Episode 17: Jessa Petricevic on Garage Force – Building a High-Margin Franchise with Game-Changing Concrete Coatings

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welcome to another episode of the Franchise Business

Radio show this is Pam Curry

your co host and this is your other co host

Sherry Curry Skull Digger

on today’s show we have Jessa

I’m gonna try to say this last name correctly

Jessa Patricevic got it perfect

all right great

Jess

is director of Franchise Development at Garageforce

and just you know

I just love your background

and how you grew up around franchising

because your dad was the CEO and founder

or is the CEO

and obviously the founder of garage for us

um which obviously made franchising um

a part of your daily life and love that

um excited to have you on the show welcome

thank you I’m happy to be here

yeah well

we’re gonna do a deep dive on the

on the franchise opportunity garage force

um but before we do that

I know you’re passionate about it

but tell us a little bit about your personal passions

yeah so um

anytime I can compete I love to compete

um I actually played basketball in college

so that’s always been a big part of my life

um

I’m currently a girls varsity basketball coach as well

um

I’ve been the last two years

I’ve been really into playing pickleball

my husband and I get pretty competitive playing that

and have some friends that

you know

we always call up and see if they’ll play with us

spikeball ping pong

yeah like I said

anything where

especially if I can get outdoors and compete I’ll I’ll

I will be there I love it that I’ll tell you what Jessa

welcome as well I want to give you a thank you as well

and I was laughing when I saw your uh

background because we have so many similarities

obviously we’re both in franchising

my son is gonna go to a small

D3 school and play basketball awesome

and our whole family is into pickleball

we love it okay for the last two years

and we try

it’s just a great way for us all to get together and

do something we all enjoy

and just like you spikeball

you name it we’re out there playing it

so I love the activities um

so let’s go ahead and jump into garage for us

do you want let’s start out with uh

you sharing the backstory yeah

so sorry say that last part again

just the the story behind Garage Force

yep so basically it started with two guys um

Patrick Elfree and Mike Petersen

Mike Petersen being my dad um

Patrick Ilfrey was

really the game changer in the concrete coating world

actually um so he was

he’s kind of the innovator

inventor behind our product

um he grew up in Texas

and his family was really big in the oil industry

down in Texas and it was actually the same product

used on the inside of the oil pipes

so that’s what had sparked his curiosity

he’s like

what is this indestructible chemical resistant product

he actually formalized it

he made it clear rolled on as opposed to sprayed on

and then bond to concrete rather than metal

gave it some working time

so he had this awesome product that um

you know he was gonna be the first to the market with

he partnered up with Mike Peterson

my father um

and Mike kind of created the

the franchise concept out of it

so garage for started in 2011

we started franchising in 2014

we currently have about 240 locations

across the country

so we’ve had steady growth ever since

when we started franchising

it was actually a veteran based program

that was kind of Garage Force 1.0 from 2014 to 2018

from 2018 to present that’s when it’s we kind of um

broadened I mean

who we were trying to find as franchisees

and

now we’re just focused on growth minded entrepreneurs

and that’s been you know

really good for us

so yeah that’s

that’s kind of the story behind how it was created

that’s a that’s a great story

I mean that

the fact that you have the scientist on your team

who’s created right

and he has he has not stopped innovating it

I will tell you that

so he’s got a lab upstairs at our headquarters

he’s constantly you know

playing around with stuff

testing it against other things on the market

he’s just he’s awesome in that way

so that is awesome well

who uh

who’d

service

are you guys more do you are you more residential

are you commercial a little bit of both

yeah um both

so I would say we

we are probably 80% residential right now

about 20% commercial

we can coat any concrete

so obviously the name is Garage Force

that’s kind of our bread and butter usually

especially new franchisees starting out

really start with the Garage Market

cause it’s the easiest to get into

it’s a one day application aside from that um

we have a UV stable product so we can do like porches

patios walkways to the front door pool decks

um we can do interior jobs

I have my basement coated and my storage room coated

um and then commercial has been

I would say really taking off

especially like over the last few years

um there’s a ton of potential

some of the really cool commercial jobs

that our franchisees have done

um sports stadiums hospitals

schools um car dealerships

airplane hangars restaurant kitchens

like just the the possibilities are endless

so sounds like it um

are you when you’re

when you’re thinking about the ideal franchisee um

do they need to be more sales oriented or how

yeah

so we kind of have two different types of franchisees

right now um

we have the owner operator model

and then we also offer the semi absentee model

um I would say with any prospective franchisee

one of the main things that we look for

like you said sales oriented

they have sales experience or if they just

you know

are able to talk to people and connect with people

you know that goes a long ways

cause our product does truly sell itself

um

and I can get into a little bit more about the product

if you’re interested in hearing that later on

but um

so that’s huge right

our most successful franchisees are probably our best

those people

you can have the best installers in the world

but you need someone to be able to sell it

to be successful I would say the other thing that we

look for is leadership experience um

because the goal is to you know

not necessarily stay owner operator

you wanna grow beyond that

you need to spend more time working on the business

instead of in it

to be able to to grow it to

you know

where you wanna to grow it or build an empire you know

any management experience or leadership experience

we found to be really helpful

as far as who you’re looking for in installers

the nice thing is

it’s really easy to train anyone how to do it

so if they’re a little bit handier

might be something that they pick up on

a little bit quicker um

I know we’ve had people that have found installers with

you know

a painting background or in the construction world

and it’s a breeze for them

but you know we’ve also had people that have

never really done anything like this before

and the nice part about being a part of a franchise is

we have awesome training

so we can train anyone how to do it

you know

there’s always gonna be a little bit of a learning

curve

but you know we do our best to to flatten that so um

anyone can learn how to do it right

hey Jessie

you you mentioned something I do want to dive into it

you said the product sells itself

yeah uh

tell tell us a little bit about the product

yeah so

um first of all I and briefly mentioned it

we are the original innovators of a polyurea um

which is a non epoxy it is 20 times stronger than epoxy

it’s it’s actually flexible

so

it’s made to move and shift with the natural movements

in concrete um

it’s UV stable epoxies are not

um the really exciting news is last year

we actually released the latest version

of this type of polyurea um

we contracted chemists all over the country

we had the leading raw materials company in the nation

come to our headquarters and help us build this

and created what’s called a cyclosparatic

so it’s still a type of that polyurea

it’s just changed on the molecular level

um

there’s a lot more bonding points to the concrete now

so it’s got three times the adhesion

than what we were previously using

and anything else on the market

um this is a proprietary product so we own the formulas

we’re doing the majority of the manufacturing

out of house right now

and all of the order distribution

um it’s so like I said a lot more adhesion

when they were testing it

it literally pulled up commercial concrete underneath

and you can see here this is what they used to do it

so it was a metal dolly and they did the test

and the actual concrete underneath broke up

so really strong

it’s got more built in resistance to moisture

um little bit more working time yet a quicker cure time

um that’s the other nice thing about our product

we can do everything

about 1,000 square feet and less in one day

and customers can walk on the floor 12 hours later

and drive on it 24 hours later wow

it’s a very quick process um

so yeah and the other best part about now

being the manufacturers and doing the distributing

we were able to actually cut the product cost

down for our franchisees um

which was huge

so now they’re getting a better product for cheaper

we saved them about about 25% um on their product cost

that’s really great

I was gonna ask you about the supply chain

and how that works so you are you’re the manufacturer

the distributor

kind of walk us through that whole supply chain

and process on a franchisee level

yep so um well yeah

we are the manufacturers right now

we do have a local tool

blender that’s doing some manufacturing for us too

just for volume sake right now

that’s under contract with us but um

a lot of it is done out of house

and we’re doing the distributing

what’s really nice is

we’re able to get them product within

like three to five business days um

so it’s pretty quick and and seamless process right

um everything’s made in

in the US and most of it’s from our

from our headquarters so um

most of our franchisees first year order as needed

so order per job um

you need to give the customer

time to clean out their garage space too

so um

you know usually people book jobs out

you know a week or two in advance anyways

um and then once our franchisees are more established

they tend to want some extra inventory on hand

um so a lot of people will move into a

you know warehouse or storage space

um but definitely don’t need to start with it

which is nice yeah

so um

with a franchise he is just getting started

they could start off home based

yes so that’s a nice thing

it’s a really simple business model

there’s no brick and mortar required

it’s home based it’s

everything’s really

ran and operated out of the trailer

the trailer is a turnkey equipment package

so it has everything

in it that you need to run and operate the franchise

um it’s got

you know the shot blasters

grind grinders generators

vacuums all the way down to like

um there’s an iPad and printer in there for estimates

shirts and hats for the crew

um so they get that up front

it also comes wrapped

so it’s basically a moving billboard

and we have really bold eye catching graphics

um we actually have a graphic designer on staff with us

so it’s funny a lot of times our franchisees say

you know they have customers call them and it’s like

I see your guys’trucks and trailers everywhere

it’s like no

it’s just the one

you just notice it every time you pass it

so it’s got that pop factor right

it does yeah

so basically it’s it’s a truck and trailer

so yeah thanks

um you made me think of something

just I lost my my train of thought

but I’m oh

a common question that we receive

and I know you do as well is

is this a business that can

a franchisee can be semi involved or semi absentee

and if so what does that look like

yeah so um

I think I briefly mentioned

but I didn’t really get into it

we have both the owner operator and semi absentee

absentee model the semi absentee

is the owner that is not physically

out there doing the installs

um they have a team of

or a crew of installers that actually go out and

you know do the service um

the semi absentee owner

typically their focus is more on the sales piece

um they don’t have to

if they have a sales manager

they can or someone in mind to do their sales

they can certainly have um

them do that but a lot of our owners take that role on

at least initially as the business is ramping up

um

and then they’re kind of the ones that are overseeing

the crews checking in with their lead installer

um you know probably doing some of the back office work

um yeah we have a web based software called dash

that comes with the franchise

at no extra cost it does their product ordering

estimating invoicing

KPI management scheduling

so we make it easy for them but um

definitely some of that may be back office work

um so they

we kind of refer to them as more of the executive model

franchisee um

and their focus is more on you know growing it um

and scaling it

we have some people that have general managers

and that is totally fine too

um from our experience

usually the semi absentee owners are the ones that

you know end up growing having multiple crews

multiple territories building an empire and just being

you know crazy successful

that’s great um

so that kind of gives us a feel for the day

in the life of a you know

fully involved operator and a semi involved operator

customer acquisition always a big one right

if we don’t have customers

we don’t have a business right

um ha ha

you mentioned um

you know the skill set of sales

you know leadership skills

um how

how does a franchisee go about customer acquisition

yeah so the nice thing is

there is a lot of support from Garage Force there

um we actually have

first of all we’ll set up their website for them

and we’ll manage that we have third party

digital marketing

agencies that we actually partner with

so they know the brand really well

we’ve been working with them for a number of years

they can choose which agency they wanna go with

and sign up for our program

um it’s

it’s turnkey um

so set their budget with them and they’ll take care of

of all of the social media post social media ads

Facebook is probably where we get most of our customers

from Facebook ads

just cause those are the um

usually Facebook users are

the age kind of group we’re looking for um

and then

they’ll also take care of all of the Google stuff

so Google my business click rates

SEO managing their Google reviews Google ads

all of that I’m exhausted just hearing all of this haha

it’s a lot that’s

the nice thing is

our franchisees don’t really have to worry about that

they they pay for it

but again

it’s it’s a turnkey kind of system so it’s warm leads

it’s not like they’re having to you know

get on the phone and make these cold calls um

so the majority of customers

come from the digital marketing piece

Garage Force has a graphic designer

so we can create any

tangible marketing materials for them

and we can customize them and what they’re looking for

um the other

method for customer acquisition is live events

like home shows car shows

RV shows um

we have one person that was on a validation

call recently that told me he did a fishing show

and at first I was like

how did they let you into a fishing show

like what does that have to do with Garage Force

he’s like oh

I just showed them you know

some pictures of our floors with boats on them

and they let me in

and he said he got 22 jobs from that one show wow

so part of it is you know

the responsibility of a franchisee is just to get out

in front of the community

see what events they can be a part of

because there’s nothing like making those face to face

you know connections and interactions

so that goes a long way as a lot of our owners say

they book their calendars out

like a month or two by doing one of those shows

and then lastly I know this is a

mouthful but no

no that’s great

yeah

so usually after a year or two

the word of mouth and referrals really start to pick up

which is nice um

we recommend doing a referral program

um you know

pay someone 50 bucks or 100 bucks

if they get you a new customer

and one of our owners in Lincoln

Nebraska does this

and he said he’s already paid one customer $2,950

just from referrals

so that’s nice

that makes it basically is giving people a

giving people a reason to brag about

what they already wanna brag about right

so and that’s obviously the best form of marketing

there is

I view this is a very visual business

because of what you’re doing right

the putting the icing so to speak

on the floor there right

also I

I guess another thing that comes to my mind is

is anytime someone is looking at a franchise

we like to say it’s about alignment

you wanna align uh

you know you wanna align with the business model

you wanna make sure you align with yourself

as an operator the time you can dedicate

your lifestyle you know

there’s there’s

a lot of pieces of the puzzle

that need to come together

and you sort of that

you have that tangible

and I guess what I call the intangible of alignment

because it’s so personal

so tell us a little bit about your culture

what how do your franchisees align there with you

and your culture okay

I love this question so

um Garage Force definitely has a family feel to it

you know again

I’m the daughter of the CEO but um

even up past that like

you know actually blood relation there

um everyone at the headquarters are best friends

um in and out of the office

so a lot of them have

actually known each other for the past

you know 30 years and have been really close friends

so um

it is definitely a little bit of a more

you know informal

there’s a lot of bantering that goes around

there’s you know

a different level of you know

just more of a friendly feel than a big corporate feel

um which is great

because a lot of people

wanting to get into a franchise

that’s what they’re looking for

they wanna be a part of a big family and it’s

a lot of them wanna get out of the corporate world

right so um

people really like that about us

um and then the other thing is

Garage Force is a Christian based franchise

so you know

a lot of the leadership um

faith is a big part of their life

so I would say anyone that is looking for that

you know those similar values

um to do business with people that

um again

share those values Garage Force is a great option um

cause it’s definitely openly talked about

um so yeah that

that hopefully

tells you a little bit more about our culture

um so it’s

it’s truly a family even our franchisees they

you know have a Facebook owners group chat

and they’re constantly talking to the other owners

it’s like you you are your own business owner

yet you have this huge support and huge network

um so

you know they can always drop questions in there

otherwise garageforce

the corporate team

makes themselves super accessible to answer the phone

anytime no matter what the question is and help out

um you know

I’ve heard of franchisees that have

you know teamed up to do home shows or um

you know

if one of them gets really into a metallic floor

which is kind of a shiny marble look

it’s different than the full chip system

full chip system it’s about 90% of our floors

but you know if

if one of our franchisees wants to get into that

and doesn’t have as much

experience with those types of floors

they’ll call up an owner by them

and they’ll be more than happy to come and help out

so that’s just really cool

I feel like you don’t get that at a lot of other um

places no

I I agree with you

I mean you

you create a culture of collaboration

and people teaming up and partnering

and that goes far

and that’s one of the greatest values of a franchise

system is having right

having fellow business owners to have peer

exchange and collaborate in the fact that you foster

that environment goes really for sure yeah

well I know

we’re not here just to talk about

all of the great points of the business model

we obviously have to talk about money don’t we Sherry

that’s right you know money matters

that’s what everybody wants to know

you got your expenses you got your revenues

so let’s start out with the expenses

what what’s the uh

estimated investment for someone to open up a garage

for yeah

so if we’re talking about just one territory right now

the range is about 145,000 to 180,000 um

the biggest reason for the gap

typically comes down to a truck

if they need a truck

it’s probably gonna be more that one

75 to one 80 range

if they already own a personal truck

and they wanna use that starting out

we are totally okay with that too

very nice okay

what about item nineteen revenue side

do you guys have an item 19

and can you give us a little detail on that

we do so

the way that we show our finances in the item 19

of the FDD is

it’s just our single territory locations um

we do not include any multi unit owners

our biggest franchisee did 10 million last year

but he’s got multiple territories

so that would skew the data a little bit um

so there’s 42 single

unit owners that are listed in the FDD

and the average revenue um

of those 42 is uh just over half a million

right now I think it’s 507,000

so you don’t for somebody who’s multi unit

you don’t count them in the item 19 at all correct

yeah

and actually most of our franchisees are multi unit

um I would think so yeah

I would say of the people that

the new franchisees that have joined in the last

two to three years

it’s probably been average of starting with like

two to three territories

that makes sense that’s interesting

so that’s a very

it’s almost a conservative presentation of your item 19

correct yep

um and then the

probably

one of Garage Force’s biggest selling points is

we have a um

we have really strong profit margins

our profit margins right now is at 36%

wow do you guys uh

show that in the item 19 the

we do the profit oh

that’s fabulous okay

I garage force I’m

I’m sold I feel like I align with

I didn’t know you guys were faith based

I’m like another alignment for me and Jessa okay yeah

I love it I love it

um any other

before we wrap this up do you wanna share anything

did we miss anything anything you like to share

um I guess

there’s one more thing that I am pretty stoked about

um and I don’t really know how this

had to do with any of the other things

we were talking about so I’ll just talk about it now

um you know

I talked about us being the innovators and stuff

we do have other offerings as well

I just feel like I should mention that

so we have storage solutions um

we have two different cabinet lines

and then we have a slatwall system as well um

so those are really good up sale opportunities

especially in the garage space

so if a customer is looking at doing a full garage

transformation that’s a easy add on sale

and are those any of those products are

are any of those products proprietary

are you outsourcing those to get the products in

we’re outsourcing them um

we have really good relationships with the suppliers

though so we get really good pricing on it

yep um

and then we are in the works

right now of coming out with a wall coating system

um we’re doing the final touches right now

but we’ve always been able to coat vertical surfaces um

it was just kind of the same process

same product that we used on the floor

so it was kind of a hassle

having to

essentially throw the chip on a vertical surface and

and get it to stick so um

it’s actually we have a a base coat

you load the blend of chip into an electric

you know spray on gun basically

and it’s all spray on and then it’s

it’s waterproof uh

with a top coat

so we’re pretty excited about that in basements

in garages um

we’re also seeing a need for it

and we do quite a bit of like

public rest or restrooms or locker rooms um

so something that can go on the walls there

so we’re really excited about that

and then finally um

we released a patented system

um it’s called Vera Floor

this was in January of this year

um what it is

and I have a sample of it right here

it’s these little medallions

mm hmm um

each one has a unique QR code and serial number on it

and this actually the installers will put it

usually by the garage door sensor um

and then do the clear top coat over it

customers can scan this QR code

and they can see the exact product used on their floor

and it ties in all of the warranty information

so one of our biggest selling points is

we have a lifetime one time transferable warranty

which is unheard of in the industry

so it’ll actually transfer if they ever sell the home

which really adds value to the home

when they go to sell it um

but it’s it’s made so simple’cause they can scan it

it holds everything um

it really helps with customer assurance

cause now

they know they’re getting this premium product

they’re being sold and you know

they don’t have to hold on to paperwork

or have to worry about you know

getting hold of someone it’s all there in their floor

um and then on the other side of it

it’s really good branding for Garage Force

because the name Garage Force is on it

so that’s been truly one of our best innovations so far

um like I said

we’ve been using it for about 6 months now

and our owners on the validation calls

have been constantly

talking about just how much of a difference

that’s made in their close rates um

just cause there’s nothing else like it on the market

and when I say patent

we are the only company that can serial number it for

wow I

I love that you guys are continually

just growing and trying to find different revenue

streams or making whatever you have even better yeah

um yeah

that was that was I’m glad you share that with us yeah

so Jess it’s sort of funny

cause when you said

you’re excited to share some additional items

I thought you were saying

I thought you were saying I’m excited

I’m getting ready to go on vacation

and I’m ready to go on too haha

yeah it’s Sunday

haha right

oh yeah

I hear you but no

that those are a lot of

thank you for sharing

a lot of great stuff going on there

well

we have been doing something on each one of our podcast

and we like to ask all of our guests

this closing question

and definitely want to get your feedback on that

and the question is this

what tips would you give to budding entrepreneurs

yeah that’s a great question

um I would say that one of the best advice

or tips that I could give to

you know

maybe someone that’s looking to be an entrepreneur

or get into the uh

franchising space is just be open to what’s out there

I feel like a lot of people are maybe narrowed in

in one idea that fits with their background and

you know what their expertise is in

but you might be missing out on

a lot of great opportunities

out there the benefits of franchising is

it’s a proven business model

we have the systems we have the training

we can teach you how to do the part

you don’t know how to do um

a lot of people tell me like

you know I didn’t wake up one day and

and dream of owning a coding system right

or a coding franchise and it’s like

well yeah

no one did but you know

there’s a lot of benefits

with its simple business model

a great product

a great culture that we’ve talked about and if they

if they’re not open to it

they miss out on you know

an awesome opportunity so I would say just being open

explore different businesses in different fields

and just

just see what ends up being a good fit for you

great great advice and of course

contact Sherry or myself because we will help you

absolutely they’re great

the best of the best

the Franchise Sisters hi

woo hoo

well Jessie

it’s just been so great to have you on the show

thanks for carving out time to be on Franchise Business

Radio uh

and I’m just gonna say to our listeners

as just already alluded to

uh if you are considering franchise business ownership

please contact us at the at Franchise Intellect

the Franchise Sisters

we welcome having a free franchise consultation

call with you

and helping you navigate the process

of finding a franchise that does align for you

uh we like to say investigate before you invest

that’s right

the goal is to put you in a position to make a wise

franchise decision dodge costly mistakes

and achieve financial independence

yeah thanks so much for tuning in

uh this is the franchise sister signing off fist bump