right. Well, hey, you can just reach out to me at Jeff at Duden dot me. And Instagram is a great way to message me. Just Jeff Duden. If you go to Jeff Duden on Instagram and you want a free copy of my book, Discernment, the business athletes regimen for a great life through better decisions. There's a link in there. You give us your email address and we get an electronic copy immediately.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
But or, you know, you can shoot me a message on YouTube and on the Homefront podcast, you know, just just there. But not hard to get a hold of. Instagram's good.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
OK, my choice is probably is Instagram and LinkedIn.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Instagram and LinkedIn. And usually I'm just in there just checking for anything that I need to do, any engagement that I need to pay attention to, you know, how things are performing or whatever it is. An hour a day between Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn is enough time to check, but not enough time to get to scroll.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
God shaped me way back.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Can't Hurt Me is great. You know, Good to Great was something early for me. Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni was something that was very instrumental for me early. Man, I'm big into Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time right now. I mean, if I had to pick one book for people to read right now, that might be it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Oh, well, hey, I appreciate it. Gosh. I don't know. I don't know, man. We went all over the place here. This is what I love to do. Yeah. I mean, I think if anything, you know, just encouraging people to be outcome focused, encouraging people to, you know, we heard this great thing about internal, external locus of control. You were talking about that earlier. Like, I'm in charge of this.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I'm in charge. And You know, letting people understand that, like, you are in control. Every decision that you make, every action that you take determines the slope of your line. It determines the velocity of your business. It determines the quality of your life. And, you know, you can do that in a franchise model. You can do that in your personal life. You can do it in direct business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
The service side, on the other hand, well, before I get off of retail, think about the risk and the investment of just doing one. Because you've got a $500,000 to $700,000 build-out. You've got a $500,000 to $700,000 lease guarantee. You've got a business that might do $500,000 to $700,000 in sales.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
But at the end of the day, man, like, it's body of work. And every action that you take or every inaction that you should have taken that you didn't, it's a plus or a minus check, man. And at the end of the day, there's a tally. At the end of the week, there's a tally. And at the end of your life, there's a tally. And just for God's sake, stop worrying about what other people think.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Stop making decisions based on ego. We had a great conversation this week, man. People – there's these HVAC guys and some of them have 11 locations and they're like, yeah, we should have stayed in one location because it was our ego that drove us to open up those other cities. And they weren't fully committed. So, I mean, I hate that I have to be 56 years old.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
to continue to learn hard lessons, making mistakes. But man, just take care of your business. Raise your, you know, like only care about your own standards. Do things like that when nobody's looking, like I brought the guy that sandwiches today. And just, you know, people should have a great life.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I don't understand why everybody can't, within their own capabilities, within their own skill, from wherever they sit, Have a great life. And I would like to leave people with that. At Homefront Brands, man, we are 100. It used to be there's lots of different things in franchising. Responsible franchising or autonomy or freedom. Like we are focused on outcomes. Outcomes, outcomes, outcomes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I want you, if you're a normal person, it's your first business, can you build a $3 to $5 million business in five years and sell it for several million dollars and make it be that first chunk that you have to give yourself that little bit of freedom?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. Yeah. And then like, you know, can you you know, you win the next opportunity by succeeding than the one that you're in. And business is an infinite game.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So if you can come to us and we can and you can and it's hard and you can learn these business skills and you either expand within our platform on this monopoly board that we call Homefront Brands and you start building hotels and grabbing territories or. Or you sell your business with us and you go on and do something great. I tell you, I'll leave it with this.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
We were at our industry event last week in Vegas. And they award franchisees of the year. So if you have a franchisee of the year in your system, They give about 100 of these out across the 4,000 brands. So one of our top real fence franchisees, Bob Stewart from Richmond, got Franchisee of the Year. And he walked across the stage with these other people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And I'm walking out of the room, and I see a woman that I recognize kind of smile, light face lights up. And then I see the young gentleman with them, and I recognize it was one of my AdvantiClean franchisees. I saw you interview them. Yeah, who was there getting Franchisee of the Year.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And if you hold your mouth right and do everything perfect, you're going to make a certain amount of money on that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, so he was an E-2 visa. They were in Argentina. The economy was falling apart, and they came to AdvantiClean, and they brought their entire extended family over. He was one of the young brothers or sons or nephews or whatever it was. There was about 10 of them that came over. built a great business in South Florida.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Half of them sold it, made really good money, and went on and built an import-export business. And Mariano is still operating there. And I mean... What impact did that little AdvantiClean business make in their life and the fact that we see each other, we tell each other we love each other?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And then one of the executives from AdvantiClean came up to me and he said, hey, I've been trying to get in touch with you. I go around to these offices with AdvantiClean and they've all got the pictures up on the wall from the conferences that you had and all of that. And part of it is how can we get the culture back to when Jeff had it?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
and he asked me to do a video to play at their owner's conference. Oh, wow. So I did the red eye. I got home, and I'm like, oh, he said he needed it today. I hadn't slept all night. And I'm like, well, let me put some Preparation H under the eyes. And I did just a three- or four-minute video.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You know, he asked me to say a few things, but just to encourage them and just to praise them and let them know, like, they're carrying on a tradition. It's a 31-year anniversary we just had last week. That was the same day that I met Mariano. Yeah. And like, OK, body of work made a difference in that life.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So the standard is a good franchise should be able to demonstrate a 30-month payback. 30-month. Yeah, 30-month payback, cash on cash. That's what you're going for.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. So and that's at the end of the day, man, like we can't take it with us. But like just it just matters what we do while we're here and who we do it with more than anything.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
That's retail. But, I mean, I think it applies to everything. So when private equity comes in, that's one thing that they're looking for. So think about what's happened with construction costs over the last few years and cost of leases and things like that. So you've got a business model. that is inelastic in what it can charge. I mean, people will, fitness is funny, man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Like you go from $129 to $149 and, you know, people are going bananas, but then they'll go spend $400 a month at Starbucks and spend $400 a month on supplements. So it's different, but yet they want 30 or 40 hours of service from you for that $129. So it's very inelastic. So you can't really raise price, but now your cost to get into business has gone up. So So that's a big challenge.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
But that's why I love service franchising. I mean if you look at some of the big platforms like Neighborly or like Authority Brands, there's a great example of a kid that was 28 years old in central Florida and bought an electrical franchise, first time in business. And eight years later, he's 36 years old. He had a $70 million electrical franchise, right?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And what's happened is private equity has gone – first of all, private equity loves franchisors.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. So think about it, the diversification of risk. You've got – Hundreds or thousands of families that are out there. They're deeply invested in the business. They're deeply invested in their communities. They're working hard. And, I mean, it's hard to kill a franchise system because everybody's out there with the ownership mentality right at the point of attack.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So once at scale, franchise systems are very profitable. They're very durable. But the great thing about property services, and I mean like you've proved it to an extreme, is that these businesses can get large every year by taking more market share. And I mean our businesses cost $150,000 to $200,000 to get into. So it's not – and there's no big lease guarantee.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So people can get into business in a home front brand and they can liquidate their investment relatively quickly. And then really it's this monopoly game, right, where – and you'll see it over time as we evolve and you'll get people that are buying their neighbors or they're stacking more than one home front brand on top of each other, building $5, $10, $15, $20 million businesses.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And when I first started franchising really in earnest in 2006 and 2007, there wasn't a big private equity market for the boxes. But now if you can cobble together some amount of EBITDA and some amount of top line, they love it being in a franchise system because of the leverage and because of the systems and that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So it's really – and I guess that comes down to like – I mean I sold my business in 2019. I was a restoration contractor there. built a national and even international restoration business and then decided to franchise it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
It was a personal family decision because we were working in the Caribbean and Hawaii and Canada and all over the place and I had three small kids and I decided that I wanted to be home. So I decided to risk all of that and really turn it into a franchise system and then we ended up over nine years.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
We had about 160 owner groups operating 240 markets and I sold it to Home Franchise Concepts in 2019. But, you know, coming back to operate again, it's it is all about being outcome focused. Right. So I'm sitting here in 2019, 20. I'm comfortable, which I fight every day. I'm comfortable. I'm doing investing, advising.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, I had plenty of money. But I'm sitting here and I'm like, all right, do I want to take my chits and run off to the golf course and to fishing? Or do I really want to? I'm looking at the country and I'm looking at everything that's happening in 20 and 21. And I'm like, you know, capitalism and families need businesses because they're a high class asset.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And we're looking at 100 to 150 million more people in this country by 2050. There's increased migration.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah, 339, I think, or something like that. So there's a housing shortage in all of these hot markets where the markets are growing. Yeah. So there's going to be massive home building. There's going to be retail. There's going to be hospitals, infrastructure, all of this stuff. So you'll never find a home front brands nestled comfortably between a Blockbuster and a Curves, right?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Because there's no obsolescence building into home services. So I know with confidence that if I look a franchise owner in the eye,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
And if I'm committed, I can say, if you put your shoulder to this, if you follow the plan, if you make this a priority, and if you execute, you can build a material business inside of the Homefront Brands platform with this one that you're starting with or additional ones. And we're never going to run out of opportunities to compete in property services.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
So to me, it's the most durable segment in franchising. And it's uncapped because you're not capped by a number of seats in a restaurant or a number of spots in a fitness routine or anything like that. And that's what gets me up every day. But like at the end of the day, you have to be really, really focused on the four-wall economics for the franchise owners.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You have to care deeply about these people because in the example that I use, like we get a cross-section of the population. We've got people – we got one guy that built a $50 million business building MRI setups in hospitals. Multiple businesses. Guy's been successful over and over and over again. He came in and did a big buy with us. And he's like, I like the model. I like the space.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I like you guys. So we have a lot of people like that. We have private equity refugees investing in our businesses.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
You know what was so great? So I do – I'm in the franchise industry kind of like you're in the home service industry. But I got to go to this RhinoX event with you and with Cristiano yesterday. Man, it felt good to be amongst contractors again.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I mean, like, that's my DNA. And all of these guys are building, you know, $20 to $400 million businesses in there. And, you know, they started in their garage. And it was – I mean, it was really great to be in that room for that day.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
Yeah. Well, one of the things that you've demonstrated over and over again is this concept of regression analysis. Many people start in business, and if you think back to when you started and probably I think back to when I started, it was the same way. I was trying to figure out, okay, what's the next step? What's the next step? What's the next step?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
If you work backwards from a very specific future, it'll be a completely different set of steps than had you tried to work forward to it. And that's just it. It's like, okay, well, I'm going to pick the location not based on a proximity to a highway or traffic or storefront or drive-bys. It's like, where am I going to get the business from?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan
I did. So I've done three things in the last probably 120 days. I've cut my alcohol consumption down by like 97%, 98%, which wasn't a ton, but I still don't recover like I used to. I mean, I got a good 15, 16 years on you, and I need every bit of energy that I got. Started that journal that I shared with you and cut my screen time down to an hour.