The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Jon Ostenson of Franbridge Consulting and Capital

Episode Date: April 9, 2022

Jon Ostenson of Franbridge Consulting and Capital Franbridgeconsulting.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks chris voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey welcome another podcast oh my gosh who knew we'd do it again after 12 years? Who saw that one coming?

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Thing is hot and all that good stuff that's going on with it. Today, we have an amazing gentleman on the show. He's going to be talking to us about what he does and enlightening you on how to do better business and make more money. His name is John Austinson. He is on the show with us today. He's going to be talking about what he does. He is a top 1% national franchise broker, investor, author, and international speaker specializing in the area he has coined as multi-brand franchisee. He is uniquely positioned to educate others on franchising and franchise selection. He serves as the CEO of Fran Bridge Consulting and has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and investors explore ownership and investment

opportunities. Welcome to the show, John. How are you? Chris, doing great. Love the show. Excited to be with you. Excited to have you. Thank you very much. Give us your dot coms, your plugs, so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah, come out to franbridgeconsulting.com. That'd be our home site. Connect with us on LinkedIn. We put out good content, typically on a daily basis. So, John Ostenson on LinkedIn. Sign up for our newsletter on the website. We've got a book coming out in Q3. We'll make sure to give you a copy of that when it's released as well. That'll be awesome.

You should come back for the book too because we have a lot of book authors on. So we can cover that. Do you have a title for the book yet? Is it a working title? It's the book on non-food franchising. So we call it what it is. 95% of my clients don't want anything to do with food. Food's not my background.

In my opinion, they're easier ways to make money. But oftentimes when people think franchising, they think fast food. And so we're out there educating on all these other opportunities outside of food to follow a system and really produce a good living. So let's lay a foundation. What is franchising? I'm sure there's somebody out there who's not too familiar with the term. So let's lay that down for everybody who went to public school like me. And let it's financial resources typically moving back up to the corporate headquarters and exchange. So a lot of businesses may be operating as a franchise and not realize it. We do have new companies turning into franchises every day. There's roughly 4,000 franchise brands out there in the US. Of those, about half of them are in the food space. And

that is a large piece. However, there's another 2000 or so that operate in a wide variety of industries that we'll hit on. But just to fly at 30,000 feet, Chris, you know, to help people understand what is franchising a little more, you know, what people are buying into when they purchase a franchise, you know, in my opinion, I would say buy into a system or a playbook, you know. You're not determining product market fit on a new startup. Instead, it's been proven out in other markets. So you're able to follow the playbook you're purchasing. In addition, you've got a coach on the sidelines, that franchisor. The better you perform, the better they perform.

So there is some shared interest and alignment around that. Oftentimes it's overlooked, but you have all these other franchise owners in other markets. And so you're really in business for yourself, but not by yourself. You've got a support system where you're trading best practices and learnings and testing new marketing vehicles or figuring out where to hire the best talent. And then you're sharing that internally. And then finally, oftentimes people think, oh, with a franchise, you're buying a job. And there is a cash flow producing component, whether you buy it as an owner-operator or semi-absentee, which we'll talk about. Obviously, as a business owner, you're also able to write off expenses that you couldn't as a W-2.

Then the third piece would be that exit. You are building a business that's going to have that exit potential down the road. A really interesting stat around that, there was recently a study done looking at 2,000 business transactions, 2,000 exits across a variety of businesses, franchised and non-franchised, but they looked at the two in like-kind industries. And what they found, Chris, was that one and a half, the franchise businesses traded at a one and a half multiple of non-franchised upon an exit. So the value is seen there by the potential buyer. So you are building an asset with that exit value.

I would say franchising is not right for everyone. And I have to tell some of my clients, hey, you're too entrepreneurial. You want to put your thumbprints all over this. You don't want to stay within the boundaries, if you will. So it's not right for everyone. In turn, I have a lot of folks that have started businesses of their own and they love the idea of now buying into a franchise because they've been there, done that. They don't want to reinvent the wheel again. So yeah, that's kind of a 30,000 foot view on franchising. And what are the numbers on franchising? One of the challenges I had in starting my first business at 18 and building a little empire of companies was starting from scratch and having to do everything ourselves, create everything ourselves, the business model, everything, and hunt around in the dark. We stared down the 99% of businesses fail in the first two years, a gauntlet. And why is it sometimes better to go with a franchise sort of model as opposed to making your own and going through all that craziness?

Well, yeah, if you care about being in business after two years, your odds are much better. Now, the success rate, I've done many, many deals with clients. I've only had one that didn't work out, and it's very explainable as to why it didn't. The success rate that you see, depending on which source you pull from, it's in that 90% range that you're still operating after a few years, whereas obviously startups, we all know the numbers behind that. So I'd say that's definitely a benefit. And part of that comes into, yeah, you've got the product market fit. You're starting on third base, not first base. When you enter the game, you know what that path to profitability looks like.

Now you just go execute it rather than trying to figure out, is this even potentially profitable? And some of the guides that help us along the way to determine, is it the right fit from a financial standpoint? One, every franchise system has what's called a franchise disclosure document, an FDD. It's required by the Federal Trade Commission that they share that with you. In it, you've got the item 19. There are 23 different items.

One of them's the item 19, where they make the financial representations. And so it's not a given, but you are able to go in and understand what are other locations, how are they performing? What is the average? What are the top quartile? What's that look like on a P&L?

So you're able to go in with some hard data, not just the back of the napkin, Performa. And you're also able to talk with other owners prior to making your decisions, what we call validation. So you get to talk to other owners and other markets. They can be an open book and share their books or at least give you insight into what that ramp up looked like, the kind of support they've received along the way. And so you really go in. The goal is that you have an eyes wide open perspective in making that. It makes all the difference in the world.

In fact, I've known a lot of people that have gone and bought different things. I've had friends that have owned McDonald's franchises, several of them. You know, the model's pre-built. One thing I always had to do when I created my companies was find the right model first and build it and then try and make it profitable, innovate the crap out of it. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it works for a while and then it goes out. The great thing about franchises is the model's already built for you. The experimentation's usually already taken care of. You're getting a drop-in business plan. I had another friend who owned a car dealership and he wanted to, like you say, expand into something else. He bought some of the early franchises that I looked at at one time. I remember you could buy a franchise for Subway.

It first came out for 30 grand. I should have bought some, but I was a kid at the time. He bought a bunch of subways and turned out they ended up being more profitable than his car business, a dealership. So it makes it a way where you can do that additional income thing where you can own more companies. That makes all the difference. So how hot is this right now? Is this something that people are getting into buying? And what's the thing that everyone's after these days? Yeah, no, it's, I mean, we're seeing a renaissance, I would call it in franchising. I think COVID caused a lot of people to question the path they're on and say, you know, maybe now it's the time to scratch out entrepreneurial itch. So we do have, I'd say

about half of our clients, you know, looking to make a jump from corporate America and go full time and what we call owner operator where they're, they step in there, they're running the business. But the other half of my clients are looking for what we would call an executive model or semi-absentee semi passive. What that looks like is where you put a general manager in place from day one, and then maybe you advise or coach from the sidelines, you know, you're providing capital, but you're not running the day to day, you know, you're providing capital, but you're not running the day to day, you know, you're still putting in some time, nothing is totally passive

or totally easy. But you're setting yourself up to not be the day to day operator. So you can keep a day job or run your other portfolio of companies. And I think a dynamic that's supporting this too, is you've got record levels of cash on the sidelines, stock markets up here, interest rates are, you know, they're creeping up, but they're still pretty low. And, you know, so a lot of borrowing can be done and there are only so many good real estate deals to be had. So, you know, it's the first world problem, but it is a problem for a lot of people. Where do I place my investments? And so we're seeing a lot of self-funded deals as well as SBA loan backed, or, you know, we have,

we're able to tap into retirement plans and self-direct IRAs through what's called the ROBS program, portfolio loans, a lot of different options on the funding side, which I think are leading to interest as well. But no, right now, Chris, in almost every deal that we do, and like you hinted at at the beginning of the show, we do a lot of placements. In almost every one, our clients are up against other candidates for the same brands in the same market because there's so much interest right now. And what we do is we get out there and we provide a lot of education in addition to helping our clients in the search process. But we're out there helping people understand it's not just fast food. That represents about half the world of franchising. But this other half, industries like home and

property services has been incredibly hot. Health and wellness and fitness, automotive, anything pertaining to kids or pets or the aging population, all these areas that people are willing to spend money on, regardless of the economy, some of which we classify as essential services, and many of which are Amazon and technology resistant. People are gravitating to those understandable businesses. Once they realize, hey, you can make these kinds of financial returns with these opportunities, we stay very busy. There's no lack of interest out there. I owned a mortgage company for 20 years and all of our empire of companies was wiped out by the 2008 real estate crisis crash. And we are approaching another one. In fact, we're already in it. It's been, we're three months now where home sales are starting to decline and everything else.

And part of that's going to come from the interest rates increases the Fed's going to do. I used to have to be able to predict what Alan Greenspan was going to do for my company because we had a multimillion dollar portfolio of loans. And once he increased a quarter point, I'd be like, well, there went $400,000 out the door. So we had to know what he was going to do and have our portfolios prepared for it. And so we're approaching that time. We're already in it now where the inverse curve is starting to go. And I know a lot of people have been chasing real estate. It's been fairly hot for a while, but as interest rates, these values are going to go down and we've peaked. There's only so high you can go. When it gets to a point where no one can buy a home anymore, that's when you know you've

kind of hit the threshold. And so what would know, what would you say to people that are either considering in real estate or in real estate right now as to whether or not they should move out of those or stay away from those? Because I'm telling people either want to sell the top now, you know, I've sold at the top of markets like dot com, the dot com boom, I sold at the top. I, you know, I've watched a lot of different up and downs with the financial world, whether it's stocks or real estate. But to me, owning a business, you know, I've watched a lot of different up and downs with the financial world, whether it's stocks or real estate. But to me, owning a business, you know, gives you some barriers because that's more income than relative.

I'm not really a passive income sort of guy. I like, I like income and I like companies because I can manipulate them. I'm not kind of stuck in a vehicle that, you know, if I can't sell it, I can't sell it. Right. What do you, what's some of your advice to people that might be choosing between real estate and now they might be thinking about franchising because of our conversation here? Well, I'd say I'm an all of the above kind of guy. I don't think I should be either or in a lot of cases, more than two thirds of my clients are real estate investors as well. And so it marries perfectly.

I mean, I invest in real estate myself, so I'm an equal opportunity investor, if you will. No, and I think it just creates that diversity of alternative investments within your portfolio. And so when you, I could just cite case study after case study of clients of mine that, you know, a lot of the opportunities that people have been resonating with are ones that marry up to real estate in some capacity.

And so if you've got a great network, you know, I just had a, I mean, the past couple of months, we did a commercial property management deal. We did a residential property management deal with a real estate broker. It was a great synergy play. We just did three deals in gutters. We had a former Wall Street attorney outside of Austin buy a gutter business because the returns are so attractive. He put his business owner hat on, you know, but it's things like the $52 billion insulation market or roll-off dumpsters or surf pros. I mean, those non-sexy type industries are really attractive to people right now. And yeah, and then everything related to the home, you know, all sorts of services that, you know,

I think have a lot of staying power and really marry well to those with real estate connections and real estate interest. So no, I think to answer your question, I think the marriage is great. And I think it's an all of the above rather than an either or. There you go. I'm just thinking black and white. What am I doing, man? Take it all. Grab it all off the table. Invest it in all. So that makes sense. That makes sense. And that probably gives you a good buffer, a good diversification to your portfolio of investments. Borrow against those. It's like a credit line. I think this is the best kept secret out there. It's called a portfolio loan. So you can borrow up to 50 or 60% against your market value. And so I take a couple hundred thousand dollars out at 1%.

It's currently 1%. It's variable, but it's 1% today. I flip it into real estate lending deals. I'm doing it 10 to 12%. I mean, that's the definition of arbitrage right there. And so, you know, I'm not having to sell any of my securities. They're still growing in theory over time. It's a stock market, but it's this arbitrage opportunity to capitalize on leverage. So all of your real estate investors will understand that. So this is an $800 billion industry to my understanding. Is that correct?

Yeah. It's a huge piece of the economy. And so what does your company do with clients? How do you facilitate this on board? How do people reach out to you? And then of course, go through the process of trying to figure out if the franchising is for them and how do you help them get that done? Absolutely. So I'll first off start out by saying that our process is entirely free. It's a great model. Think of us as executive recruiters, if you will. There's no cost to working with us. The franchisors pay us on the back end, sales and marketing expense for them. None of that gets passed on to my clients in any form or fashion. So yeah, so it's an easy sell, if you will, but it's really not selling because I get to be consultative and sit on the same side

of the table as my clients. So when we look at the universe of franchise options, call it 4,000 brands out there, take out the food, which we don't focus on. And really, we don't do food or lodging. So the hotels, that's not our shtick. Everything else is. And so you're looking at, call it 1,500, 2,000 brands. We have vetted those, and we work with all the development groups, too,

to keep on track of what is coming down the line. What are the newest franchises that have a unique selling proposition and niche, that have the strong leadership teams in place, that have the financial models? We've done all that vetting, narrowed it down to a couple hundred that we really like and have relationships with. And then what I'll do is, hey, Chris, over there in Utah in your market, let's ask you a few questions, get on a quick call. I see enough across the country to kind of know very quickly the types of opportunities that might resonate for you. How much time can you put into the business? Do you like small team, large team? Do you like brick and mortar? Do you like more of a service space? Here's some examples. Let's talk about how you're going to

fund the business. We ask questions to really narrow down and build a framework or lens through which to view opportunities. And then we'll come back and provide you typically in the ballpark of seven or eight opportunities that are available in your market. We'll walk through those together, looking at each one, typically on a Zoom call. I'll share my screen. We'll talk about the benefits of each one. Try and narrow it down to two or three to actually then have a call with. So we'll make my screen. We'll talk about the benefits of each one. Try and narrow it down to two or three to actually then have a call with. So we'll make that introduction.

You get an intro call. You may decide after that first call, hey, this isn't the right fit for me, but I guarantee you, you will learn something on that call that you can then share with me so I bring right opportunities to you. And so we walk through this process.

The franchisor takes you through a series of different calls, getting into the financials, getting into the FDD, talking to other franchisees. Culminates in what's called the discovery day process at the very end. It's about a probably two-month process in total. I like to hold my client's hand through the process, serve as a sounding board, jump on touch-based calls every week or two, and really help guide them through the questions they should be asking and how they should be viewing things, as well as introducing them to funding sources or franchise attorneys. So we kind of serve as

that Sherpa or guide through the process. And the great thing is, is we know these franchise brands. We know what's going on on the back end. We know how many deals are being done, what's resonating, who's buying in. So it really allows us to give you a good framework of opportunities to pick from. That's pretty freaking awesome. I mean, that's awesome, man. Because a lot of people, you know, I used to see this with my mortgage business. People would come in and they want to borrow, you know, $30,000, $50,000.

And I'm like, what are you going to do with this money? And so we have to ask. And they'd be like, I'm going to start a business. And I'm like, you're a math teacher. I'm not really sure you have the rudimentary brain to be an entrepreneur starting your own crazy business. And, you know, over the years I've counseled people because sometimes I have people come to me and they're like, I'm going to start a business. And I'm like, I'm not really sure your mindset's right for doing what I do and starting a business from scratch. And so there are people that maybe would be much better for franchising. It's much safer for them.

They don't have the crazy, insane, what do they call it, that I have, the ADD disease, the CEO disease. I had it really bad when I was young. And it made it so I could create three or four businesses on top of each other and run them at the same time, which I still to this day don't know how I did it. But I know there was a lot of vodka and madness involved and insanity and some Zoloft at one point. But maybe it would have been better if I weren't in franchise. Let's put it that way.

But, you know, I tend to do things. I'm just not works well with other sort of person. I'm that alpha, you know, commander at the bridge of the helm going, let's go over there. And that sort of thing. In fact, I wouldn't even work good in a franchise system because I get in trouble and break all the rules. And then they'd be like, yeah, you're, you're, you're not going to, we're just not going to play well together. But there are, there are people that that's more functional for them. It's a much safer bet. I'll tell you that right up front. It's a much safer bet. I mean, out of, you know, a lot

of the companies we built, there was a whole lot of experimental companies that we did. And so, you know, we just, you know, we failed on a massive scale, but we're also successful on a massive scale. But, you know, there was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and probably stuff we didn't need to be, you know, getting stabbed to death with. But, you know, I mean, that was half the fun, I think. I don't know. Well, I'll tell you when I can feel my legs, which at this point is probably never going to come around, but so I think this is really good. And I like the method that you have where you can kind of identify who's a good fit for what, because that saves, you know, I mean, sitting and looking through franchisee agreements and, you know, trying to

figure out, Oh my God. And, and, you. And I've seen franchisee packages and you can just glaze over and get lost in the minutia of it and everything else. So what have we touched on that we should touch on that people should know about franchising? Yeah. No, I was just going to piggyback that. I thought it might be helpful to walk through a couple of types of opportunities just to help make it real to people. And I'll start by saying, you know, 80 to 90% of our clients end up in a field that they never had on their radar. They never thought they would be in until we kind of peeled back the onion and said, Hey, wait a minute, here's some options that would be really good fits. And then they fell in love with businesses, but again, never thought they would be in that. And

you know, definitely no back. Yeah. So, you know, everything know everything from you know we just did a 10 unit deal on an oil change they use prefabricated buildings and unused parking spaces of retail shopping centers and they're backed by an investor model you can get in for as low as 125 to 150 per location because of the model and they're kicking off 330 and top line revenue per location with about 130 on the bottom line and so so, you know, our clients plan on buying three, they met the team, they said, Wait a minute, we really like this, let's go big and go with 10 units. You know, we did 10 units recently have an IV drip concept that, you know, it's where health is moving is started by a couple of doctors. And it's, you know, fights free radicals in the body boost immunity at cellular level. You know, people care more about health and wellness at this stage. You know. The aging population, we've got some great concepts.

There's one that does orthotic insoles, and they use 3D printing and fabrication. And so it's very, very custom. You can't replicate that. And the list goes on, but it's been exciting to see clients stepping out, stepping in the fields they never thought they would be. And I posted one out there on social media last week. And this is just to give an example of the financials. So about 75% of the deals that we do, I would say, are between $125,000

and $250,000. That's kind of the sweet spot. I mean, we certainly do some bigger than that, a few smaller, but that's kind of the sweet spot. One that fits that same range, it's a fence and rail company. 30 locations today, they're ready to grow big across the US. They are the largest fence provider out there. They've got Home Depot and Lowe's as national accounts, feeding their franchisees constant leads as the preferred provider. So listen to this, Chris. In year one, their average, not their top franchisee, but their average first year revenue, 1.8 million. Holy crap. Second year, 2.7. Third year, about three and a half million. And this is at a 31% bottom line margin. Wow. Because they fabricate a lot of the product in-house, reduces the cost, boosts the margin. So not every franchise has numbers like that.

But that's an example of one that we're getting behind in a big way because it can be run semi-absentee. That sounds pretty awesome, especially when you're getting leads from Lowe's and Home Depot. I mean, that's like, you know, I'm an Amazon seller. So being on that platform is just crazy. It's way better than eBay. And, you know, you have this huge seller base that you tap into. And, you know, you can sell stuff all day long on there. It's crazy.

I'm trying to think. You know, if you start your own company, you know, from scratch, and you make your own thing, it's a 99% fail rate in the first two years, which is a hell of a gauntlet. What's the, I think there's a different, lower, much lower fail rate for a friend when you buy a franchise, isn't there? Yeah, no, you're in the 90% range of staying in business.

So no, it's, you know, I've been a franchisor. I was a franchisor for Self Genie. So I got to see the sea of franchise owners across North America. I tried to keep all the kids playing nice together, but, together, but we got to support them day in, day out. And I saw who were our top performers who were more in the middle of the pack. And Chris, it sounds cliche to say this, but the top ones were the ones that followed the system that didn't think they were smarter than the system.

And for those, I mean, ex-military or great backgrounds, others that have been in middle management. And then we work with a lot of current business owners that say, hey, I want to expand that portfolio and get something going, put a GM in place. One of my clients is the largest franchisee of two men in a truck, the moving service. And it's franchise, he's in 10 markets, $35 million business. And he and I did a couple of deals together last year

and he put a GM in charge of each business. And again, not everyone has that kind of background. A lot of people are buying a business for the very first time in their life. They're nervous. They get up to the edge of the diving board and say, should I take this risk? I say, is the alternative to continue working for someone else to me? That's more risky than the numbers here would say, Hey, if you perform average, here's how you're going to do. So it's, it's fascinating. There's a lot of psychology that goes into understanding where people are coming from and what can be a good fit for them. You know, the hardest thing is the model. And even then, excuse me, the model can change. You know, we've, we've read models, okay, it's like perfectly profitable for several years and everything's going awesome.

And then market conditions change or some sort of cataclysm comes along or some sort of bleed out in a division that you've got to go either fix or go bankrupt. It's like it just never ends. It's constantly changing. And when you're a CEO of your own business, you're alone. I mean, it really is a lonely job. You can have a board, but in the end, it all comes down to you. And having a franchise where you've got a whole lot, maybe sometimes smarter people than you involved at the corporate level who are seeing these changes, that know what's

going on, that can help with things, it can make all the difference. I mean, that model is so easy when you have the model. Because for me, we always can make all the difference. I mean, it's, it's that model is so easy when you have the model. Cause for me, we always had to create the model. I was, I used to liken myself to Rambo that you just kicked me out of a plane and dumped me in the jungle and I'm going to go clear it. I'm going to go make a clearing, fight all the enemies and, you know, hack all the trees down and, and make, make a model of a community that everyone else can come land into. And that's kind of how I felt my job was, which is brutal. And, and having that pre-made model, that precast model for you where it's already successful

makes, I mean, that's 10,000 times the difference when it comes down to it. Yeah. And nothing's easy. And we certainly don't gloss over that. You're going to have to roll up your sleeves. And especially if you don't have the right team, you know, the right person in place to run the day to day from day one, it's not easy, but it's doable. And at least, you know, the things you should be working on. So, you know, you're moving down the right path. Yeah. Even having the right contracts for employees and everything else. I mean, over the years when we had bad employees, I mean, our just employee manual, our employee contract just kept getting thicker and thicker.

And, you know, we lost so much money from different, you know, employee problems, you know, people stealing from us and everything else. I mean, it was just, it was a constant whack-a-mole. And not having, you know, it took us years to develop finally a really good system where we put a clinch on it. You know, we're in the sales business mostly, and there's a lot of variation of what people would do. You know, they could steal leads, go to another

place. They can, you know, we had some loan officers that were selling the loans that we wouldn't do off at other places, or sometimes just, you know, selling the better loans to someone else off the leads they got. We saw it all in the sales business. But that can make all the difference in the world. I imagine the top end is fairly unlimited to buy into franchisee. What's the low end people can look at to maybe get in? How much money would you need depending upon where you're at?

When we quote estimates, it includes the franchise fee, it includes any startup cost, if there's a build-out of a retail space, or in some cases it's remote, there's not a build-out, but maybe you have equipments or tools or just marketing out of the gate. And then we usually include three months of working capital. So what you might pay somebody or pay for marketing out of the gate. So when you roll all that together is what we call our estimate. And we've got several that are as low as 70,000. I'd say that's on the low end. I had a client buy a business coaching franchise up in Indianapolis recently. His background was engineering. He said, I'd love to coach younger engineers, but

I love the idea of not having to reinvent everything myself, but having the curriculum and the assessments and the tools to be able to go in day one and be a value add to his clients. And that was right around 70,000 all in. We've got another one that's an expense reduction firm where you go and work with small and medium-sized business owners, and you're the expert on expense reduction. You review the invoices and vendor agreements, and then you participate in those savings with them on an ongoing basis because you have a database of both buying agreements on the back end that the franchise has put together, as well as benchmarks, letting you know what you should be paying for these types of services, whether it be communications and

internet or let's say transportation logistics, a lot of that. And that'd be another example there at 70,000. But again, if you were to do a single territory and a lot of that. And that'd be another example there at 70,000. But again, if you were to do a single territory and a lot of the franchises, you can get in for around 100,000. And then there's obviously a lot of funding, creative ways to go about that as well. And only I'd mentioned private equity loves franchising. If you Google, I mean, right now, you'll see a list of acquisitions. I've had started charging private equity firms for conversations because we have so many reaching out asking about franchising right now. Again, they have the same problem of a lot of capital on the sidelines and they love the idea. And they're typically buying at the franchisor level. Every now and then they'll buy a large scoop of franchisees, but typically at the franchisor level,

in some cases, they'll buy back the franchise location. So it provides that natural exit strategy for a franchisee. In other cases, they're just throwing money on the fire to go or gas on the fire to really go and expand. They love the idea of having local ownership in these markets. They're able to scale using others' resources. It really funnels a lot of money into marketing that has a halo effect for the franchisees. So lots of activity in that space.

There's somebody asking to send me the information, Hernan. I think let's get the.com so that we can have him go look at that. Yeah, come out to franbridgeconsulting.com, sign up for our newsletter. I'll be sure to reach out to you with some resources. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Drop me a note. I love talking about the topic of the F word, franchising, and we stay pretty active. So happy to engage.

There you go. There you go. Thank you very much for coming on the show, John. We certainly appreciate it. This has been really insightful. Yeah. No, enjoy the conversation, and I look forward to engaging and helping out in any way I can. There you go. Thanks

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