Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - Would You Buy This Franchise? Inside Smash My Trash with Connor Groce

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous!In this retrospective episode, we take a deep dive into the unique business model of Smash My Trash. Our special guest, Connor Groce, a franchisee of Smash My Trash, joins us to break down the pros, cons, and surprising challenges of owning a franchise in the trash compaction industry. Discover what went right, what went wrong, and if this B2B sales-heavy model is right for you![Key Takeaways]Why Connor decided to buy an existing Smash My Trash territoryThe unexpected challenges of working with haulers and navigating B2B salesInsights on franchise maturity and risks for new franchiseesFranchise Disclosure Document (FDD): what it is and what it reveals[Sponsors]Acquisition Lab:Thinking about buying a business? Acquisition Lab, founded by Walker Deibel, author of Buy Then Build, offers a cohort-based educational community designed for serious business buyers. Learn more at AcquisitionLab.com or email Chelsea Wood directly at [e-mail] Business Capital:Need financing for a business acquisition? VISO Business Capital helps with SBA loans tailored for business acquisitions, offering over 30 different lenders to find you the best funding. Sign up for a free Q&A session at VisoCap.net, then click "Zoom Signup" at the top right.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]

Michael, when you and Mills did this earlier, you were talking about undeveloped smash my trashes. Conner ended up buying an existing smash my trash. It was a red flag to me that the seller owned other smash by trash territories, but didn't want to expand into this one. Some franchise systems have declining trends, even though they've been around for a long time, because the demand for the product or the service is not as strong as it used to be. Think about a business like Smash My Trash has its challenges, right? But relative to a lot of other businesses, it's just not that operationally complex. Well, said Acquisition Anonymous.

Hello, another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. We don't have 100% here. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous. Today's episode is a retrospective episode where we look back on a couple of episodes we did around the Smash My Trash franchise system. We have no economic interest in the Smash My Trash Franchise system, but it's a business that smashes trash.

So as a 49-year-old, 12-year-old boys, we're very excited. about it and Heather is very nice and comes along with us while we talk about how cool it is. But anyway, I'll talk about what the franchise system is and we're joined today by a special guest, Connor Gross, who's a friend of the pod, and he is going to talk to us about it because he bought one of these franchises and did a deal on it. He knows firsthand what smashing of trash is like and can tell us what we got right and what we got wrong. So here's the episode. I hope you enjoy it. 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 Labs is an accelerator 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 tune in every week to our deal reviews, you want to get in on buying a business. 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. Okay, guys, so we have something we're going to do a little bit different. We've done a couple of times. We've done this. But Heather, this is going to be a retrospective episode. So today, because you and I are Gen X, Sympatikos,

I will break out the college word for us retrospective. But we're going to look back on one of our deals that we did. It's way back episode 119. And did you, that was before you even joined the podcast, right, Heather? I feel like we talked about, I might have been on it. Maybe it was before me, but I feel like we talked about one of these businesses at least once that I was there. Yeah, yeah.

Well, we're at 360 something else. It was a while ago. Okay. And so we have a guest today. And so Bill, I forgot who did this deal. Was it you and me or was it me and Mills? I think it was in Mills. I think you were doing.

So this will be, you will be. repeat take and I will be and me and Heather will be fresh take on this one. That's great. And we did this, we did this deal. So it was me and Mills. Look at Mills. He's like,

he's like such a baby like two years ago. His beard is only nine inches long as opposed to being 19 inches long. Just like a different thing. Mills. So this episode less than two years ago and Mills is not here to defend himself. So what you mean to say, Michael, is you think he has aged dramatically in the last two years.

Well, he does own a roofing company. So the episode we did was around the smash my trash franchise stuff. And we have a special guest today. So Connor, welcome. And it's Connor gross, right? Because we had a whole debate about it's like a grose, which would be cool like in a French way, but it's gross. And it's not nearly as exotic and sexy as it looks.

It's just exactly how it looks. Because I recorded an intro for this. And I was like, hey, is it grose or gross? It's gross. But you actually got into the smash my trash franchises. And that was your entree of the franchise world. It wasn't the first franchise, but yes, I am in Smash My Trash. Okay.

Well, do you want to take like a minute and introduce yourself and what you do and why you're intimately qualified to tell us how we were smart and stupid in episode 119? Well, I don't know about that. But in terms of what I've done, I got into franchising pretty young with a brand called Shine that's in the home service space, window clean. cleaning fresh holiday lighting and stuff like that. I heard with a couple of existing franchisees that owned another brand and they wanted to diversify into home services. So I kind of became their operating partner and I ran that business

ran that business operator for the first 18 months and then hire a manager and still own it today. I'm not involved, super involved in the day today anymore, but I wanted to get into the acquisition game and identified smash my trash as a system where I wanted to do that in. So this was in 2022. I actually had a deal under LOI and Cincinnati. Moved to Cincinnati, that deal falling through during diligence after I moved. That was inconvenient. But after that, I ended up finding this ad that you guys covered.

And the ad was for undeveloped territories. And I called the owner. I ended up finding out he owned an existing smash my trash franchise. And so the conversation progression for Greaser to say, hey, what if we, included the undeveloped territories and included the existing business, and I bought all of it. But by the time I came to re-engage with him, those undeveloped territories weren't on the table anymore, but I'm acquiring the existing franchise. And so bought that one closed in September of 2022. In 2023, I had a couple other, you know, smaller plan acquisitions. And yeah, everything's

going well and really enjoying being a franchising and smash my trash. So, Connor, is it fair to say that because of this podcast, that was your introduction to the deal? I mean, obviously, you know, if you had you went out to listen to this episode, 113, you would have probably not done the deal or 119? No. In fact, by the time you guys covered it, the deal was already closed. In fact, I can't even the context, but I just remember it was a really rough day at the office. And I heard the episode, like, was like, I need to decompress and just some acquisitions anonymous. And eventually, I realized you're covering my deal.

Anyway, no, it was after the deal had already closed. Okay, that's awesome. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe a good first place to start, because I just did this to try to remember what Smash My Trash does. Can you give us the 30 seconds? Like, who's the customer? What's their problem?

What does Smash My Trash do for it? Absolutely. So Smash My Trash is mobile trash compaction. So it's not the dumpster itself, but we basically have a big truck that goes around, backs up to the dumpster, and compacts the trash. to reduce the amount of air that's in the trash. And so the three main ways that it helps our customers, the customer is anybody with a long, rectangular open top dumpster.

And so the three ways it helps the customers. It reduces, again, the amount of error that they have in their dumpster, which reduces their cost. There is an environmental component as well to where it reduces the amount of CO2 emissions that are released as a result of the trash disposal. And it also, in certain circumstances, helps the operation of whatever facility that is

because they don't run the risk of having to stop production as a result of not having a place to put their trash. So yeah, that's ultimately how it helps people. So this is literally like your at-home trash compactor, but for dumpsters, right? So you roll up in a truck with big heavy smasher and you compress the dumpster down in the same way you would, you know, in a kitchen, functional. That's exactly right. This is like just if you have little kids, little boys, Bill, this is like one notch below. So like if you like owned a fleet of diggers and like backhows and stuff, like how cool your kids would think you are is. I mean, I pulled up a picture of it.

It's a big long flatbed. It looks like it looks like a big Peterbilt style, you know, F, you know, if it was a Ford, it would be like an F950 or whatever it is. It was like a big truck with a flatbed. And then on the back, it has like a little cabin and a giant arm with like a smasher at the end. These are all technical terms that I'm giving you Bill here. And then you just like smash the inside of the trash. Like it's got to be, I don't know. If my kids were still little boys, they would think I was cool if I invested in one of these.

It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to do. Can you drive one of these? Like you personally? Are you, are you smasher trained? I am. Yeah. And you don't need a CDL.

It's below the weight limit to need a CDL. And so, yeah, I thoroughly enjoy going out there and decompressing and smashing some stuff. It's a lot of fun. Got it. Okay. Awesome. Okay. So when my.

Michael, when you and Mills did this earlier, you were talking about undeveloped smash my trashes. Conner ended up buying an existing smash my trash. I would love to hear just like, Connor, what are like the pros and cons of buying Greenfield? Like you ended up not buying undeveloped or Greenfield territories. You ended up buying an existing smash my trash. How did you think about like, why did you end up making that flip? Because you inquired, I think, on undeveloped territory, but you ended up buying the existing one. Why? Yeah, and it's really tricking in franchising overall because that is the challenge when you want to be in a choir and a franchise system is that you're up against this structural headwind of most of the resales, the quality resales typically trade internally. So franchise systems are these closed circuits where it's really hard as an outsider to buy in unless you're going to buy something that's distressed and you're basically picking up over the leftovers of everybody else in the system.

So honestly, this was a situation where I kind of got lucky, where I, you know, entertained a conversation with somebody about some undeveloped territories. You know, I would still consider that to be kind of an off market deal in the way because they weren't really publicizing the existing location for sale. I just ended up making them an offer that was frankly higher than I probably should have paid. But that's kind of what you have to do if you want to get in through acquisition is just stretch a little bit on the front end. And, you know, really my thesis was once I'm in the door, I'm going to be able to create a lot of value. I've changed my thinking on that, though. As I look at other brands in the future, I plan to only acquire once I'm in the system and have the infrastructure and I know what I'm doing to be able to then go in and acquire. So versus buying an undeveloped franchise, how does that work?

Like there's no business here. Are you basically just paying the franchise fee? And then you're just like a franchisee off the street. Like you're working with a franchise consultant or something who's reselling a franchise. and you buy it from them and you're off the races, Greenfield? That's right. So these were actually undeveloped territories that were previously owned by somebody else. So it's a little bit different.

I think one of the things that was talked about in the episode is that these were actually discounted off of what they had paid in franchise fees. But yeah, how it would work if you're buying it from a seller is you would buy, you would write them a check for whatever you agree upon mutually. And then all you have is you have the rights to develop those territories. But all of the same capital outlay for the trucks, the working capital and everything. else that's over and above what you pay in the franchise fee. You know, if you're buying it directly from the franchisor, it works more or less the same way.

It's just the price of the franchise fee is going to be more fixed than if you're buying it from somebody else where you may have the ability to negotiate because typically there's a reason that they're wanting to sell. Is it, are they always transferable? I mean, like, can you always resell your franchise territory? Or is it, you know, you have to give right of first refusal to existing franchise or franchisees or the franchisor to turn. in a corporate location or you needed approved by the franchisor.

How does that actually work? I mean, I imagine I can't just resell it as easily as my old bike or something. Yeah. So typically the franchisor, a lot of times I do have a right of first refusal, but almost always they're going to have the right to approve the transfer. I mean, how I've seen this work in practice is that's really just to make sure that they can vet the person, make sure that they're adequately capitalized and they're otherwise a fit for the system.

But yes, they would have the right to sign off on whoever they're bringing into the system. And yeah, that's how that typically works. So, Bill, we had, we pulled up this clip of where we talked about why they're selling, why these particular territories are for sale. So I thought I'd play that. And then we could see if Connor can tell us if we were smart or not. Well, I guess since you weren't there, you could tell us if we were smart or not too. Let's roll the clip. I'm not, I can't hear it. Are we supposed to be able to hear it? I can't hear either. Is it playing Michael in your headphones? Like, can you hear it? So I went, to paraphrase there, I read what they said about why they were selling, and then suddenly it was a red flag to me that this seller didn't own other smashed by trash territories, but didn't want to expand into this one.

So, Connor, how should we think about that? Did I jump straight to the wrong conclusion? No, I think you hit on exactly the right conclusion, which is that if there's somebody who's selling and they own other locations that are doing better, you know, there's a reason for that. And, you know, in this particular situations, there were, there was an adequate explanation. I mean, it was personal reasons that they wanted to sell. But, I mean, I think that the point was well taken, which is that if this is someone who knows the system better than presumably any buyer would, you know, there's a reason that they're selling strategically. And are you able to tell us why they were selling or? Yeah, just personal reasons. I mean, this was somebody that, so this was somebody that lived in Minnesota, owned the location in Indiana where I had bought.

They had also bought another franchise in Minnesota that was also a service-based franchise brand. And they had just bought off way more than they could chew. This was the classic case of the first-time business owner that got exposed to a bunch of different opportunities that I want to dive in head first. And I mean, these things are not easy to get off the ground and to scale. And particularly if you're trying to do them in multiple different states and multiple different brands at the same time, I mean, it's just really challenging. So it was just more than they could handle at one time. both capital and operationally. And then the next clip we have was actually us pulling up the franchise disclosure document.

Do you want to talk real fast around what the FDD is and then we can pull this up and you can tell us if we were smoking crack when I talked about it or not? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So the FD, that's the document that every franchisor has to publish, you know, in order to sell franchises. Everybody has to publish it at the federal level. There are 13 states where you also have to publish it at the state level.

and one of those is Wisconsin, and they're all public record in the state of Wisconsin. And so that's how you can access. Presumably, Michael, that's how you probably access that to be able to review and talk about. I think it's important to note that this franchise disclosure document does not mean that's how it works in practice, because this is the thing they put out to say, it will not be worse than this. So it is designed to be really bad because this is a CYA document. The real thing to understand in terms of when you're looking at a franchise, like this is go talk to other franchisees, especially ones that you go to directly and ask to see what worked out in practice, right? And understand that kind of stuff rather than, you know, rely upon

this, which, I mean, no offense. I look at this and I'm like, why would I do this? This looks terrible on that note. Hi, Heather here. When I'm not breaking down deals with these guys, I'm helping people get the right SBA loans for their business acquisitions. Because when you're buying a business, the best financing isn't one size fits all. There's the best. rate, fastest to close, the specific loan structure that you need, or a little of all of those things. That's why my company, Vizzo Business Capital, works with over 30 different lenders to find you the best funding in less time and with less friction so you can focus on the deal. Sign up for a free live Q&A session on SBA loans at Vizocat.net.

Then click Zoom sign up in the top right corner. That's V-I-S-O-C-A-P.net and click Zoom sign up. Oh, good question. Well, Michael, I think that the point you've made there is really important because that that is very true that sometimes what is, you know, disclosed in an FDD is going to be very different than how things are actually enforced in practice. And just an example from the smash my trash system, I mean, they have some pretty, I would say pretty aggressive minimum royalties where they were saying that if, you know, you have to pay a certain amount in a royalty irrespective of the amount of revenue that you drive. And a lot of franchise systems have those just to prevent. people from, you know, buying too much territory and sitting on more territory than they're actually in a position to develop. But, you know, the minimum royalties were just to the point that a lot of

so many franchisees were paying more than what the percentage was that they were supposed to be paying. And so, you know, to their credit, they ended up coming back and, you know, not enforcing those to the same degree than, you know, it was disclosed in the FD that they could. The same thing, they also had a schedule by which you had to buy a certain number of trucks within a sort of certain period of time. They also ended up, you know, revising how they were enforcing that. And so, you know, I would agree with the point that in a situation like this, I always say with both like looking at financial performance as well as all of the other terms they're included in an FDD, the FD is the starting line. It's not the finish line. The FD is a snapshot of what things can look like,

but you have to take all of that and, you know, feed it through the lens of talking with franchisees to hear both, you know, what their results have been as well as what has their experience been. working with this particular franchisor. And then, Heather, how do lenders think about franchises like this? There's whole SBA groups at Live Oak that do franchises, right? Right, right. So when looking at franchise businesses, a lot of banks set up to be sort of the one of the preferred lenders to the franchisor.

They will establish a relationship with the franchisor, learn everything about the system and about the performance of the different operators that they have in their system and kind of be set up as the referral partner that the franchisor will say, if you need financing, try one of these three banks. Whenever someone comes to me for especially franchise development loan, that is what I tell them the best way to go is. Now, if they're buying a franchise like Connor did, an existing going concern franchise, not a development, then a lot of different banks would look at it the same way they would look at any business acquisition loan. but with that extra kind of lens as to, you know, why is this franchisee selling and,

and, you know, what kind of training are you going to get that kind of thing? But if it's for development, you really want to go where the franchisor has already established a few banks as their preferred lenders. And when I see franchise systems that don't have that yet, it's just usually an indication that they're kind of young. There's still a new concept and they haven't yet got to that level. It's a little more of a sign of maturity when they're, they do have two or three preferred banking relationships.

One thing I'd add to that just on the end of the note is a lot of people are surprised that when franchisors have relationships with lenders, how willing they are to lend on new territories. You know, a lot of times those deals can get done for 15 to 20 percent equity, which is far more, you know, typically than you're going to get, you know, as a startup loan to start an independent business. But all of that obviously is predicated on the lenders having a really good relationship, as you identified with the franchise order where they're already comfortable with the business model

and they're comfortable with the system. And then they just have to go through and underwrite the individual in order to get that done. So it's really interesting. All right. So I want to go to some of the drama in this. I want to go to some of the drama in this, which is this franchise system has gotten sued by the trash haulers. So, Connor, you're welcome to not talk about this. It's one of the most interesting things about it.

That there's an obvious problem here, right? If you're compacting people's trash, that means the trash haulers, the people who rent you the trash dumpster and then take it to the dump are going to make less money because you have, you have to pay them for fewer trips. So there was a history of lawsuits going on. So let me play this clip here and then I'd love to just get your perspective on the drama because this is something we saw very interesting that they were smash my trash franchises. The way, these only work for, you know, 15, 20, 30 yard dumpsters.

They don't work for like the upright dumpsters that are just behind a small office building. It's construction dumpsters that really make this worthwhile. But the container company, you're going to be at odds with them because you're eating into their margin. They get a fat profit when the container is only partially full because when they take it to the dump, they pay by weight. So if you have a bunch of air in your container, it's good for. for them because they're paying less at the dump and also they get to bring you back a new container and that might be $350, $450 each time you do a swap and replace. So you're at odds with that person. They're not going to like that you're eating into their margin. And also you're banging this big

metal drum with spikes on it around in their containers. They've going to have more wear and tear on their most expensive asset that they are trying to protect. So we'll pause there, but just since Mills is not here today, we can make sure it's clear this whole thing was Mills's fault in terms of stuff. So pooping on the thing. But Connor, how are people dealing with this particular aspect of the kind of conflict with the trash hauler? Yeah, I mean, it is a challenge in this business because he's 100 correct. And more so, you know, when Smash My Trash first got started than today, because now it's kind of just more baked into the equation. But yeah, I mean, we are cutting into their margin a lot of times. but the flip side of that is that, you know, obviously it benefits the hauler if they're hauling

empty containers, but who does it hurt? It hurts the customer. And so, you know, the fact that the customers are so deeply on our side and so appreciative of what we do, you know, that at its core is a really solid, just like that we have to stand on there. And so now the thing about, you know, we have great relationships with a lot of haulers in our markets. And so, you know, when you think about it, we can be a great referral partners for haulers in our markets. it's, our service frequency is more frequent than the haulers are. And so it ends up being a pretty high-touch service. And so we get to know our customer's needs pretty intentionally.

And so when there's a customer that isn't satisfied with their hauler or their needs change, we're in a really good position to make a warm intro to a hauler. And so typically if we come across a situation where there's a hauler that's just, you know, completely uncooperative with what the customer wants to do in terms of using us, we try to just go ahead and make that intro to a hauler that fits well within our system. But it is a challenge. And the other thing is that because we expect that challenge from a sales standpoint, we're able to get ahead of that and go ahead and breathe the customer that,

hey, listen, your hauler may not like this for X, Y, and Z reason. And typically they understand that they may not like that because they're going to be spending less money with them. But ultimately, it's a net positive to the customer. And that's really what's important to us. Super cool. Okay. Let me play this next clip because this is where, like, one of my, theses about franchises has come in.

And Heather, you talked a little bit about like lenders dealing with franchisors that are early in their life cycle versus later in their life cycle. And here I talk a little bit about it. So let's stick into this and then, uh, and see what you guys think. One thing that comes to mind on a deal like this too, anytime you're looking at a franchisor is to think about the age of the franchisor and the maturity. You know, if you're going to be a franchisee, you're on the receiving end. of whatever maturity, sophistication, scale they have.

And, you know, you, there's pros and cons depending on where you are in the spectrum. If you are the biggest franchisee of a mature franchisor, that can be a really beneficial kind of scenario. But if this is, and I think Smash My Trash is more developed now, but if you're an early adopter, you know, if you're within the first maybe 25 or 50 units of a franchise concept, they are still figuring it out as they go. I mean, they are still on a learning curve. And you kind of almost have to predict what a lot of these franchisors do is they get to a certain level of scale, a certain number of franchise units.

And then they sell a market to somebody who is good at taking a 50 unit franchisor to a 500 unit franchisor. And so, you know, you don't necessarily have a lot of leverage as a franchisee. Yeah. You have a lot of leverage around and a lot of autonomy. operating your business as long as it's within their bounds. But, you know, there's a lot of decisions they get made at the franchisor level that you don't really get, you know, much say or input on. And you just kind of have to take it. By the way, Heather, uh, your active listing was terrific there. Great job. You like the whole time. We're like, yeah, go, keep going. I thought I was doing it again.

Like it was, but it was playing back to me. It was kind of fun. But yeah, so we're actually showing clips from two different episodes. I forgot. There's like one in the one hundred's and this one was just, like a couple of us. That explains why you're like, yeah, I think I did what. I was like, well, yeah, for sure. So how do you guys think about this like pros and cons of early franchises? Because as I look at it, like you get an early in a franchise system, you have an ability to grow with that franchise system. It's not saturated versus say you're getting to curves right now or something subway that's super saturated. On the other hand, like early franchises come with risk because you're not sure if you're getting into curves or you're

getting into the next orange theory. So how do you guys think about the tradeoff there and who's that right for. Yeah. So my opinion on that, so I own franchises in two different brands, one of which is a lot older. Shine is a lot older than Smash My Trash. And Shine has been around since the 90s. And they are wonderful people with all due respect to them. But my, you know, my experience has been a whole lot better as a franchisee with Smash My Trash than it has been with Shine. And Shine's been around for 20 more years. So it's not quite as linear in my opinion in terms of like the value that you get from a franchisor based on, you know, the time that they've been around. I personally have loved being a part of an emerging system. I mean, I think it's

exciting. I think that you have the ability to grow and, you know, become a thought leader in the system and be contributive in a lot of ways. If you like that, and that's a case, you know, for the personality that I think an emerging franchisor versus a legacy franchisor would make sense. But, you know, I would take a well-capitalized, sophisticated franchisor that's been around for perhaps a little bit, you know, not quite as long. I would take that any day at the week over a franchisor that's been around for decades, but maybe there's just not as much energy in the system. It's stale and stagnant. That's just my personal preference. Yeah. And the lenders would tend to lean more heavily into the time, you know, how long has it been? Because it's a little bit

harder for them to sort of peg those qualitative factors that you mentioned. And perhaps they shouldn't. Perhaps they should lean into some of those other things more. But I think they look at the longevity of a concept, you know, to tell them that they can predict better what new stores will look like, what existing stores will perform like, and that gives them a longer runway to sort of do that. It's not always true, though, because, you know, some franchise systems, you know, have declining trends, even though they've been around for a long time because the demand for the product or the

service is not as strong as it used to be. So it's not always true, but I think for loan purposes, you'll find the banks really care more about how long the concept has been around. And the newer they are, the harder it would be to get financing. All right. Let's do this last topic because we're coming up on the witching minute. So Connor, just so you know, like if we go over 35 minutes, people start tuning out like crazy because that's longer than the average commute. So we've learned took over 35 minutes. So let's do this last one, which is we have a discussion about who should buy this in terms of this particular franchise. And you tell us if we're right or wrong. So I would think who should buy this is someone who's great at B2B sales. Maybe in some, you know,

they've sold something kind of similar to like the type of people, the parts of the hotels and the convention centers that they're going to be selling this to, someone who's just a great salesperson who can come in and grow that side of it. with the equipment and the people that they've got. But I would say it's much lower valuation, but that kind of person could get an SBA loan and probably do okay. Yeah. The other person that I've seen do these is somebody who owns something that's kind of adjacent.

Maybe they own a home construction or remodeling business that's, you know, of maybe a similar size or slightly bigger. And they go, hey, I could use the service. I could kind of jumpstart it. And, you know, I see them kind of signing. up as franchisees for these types of, you know, these types of vendor kind of like not fully arms linked relationships and it's beneficial to them. So yeah, somebody in this market is like a

medium size home builder and they go, heck, I mean, we could we could blop on, you know, another $500,000 in revenue just smashing our own and kind of, you know, serve ourselves. Those are great scenarios. Or a roofing business. Yes. Only residential, I think, would benefit from this. Yeah. But even then, like you're tearing. hearing off shingles and they're really heavy. Yeah. And you're not smashing. Like you said, it's not smashable.

It has to be something like pallets and boxes. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. What do you guys think? Heather, do you still agree with yourself from six months ago? I want to ask Connor first and then I'll tell you.

I couldn't agree more. I mean, so you know, you're thinking of, think about a business like smash my trash is it's, it's not, you know, relative to,

it has its challenges, right? But relative to a lot of other business. is it's just not that operationally complex. You know, it's like you don't have, your head count is pretty low. You know, as long as that truck is running, and obviously you take care of customers and you have somebody in the truck driving it, operationally, it's just not that complex. And so really, the bottleneck is sales.

And particularly when you're talking about B2B sales, I think that somebody that either comes from a B2B sales background or that, you know, sales is just their thing. that's what they want to spend their time on as an owner. I think that's great. The interesting thing about what Mills called out there, though, about business owners with adjacencies that own businesses that are adjacent to some way. That is the exact archetype of the first smash-my-trash location that was under LOI that didn't go through. That was exactly who that owner was. He was somebody that, you know, he owned several service businesses. This was kind of a bolt-on to his portfolio, and it worked out really well. And so I think either of those were,

excellent archetypes of who should buy this business. We did good. All right. Yeah, yes. There we go. All right. Well, anything else on y'all's minds? Anything else folks need to know, Connor?

No, no. I'm glad we got the chance to clear the air here. Well, good. I hope you keep listening. And so you have a business now where you're doing franchise consulting for people, helping people find franchises. Just could tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I've learned a lot in the past five years or so that I've been involved in franchises. I've stubbed my toe, as I think I referenced earlier in the episode. And so I've seen kind of, you know, I've learned a lot through that though. And so, you know, through that, I just had a lot of people start to ask me, you know, who were interested in franchising, you know, how do you go about finding the right opportunities? And, you know, franchising is a space that I'm a big fan of. It's been a great path for me to get started as a business owner. but it's also a space that has a lot of noise in it.

And it can be challenging to cut through the noise and get to write to the information. And so all of that, I kind of responded to the calling earlier this year and became a franchise consultant. And so, yeah, for anybody that's interested in buying a franchise and just want somebody who's been through the process, you know, a couple of times to walk alongside of them through that process, that is how I help people to do that. Super cool. And we'll put a link to all your stuff down below in case people want to reach out. So thanks for being here. you all right Heather talk to you soon