Episode 37: AI Consulting Franchise Under $100K with Ken Boyce, Human Advisor AI

Pam Currie (00:01.47)
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Franchise Sisters Business Radio Show, a platform to bring business professionals together to connect and educate to serve aspiring entrepreneurs looking to invest and operate a business. I’m your co-host, Pam Curry.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (00:19.071)
And I’m your other co-host, Sherry Curry Skoldager. And on today’s show, we have Kim Boyce, co-founder and vice president of Franchise Development for Human Advisor AI. With more than 30 years of experience as a franchise owner, franchise or franchise consultant, and franchise executive, he has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs evaluate and invest in franchise businesses. Today, Ken is focused on helping business owners leverage.

artificial intelligence through human advisor AI while building a nationwide network of trusted AI advisors. His mission is to make AI practical, profitable, and accessible for small and mid-sized businesses. Welcome to the show, Ken.

Ken (01:08.12)
Thank you so much, ladies. I’m looking forward to it.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (01:10.911)
We are too. We’re excited to learn about this. It’s such a hot topic. so let’s kick it off this way. Can you give us a little story behind Human Advisor AI and what led you to create it in the first place?

Ken (01:24.66)
it started probably two to two and a half years ago. And I was infatuated by AI and the tools and and playing with it myself, kind of learning more. I’m kind of a learner than anything else. So I started trying to use them and understand them and understood that this is difficult. but in saying that recognized the opportunity. And you know, two, two and a half years ago, the tools were pretty archaic.

Compared to the way how they are today. Two years is kind of like 20 years in regular life in the AI industry, right? So about 15 months ago, I set in to develop a business model that I felt that AI could be used by businesses in a practical standpoint. So I took the the next really 14-15 months in building this business for the sole purpose of franchising, because that’s where I come from.

I I don’t know how to do anything else, quite frankly. but in the sense of helping people become successful in business. So that’s how we kind of and then I brought in a business partner, Dan Gizzy, who was one of my franchisees from another company that we kind of built a a friendship together. And he’s more managed services background, 30 years in that. I’m more franchised. We made a good yin and yang, if you want to call it, partnership.

And then we sat down and just said, let’s, you know, start a company called Human Advisor AI and spent fourteen to fifteen months building it until today, well, as of June first, we are now offering it as a franchise and we put all the things in place needed to have a very quality, good franchise that for the support and all that. I’m sure we’ll get into that too. But that’s basically how we how I started. It was just a pure curiosity of a new technology, new industry and going.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (03:21.943)
That’s great. And obviously you you’re so experienced in franchising. Is that the primary reason why you chose franchising is your vehicle to expand? Okay.

Ken (03:29.673)
Ab absolutely like the the idea of having an office in every city with all kinds of employees and all that from a corporate standpoint, I’d rather I’d rather sit on a beach. It’s not my cup of tea, as I like to say. I like to help people I like to coach, help people be successful and and from an independent entrepreneurial standpoint. So that’s why I’ve always stuck to franchising because I’m just not a corporate America type of personality. So

Pam Currie (03:52.35)
Mm-hmm.

Pam Currie (03:58.505)
Makes sense, makes sense. Well, no doubt it is. this is cutting edge, it’s relevant, it’s current, AI is the buzz. so I think your timing is right on. let’s go ahead and talk about the business model. could you walk yeah, could you just walk us through your business model? is it classified as a B to B, B to C? I’ll let you explain.

Ken (04:10.093)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (04:21.033)
It it it’s completely B2B. Okay. I I guess you could do some B2C if you want to teach people and all that, but that’s not what our franchise is designed around. In fact, if you really want to understand our business, is I take the AI out for right now. Just look at Human Advisor and really what our business is is a business consulting firm for small to medium sized businesses to utilize AI.

Pam Currie (04:25.32)
Okay.

Ken (04:50.497)
To do one of two things, either increase more revenue or decrease expenses to basically help with their PL. That’s what it’s designed for. Now, what we’re taking is all the best principles and practices that the enterprise world has used, in the sense of Accenture, Deloitte, PWC. What do they do? They consult with enterprise-level companies and they’re a business consultant. They go in and evaluate, okay.

Where are the gaps in your business? What is working? What’s not working? What do you need most help with? And, you know, can AI help with that? Okay. That’s what our franchise owners do. They go in and do that business consulting first. Okay. Identify the gaps. Then go, okay, what kind of solutions are going to be there? And of course we train them and support them and show them how to do all this. And then the final step is, okay, what AI companies can provide you with a solution that will help to fill that gap?

And either, like I said, increase your revenue or decrease your expenses. It’s very simple. So our French lot of people that first contact us are like, well, do I do need to know anything about AI? How AI our franchisees are going to get involved very little with AI. They’re going to know how it is applied, where it is applied. But when the techies start to talk, that’s where the techies in the company talk with the AI companies we introduce them to. So our franchisees just didn’t need to.

need to know very high level of the icing on the cake as I like to call it. They don’t need to know how the cake is made inside. They’re the they’re the project manager. They’re the consultant. They’re the business consultant. So a lot of people that I initially speak to, you can tell them go, because they’re thinking they need to all know all this stuff about AI. And I’m like, no, you don’t. You kind of do, but you don’t. You’re we’re gonna have a completely designed assessment.

Pam Currie (06:20.796)
Как вот.

Pam Currie (06:36.689)
Ken (06:42.54)
to implementation to everything that we train motor train our franchisees on and then implement that. So that’s really I know it’s hard like I could go on and on about the business model and I’m sure we will, but from a high level, that’s the type of person that they want to come in here. If they want to help businesses, that’s the first thing that’s the core of the value of what we do. And then the tool that we use is that is AI. Does that make sense?

Pam Currie (07:07.132)
I I it does, it does. I I definitely I like the analogies going in and like you said, assessing identifying the gaps and how to increase revenue and minimize expenses. question for you. So if I’m understanding correctly, then once the franchisee, as that consultant, goes in and you know, does the proprietary assessment of what’s going on inside the organization.

Who is finding I guess what I I is it called an AI tech specialist? Like who finds the resources that has the knowledge to be that AI specialist? Yeah.

Ken (07:48.207)
Great question. Wonderful question. That’s us. That’s the corporate office. We have what’s called the marketplace, the human advisor marketplace. Okay. We have right now over a hundred vetted AI companies that we have in our marketplace. And I’ll just give you one quick example. Let’s say we go in and we find one of the gaps in a company is sales. They’re like, our sales people are awful, or the pre whatever. You know, they go, sales sucks for us. We know it’s a major

Pam Currie (07:53.287)
Okay.

Pam Currie (07:57.533)
Mm. Okay.

Pam Currie (08:06.268)
Wow. Okay.

Pam Currie (08:15.364)
Yeah.

Ken (08:17.794)
Problem. Okay, fine. So let’s go in and in our assessment, we’re gonna go in and talk to all your salespeople, your VPs. We’re we’re gonna find out really, really what’s going on, right? And there’s AI companies like Gong and other ones, gong.ai, like so there’s these ones that have already built AI applications based on improving efficiencies for sales for salespeople. Okay. So then what once I’m the consultant, once I’m the franchisee.

Pam Currie (08:41.918)
Okay.

Ken (08:45.738)
And I do my assessment and find out all these criteria. Then what I do is I reach into the Human Advisor AI marketplace, pull out three or four sales AI companies, and then I set up those calls with my client. And then it’s kind of like almost like a a a a vendor. Well, what do you go? I’m going back into my wife’s purchasing there. It’s kind of kind of like a what do they call it now? I forget the

Pam Currie (08:54.436)
Mm.

Ken (09:14.926)
term now that when they could work in

Pam Currie (09:15.272)
Maybe just an aggregate of vendors or a vendor directory of specialists.

Ken (09:21.368)
When when you’re going up for a proposal to find you know, to find a new vendor, okay? Is that’s what we really do? yeah, RFP, yeah, I I don’t know, I getting ol getting old. I can’t remember this stuff anymore.

Pam Currie (09:26.068)
Mm-hmm. O R P.

Request for proposal. I’m right there with you. You’re not alone, Ken. Yes.

Ken (09:36.823)
An RFP. So w the way we approach it with a company is that let’s treat this now as an RFP. Let’s go to our marketplace. Let’s find three or four companies that fit the bill. And then you’re gonna engage your tech people and our their tech people engage and you’re both going to figure out which one is a better fit. Now, here’s a really, really big key for our business is that we accept zero commissions, zero referral fees, zero kickbacks from the AI companies. We’re completely agnostic.

Pam Currie (09:42.43)
Okay.

Pam Currie (09:53.82)
Mm.

Ken (10:06.754)
We do not accept anything from them. We’re impartial to that. So, in fact, a lot of the companies that are in our marketplace, we approach them to that. They want to offer us commissions. They want to offer us these benefits and all that. We’re like, nope, zero. We’re not going to take it. And they think we’re crazy. They think we’re nuts. But then once we explain our model, they’re like, I get it. So we don’t become you know focus on one company that provides us more.

Pam Currie (10:07.55)
Okay.

Pam Currie (10:22.257)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (10:34.424)
commissions and revenue and all that kind of stuff is that we do the best thing for our client. And then that’s why our client pays us in that. Now, the nice part is is those benefits that those AI companies give wanted to give us, we can pass them on to our clients to help them save a little money too. But that’s where we don’t we can do custom build, and I won’t get into the much of it today, but we can do custom and we can refer companies to do it.

Pam Currie (10:36.883)
Yes.

Ken (11:01.25)
But most of these applications have already been developed, vetted, and proved by these AI companies. They might have a million users on it, or half a million, or maybe even 10,000 or 5,000, whatever. They already have the proof in the pudding, as I like to say. And I’m just I’m the I’m the middle person that introduces them to you and vet them so that more importantly, you just don’t choose the right one. More importantly, you don’t choose the wrong ones. And we’ve seen that an awful lot, is that people

Pam Currie (11:20.658)
Yeah.

Pam Currie (11:27.7)
Sure.

Ken (11:30.22)
Buy stuff, you know, buy an application, buy get sold by somebody in a demo going, this is gonna cure everything for you. And and all they care about is making the sale, where we’re like, no, that’s the way that you’re doing it backwards. Let’s leave that to the end and it lets you everything before.

Pam Currie (11:32.158)
Mm-hmm.

Pam Currie (11:35.718)
yeah.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Pam Currie (11:45.126)
Pam Currie (11:49.865)
That makes sense. And I I kind of make me think about something that maybe I never put a lot of thought to. When you think about AI, it’s such a broad area. So really you do have specialties underneath that AI umbrella. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Ken (12:00.894)
yes.

That’s exactly right, Pam. You know, yeah, we we basically divide it down into 10 to 12 categories within a business, like here’s sales, here’s your marketing, here’s your operations, here’s your human resources, here’s your purchasing, here’s your cybersecurity, here but blah blah blah go keep going on and on and on. Well, AI, what you’re not gonna use one solution for everything. What so we go into a company and say, listen, let’s crawl before we walk, walk before we

Pam Currie (12:14.599)
Okay.

Pam Currie (12:33.054)
Yes.

Ken (12:37.314)
First of all, I want to prove our wealth that you we can do what we say we can do. So we gain your trust and gain it. And then so let’s start we identify those top two or three ones that are just gaping holes. Let’s start with them and then put a process in place to be able to help cure that solution. Now maybe let’s go back to the sales. Maybe that’s sales. And then we we get it I call it our small win with the customer, with the client, right? We get a small win with them. They gain trust with us, their confidence now. What

Pam Currie (12:48.529)
Okay.

Ken (13:04.97)
I have 10 other categories that I need to work with you on. So I I’m not gonna be here for six months or a year. I’m gonna be here for a long time. And we kind of paint that picture, but you’re gonna be able to see the worth and the value we provide to you. I’m an investment, I’m not an expense. And that’s the big difference, is that I’m gonna be the investment in your company to help you do all this. But you’re exactly right. It’s there’s ongoing stuff. And guess what happens over maybe

Pam Currie (13:23.657)
Yeah.

Ken (13:34.135)
A year, two, three years, all that technology is going to change. So guess what they’re going to have to do? They’re going to have to do it all over again. Now I laugh because we’re never going away, because we’re the ones that they’re making sure that they don’t make the bad decisions and work with us to do it. It’s a great point, Pam. And that’s why I love this business because, you know, a lot of people thought, you know, when the initial question is, am I one and done with a client? I’m like, heck no.

Pam Currie (13:44.88)
Uh-huh.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (13:57.409)
And I’ll just

Ken (14:00.619)
No, you’re not. In fact, actually you’ll after you implement the actual solution, who’s gonna monitor that? Who’s gonna account for it? Who’s gonna who’s gonna figure out what’s working, what’s not working, what you’re saying? I that’s where my job really just starts. You know, it started here, but when you implement it, now we gotta keep the company accountable, we gotta keep your employees accountable. Are they working in this? Are they using this? You know, how many systems that people sit on a desk and their computer and they get trained on and they never use it?

Pam Currie (14:07.508)
Pam Currie (14:16.306)
Right.

Ken (14:30.008)
Okay. Well, guess what? If you’re a business owner and I can track all that and I can come back and say, you know, Sherry’s using all this systems. She’s doing an awesome job with it. Pam, you gotta go talk to Pam. She hasn’t even opened up application, right? I’ll pick on you next, Sherry, for the next one. Okay. But but you get you get my I hope you get my point. It’s it’s it it it it

Shari Currie Skjoldager (14:42.999)
She’s always a troublemaker, Ken. Okay. I can take it.

Pam Currie (14:43.614)
That’s a

Pam Currie (14:50.183)
Right?

Pam Currie (14:54.516)
Absolutely.

Ken (14:56.526)
AI, yes. Everybody gets excited to talk about AI, but then what we do is unfortunately we make it boring. I make it boring. It’s not the hype that you think it is. It’s not the end all end all. Is is that’s not our business model. If if people want to go buy AI solutions, then go on your internet, search yourself, buyer beware, is what I say. Because be very careful, because you could start spending a lot of money and just hurt a salesperson that wants to sell something instead of actually helping.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:26.305)
Yeah, the golden rule in in corporate America, if you build it wrong the first time, it costs way more money than if you built it right up front. To go back and fix costs a lot of money, so

Ken (15:37.689)
By the way, that creates a lot of opportunities for us too, by the way. But when they screw it up the first time. How’s that like a home and home and home you know, a guy that does home improvement and all that? I mean, his best clients are the ones that try to do it themselves and screw it up, and then he comes in and goes, Don’t worry, I’ll fix it all up. That’s what we are too, for some companies. They’re like, we tried this, can it didn’t work and all that. Well, why didn’t it work? And then you dig a little deeper and you’re like, I hate to tell you this, but you guys are the ones that screwed it up.

Pam Currie (15:38.012)
That’s right.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:41.831)
Yeah, clean up. Clean up.

Pam Currie (15:48.712)
Okay. Yeah.

Pam Currie (16:02.772)
Yeah.

Ken (16:07.906)
You know, and it and he protrudes the wrong point all the years they make and they’re like, you should we should have met you a year ago. I go, That’s it.

Pam Currie (16:16.04)
Maybe you should have, right? This DIY stuff maybe is in you can’t do it all well, right? You gotta figure out what to outsource. And that makes sense to me. so with your with your franchisees, are they typically operating by themselves or do they bring employees underneath them to be those business consultants? What does that look like?

Ken (16:21.996)
No, can’t do it all.

Ken (16:39.168)
of course I love my business, so I sorry if I say that all the time, but the one thing I do really love about our business is it can be scalable and it’s based on the resources that a fran potential franchisee has and how they want to build and what’s their short long-term goals, and we work with them on that. We designed this business to be a owner-operator single employee business. Okay. That’s how we designed it initially. But

Pam Currie (16:49.502)
Okay.

Pam Currie (17:04.488)
Okay.

Ken (17:09.11)
It definitely can be more I I I don’t sorry if I if I upset people when I say this, but when I say semi absentee, I I don’t like that term. I think it’s more if you own the franchise, but you’re hiring full time people to do the operations that you can’t do. So if that is semi absentee, whatever terminol words make a difference to me, but that’s it. You can do that. Now can you do that from day one? Yes, you can. Okay. would I recommend it? No.

I think you need to learn and understand. And anybody that wants to go in our business and do that, I say, listen, why don’t we do this? Why don’t you just learn the business for six months before you even hire an employee? Okay. Don’t try to go get a new business, don’t try to do anything. You make a six-month commitment into learning the business, understanding how all the pieces work, and then you go hire somebody after that. I’ll award a franchise to somebody that does that. If somebody wants to put the cart before the horse,

I know what the nightmare we’re gonna have and I’m just like I’ll I’ll pass thank you because it’s not the right thing. But that’s is a big part is so our franchisees to give you an idea is is they and I think we’re gonna talk about this a little bit later, but they work on a retainer, a monthly retainer. Okay. So the the in can I talk about this or do we want to save it for later?

Pam Currie (18:22.74)
Okay, for the air step.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (18:26.069)
What?

Pam Currie (18:26.14)
Yeah, I know I was gonna ask you, that’s an important part of the business model. How do your franchisees make their money?

Ken (18:31.32)
Ver this is really simple. Really simple. So we start off, you can s you can charge whatever you want on monthly retainer. Our franchisees can. Okay. This is what we recommend. Is you walk into a company and they look at potentially hiring somebody like me full-time, right? And they’re seeing that the salaries are 150, 200, 250, you know, health benefits, options, all this, and their and their head starts to explode.

Pam Currie (18:40.509)
Okay.

Ken (18:56.87)
And then they look at support people and all and they’re half a million into building their own AI department before they even open the door. Okay. That distracts a lot of people. We come in and go, listen, we already have the AI department. I’m the person that is good is the business consultant that, you know, helps do everything for you. I’m gonna be seventy-five to eight percent, eighty percent less cost than any AI guru director in your company, because you really don’t need that person.

Pam Currie (19:02.697)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (19:25.624)
You know, they they might think they’re important. They’re really not as they’re not $250,000 important. Let me put it that way. And let’s say save the money, but I don’t want to pick up them on too much. But they come into us and say, listen, you hire me. My retainer starts at $2,500 a month. That’s it. $2,500 a month. Well, what do I get for that? You get 10 hours a month.

Pam Currie (19:26.27)
Right.

Pam Currie (19:47.592)
Mm, I was just gonna ask that question. Okay.

Ken (19:49.805)
Now, if we work together and you want me to work on different projects, then that might be five thousand dollars a month because now you get twenty hours a month for my work. So if you if you do the bath, you already figure it out, we’re billing ourselves out at $250 an hour. Okay. So the franchisees can do their numbers on a P L in about 30 seconds. It’s not rocket science to do this compared to some other business models. So that’s how our and now we share in 10% of the savings.

Pam Currie (20:05.736)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Pam Currie (20:13.598)
Sure.

Ken (20:18.69)
We don’t have enough time to get into that. So they make more revenue based on that. Even if they just stick with the monthly retainer at twenty five hundred dollars a month, then you know, okay. I know what our franchisees think is they’re like or you know, we have two now, but more coming on board. you know, they think, okay, twenty five hundred dollars a month, you know, it’s ten hours. So that gives me four clients a week, that gives me sixteen clients a month before I max out.

Pam Currie (20:47.07)
Yeah.

Ken (20:47.692)
Now, what happens when you max out? Well, you could have two options. One is you can hire an administration person to work with all your clients to help with all this process, and you just keep hunting, hunting, hunting, closing, closing, closing new cut customers, or you you stay in that role and then you hire a new salesperson or even an SDR person to help you get through the door. There’s the the thing is there’s so much flexibility with it and growing it. So I look at us like a state farm insurance agent.

Same type of thing, right? I mean, they they build keep building their clientele up and in five years time they’re selling their clientel off to another insurance agent, right? That’s how we see building that’s how I I kind of paint the picture for our franchisees of how they can build their business with us.

Pam Currie (21:17.812)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Pam Currie (21:26.639)
Pam Currie (21:35.133)
No, great explanation. Thank you for that. And I’m gonna let Sherry take it over here in a minute. And but you did touch upon something that made me think about the way they make money, right? The way that franchisees make money is obviously through a retainer, but also it sounds like they’re under some kind of contingency as well, where they might get ten percent of any savings for the end client. And

Ken (21:59.491)
That’s exactly right. Yep.

Pam Currie (22:00.531)
I don’t want to go into the complexity of that because I’m sure there’s more layers to it, but okay. So that that’s great.

Ken (22:04.364)
I’ll give you I’ll give you I’ll give you simple example. let’s say for instance that we we look go in. I’ll give you a real real life, real simple example. We go into a company, the first thing that we want to do with the company is we want to audit what AI tools are using. Because a lot of them are. And we might go in and see that there’s 50 people using Claude at $100 a month. And we’re like, Do you realize you’re spending $5,000 a month on Claude? Are you insane? Well, we’re like,

But we didn’t really realize it. We the employees told me we need they they need this. I’m like, no, they don’t need this. Okay, I’m gonna cut your five thousand down to forty five hundred. Okay, so forty five hundred times twelve is what fifty grand around there? I just saved you fifty thousand dollars before I even open my mouth. I want five I want ten percent of that. Give me five grand. They don’t nobody’s argued. Now, yes, some people is sometimes it’s hard to quantify that.

But eighty to ninety percent we can. The other ten to twenty percent, whatever, it’s just part of having the client, I guess. Does that make sense the way you explain it? Okay. Okay, perfect.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (23:12.119)
Completely. Yeah, what I want to dig in a little bit more too is the type of franchisees you’re looking for. Just trying to really understand what characteristics is their ideal candidate who can have success in something like this.

Pam Currie (23:13.362)
Makes a ton of sense. I get it. Thank you.

Ken (23:30.23)
I I I want successful people. You ever hear that before? I don’t want someone some person unsuccessful in corporate America that’s never made any money. Don’t come calling on us. Okay. I’m joking, ladies. Let’s have some fun here too. Okay. I equate the ideal client to a dartboard. Okay. Is what’s the bullseye? The bullseye to us is somebody that has done business consulting.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (23:33.995)
Yeah, but

Shari Currie Skjoldager (23:43.519)
Yeah.

Ken (23:57.187)
Has done these consulting type of services for many, many years. Now here’s the red part of the bullseye. And they come with a huge amount of colleagues, a huge amount of people on their LinkedIn, a huge amount of people that they’ve known and developed in their network. And they basically like I have one candidate from last week that I’m talking to, and he’s in the pharmaceutical industry. And he says, Ken, I I have 2,000 people in my referral base. He goes, I don’t have to do any marketing. I’m like, no.

Actually you’re wrong. You will have to do marketing, which we have a plan on, but you’re the bullseye because he’s right. He’s gonna be able to pick up the phone right away and just go, Hey Pam, it’s Ken. hey, what’s going on? But you talk about I’m a I’m now an AI consultant. You’re like, What? Ken, what do you know about AI? Right? You relationship. Pam, help me out. Who do I need to speak to in your company about this? I’ll get you in the right. I’ll get you the door, Ken. So that’s what he’s thinking too. He’s like, I have those

avenues to get in. This is a trust and network. You don’t I had this conversation with cli with a potential candidate this morning. I said if you want to go cold calling and knock on doors, business owners, go for it. You can do that too. It’s not probably pretty pretty efficient and effective the way to do it. This is about networking and developing and all that. So that’s the bullseye. As you keep going out there, the outer outer part of the dartboard is somebody that I talk to goes, Ken, I don’t know anybody. Like I don’t have a network

whatsoever. I I have the skills, I’ve done this, but how can you help me? Because I say so we call it pumping the well in sales is you’re gonna have he’s the this other gentleman who has all the network doesn’t really have to pump that hard. You’re gonna have to pump hard. So the the difference is going to be it’s not that you will be any less successful than him. It’s just gonna take you longer to climb that mountain. And we give them the plan to be able to do that. And for some people that mountain may be too high to climb.

Pam Currie (25:41.256)
Ken (25:55.599)
And they’re not don’t want to do it or can’t afford to do it. And others are like that. So that’s from the perfect to the outer. but you gotta have, you know, I’ve had this conversation with a number of people, like, well, you know, I’m not really a salesperson. Like, good. I’m glad you’re not a salesperson because you’re you’re not selling anything, you’re selling yourself. Okay, you’re not getting in there trying to sell, you know, I pick on used cars salesmen all the time because people don’t realize that.

Pam Currie (25:56.052)
Mm-hmm.

Pam Currie (26:21.63)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (26:24.454)
when you walk out of that used car sales dealership, there’s a 95% chance you’re not coming back. Okay. If I’m in that sales, I’m grabbing onto your leg and I’m not letting you out the door because I know the chance you coming back is like almost zero percent. That’s not the way our business is, right? Our business is let’s have a conversation. Let me educate you. Let me teach you a little bit. Let me better understand if I can really help your business and all that. I say, can you have that conversation with people? Like, yeah, well there’s your sales.

‘Cause that’s really now it there’s a little more difficulty than that, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, but really that’s it. I just say let’s have a conversation. If you want a little more about AI, I’m here to help you, just like you you ladies asked me before the call. Yeah, I’ll sit down and talk with you. I don’t know if I can help you, but i if I s that you just insane. So it’s such a don’t need that real salesperson. Now somebody that’s done all that sales all their life. Ooh, wow. They’ve got a powerful tool, but it’s really not necessary.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (27:12.599)
Absolutely.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (27:23.263)
Or has that infamous Rolodex, like you said, if I can date myself. But this kind of yeah. We all like those back in the day in the day. so okay, so I I get what you’re saying about who you’re looking for. do you but if I I if I was a great salesperson, let’s say, that doesn’t mean I know how to run a business and or to be able go in and assess a business to know what their gaps are. So

Ken (27:27.97)
Rolling decks, yes, you can, ’cause that yes, that’s what I was talking to. Yeah.

Ken (27:48.502)
That’s right. right.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (27:50.517)
Do you provide training on how to do all

Ken (27:55.247)
How do I say this? when you sign your franchise agreement and the first day you become a franchisee with us, I want you to become brain dead. Do not think whatsoever. Don’t don’t think at all. Listen, listen, and listen and incorporate what we built and implement it, what it is. Why do you buy a franchise? Nobody needs to buy a franchise. Why would you buy a franchise?

Shari Currie Skjoldager (28:07.255)
Fair enough.

Ken (28:24.506)
I’ve been in thirty years. Like people ask me that all the time. I go, experience, knowledge, expertise, systems, processes and and success. And they’re like, That was fast. What did you say? I go, if you didn’t get that, you shouldn’t be in business. I i you understand what I’m saying, is that we take them by the hand from day one to setting up their business, to to everything from the insurances right to to where they’re going to close business and close clients. And by the way.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (28:40.544)
I like.

Ken (28:54.546)
probably the first six months to to a year, our franchisees get assigned to one individual person that will be on those calls with them, will hold their hand, and when they get on the calls and they’re side by side like this with them, you kindly kick the person through the screen and go, Okay, Sherry, this is your first five calls. Don’t say anything. Let me let me run with it.

Throw in some comments when you want. Let me show you what to do. Okay. You know, after five or six calls, people are like, they might need 10. They we’ll we’ll do whatever’s necessary to help them, but they’ll learn it and understand it and they’ll practice and they’ll gain confidence. And and the more confidence they have, of course, the client has more confidence with them. So I am not letting go of franchisees’ hands until we know to let go. They might say let go and we’re like,

Shari Currie Skjoldager (29:22.283)
Yeah.

Ken (29:50.691)
Sherry, no, sorry, I’m not letting go yet. We still need to work on this, this, and this. And but it’s usually not that far. But you know, that’s basically the the process that we do is it’s soup to nuts.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (30:04.055)
I love it. I love that you hold their hand and that’s good. That’s really important as a franchise or with the experience, like you said, you’re actually doing by example and then they can figure and then they’ll be able to follow through that. So that’s good. So so the No, no, it’s okay.

Ken (30:12.962)
Yes.

Exactly. We already it sorry to interrupt you, Sherry. In our training in in Sherry Sherry, in our training, you know, just to give you one example what are the top twenty five objections people have about AI? We have them all. We know we know exactly what the client’s gonna say before it even comes out of their mouth and w we know exactly what to say to answer that question. So once they learn and understand this, they’re just waiting for the client they’re waiting for the question to come up. They’re like, Okay.

Jerry, when I know you’re gonna ask these five questions, when are they gonna come up? You just answer them. That’s part of the training too. But then you still need somebody to still be by your side to, you know, to keep you comfortable in the first little while while you’re building the business. Sorry, I just wanted to add that in.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (31:00.331)
No, I love it. You always I I will always shut up when you start talking, Ken. You’ve got the information that our listeners want to hear. So I’ll talk to you on the side for you if you need me to. But I just want to check off a few things that we covered, but I want to have clarity around. semi-involvement. So if somebody wants to come in, they have a strong Rolodex, they’ve got great sales background. But let me tell you, they’ve got a great sales job and they’re killing it.

Ken (31:04.915)
God. Can you talk to can I wanna go can I get my wife? Can I go get my wife to be part of this call or what?

Shari Currie Skjoldager (31:30.401)
but they have a lot of flexibility. They work from home. Can they keep their W2 and still do this? Are you pretty clear that we need the first six months fully involved in order to get this rant?

Ken (31:41.307)
That’s a great question. Your answer probably would be with most businesses, y you can’t do that, you know, unless you want to start spending a whole lot of money up front, hiring the right people and understanding it. I’m dealing with one gentleman, one couple right now that he is he is the breadwinner of the of the of the is it yeah, he is, of the family. And he wants to jump in it from day one, right? And he makes some pretty good money and

I don’t know why they spend so much on a monthly basis, but I didn’t get into that. Let’s just say that his monthly budget was fifteen thousand dollars a month. And I’m like, dude, what are you? Yeah. I was like, Are you sure? Like it and I was like, Can we go through that? And he’s like, No. So so that made me feel awkward because I’m like, it takes time to build this business. And it takes time to learn it and it takes time to build it. And it’s pumping that well. So I said to him, I said, Listen,

Pam Currie (32:24.23)
Right.

Hi.

Pam Currie (32:34.676)
Sure.

Ken (32:40.524)
Not that you have to do this, because you know, I know you have the money to back up your family to do it, but I would feel better is if you became a franchise owner, that you kept your job for the first six months and really crawled and walked into this before running. And then that way you keep your income, get through all the dry days, as I call it, that you have to go through before you can get to the wet days where you’re making money. And and his wife was just like, like he could tell.

stress and is like, okay, we want to do this, we want to take the chance, we we’re willing to take the risk, we’re willing to take the pain, like all the things that people need to understand before they start a business. But then I kind of they were already ready to do that. And I kind of said I deflated that a little bit. So to answer your question is yes, you absolutely with us you can absolutely do that, understanding that there’s a point where you have to commit and do it and move forward and be it’s your own business if you’re not willing to do that. Because

I’m not in the business to have failures. I’m not in the business to have people that want to just I d I just want to do this part-time. Like, yeah, I kind of see how people could do it on this part of it. But you know, we are gonna have, you know, every franchise has failures. You know, 10%, let’s say of people fail, and most of those people fail because they don’t do what’s necessary to be successful in business anyway. You can’t help them anyway. The model doesn’t fail them, they fail the model or fail themselves. But yeah.

Pam Currie (33:48.66)
Mm-hmm.

Pam Currie (34:05.416)
Yeah.

Ken (34:07.138)
Definitely we’re f I always say, you know, especially when I deal with people like you, is let’s talk about individually the situation of your client, because we have more flexibility to that. But I’m not gonna say yes to everybody just for the sake of saying yes, but we do have far more flexibility. So like when you have a a a client and a candidate and you know, like, I don’t know, like call me, you know, talk to me and then we’ll walk through it. And the last thing I wanna do is waste

time with individuals that’s just not going to be the right fit. But we do have more flexibility than a lot a lot of other business models and franchises. Excuse me.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (34:46.005)
Now I love that you clarified that. Now I’m gonna I want to clarify one more thing and then I’m gonna switch it over to Pam. And I think I know the answer to it, but I’m going to let you say it. you just said that two years in AI is like 20 years and are I mean, it just is so rapidly changing. How are you ensuring that human advisor AI is staying current for the future?

Ken (34:50.819)
Yep.

Pam Currie (35:01.607)
Yeah.

Ken (35:09.07)
So I did a lot when we first started looking at this business, we had actually gone down the page of being a development company, providing those AI solutions to customers, customizing those AI solutions, hiring the AI techs to be able to do all the work. And I after about a week, I literally got physically sick. I’m like, why would I I am not doing this if that’s the case that we have to do this. Okay.

Here’s what I and the thing that made me sick about that the most was how quickly AI is changing. So my solution today, this might be a little extreme. Okay. But in six months to a year, it could be obsolete. Or if I don’t keep up, I have another AI company that’s putting me out of business. That’s where the sickness came for me. I was like, I don’t want to do that. So I said, there’s still got to be a better way to do this.

This is what I l love the most about our business. We’re never, ever gonna be obsolete. Ever. These companies here, the AI companies, they’re gonna come and go. They’re gonna come and go. Some are gonna work out, some are not. No I don’t care about them. Okay? Not you know what I’m saying. Is it their business, they decide out what to do it and all that. Is I have my marketplace. I have all the best of the best that are gonna be, not just in this country but in the world, that provide these types of

Solutions. And so when a new technology comes out or a new solution or something like that, we’re all over it. So, you know, you might be a franchisee in a local marketplace and you find this AI company that’s local and they’re doing a phenomenal job, but they’re just a small company and they haven’t grown or developed yet. Well, call me. Say, you know, Sherry, Ken, I found this company there called ABC AI, and they do this application. It’s amazing. Like I couldn’t believe. I’m like, what do you think my next call is?

Pam Currie (36:46.812)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (37:07.822)
Who’s A A B C who are you? let’s talk. Let’s see what your solution is. And if we approve it, we’ll put you in our marketplace. And then our our consultants can then show your application and bring you new clients. I have we I have had zero people say no to our marketplace yet. Zero. Well it’s free. It’s free. There’s no commissions, no it but they understand the R R FP, boom.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (37:28.001)
Not a surprise. Yeah. Yeah.

Pam Currie (37:29.46)
I’m not surprised by that either.

Pam Currie (37:34.216)
Yeah.

Ken (37:37.389)
I remember at this time, they understand that when their role comes in, it’s an RFP. And by the way, I’ll answer another question for you, probably would come up next. Is that guess what happens if that AI company doesn’t do the right things with our clients? Guess what happens to them? They’re out of the market. They’ll never want to upset us, upset our clients, upset our people. Because imagine now that two years from now we have a hundred consultants across the country.

Pam Currie (37:53.129)
Yeah.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (37:54.047)
You’re out of the marketplace. Yeah. Yeah.

Ken (38:04.758)
And you’re a new AI company and you have zero sales for people and all that and you’ve got a wonderful application and I show it to a hundred of my people and they show it to a hundred of clients tomorrow.

Pam Currie (38:15.252)
Mm.

Ken (38:16.47)
You want to be in my marketplace because you’re like So that’s that’s what the business model is to develop it, is that we are the thought leaders. That’s a new terminology now. Experts. We’re the experts. We’re not the experts in how to design and develop the AI. We’re the experts on how to use it and apply it. And then we let the text do that. Does that answer your question that way? Because sometimes I get off track.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (38:18.615)
That studio.

Pam Currie (38:41.096)
Next.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (38:42.709)
Very well. And I thought that was your answer. I really wanted to hone in on that marketplace because that’s a huge differentiator that you’re bringing to the table. You know, betting these AIs, because that is the hardest thing. And when you pick the wrong one and spend all this money, and then you have to find the right one to fix it, we know you’re paying two, three, four times more than you ever should have. So that’s what you guys are trying to prevent, which is great.

Ken (38:46.125)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Hundred

Pam Currie (39:01.896)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (39:02.094)
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah, exactly. And it is hard in the sense that you have to be all over it all every day, every week, every month, every year on all the companies. So if you’re an independent let’s say if you’re somebody talks to us and go, I’m gonna do this on my own. I’m like, go ahead. You can do this on your own completely. I already know the work and time we put into developing this. My l my answer to them is good luck. They have

Pam Currie (39:27.593)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (39:28.28)
No idea what they’re about to road what they’re gonna go down, especially when it comes to the marketplace. that’s easy. I’ll just come up and sign all up. I go, Okay, have fun. Yeah.

Pam Currie (39:36.71)
Mm-hmm. Right. Things always appear easier on the outside looking in, that is for sure. Hey

Ken (39:43.054)
Sure do. I try to simplify things for people and sometimes maybe I make it too simple, but it’s not as simple as what you think.

Pam Currie (39:49.576)
That nothing’s ever as easy as it looks. Hey, Ken, so what does it cost to become a franchisee? What’s that initial investment range?

Ken (39:59.275)
Our franchise fee, the one time fee for 10 years to be a franchisee is seventy-five thousand. And then there’s working capital, some insurances and everything. Most franchisees can open their business less than a hundred thousand dollars, have a home office, have very little overhead, like almost nothing, very little little overhead on an an you know, on a monthly basis, annual basis to develop. And then as I say, let grow into your business. Grow into your business, you know.

We’re we’re we’re penny pinchers. We that’s where Dan and I came from in our businesses. We’re penny pin not cheap penny pinchers. We just count every dollar that goes out and get a return back on it. And we work with our franchisees like that. So th that initial investment and then like I said, you know, the it’s mostly

mostly gonna be sweat equity for them to get clients. There’ll be a little chamber of commerce and association meetings and events and you might want to pay a little here and there and all that, but that’s gonna open up the doors to build those relationships. Because once you s it it it’s a it’s what do they call it, the the six factor, like you you get one client, you can guarantee you’re gonna get potentially six more after that. That’s the thing that works a nice in our business is you do work good work for one person. That person’s playing golf with another person going, Hey, I get

Pam Currie (40:56.766)
Sure.

Pam Currie (41:07.232)
yeah. Yes.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (41:16.864)
Name it.

Ken (41:17.866)
It’s it happens pretty quick. Yeah, exactly.

Pam Currie (41:19.262)
So almost like a daisy chain, right? they tell one person, then they tell one person, then they tell one person.

Ken (41:24.544)
It’s and that’s so cliche as some people say, but that’s what but that’s what we experience though is because this is a trust business. Okay. And people really eighty se this is the PWC came out with a figure I forget when it was, it was like three or four months ago. So PWC did a did a analysis of CEOs in in enterprise world. 87% of the CEOs that they

Pam Currie (41:27.444)
But it’s true.

Pam Currie (41:44.009)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (41:53.199)
This is an enterprise. We don’t even go after enterprise. We’re small to medium-sized business. This is enterprise, the top thousand companies in the world. Their reports show that 87% of CEOs do not know what to do with AI.

And when I saw that, I imagine now middle to smaller companies. They’re not they’re not on the same platform or plane as an enterprise company, right? So still, that’s there’s still such misinformation. I call it misinformation. It really is. Don’t listen to the press about AI. my God. I’m a big Joe Rogan fan. I love listening to him and the different guests he gets on. But when he starts talking about AI, I’m dude, you’re after.

Pam Currie (42:08.84)
Not surprised. Yeah.

Pam Currie (42:19.816)
Right.

Ken (42:35.244)
Lunch. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Either do your guests. You’re not even close. Like, let’s get real with what it is. And that’s what we say to people don’t listen to the noise. Let’s focus on you and listen to you. And hey, I’ll be the first one to say, you might hire me for three months and we do the whole analysis and everything like that. And I go, you don’t need AI. It’s never good. It it possibly could happen. It’s typically not.

Pam Currie (42:37.202)
You not club.

interesting. Mm-hmm.

Ken (43:03.608)
But I’ll be up front with clients. I’ll go, listen, you may you might just figure out that I save you a lot of money from not investing in something, then investing in it. So that I even gain more trust now because I’m being honest with them. It’s like the AI tools won’t they’re that’s not gonna happen. It’s just not gonna happen. But it’s nice to say that to people because it’s like I’m not trying to push something on them that they have to buy because I don’t sell anything. I sell myself.

Pam Currie (43:03.956)
Uh-huh.

Pam Currie (43:26.034)
Makes sense. So I’m gonna let Shiri ask our our favorite closing question on our podcast. but before I do that, are there any other additional thoughts you would like to share?

Shari Currie Skjoldager (43:33.343)
Mm.

Ken (43:33.389)
Sure.

Ken (43:38.624)
I could talk for the next four hours if you want to, but I I you’re probably losing viewers already going, Does does this Ken guy gonna shut up? Like, you know, this guy talks a lot. Well, I’m excited and enthusiastic if I

Shari Currie Skjoldager (43:41.739)
Yeah.

Pam Currie (43:43.678)
Long podcast, Ken. That would be a very long podcast. Yeah.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (43:47.489)
Yeah.

Pam Currie (43:51.796)
Joe Rogan’s got nothing on us. Yeah. Just decent, just decent.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (43:53.824)
Exactly. We’ll be here for three hours. Watch it.

Ken (43:57.881)
Yeah, I’ll tell you I’ll tell you what he’s gonna honest, a hundred million dollars to do his podcast. That’s what he’s gonna honest, right? Yeah, but yeah, sorry.

Pam Currie (44:01.658)
Right, exactly. yeah, if we we could only aspire. We could only aspire to get there, for sure.

Ken (44:07.818)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, what was your question? I apologize.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (44:11.381)
No, in closing, this has been great. First of all, thank you for all the information. I love your excitement and all the information you’re sharing with us. But let’s wrap this up with our final question. And that is, what tip would you give to budding entrepreneurs?

Ken (44:14.668)
You well?

Ken (44:27.798)
It’s really boring. It’s not people are gonna forget about it in five seconds. but I have all the battle scars. I got some actual physical scars here from business. Okay. And one, surround yourself with people that are smarter than you, but you make the decisions of what they advise you on.

Right? Two the other one is mine.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (44:54.655)
Very good.

Ken (44:59.914)
I have a much better, much, much better half in my relationship with my wife. She’s way smarter than I am. Okay. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, as she says. But she’ll tell people Ken works twice as hard as anybody I’ve ever met in my entire life. And that doesn’t mean working eighteen, you know how people say they work 18 hour days. I’m like, I want I want to hang out with you a week because you’re full of, you know what? You don’t work 18 hours a day. Come on. If you do, that’s insanity.

I think it’s working really, really hard and understanding when you’re an entrepreneur, or I I don’t even like using that word, when you’re self-employed and you got to pay your own checks, is be prepared that you think one day you’re gonna be sitting in a chair and not working. Maybe you get lucky to do that. I’m still working because I want to work. I don’t work for money anymore. I work because I love it. I love my business. I love doing what I do, and I work many, many hours.

So be prepared if you want to go down this venture, not with us, with you and any business you’re gonna do it, is it is gonna be a lot of hard work. But you know what? It’s very rewarding. And I get you I said that earlier about corporate America, how it’s it’s evil. I mean, I think that now people are gonna think I am going to Rogan now, aren’t they? I’m going I’m going down the going down the pole, right? The rabbit hole. Is listen, it is

is it’s nothing better than get up in the morning, put your feet on the as I say to people, put your feet out of your bed on the floor, and it’s yours. And if I want to work twelve hours today, fine. If I wake up and go, you know what, it’s n I I’m not in the right mental state to do this, I’m going golfing today. Cancel all my appointments, forget it, go engulfing and I’ll just work twice as hard tomorrow or whatever, do that. can’t do that in Corp America. Not that I know of. You probably get fired pretty quick, but

Pam Currie (46:41.276)
Mm-hmm.

Pam Currie (46:50.1)
Yeah.

Ken (46:54.7)
It’s not for everybody, but that’s the advice I have is is really the working hard part. But then surround yourself with people that are smarter than you and that can bring on experience, knowledge, and expertise to save you time and money. And that’s what I’ve done is surround myself with those people too. So there’s two things for you. So that’s it.

Pam Currie (47:14.676)
Two great tips. Ken, thank you so much for being a guest on the show.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (47:16.087)
Mm-hmm.

Ken (47:19.34)
It’s my pleasure. I love doing these things and helping people like you. You the two of you do such a phenomenal service for people that are looking to take that next step. Is you know, it’s it’s the same thing as us. We you know, we do exactly this. If you look at our business models, they’re exactly the same, right? Aren’t they? They’re exactly the same. Yeah, they’re so similar because we help people. We help people.

Pam Currie (47:31.314)
Thank you.

Pam Currie (47:39.676)
I I already thought of that. Lots of similarities. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Ken (47:47.991)
And guess what? We get paid for helping people. What a wonderful thing, right? So anybody listening to this podcast is a lot of people you you I’m gonna do a little sales thing for you right here. How many people have you talked to? Like, I don’t need you, I’ll just research all the franchise companies all myself and I’ll figure out which one’s best for me. Well, that’s that’s exactly what happens in our business. Is and then they go pick the wrong AI solution and spend 50 grand.

Pam Currie (47:52.827)
Yep, not a bad gig.

Pam Currie (48:08.154)
It happens.

Ken (48:16.684)
When they shouldn’t have, and then complained about it later and wish they didn’t do that. Well, unfortunately, people that go and try to find the franchise on their own, maybe they make the right decision, but they don’t. And then they spend way more than 50 grand, maybe 250 or $500,000. And I’ve heard these stories over and over and over again. Unfortunately, it breaks my heart because they didn’t do the right research, they didn’t ask the right questions, and they made the wrong decision, and it cost them a lot.

Pam Currie (48:21.691)
Uh-huh.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (48:37.547)
Yeah.

Pam Currie (48:42.76)
Yeah.

Ken (48:47.318)
So yeah. But yeah, our companies are very parallel when it comes to that. I think that’s why probably because I got into this because I saw that. He was like, you know what, this is so similar to what I’ve done for so many years is I I have to do this business. So thank you, ladies.

Pam Currie (48:48.064)
Mm.

Pam Currie (48:56.73)
Pam Currie (49:01.2)
Yeah, well, thank you. And no, actually, that’s a great segue. I mean, yeah, for sharing our business, we we like to put people in a position to make an informed decision and avoid costly mistakes. and we do have an aligned methodology. so I’m just gonna go ahead and say to our listeners, if you are considering franchise ownership, reach out and request a free franchise sisters discovery call.

We would like to provide you with one of our ebooks, top ten questions to consider before investing in a franchise.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (49:35.063)
That’s right. Our mission is to help you navigate the franchise selection process through our client-centric align-wise methodology and to put you in a position to make an informed decision, which Pam just said, with the help of our investigate before you invest toolkit.

Pam Currie (49:52.808)
That’s right. Thanks for tuning in. Fist bump.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (49:54.904)
Thanks everybody. Have a great day.

Ken (49:56.633)
Thank you, ladies. Thank you so much. It’s been great. It’s been fun.

Pam Currie (49:58.325)
Thank you, Ken.