#361 James Hilovsky: From Pro Athlete to Franchise Matchmaker—Part One
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What led James Hilovsky to transition from sports to franchising?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today at our studio, we welcome James Helofsky from Riverside in Southern California. James runs a unique franchise consulting business, primarily serving retired athletes from the NBA and NFL who are starting new chapters in their lives as franchisees. He also helps regular people with their franchise businesses. James believes that using his expertise in franchising to change lives and livelihoods of families and future generations is a dream come true endeavor. I haven't been a franchisee or franchisor myself, But I do have experience with the franchise business. Many years ago, when my parents immigrated to Canada with zero local experience and connections, they ventured into franchising to make a living. Despite the hardships, using franchising as a means to fulfill the dream of becoming immersed and settled in the community was life-changing.
So, I have great respect for franchising as a business model that can positively transform lives. Let's discover how James has used franchising for the greater good for both athletes and everyday people. Good morning, James. How are you doing today?
Good morning. I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on.
James joins us in a very timely moment. As we speak, this is the second week of the Olympic Games. Today, we are talking about sports, especially the lives of athletes. Before we dive into that, I'll let James introduce himself, share his background, his history, and his career path. Then we'll jump right into our discussion on athletes, on business, on franchises, and how all these things link together.
Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much. So my career history is when I was growing up, I was a baseball player. I actually was in the minor leagues for the Philadelphia Phillies. And unfortunately my career was very quick, got hurt and then was done. And I came back and had to do something. So I immediately transitioned into the restaurant business because I had worked in a fine dining restaurant before I had left as well. And I've worked my way up into the restaurant business of using my, just have my athletic kind of background really fit in the restaurant business because I really felt like I came back and I had a team in the restaurant. So it was like the employees around me, everybody around me were one big team. And we ran it basically like a team when I got into management. We'd run systems as we're all teammates and that we're all working together to achieve the end goal. So from there, I went into a fast food company and worked for Del Taco for about 25 years.
How did James scale Pieology from one to over 100 franchises?
Then a company called Pyology called me and said, hey, we really want to grow our system. And would you come over and help run our franchise side? which would be supporting new franchisees and helping them in their restaurants helping new store openings and i said absolutely so we grew that chain from one store started there and grew it up over to 100 franchise restaurants and we had some corporate stores as well so i supported the franchise restaurants and then one of the largest franchisees of of Pyology called me and said, Hey, come work for us. And that was owned by two NFL football players. That was immediately, and they were right, really close to where I live. They were in Corona. So it made a lot of sense to come partner with them and work with them.
So we did our Pyologies and then we did a franchise called The Baked Bear, which ice cream franchise, did our own coffee shop and our own cookie dough concept. And everything was going good. And then one of the brothers, he retired from the NFL. And then the other brother, he got hurt, couldn't fulfill the end of his contract. They went into some of them producing movies. And then they, their big thing was like, Hey, we're going to go start this tequila company.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What led James Hilovsky to transition from sports to franchising?
0:12–4:38
2
How did James scale Pieology from one to over 100 franchises?
4:38–7:19
3
What challenges do athletes face in choosing franchise opportunities?
7:19–11:02
4
What lessons did COVID teach about franchising?
11:02–14:39
5
How do sports franchises compare to traditional franchises?
14:39–18:24
6
What qualities make athletes successful in business?
18:24–26:31
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Chief Change Officer™: Ensemble
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