From Donuts to Dollars: Exploring the Franchise Kingdom with Lance Graulich

 Ryan thanks for having me my friend. Hey, you ready to serve court here or what?
 Absolutely. Can't wait. Let's get radical. I know. I ain't no pawn, but I'll be a host.
 I got all the kings, queens, and you name them. I got all the analogies here for
 I just love to get out. Look, I like I'm a marketer, right? This is a marketing and business show.
 I like anybody's got a title. So does they come in and it's look you're the CEO of ION
 Franchise. A buddy of mine. How does one become the king? I was just going to tell you a buddy of mine.
 I've been in a 30 years plus and a buddy of mine. He calls me and he sends me so much business.
 People that want to set up a franchise system and grow and scale across the US, across the world
 for that matter with franchising. And then he's the same guy that sends me families from family
 offices to people that have 30 grand to Lancel help you. He'll figure out what franchises best for
 you gets paid some nice referral fees. So he'll text me things like king. I got something for you.
 I'm going to shoot you a text. I got a referral. Hey, lucky me. It's a good friend to have.
 I like friends that send me business and that I like, but who said you can't mix business
 with pleasure? Absolutely. Now those are my favorite friends.
 Cool, man. I know you're born in Brooklyn. We talked pre episode a little bit.
 Born in Brooklyn now in Vegas. Brooklyn. You've been all over the map. Yeah. Coast to coast there.
 What? I love it. You know, I was going. I was a little cleaner where I am.
 Yeah, no kidding. How was it growing up in Brooklyn?
 I was only in Brooklyn until I was seven and we moved to Long Island, but we went back and forth
 to Brooklyn to see other relatives for years. Brooklyn was super cool, but like a lot of older cities
 as it goes through that sort of evolution over a period of time where, you know, new development
 and redevelopment and everything like that. New zoning efforts and what have you, but Brooklyn's
 still hot today. Y'all was super hot today. But look, I know, maybe for you, it seemed like
 different countries, but you jump on the train. You get to Long Island. Come on now.
 Wouldn't that far for Brooklyn? No, maybe a bit different. I mean, not being like the direct
 burrow of right there, but what was like Long Island? It was awesome having access to everything.
 I think a lot of us, Vegas just started getting into professional sports,
 growing up in New York was fantastic. Long Island, we had our professional sports. Not very good
 teams these days, but Metz, Jets, whatever, Long Island, the Islanders, Hockey, but great sports
 town, great restaurants, great entertainment, just a great city. Even like Vegas, we could drive
 to the strip from the suburbs where I live in 15, 20 minutes. Same thing with Manhattan from Long Island.
 We were on the South Shore. We can get to Manhattan. Well, depending on traffic as quick as 30 minutes,
 will we take the train? Yep. That's right. I lived in Manhattan for six years, my friend,
 and the height of my ad career. So I know it. I took the train with the Long Island. I go take a
 break at all the beach, baby. And that's it. Go up there. And I know the burrows, the trains,
 all that stuff. Cut my teeth in the big city. But let's talk about the journey to the throne,
 my friend. How does one? Let's set the table for a lay at the story and the growth that led
 you into French housing. People always ask, how does somebody become an entrepreneur? Is it
 a born with that talent? Is it some lab accident gone wrong, some environmental thing,
 something like Spider-Man? The reality is I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. And growing
 up in an entrepreneurial family, there was no chance that I would be employed for any length of time.
 My dad coined the phrase early, said Lance, is absolutely unemployable. But I gave him my best shot.
 I actually worked for Dad's company on Wall Street. But then I realized there's greener pastures.
 I had another relative that dangled the carrot and said, wanted to come out to see me in Arizona
 in Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, live on near Mummy Mountain. And we built the TGI Fridays franchise
 back in 89. It started. And five years later, we're doing 225 million a year. So this franchise
 thing's pretty damn cool. Someone else created a roadmap, did the work, blueprint, if you will,
 model success, right? Modeling success. That's all of franchises. And I said, this is pretty cool.
 So eventually I did my own. I left Uncle Steven after five years. I was still in Arizona,
 went back to Vegas where he had some interests. And I spent some time. Former New Yorker,
 Vegas is my style, at least at the time. A lot of food and entertainment, a little bit crazy
 back in the day when I first hit Vegas. And I started doing my own thing. I became a franchisee
 of wingstop in the early days. Krispy Kreme Donuts in multiple states. My partner and I did
 became top, became a top 1% franchisee, which was great. I didn't know I'd be a top 1% franchisee.
 I don't know. I knew I'd be above average, but apparently I was pretty good. And I eventually
 created a now famous brand out of Vegas called Pinkbox Donuts, which some people think I'm pretty
 famous for, but I'm a builder. I'm not really a maintainer. I love putting things together,
 creating it, hiring people, which seems to be such a task these days. I think I've mastered
 that after making every mistake under the sun for the first couple of years. And so I love the
 world of franchising. And instead of retiring, I had a family friend that did well and said to me
 one day, put yourself in a financial position to retire and don't. And I took that to heart.
 And I realized to retire is probably to die early. And so I put myself in a position as a
 franchise broker. Friends of mine gave me that idea. I didn't know what a franchise broker was.
 Represent over 800 brands in every industry. And I'm like a recruiter. I get paid by the brand.
 The actual client doesn't pay me. I fell into that. I could be anywhere at any time talking to
 people about franchising. We're in Mexico recently, having conversations with people. And these
 clients that either hear me on a podcast, hear me on my podcast, however they find me,
 they always apologize. Oh, you're on vacation. I said, no, I'm always on vacation.
 This is what I do for a living. I'm living my best life. I want you to live your best life and
 find you the best brand, whether you're keeping your job and doing a franchise on the side,
 whether you want to jump into something full time. But I absolutely love, love, love what I do,
 truly changing people's lives. Hey, that's what it's all about. Like a lot of people think,
 at a certain point, you, I kind of use the analogy of eating. You can only eat so much,
 but it gets fun to feed others, right? That's the joy of life. And it's always like when you're
 hungry, it's hard to think about it that way. But the truth is, when you get blessed and you do a lot,
 and it's how can you help others and how, because the joy really does come from that, which is what
 I'm sensing from you. I absolutely love giving back. I do incredibly well doing what I do, whether
 I'm finding somebody a business or I'm setting up an independent business so they can franchise
 through my partners. We do a lot of franchise setup as well. But it's truly everything
 franchising. And look, over the years, I realized most people don't know much about franchising. They
 tend to discard franchising. I'm just going to go find an existing business to buy.
 And I always say, how much time you got? Isn't time your most precious commodity?
 And people like, yeah, can I just find an existing business? I said, pretty damn competitive.
 And finding a franchise, you just jump in pretty quickly and save yourself time because
 you have a whole team supporting you. We can continue on that. Yeah, no. I think let's go down that
 road. I mean, in the education of our audience in we'll have 101, 201 and 301 here. We'll start
 with the basics. I come to the studio. We'll do it perfectly. Exactly. We'll do that. We'll do
 part two in the studio here in G Vegas. Also known as Greenville, South Carolina. I think there's
 I see we are G Vegas Vegas. I was meant to be. They do call Greenville G Vegas, those
 OS logos. And it's nothing like Vegas. And it's determining one of the fastest small cities
 in growing small cities in America. But the food might par Vegas. Maybe that might be the only
 thing. Everything else is the entertainment's a little different. And unfortunately, no gambling.
 As a gambler, a mild gambler, I love coming to Vegas for that. But I digress. Let's talk about
 franchising. So the Lance, I think you summed it up perfectly with the blueprint, the road map.
 People worked their whole lives to find the success secrets, the road map to freedom,
 the road map or the idea. Not everyone's an idea person. It's like, no, what's the idea? How do I
 find? Why is he so successful? People just don't have that naturally. But that's what franchises
 unlock, right? Yes. I tell people all the time, if you don't have your own original idea that needs
 to be born, go for a franchise because you're going to be in business for yourself, but not by
 yourself. You're going to have people training you and mentoring you and making sure you're successful.
 And then you have the collaboration of the brain trust, so to speak, the franchisees that are
 doing this. I have a garage door brand. The guy just exited a franchisee just exited for almost
 $100 million. So if you were a new franchisee, you tap into that knowledge to understand, man,
 I want to get to a million in my first year or more. Let me reach out to a couple of franchises.
 I was president of the franchise advisory council for Wingstuff. So I would coach and assist the
 training team in helping people get open and helping people be successful and sharing best practices.
 What's the sum total of anybody's success? Look around you. Isn't it like the five people closest
 to you at all times? That's what franchising is. The question though is based on your skill set,
 where your skills transfer, what is the best business industry for you? And those are the things
 that I tee up with people on a regular basis. Most people end up with a franchise they never expected
 they get involved with. They had no idea. Buddy of mine, he's bald. He's bald and he can't cut hair
 yet he owns 19 great clips. They're salons. He nets a million and a half bucks a year last I checked.
 Most people successful in franchising have no passion for that industry that they're currently
 in. Remember in the old days people were passionate about kids. They'd open a daycare. They'd become
 a teacher. Something like that. Passion is not exactly the same. Passion's the same. That's what
 your heart tells you should do. But the goal is to spend the least amount of time doing the things
 you don't like today. That's the truth. And franchises can get you the income you need and get you
 that that time with your family to spend doing what you want to do. Yes, I love that last part.
 I said on my own throne on social media getting on my soapbox throne. We're talking about because
 all these gurus on social media telling people young and old follow your passion to riches and
 fame. Like it's just bullshit because you get passionate about what you're good at or you get
 passionate about what you said buys you more time to do the things that you want to do. And so
 yeah, I can get behind all that. I do think for a lot of people that in even me, so educate me.
 I think Maya, that is a tasty because I don't know that I've ever been in a position where I was
 even considering her franchise, but I might would. What? I think there's this notion that
 a franchisee gets locked in back to by time. They're buried in the franchise themselves.
 No, is that just a right? Is that just a matter of the people that don't choose the right partners
 like operating partners or whatever? Absolutely. And it's such a great question you ask, Ryan,
 because there are brands. I mentioned Great Clips Air Solons. Great Clips, Chick-fil-A,
 to name a few. You have to be a full-time owner or operator in those businesses. Great Clips,
 you don't even have to cut hair, but they want an owner to be active in the business. Chick-fil-A,
 they want to make sure that you are not doing anything else. You essentially have to divert
 to divest yourself of everything else. They want you really in that business all the time.
 So the reality is I focus more on amazing brands, which have a track record of success,
 and every brand produces what's called a franchise disclosure document. Franchising is
 regulated by the Federal Government, Federal Trade Commission. And in each franchise disclosure
 document, there's a lot of information that's incredibly helpful for you to make that decision,
 including earnings claims that shows like my favourite air conditioning franchise,
 the average franchise is doing close to $3 million these days. So I had a guy come to me recently,
 Ryan, that owned an air conditioning company that barely did 800,000 a year, and it took him nine
 years to get to that. And his first question was, well, why would I do a franchise?
 So because it took you nine years to get to the sales you're at now, and with a franchise,
 you would have been there in a year, probably a year, maybe less. And you'd be quadrupling your
 revenue at this point or more by paying a little royalty. Who cares? This is like a marriage.
 People that tell me, ah, franchising isn't right for me. I don't want to be locked in.
 Aren't you married? Yeah. You're pretty locked in, buddy. How'd you make that decision?
 So some people Ryan get stuck. They just get stuck. And we've heard of growth mindset versus fixed
 mindset. I do a lot of mindset work on people. I just got off the phone with an anesthesiologist
 before this. An anesthesiologist is a doctor as well who just takes care of the kids now. She's
 essentially retired. And it's hard to get people out of whatever the baggage they brought with them.
 I have to get a job. I have to earn an income. And maybe I should buy some rental properties.
 Rental properties are great. Someone still has to manage them. Got to pay them a fee.
 So in a franchise, you just have to pick the right one. My first marriage sucked. I screwed up.
 I picked the wrong one. Now I have the best wife ever. I overmarried. I outkicked my coverage,
 whatever you want to call it. I did it right this time. Hey, we got that in common. I did it
 wrong the first time myself. And I definitely got to write this egg at town. It's fun. You live
 and you learn, right? Absolutely. So pick. I talked to a guy once that wasn't sure he wanted a
 franchise and he said he'll never get married. I said, dude, guess what? Franchise probably isn't for
 you. If you're telling me you'll never get married. And he was never married before.
 Franchise is a relationship. You get there is a process. You know the old expression, trust the
 process. I introduce you to brands after a lengthy interview. I have a free assessment on my
 website. We could talk about later. That helps me understand about you. And then I start throwing
 brands at you. A few at a time. Let you digest them, assimilate them. It is going to be like
 drinking out of a fire hose. And at some point you say, you know what? That sounds interesting.
 And I introduce people to that brand and they start going through the process. Like a date,
 it's like a first date with the brand. You have a coffee date, right? And then it gets more
 serious. And the meet the parents part is when you meet the corporate folks, corporate executive
 team. You have to like each other. And then at some point, my favorite part of the process that a
 lot of people do not know. Obviously, if you've never investigated franchise, it's called validation.
 Every great brand of mine is going to have a great validation process where you get to talk to
 existing franchisees about their experience. And no, man, this is the brand for me. Or you run
 at that point and say, that's it. I'm done. Let's move on to the next one.
 So there's a process. Just have to trust it.
 Yeah. Lance, what's your feelings of shared franchise ownerships when you have like multiple
 partners coming to the table? Yeah. How does that evaluation differ? And what's your thought
 process? Are success rates of multi-owner franchises, franchisees versus single and those kind of
 things? There's no doubt I don't want to judge anybody's relationships or bromances and what
 have you depending on who these partners are. But let me tell you, I screwed up partnerships as
 good as anybody. And my my attorney in one of the lawsuits in the early days said, yeah, you're
 making money. That's why the fight is so intense. If you weren't making any money, there wouldn't be
 that fight. So I can tell you all, and I warned people all the time on on partnerships. Clearly,
 there has to be a great operating agreement in place that really lays out the roles and
 responsibilities of all the partners. Partnerships can be fantastic to pull resources and leverage assets
 obviously, of course. So it can be done, of course. Now, what I always tell people is when I'm talking
 to just one individual, and I know that individual's married, I try to get the spouse involved.
 And it's two people that really think as one because they're already a united partnership
 being a marriage. When I have two partners that come to me really to answer your question, Ryan,
 it's that much harder because if there's two spouses behind them, now I have four people technically
 to satisfy. So it does make it more difficult especially because a lot of times the spouses don't
 want to participate. And I have a term for that we call it spouse aside, where the spouse kills
 the deal because they truly, they don't either either, even they don't necessarily know what's going
 on in this process, or they haven't heard the pitches, if you will, firsthand for me.
 Yep. I can imagine stick to individual ones, what I'm hearing right there. You can have a
 partnership, definitely know what you're getting into. Yeah, and you just have to have the right
 partner for the business, who's really going to operate it. I work with, I'm working with a guy
 on the Dallas Cowboys right now. And my first question always is for professional athletes,
 who's going to run this thing? You can invest in anything you want, but let's talk about the plan
 to make sure that you're taking care of. I know you can have a great attorney doing agreements,
 but you just want to make sure you run it effectively. Franchises fail because they're not run
 effectively. It's not the brand's fault. I love this came from some of the show notes we had. I
 don't know if it's from your team, but finding the golden goose. Everyone always wants to know
 what's the hot stock? What's the hot this? What's the tip or trick? Can we, what is number one,
 I think it'd be fascinating to know your process for discovering those that aren't
 tighter tips, by the way. And then maybe some of naming, if you can, what you're seeing in trends
 and in franchises that are looking hot. Yeah. So there as far as trends, I mean, there are
 4,500 or so franchises hard to pin down with the exact numbers. Kind of like the stock market.
 There's a lot of stocks out there. There's a lot of names that we know. McDonald's or
 Tesla and all these publicly traded companies versus these franchises. So my job is to find and
 cultivate the best of the best for my clientele. And I define those as proven money makers,
 like when I was mentioning the air conditioning brand, that's one hour heating and air conditioning,
 the largest air conditioning brand in the US. As a matter of fact, my wife's niece and her husband,
 they just bought a territory outside of Austin, Texas, 150,000 dollar investment. They got an SBA
 express loan. Justin's quitting his job eventually and he's he's going to do that full time.
 There are plenty of investor types that jump into that brand by 3, 4 territories and they keep
 their day job. They're what we call in franchising semi-absentee owners where they might work
 on the business, not in the business 10 to 20 hours a week. I just have to call Zoom calls and
 what have you, but they hire a GM that goes to training for one hour. So one hour is a great example.
 Another one on the drain side or plumbing side, Zoom drain is all about B2B, typically B2B,
 where plumbers actually call Zoom drain because plumbers are graded a lot of things. A lot of times
 they're not so great getting through the drain at going below ground. Zoom drain is a brand out of
 from back east, the northeast. Their biggest territory for corporate does 11 million dollars
 just in drain services. I'm about to go see a successful franchisee of Benjamin Franklin plumbing.
 Average franchisee, there's doing three and a half million. The guy I'm going to go see is a marine
 veteran, 290 pound guy, phenomenal guy, I've already spoken to him. This is his sixth franchise,
 sixth. He's owned five others. He made money at all of them from attack service to home care.
 Let's talk about home care real quick. Non medical home care. People do not want to go in a
 nursing home anymore unless they medically have to and nobody else can take care of them. People,
 unfortunately, my parents are both gone. Both of them, what they have in common, they want to stay
 at home. We hired home care franchises to take care of them. I represent probably 24, 25 home care
 franchises and their low cost huge money makers. I know a guy that nets a million dollars a year
 out of a home care brand that cost him investment at $200,000. Results may vary,
 not everybody is going to do the same thing, but in the disclosure documents, if you ask again,
 my criteria, in the disclosure documents that are public information, item 19 is the earnings claim.
 So I look for proven numbers. I mentioned Zoom drain. Let me tell you some about this. I mentioned
 Zoom drain, Benjamin Franklin plumbing. Let's talk about rolling suds. Brand new franchise
 system. My old buddy is the CEO of one of the hottest selling brands of the year. It's a power washing
 brand, but it's not a power washer. You and I can walk into home depot or lows and we can come
 out with power washer. That's almost like a kids toy compared to this industrial avengers style,
 crazy power washer that can clean the outside of a building, four stories up from the ground floor.
 They're corporate territory that they launched their franchise model on earlier this year
 did 2.2 million in cold Pennsylvania. Pretty much most of the 1.9 million was the six warm months,
 but 2.2 million for the year and a 35% net income. So because of those numbers and my buddy Aaron
 as the CEO and owner, they're literally blasting their way pun intended across the country.
 And we're talking I think he's got 90 territory sold, 90 territory sold, and I think the average
 franchisee purchased three territories of that brand. And that's the thing. You purchase multiple
 territories to grow into them so you can get to 300, 500, 700,000 in income, whatever the heck it is.
 It depends on the brand. So those numbers are pretty easy to determine between the disclosure
 document and the validation process when you're talking to other franchisees. And I help through that,
 but those are just some examples. Body 20. Last one I'll give you. If you have time, I'll give you more.
 Body 20. Electromagnetic stimulation or electro musculos stimulation, depending on who you ask.
 My wife is a huge fan of this. Her body shall tell you all about it. She went this morning. It's a 20 minute
 workout that gives you the impact of a two and a half hour workout. Europe, especially Germany,
 they have thousands of studios like this. The US, it's still new technology. This is the future of
 working out. Body 20 is incredible. You do a 20 minute workout wearing an Avengers Robert Downey
 Jr. style suit. Believe it or not, you're sprayed down with water so the suit conducts electricity.
 You put the suit over you with the carbon fiber probes and you're attached to a computer that
 they're working on the wireless version of this, but you're attached to a computer. And it's
 amazing, amazing. So those are just a few. There's a lot of doing the same workouts.
 You're well, it's the same workouts, but with the electrodes. Yep. So I'll give you an example.
 They might have you do let's say squats or lunges. And you might have like a broomstick or a
 light weight over your shoulders. And you're just using body weight, but the machine is pulsing
 your muscles. So a lot of EMS was used in this country like NFL players when they hurt their knee
 or their elbow. The physical therapist would put those probes on their elbow or their knee and
 create that blood flow for healing and muscular stimulation stimulate the muscles. And that's
 what this is really, but this is done in a fashion. You have to experience it. It's intense.
 My wife, every time I ask her, how was your workout today, honey? Oh, shit. They picked my ass.
 One stuff. I love it. I like it. I like the 20 minutes thing. Time is money. And just
 but you know what? You appreciate the marketing. If you get that much more out of it,
 that'll definitely take off. You appreciate the marketing aspects of everything. And that's why
 people join a franchise. When I mentioned the power washing brand rolling suds,
 they'll turn on your leads when you're in training. And there's five different systems they have
 for getting people leads. They have franchisees and their second month doing 40 grand in revenue
 with one truck. Body 20, I mentioned the EMS place, the fitness place. Body 20, there are
 franchisees getting to 100 grand in revenue before they even open the doors and pre-opening
 with 300 plus members. So franchising is all about marketing. And when you're going through
 that due diligence period that I'm putting you through and the brands are putting you through,
 it's easy to determine if this is for you or not. Very easy.
 Lance, talk to me about what makes for a successful franchisee versus ones that don't make it or
 don't or seem to flail around and stay operating forever but don't do well. What are characteristics
 or qualities that tend to shine well in making this work? This is the this is that magic question,
 Ryan. Your favorite restaurant in Greenville that you go to, I'm sure you have a couple of
 food servers, waiters, waitresses that are your favorite. And then there's a few that are really
 bottom of your list. Yeah, it's the same thing in franchises. Doesn't matter how much money people
 have, there are franchises that are outrageously successful in a system where there are people
 that have failed or are failing. And it has everything to do with the individual ability. So the answer
 to your question is there are people number one that are a lot better with people, period.
 And it doesn't matter how much training they get, they're not a good boss, they're a dickhead to
 work for or work with. I was always a people person. So looking back on my career trajectory as a boss,
 I look back and I was tough and I was a pain in the ass but I was very, I showed a lot of respect
 for the staff. I hired a great team but it all starts with, just like a professional football team,
 it all starts with coaching. So for me, I always found a great head coach, someone that was running
 my organization that even though they might have different skills than me, it's like for example,
 I hate doing admin. I loved getting on a phone talking to people or zoom and talking to people,
 but I hate admin. So I'd make sure I surround myself with people collectively. We had all the
 skills needed to be super successful. But having people skills and anybody can develop them.
 It's painful to develop them if you don't have any, but anybody can develop them. You have to create
 an amazing culture even for your franchise. Become an employer of choice. I could tell you stories
 of creative ways with Krispy Kreme Donuts. If you had time, I'll tell you how I found my leadership
 team for a Krispy Kreme Donuts shop in another state before there was internet, before there was
 email. All we had was facts machine and cell phones. So let me tell you. So I drove into Utah,
 got the lay of the land where we bought the property and where the first location was going to go.
 We had plenty of time. We had to build the building and I drove around and I knew that we were
 going to have some great volume. So I went to a chileys. I saw there was a chileys and outback and
 apple bees. Those were three that I recall in the area. So I wrote them on my list. When the time
 came, I called all of those restaurants early in the morning when I knew I'd catch a manager and
 there was no business because those places started opening at noon or 11 o'clock, whatever,
 the open flunch. So I called each of those places. Someone answered I said, hi, I'm looking for
 the manager. Oh, this is someone's the manager. Great. Now, I didn't know if they were the GM
 assistant at that time, whatever. It didn't matter. So my name's Lance. Opening a really cool donut
 shop you might or might not have heard of down the block. And I'm looking for amazing leaders.
 And I'm looking for someone like you, but clearly I'm not recruiting you. You're probably very happy.
 But I'm looking for people that you might know that want to work for Krispy Kreme Donuts. Have you
 heard of Krispy Kreme? And I had a little flow chart made up and remind myself and I got good at it.
 They didn't know about Krispy Kreme. I told them. And I said, these are the salaries we're willing to
 pay and great benefits and hot concept. And we're building in two states. And we're going to be
 a big franchisee. And so needless to say, every single person that I spoke to was incredibly
 receptive. Nobody hung up on me or cussed me out. They all took my information. And I pretty much
 got resumes from every person that I talked to. And then there's a secondary part to this that
 is one of my favorite pieces. Then when I knew my schedule and when I was coming to town, I called
 each of those people and said, all right, I'm coming to town. I'm not sure. I pretended I didn't
 know my schedule when I'm coming in. And I was finding out their schedule because they were all
 employed. What's the next? What's the best way, Ryan, to find a great employee manager, whatever?
 Catch them at work doing things right. And when you see somebody at work doing a great job,
 they're probably going to do a great job for you. So I found out all their schedules.
 And I popped in and visited every one of them to observe them on a shift.
 And needless to say, guy at Applebees, I actually revealed myself to him because I was so impressed.
 And I quietly introduced myself as a take a seat. And the first thing he said to me was,
 the neon on the east side of the building that's hanging down, I'm getting fixed tomorrow.
 I didn't even ask the question. And he knew that would probably be important to me. And that was
 the guy not only that I hired, but he ended up becoming the area manager. He was that good.
 And he became the area manager hired an incredible team. And that store opening was, at the time,
 one of the highest volume Chris became Donut openings, it did 270 something thousand opening
 week, 270 thousand dollars opening week.
 Holy cow, I love that story though. It reminds me of one of my favorite things, inspect what you
 expect right on brother. That's it. That's what you did. That's it. Everybody, everybody today,
 everybody today Ryan takes the shortcuts. They throw everything on indeed. And they don't take
 the time, the strategize and plot out. Don't do the whole sprinkler effect if you wait,
 well, and sprinkle shit everywhere. Be very targeted in what you're really looking for. Talk to
 your network. Your network network network is supposed to be your net worth. I went to my network
 countless times to find kids high school college kids that want to work for me in restaurants.
 And it worked. I always had a great staff.
 Yep. I love that. As we close out here, Lance, but I think we got people listening.
 We've got a lot of business owners. We've got people that probably shaking their head. They're
 going, this is interesting. Might be interesting. Always comes down to the good old mighty dollar
 a little bit. Give me let's talk about some ranges that people would have to expect or
 have to bring the table. Obviously, there's low in programs to help people with that.
 But they just talk a little bit from the financial end of what it takes to make this happen.
 That's the beautiful part. The majority of brands, the body 20 is about 400,000 open.
 And you can do very well with that. But typical home service type brands, which is a hot
 category, a lot of the technical, whether it's plumbing or air conditioning, things like that,
 you're talking 250,000 or less to get into those with a hell of an ROI. To get in for 250-ish,
 you could easily be doing the same or more in cash flow in a short period of time.
 And that's pretty incredible. There are quite a few business service-related things. I have
 a brand called Schooly Mitchell, $68,000 investment. But that's built in a sales organization,
 and there are people that are netting a million dollars a year off a $68,000 business on a
 contingency basis helping business owners save on their common expenses, expense reduction,
 if you will. But really, the answer to your question is 250,000 or less. That's it. So really,
 most people I work with, if they're not doing all cash, they're getting an SBA loan and putting
 down 20%. So even on a $300,000 deal, they're putting down 60 grand, post-closing liquidity,
 as they call it, is a requirement with these loans that you just have to have some working capital
 when you're closing on these loans, typically 25, 30 grand. But franchising is a tried and true
 system. And the SBA loves to do franchise deals because the odds of success are far greater than
 doing it all by yourself. I love it, man. A lot of great knowledge. I know we'll have a part two
 with you. Hopefully you're in a G Vegas, not the Vegas. I'll be there. Working everybody fine.
 Yeah, we're care by find more information about everything you have gone on with Ion,
 franchising, you can touch with you, learn more, etc.
 Yeah, LanceGralic.com is one of my websites. And on Instagram, it's just Lance.Gralic.
 You and I are connected, Mr. Ryan. And hey, hit me up with a DM that says,
 rad, just do RAD. And I'll even send you the assessment through Instagram or I'm on LinkedIn.
 I'm everywhere. I have an unusual name easy to find.
 Love it. We'll also have all of that in the show notes. And go follow Lance on social media,
 a lot of knowledge, a lot of information, and a very responsive. We really appreciate
 you coming on Lance and look forward to continuing new relationship.
 Awesome. Thanks for having me, Ryan. And if you want to learn from me directly, join my newsletter,
 ryanoffer.com, backslash newsletter. Sign up. I give daily advice on marketing, personal
 branding, podcasting, life. Give that a shout. Join that. It's free. It's daily just like this show.
 Give away our best advice. Hey guys, to find us the radcast.com search for LanceGralic. You'll find
 all of the highlight clips from today, including all the juicy nuggets from my friend Lance Gralic.
 I'm at ryanoffer on all the social media platforms. We'll see you next time on Radcast.
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