Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - What the heck is a master franchisor and should you pay $1.2M for it? - Acquisitions Anonymous 247

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

In this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous, Girdley, Bill, and Heather delve into the pitfalls of a dubious business opportunity detailed in a Biz Buy Sell listing. They emphasize the red flags, such as the unrealistic promise of guaranteed results or your money back and the inclusion of unrelated "value-add" services, questioning the credibility and legitimacy of the offer. The conversation highlights the need for a strong and recognizable national brand to be a key factor for a successful franchise.Check out the listing- https://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/ultimate-texas-master-franchise-opportunity/2145964/Thanks to this week's sponsors.Acquisition Lab and their team have been longtime supporters of the pod.Created by Walker Diebel author of Buy Then Build: How to Outsmart the Startup Game, is an accelerator with a highly vetted cohort-based educational and support community for people serious about buying a business.Acquisition Lab exists to help people buy a business and navigate all the complexities of the process, as well as provide a trusted framework, tools, and resources to support you from search to close.If you are serious about buying a business check out acquisitionlab.com or email the Lab's director Chelsea Wood, [e-mail].-------------CloudBookkeeping offers adaptable solutions to businesses that want to focus on growth with a “client service first” approach. They offer a full suite of accounting services, including sophisticated reporting, QuickBooks software solutions, and full-service payroll options.Subscribe to weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking here Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show! Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations. For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

Welcome to Exodus Anonymous. Michael here. A cool deal to talk about today, which was somebody is selling on Biz Buy Sell the master franchise rights to a group of franchises here in the state of Texas. And I brought this deal because it was just like super interesting and also had like the perfect storm of everything you should look for in a deal that you should not do. So we went through and talked about how franchising works, how the ecosystem of franchising works, and then dug through this deal and like blew it to shreds.

So I think it was good radio. Hopefully you guys enjoy the show as much as we enjoyed making it. Here's the episode. This episode of Acquisitions Anonymous is sponsored by Acquisition Lab. Acquisition Lab and their team, they've been longtime supporters of the pod, and they provide a really great service for people who are looking to acquire a business. So it's created by Walker Diable, who's become a friend,

the author of Buy Then Build, how to outsmart the startup game. So Acquisition Lab is an excessive. with a highly vetted cohort-based educational and support community for people who are serious about buying a business. So a lot of our listeners like you, you turn in every week to our deal reviews, you want to get in on buying a business. You know, you're on this podcast because you're trying to learn how to buy a business. But if you're not quite sure where to start, Acquisition Lab is a great place to start. So they exist to help people buy a business and to navigate

all those complexities of the process, everything you hear us talking about on the show. they provide a proven framework, tools and resources that support you all the way from search to close. They do it. There's a whole bunch of educational material and support. So if you're serious about buying a business, check out AcquisitionLab.com or you can actually email the program director Chelsea Wood directly. Her email is Chelsea at buy then build.com.

All right. So Bill, we covered that Heather has terrible allergies. Despite living in beautiful Southern California, how is your health, Bill? How are you doing? My health is good. I might be diabetic after all the Halloween candy I ate over the last couple days. But other than that, I'm pretty good. In my case, I have discovered the key to weight loss.

Would you like to know what it is? What is? Personal stress. Personal stress. That's great. I used to be one of those people that would like eat to deal with stress. Now I'm discovering I'm like one of those people who doesn't eat when stressed. And I'm like, every morning I'm on the scale, I'm like, this is going great.

I'm down like four pounds. I like that. I wish that would happen to me. Shoot. How do I switch from being a person who stress eats to a person who stress starves? That sounds like a good flip. I do not know. I do not know.

Okay. So it is red flag season across the world because people are, you know, challenged and also, well, like it's the opposite of the upswing. There's red flags on the upswing and red flags on the down swing. So I wanted to bring a deal today, but I found it. And I just think it's such a good teacher. moment. And it's also super interesting because I've never seen anybody put every single red flag for a scam or a terrible business deal in a single listing. I was like, oh, this is a good one.

We're going to talk about this one. So I brought this one and I would love to read it just because it's just so interesting. So, okay, so it's from Biz Buy Sell, our favorite future sponsor for the, for the pod. We're still waiting Biz By Sell. You can be my next Chili's, I promise. Come with us. Okay, so the listing says Ultimate Texas Master Franchise Opportunity has a picture of the Texas flag of waving in the wind. They are asking $1.2 million for this business, and it says $8,000 in cash flow and $908,000 in EBITA, established in 2016.

Business description, guaranteed results or your money back. I'm in. I'm in. Let's do it. So the first red flag, you cannot go into business without at least some risk. So yeah, guarantee your results are your money back. This is not a weight loss pill. It is a business. So, okay, we're looking for someone to take over our master franchise in Texas from corporate, capital C corporate. Your role will involve attracting local potential franchisees in the state.

You can follow our winning corporate advertising program. you will be rewarded with at least 50% of the initial franchise fees, a new local franchisee pays to acquire a location, and then after they launch, you will start earning a weekly royalty revenue based on their grossed revenues. You may also offer value-ad services to your local franchisees you bring on such as insurance products, micro-financing, etc. While this is optional, it can drive more revenue for you and more value for the local franchisee. Texas is one of the lowest hanging fruit franchising in the U.S. Total opportunity in Texas is 90 plus local franchises that can be sold. If interested, please contact me as the opportunity will not be around for too long. Thank you.

P.S., we guarantee your results or your buy-in is paid back. Location Harris County, Texas, no facilities or officer employees are required. You'll be provided with both digital and physical marketing assets to assist with attracting and closing franchisees are dedicated marketing and design team can help facilitate any need, whether for an online listing or a conference event, parenthesis, home-based. This is an exclusive territory, meaning no other person will have the rights to offer these franchise brands in the state of Texas and a market potential of over 90 franchisees. You can sell other stuff.

And they give you remote training and ongoing support along as your businesses active and corporate to invest funds to mass market advertising and hire additional res. I don't know what that means. And the business is home-based. It's almost made it with no typos. We were so close. We just made Heather's allergies twice as bad. I cried.

I cried. It's now a 50% crying from the allergies. 50% crying from this listing. That's right. Okay. Okay. So what do you guys think? So should we start with what the heck is a master franchisee?

Yes. Yes, because I don't know. Heather is confident enough to admit that she's never heard of the idea of master franchise before. I have only heard of it because we sold a couple when I was in investment banking. So what it is, is in franchising, there's typically a franchisor, so think Dunkin' Donuts, right? And then there are franchisees think Gerdley's Donuts LLC that opens up franchised Dunkin' Donuts locations. That's kind of the typical franchisor-franchisee relationship most people are familiar with. Some franchises have

a middleman in there called the master franchisee. And the master franchisee gets a territory from the franchisor in cases where the franchisor basically doesn't want to deal with all the Gerdley's Donuts LLCs of the world. They kind of carve up the world to five or six or ten or fifty master franchisees and say, you've got the state of Texas, you're responsible for selling Dunkin' Donuts franchises in the state of Texas, and you get a cut of all of the franchise fees for the franchise you sell, plus a fraction of all the royalties that they pay back to Dunkin' Donuts Corporate. So it is literally a pyramid scheme.

It is the franchise equivalent of a pyramid scheme. You are between the franchisor and the individual location franchisees, and you're kind of trying to make sure they succeed, et cetera. So that's what a master franchisee is. Okay. That's interesting. Yes, it does. But it's like a salesperson, at least in this role, it's like you're a salesperson for this brand, whatever it is, to try to help them sell some territories in Texas.

Correct. Where it sounds like they don't have anything yet. And very often what brands will do is like, let's say they're not in a state at all. Like Texas, they go, oh, geez, like we're going to sell 90 of these franchises in Texas. Like how many leads we got to deal with, like pound the pavement, qualify all these people, you know, et cetera. they'll usually take like a greenfield area and sell somebody to master franchise rights for the area and say go wild.

It's very often how these come to be. So two more data points to add to what Bill's talking about. There are commonly like what you do for SBA loans, Heather. And I hope this isn't turning into like the most mansplaining podcast of history. So if we go there, you just told me to shut up. I'm on a no mansplaining. I didn't know. I was honest.

I didn't know what this meant. So it's okay. Okay, let's just pretend. When I say Heather, I mean audience. I'm on a no mansplating diet. So anyway, okay, so audience. To add to what Bill said, in the franchise world, there are also these people that do what Heather does for SBA loans,

but they are brokers for reselling franchises. So like whenever you get somebody on LinkedIn being like, have you considered franchising as a path to your personal wealth? Like, those are typically people that are acting as brokers for those. franchises. So you see those people, but sometimes it gets structured that way where they're just like independent agents and selling and getting commission and being brokers, but then other times there's this master franchise thing. The other data point to know is like if you look at the franchise systems that have proven to kind of be the crappiest for the franchisees and take advantage of people,

like curves is a great example. Subway is another one. Like there's a common thread amongst a lot of those kind of scammy franchises, they use this master franchise concept. Because the reason that gets them in trouble is because you end up, let's say, getting 80 master franchises across the United States, what is the likelihood that all of them are like above board high integrity people? Pretty close to zero. So that's where a lot of like the egregious things that happen in curves and stuff like that, these master franchises get involved and they're scumbags, right? It's going to sign up for this deal is probably scumbag. And like they go, trash on people. And like, that's, that's one of things when I, I, I like that a lot of franchisers are

getting away from master franchises because it's a source of like terribleness in the industry. Also, the franchise brokers, though, can be just as, as predator, you know. In fact, and what's interesting is, I'm an, I am an investor in a franchisor that is selling franchises right now. And the insane, and they, you know, they're trying to go direct to franchisees, but they also work with some brokers. Very often when you buy a franchise, there's an upfront franchise fee, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Almost all of it goes to the broker, which I did not realize. Like 80 or 90% goes to the broker.

The actual franchisor sees very little of the franchise fee. They're just doing it for the ongoing royalties. Wow. And this costs a million two to sign up, basically. And I guess if the franchisor here is guaranteeing this master potential franchisee, guaranteed results. What do you think the master is going to do to the franchisees that they're selling to, right? They're going to make similar guarantees that they probably cannot back up. I guess that's what you're saying. Yeah. So what's interesting is so if you did this, you'd pay $1.2 million to the

franchisor in franchise fee, which they'll put in your pocket. You are then entitled, it says you'll be rewarded with at least 50% of the franchise fees of your local franchisees. So you get half. So the question is how many, like let's say the local franchise fees, 100 grand, right? You've got to set that you get 50 grand each. So you've got to sell, what is that, 24 of them to get your initial investment back. But then, of course, you have the ongoing cash flows and everything, so you don't have to make it all back with franchises. At the same time, they think there's 90 franchisees in the state of Texas. So if you were to fully saturate your market, you know, I'm sure it would be easy to focus on it and go, well, geez, that would be $5 million just in franchise

fees. But you got to realize, of those 90, like 60 of them are in locations that do not need a curves fitness or whatever this is, right, where you won't be able to sell a franchise or they won't or won't go well or whatever. So I think you'd have to be really realistic about what is the actual demand in the market for not people buying these franchises for me, but actually this business existing, these multi-unit locations actually existing in what geographies. Do I actually think people are going to want these things and make money? or not. Of course, it depends a lot on what the heck this franchise actually is. Okay. Well, I think I have the answer to that bill because I went full Sherlock

Gurdly. It was not as hard as you think. So here on the listing, they have this lady's name, Shamaraya, New Faro. Hopefully I did not. Was that, was that good, bad? I don't know. How would you rate that, Heather? Was it like a five-out-tage? I saw you copy-paste it. That was smart. Yeah, I did not type it out. Anyway, you Google her. and you get the following. So I think she is the only person that is named that, and she appears to be a realtor. But then her day job, or also day job,

is doing this, representing this thing called cheese brands. Chies, franchise. Yeah, yeah. I'm pronouncing it cheese. You cannot stop me. It is cheesy. Maybe. So they have three brands.

One is, so she's project manager and HR there, but they have three brands here that I scrolled down. Oh, here, let me find it. It's a good look at website. By the way, her husband is the founder of this. So that's how she's tied in. Yeah. So they have a junk removal brand,

which is like $1,800 got junk, which that space, I have a buddy that bought one of those franchises here locally, and he seems to call me on the, the regular, ask you if I have any junk. In-home senior care, which is a super pack space full of geriatric care, and then in-in-home line tutoring franchise as well. So they offer these three different ones out of their business.

So I think that's what they're trying to sell is, oh, let's find somebody to go in and sell these franchises across Texas. All right, taking a quick pause here. I have something to tell you. This is Michael. I hate bookkeeping. I hate bookkeeping. I hate doing HR, I hate doing all that kind of stuff.

But for bookkeeping, I have found a solution. It is my friend Charlie's business called cloudbookkeeping.com. So that's cloudbookkeeping.com. They are your perfect partner if you want to get bookkeeping out of your hair and focus on making your company, your customers happier and more successful. So please give them a call, call Charlie, cloudbookkeeping.com. Tell them we sent you. They're a great way if you're a business buyer, if you're a business owner,

you're tired of hassling with getting your bookkeeping done. He's got a whole fleet of people that are well-trained and work for him. He's located here in San Antonio, so I can tell you because of that, he's awesome. And they're a great partner

for you to potentially call to help with all your bookkeeping needs so you can do the important stuff in your business rather than worry about getting your books right. So give Charlie a call, cloudbookkeeping.com, and now back to the episode.

I'm curious what you guys think. I'm like a half-baked and I help maybe you guys help me fully bake it here on the pod. My theory is that not all things deserve to be franchised. I'm not like anti-franchised. Like people can make a crap load of money. The franchise model is perfect for a lot of things. But not all things deserve to be franchised.

And what I'm trying to articulate, and I wonder if you guys can help me, is how would you describe as a rule of thumb, what types of businesses should be franchised and what types of businesses. You do not need a franchise. You should just go start. You know, you kind of know it when you see it. But how would you guys put that into a rule of thumb putting you on the spot? I'm thinking more the other side of it, which is certain people shouldn't go into business unless they're in a franchise system, at least for the first time. And I kind of think of a lot of franchise concepts as sort of training wheels. And so I don't think of it the way you do, but like a for a more accomplished, you know, maybe skilled person, there is probably a rule of thumb there.

I have to think about that. But for me, I just think it's like training wheels. In most cases, it's like small business on training wheels. But do all business, like one of these is a franchise tutoring company. Like should you buy a tutoring franchise or should you just go sign up some kids? That's what I'm getting at. Well, you might need content. You know, they've already got the curriculum, maybe. Yeah. And I think that ties into my specific answer to your, Your question, Bill, I mean, I think Heather's right on about who should do franchises, but like to me, to me, franchising works when two things are needing to happen. One is you need to have individual operations that have like an owner-operator style mindset to be

most effective, right? It's like, okay, why does chick-fil-A work? It's like, well, because that person's entire life savings is tied up in making that chick-fil-a work. But at the same time, those concepts need to have a, I would describe it as economies of scale that make sense, right? So, for example, like, I think the junk lugger, junk chuckers, 1,800 junk works because you have to have scale that comes from centralized marketing and call centers to really make those things work well. Like your average guy with a truck has no idea how to do Facebook ads, no economies of scale around all that, no expertise. And so to me, that makes sense totally there. But I mean, the second one of these, which is like the home tutoring thing,

unless it's like Heather talks about that you need to have a, you know, some sort of centralization of curriculum or any of that kind of stuff. Like, every tutor I know is like ridiculously busy. And of course, I live in like a weird neighborhood. But like you don't, the tutors makes no sense to me. The junk totally does because that's a total like online marketing centralization thing where it makes sense to have those be franchised out, just like 1-800 junk, got junk to us and stuff like that. So does it have to do with the way customers are acquired?

Does it have to do with the way marketing is done? Does it have to do with how operationally intense something is? I'm trying to come to like a pithy or like a rule of thumb that we can use to go, don't franchise that crap, just start it. Or there's probably a lot of value in franchising that business mom. What about shared services? the idea of if there are shared services where there's, you need scale, whatever that may be,

then that's a good franchise concept. Is that a good? Yeah, exactly. Like, I think you, what I'm trying to take it late, you look at the pattern, right? Like, so what is the common thing between McDonald's Hilton, right? And like, let's pick, let's put 1-800 gut junk, right? Like, like, so all three of those have some level of centralization or, you know, uniformity or brand that everybody, by being a part of that, that becomes very strong, right?

Like, why do you go to Hilton? Well, you know what you're going to get and they know how to run hotels and you, you know, you know that's the brand, right? When you go to travel to foreign country, which is this massive national marketing thing. Absolutely. So in the case of 1-800 got junk, like, okay, where there's this thing that is the key to the entire business, which is getting customers who are going to pay to come haul off junk and then you monetize that on the back end, like there's massive like customer acquisition, centralization, and branding that matters around all that. Like McDonald's is the same thing, like the uniform recipes and all of this stuff.

So that's what I'm trying to articulate it. It comes down to like there is real economies of scale that come from being part of that network. And it could be, could be buying right in the case of Ace Hardware, right? All those are independent franchises, but they're a buying group together, right? It could be branding and uniformity of service, right? It could be centralization of a resource, like in the case of 1-800 got junk. So it's just this idea that you have to look for. How does being part of that network and that scale enable something that was otherwise impossible?

And it could be any of those things or a combination of those things, is my argument. Because you're going to pay up front, right? You're going to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars up front and then five to 15% of revenue forever. So that's semi-expensive. So you better believe that you're getting some sort of unfair advantage from the franchise or that you wouldn't have if you started it up on your own. A million percent. Yeah.

And part of it, too, I think a huge one is a recognizable national brand. You know, something like neighborly tutors, like just to use one of theirs here, I don't know how nationally recognized that is, but it certainly ain't Dunkin' Donuts. Right? You know, the nice thing about Dunkin' Donuts is you open a Dunkin' Donuts on any street corner. Everyone within five miles of that Dunkin' Donuts knows exactly what you're selling, knows your brand, and as a drive by, they go, ooh, I want a donut, right? Like, that is super powerful, and that does not work if you open up, you know, Bill's

donuts in the same way on the side of the road. So I think the national brand scale is absolutely worth paying for, but not a lot of franchises have that. Yeah. Well, it's this idea, I have friends that talk to me about doing franchises, and it's like, look, you either want to get into the winning top one or top two franchises, like McDonald's Burger King and then don't worry about anything else.

Like, who cares about, you know, Bill and Gerdley's Burger Shack? Like, nobody gives a crap. Or you want to find the one that's going to be the next kind of winner there. Like, how do you get in early to an orange theory or something like that? And so many people end up with these franchises

that it's like, well, you know, it's just like an off-brand curves. Well, like, why aren't you doing the real curves? Or it's just an off-brand McDonald's. Like, what are we not getting anything for that? You want to be with the winner. Like, that's literally the worst thing you could say the only thing that makes McDonald's is the brand. It's not like they have the best

burgers. So when you say it's an off-brand McDonald's, it's like a literal oxymoron. You've removed the only thing that matters. Okay. So this is been a great discussion, by the way. I love this. This is Pete Gurdly Bill, Heather. I love it. So, okay, what I want to do if we could take like 30 seconds is just like go through and list out all the red flags about this. Because like, like, I see people go through and look at stuff like this and they're like, well, okay, like, why should I hate this? And I'm like, well, this is a perfect example of one that's just an immediate total scam and you should just like walk away. But these other, these red flags also show up in other stuff as well. So like the first one for me is guaranteed results are you mighty big.

Before you go into that, before we completely savage this thing, can I tell like a small story of a time I saw it really work and I got super rich on master franchising? Let's go. Okay, so lest you think master franchising is a scam, as a blanket or franchising at all, it's not. I don't like this one. We'll come to that. But I have a very good friend that we didn't invest in banking together for two years, and then he went to go work at a top-tier private equity fund for a couple of years. And that private equity fund owned a large sandwich chain that you know, a brand you know.

and it was not in, I will obfuscute the state, but let's just say with Tennessee. You know, it was not. But it was not in Tennessee at all. And this guy lived up in the northeast somewhere. And they want to expand in Tennessee. And he said, I want to do it. I want to be the man. He goes, you know, fancy suit.

He goes, I want to go slice tomatoes in Tennessee and be the master franchise in the state of Tennessee. He quits his fancy private equity job. He moves down to rural nowhere Tennessee, opens up the first one, cuts his teeth, slicing tomatoes at five in the morning. The first one works, and then he starts selling franchises to other people, plus opening his own. Before you know it, he's got like 40 locations in the state of Tennessee and absolutely murdering it, like got super wealthy, crushed it.

So it absolutely worked for him. This was a legit brand, national sandwich shop that you know. And this guy was an animal, you know, but it was just funny to watch him go literally from fancy suits, private equity to the next day he's up at 5 a.m. slicing tomatoes. And they required he work in the first location for the first year. So he was making sandwiches from private equity making sandwiches. But man, it paid off for him. So it can work. I just want to put that out there. Well, and there's the story of the guy that did back when Orange Theory was getting started before it became super popular. They were trying to get into Texas. He was a successful entrepreneur. They called him and said, hey, we're looking for somebody to do master franchising the Dallas Fort Worth area for Orange Theory. And he said, well, okay, but you know, like, you're going to have to cut me a really sweet deal.

And he got in early and it was picked the right franchise. It wasn't scammy and it was like a good thing. And it was clear how it had come to him. Like the story was right. There wasn't a biz by sell listing like this that it came in. And like, fast forward, like, Orange Theory takes off, become super popular. A guy makes hundreds of millions of dollars when he sells with private equity. Like just like because by then the franchise rights to Dallas Fort Worth enormous amount of money.

Enormous amount of money. So yeah, I don't want to be coming across as pooping on all franchising. A lot of franchise is excellent, but it's just like anything else. There's crappy businesses too. And yet, now we go into the red flags on this one, which there are many. Go for it, Gerdley. Okay, number one, and then I'm going to shut up because I want you guys to go. Number one, if anyone tells you that a business opportunity is zero risk or no risk whatsoever

to start a business, they are lying to you. That is a scam. Like, there is just no way that you can go through without having any risk. And that is the very first thing they said, guaranteed results are your money back. And like, if you hear that from anybody, like, from a business opportunity standpoint, there is no starting in businesses without risk. It is either not a business or it is a scam. Those are your options.

So that's the first thing when I see that, I'm like, uh-oh, run the other way. Agree. And by the way, this is like such a great rule of thumb. This is like work from home on your couch and make $1,000 a week. This is start an Amazon e-commerce business. Everybody's doing it. There's no risk. You're going to crush it.

Like anybody that says business opportunities have no or almost no risk, they're starting their entire relationship off with you on a lie. And you should wonder what other things they're telling you that are also lies. Because starting a business is one of the riskiest things you can do. What's next? I like all the value ad services. You know, you're selling these franchise concepts, but you can actually sell insurance and microfinancing and you can just become this conglomerate and make all this other money. Come on.

That has nothing to do with the franchise concepts that you're selling. Yeah, like wait, there's more. Well, you shouldn't have to do those things, right? Like, also, those should be, if those were really value add to the franchisees, the franchisors should already be doing them. Right. Right. And also, like, you don't have the infrastructure to selling. insurance products to 90 tutoring franchises in Texas.

You know, like that's, that's a whole different business. You know, this just, they're just sprinkling other get rich quick things that will not, you won't actually do because it'll turn out to be way harder in practice than they are in theory to bait you in this opportunity. Yeah. And I think when you go to ask for your money back, they're going to say, you didn't do this and you didn't do that. So we're not giving you the money back.

That's what they're going to do. Yes. It's always guaranteed money back, you know, as long as it was. was your fault and fine prints is everything's your fault. Definitely your fault. Yeah. Yeah.

The next thing that is total like red flag, if interested, please contact me and see opportunity will not be around for too long. Like, just like, okay,

I'm creating scarcity. Like the language here is just stuff where you see language like this and it's like, oh, like I'm getting bamboozled here quickly. Yep. If you scroll down,

clearly, keep going, because there's a couple further down the page. The other one I notice here is they talk about all this other stuff, and then they slip in there, home-based. Anytime someone is pitching you like a business and the major value is home-based, like that's not the reason to do a business, right? Like if your primary criteria for doing a business is that is home-based, like you probably

got your priorities a little bit upside down, I think. And so when they start saying that, I think they're going after the wrong type of people also, because it generally, I think, is a tell that the right type of people aren't taking the bait. Well, and potentially they're trying to target vulnerable people, right? Like if you're home-based, potentially, like, you're stuck at home with kids or you're taking care of a, you know, you're a caregiver for an older person. Like, you start to find, you, the reason I hate that, and I think you do too, Bill, why I hear you agreeing with it, Heather?

Like, if you see an advertisement that's clearly targeting the vulnerable or the ignorant, like that's also, that's a scam. So, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, if you don't want to be vulnerable or ignorant, don't go for that, right? If they're targeting a group that you don't want to be part of, don't go for that offer. Okay. Well, anyway, I thought this was fun because bizby sell is just full of crap like this. But hopefully they advertise with us because then, you know, anyway.

But it's also full of not crap sometimes, the diamonds. Yeah. There's some good stuff in there. Yeah. I mean, I think there's, to build, to your point,

there's a time to do a master franchise opportunity, but it doesn't, the story does not smell like this one. Like, it sounds like it's a distressed takeover our master franchise in Texas from corporate. Somebody probably already tried at this and failed. They're targeting somebody vulnerable.

They're guaranteeing money back. They're listing these numbers that just seem over the top. They're giving us no specifics about the business. like it just everything about this is just click next on your browser and don't get involved with these people just just smells terrible yeah i mean i think girly both stories that you had and i had about people who had really crushed it with master franchising the opportunity came to them sort of i don't want to say by accident but like through a connection or they were in the right place at the right time or it wasn't publicly shopped or whatever it might have been it was a special situation

and in general in dealmaking, if you are experiencing a special situation, those tend to be lucrative. Yeah, for sure. Okay, cool. Anything else about this one? Otherwise, I think we can wrap up and move on to savaging the next deal that I find.

All right. Moving on then. Thanks for joining us this week on Franchising's Anonymous, and we'll see you guys next time.