Episode 34: Plumbing Franchise Opportunity — What Most New Owners Get Wrong (Zach Munroe, Blue Frog)

Shari Currie Skjoldager (00:01.804)
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Franchise Sisters Franchise Business Radio Show. I’m your host, Sheri Curry-Skolltager, and on today’s show, I have Blue Frog Plumbing and Drain franchise representative, Zach Monroe. Welcome, Zach.

Zach Munroe (00:18.254)
Thanks for having me.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (00:19.212)
Hey, we are excited to have you. We’re excited to hear the story and growth about Blue Frog too. But before we get started, Zach, I know you’ve got a lot of franchise industry experience. So I would love for you to share with our listeners a little bit of background about you and what led you to be a representative of Blue Frog plumbing and training.

Zach Munroe (00:39.372)
Yeah, absolutely. I started my career in franchise development close to 12 years ago after a brief failed career in professional golf. The three footers just started to get a little bit too long for me. So I got a real job, right? I started my career at a pretty large organization. It’s called Driven Brands. It’s publicly traded now when I was there as private headquartered in Charlotte. Their position was really aftermarket automotive.

so the big group there that most people listening probably would know of would be Mako and Minake. but they also own Carstar, 1-800 radiator, and take five oil change as well as a couple other, glass and stuff like that. definitely have grown since I’ve been there. after that, I went into the boutique fitness space, like a lot of people when boutique fitness was booming, right? And the only thing that could slow boutique fitness down was COVID, essentially. and through, that whole.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (01:06.933)
Mm-hmm.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (01:29.291)
Mm-hmm.

Zach Munroe (01:36.834)
thing where the SBA wasn’t giving out loans to gems and that made it pretty hard to award franchises. I got into a commercial real estate franchise, which actually was perfect timing with interest rates being as low as they were. Commercial real estate was on fire. So I did commercial real estate franchising. I was a VP of growth for a company called Espeon International Corp, which is the eighth, seventh or eighth largest commercial real estate brokerage in the country. So my job there was to bring on

independent operators and convert them to SVN offices. And then after that, I missed the traditional franchise game. So I aimed to get back into it and then was contacted by a good friend of mine that said, Hey, I’ve got a friend who’s looking for a VP of development for one of the brands that they own under their platform. Would you be interested? And here we are with Blue Frog.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (02:30.592)
Wonderful. Yeah, that is a breadth of knowledge. You’ve been across so many different industries, which makes it always fun to talk to somebody like that, because you can really bring different perspectives that other people can’t. But let’s go ahead and jump into Blue Frog Plumbing and Drain. Let’s start out with, would you mind providing just a general overview of the business model?

Zach Munroe (02:52.204)
Yeah. So Blue Frog Plumbing and Drain. It’s plumbing and drain. So we do both residential and commercial services. Bulk of the business is going to be residential. That’s where it’s easiest to break into. And then part of the scaling process that a franchisee goes through is to layer on more commercial work, which is typically contract work, which is awesome for just a steadier income. But anyways, we start more with residential. with that plumbing and drain, what we…

mean with that and the easiest way to understand it is we do plumbing above the drain. So this is like your shower heads and faucets and all the things. We also do plumbing below the drain. So that’s like the scoping of

Shari Currie Skjoldager (03:28.438)
Okay.

Zach Munroe (03:34.263)
inside your walls and from the street to the house and all of that. So we can get pretty in depth. We do everything from changing a faucet to a whole house re-pipe at $75,000 to to do. We do some new construction work too as we get contracted to do that. But the really, big thing is, is our unique position in the crowded market of plumbing. There’s a lot of plumbing people out there, lot of plumbing franchise out there too.

Right now you’re seeing a big influx from PE. Big influx from PE. We call those guys the big guys, right? And we’re not that large volume driven chain that’s focused on transactions usually over customer relationships. But we’re also not that solo operator, the chuck and the truck, right? Everyone loves Chuck, but Chuck can’t scale and Chuck’s always busy. So it’s hard to get Chuck to actually come to your house.

But we’re not that single truck operator with limited resources, limited capacity and limited ability to scale at a whole. We aim to be the balanced choice in the middle. So we want to be locally owned. We want to be relationship driven, but we’re backed by the systems and tools and support of the national brand, just like the big guy, if that makes sense. So try and bring what is good from the big guy, but also what is good with the truck and the truck and you blend it right together. And that’s the balanced middle where we sit.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (04:44.386)
Absolutely.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (04:53.26)
Very nice, I like that a lot. So you know, the first question any of us ever get when it comes to the trades, so plumbing is in the trades category, is how can I run this business if I don’t have plumbing experience? And so in other words, do I have to have plumbing experience?

Zach Munroe (05:10.798)
I think I’d have to do the math, but I think two out of 43 of our franchisees have plumbing experience. So if you’re a statistics person out there, there you go. You don’t need to have, you don’t need to have plumbing experience. There are certain things that you need to bring to the table as a successful operator and plumbing experience is very bottom of the list. Oftentimes when people come into franchises and they buy a franchise where they have experience, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, right? So we actually prefer that people don’t.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (05:19.478)
Wow.

Zach Munroe (05:39.987)
but there are certain things that you do have to have. you gotta like people we’re in the people business, right? you gotta be a relationship builder. That certainly helps because, digital marketing is a crowded space these days. and the more boots on the ground activity you can do, the more successful you’re going to be. so we see all varieties of people, on the blue frog brand, from.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (05:56.802)
Gotcha.

Zach Munroe (06:04.056)
corporate escapees to veterans, to first responders, mean, all over the place. but the commonality between all of them is they match the Y right. We’re in the people business, serving people and trying to become their plumber for life. that is our kind of goal is that plumber for life mentality. Cause it’s hard to find a good plumber, right? I was very, everyone’s always asking, anyone got a good plumber, right? and once you find one, it’s kind of like gold, you’ve struck gold and you put them in your phone is Jim the plumber, right?

Shari Currie Skjoldager (06:24.374)
Mm-hmm.

Zach Munroe (06:34.284)
And the stats tell us the average homeowner needs a plumber for something once every three years. So they kind of just stored away in your little contacts. And then when you need them, you search plumber in your phone and there’s Jim, the plumber, whoever that plumber is. And that’s our goal is to really pour into homeowners and building owners so that we can become that trusted plumber for life.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (06:55.616)
makes a lot of sense and I like that. I love that middle ground that you described. Okay, so if I’m not the plumber, how do I find my plumbers?

Zach Munroe (07:06.574)
Good question. The same way that you’ve probably hired all employees in your corporate career. You have job descriptions, right? For different types of plumbers, different stages of plumbers, right? It’s a licensed trade, right? So licensed with a state similar to like a real estate license, which most people can understand that. There’s like the sales person licensed the real estate, then there’s a broker license, right? It’s very similar with plumbing, but there’s usually three categories. So they start as an apprentice.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (07:09.954)
Okay.

Zach Munroe (07:33.999)
Then they go into it being a journeyman and then they can take a test after they’ve got certain number of hours or the book they become a master and every state’s got a little bit of nuances between them, but that’s kind of the steps that we go, right? So some states require you to hire a master plumber right out of the gate. They’ve got to be on Your payroll your thing ready to go some states give you the leeway to lease a license from a master plumber And there’s a lot of master plumbers out there that are older in age and they’re not practicing more

but they keep their license active to make a couple bucks in retirement, right? For people like our franchisees that might be leasing a license and providing oversight there where needed. So there’s a couple of different options, but we’re going to post a job description. We use a website called Career Plug, no free advertising, but they’re pretty good. So Career Plug, essentially what Career Plug does is it syndicates the job posting to a

bunch of different jobs sites. A lot of those being blue collar specific job sites that most franchise candidates that I talked to have never even heard of because they’re not blue collar people. Right. So it’s indicated out there, you’re going to have some screening questions. For example, we’re not looking for an apprentice right out of the gate, right? We’re looking for some experience. So we screened a couple of people out and then you just do interviews. But the big thing is that I tell everybody good plumbers have jobs.

they’re probably working for somebody else. There might be a component to you’re reaching out to your family and friends and you’re getting some names and you’re reaching out to people and just telling the story of what you’re trying to build and getting somebody on board with that story.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (09:10.988)
Gotcha. Okay. And of course you’re supporting them all through that process. Without crossing that employee line, I hear what you’re saying. Okay. So that’s great. So for what I’m hearing is that it’s pretty easy to get a plumber on board. And there’s not really an issue in that area when it comes to your business.

Zach Munroe (09:14.582)
to the level we can without crossing any lines.

Zach Munroe (09:32.239)
We don’t. Yeah. Yeah. We, it’s about a 12 week process to get open and we don’t delay openings because we don’t have a plumber. So that tells me right there, we don’t have that many issues. Um, I think the one thing that I coach candidates on is find a plumber that is willing to be a mentor. Um, because

Shari Currie Skjoldager (09:38.594)
Okay.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (09:51.842)
things.

Zach Munroe (09:53.367)
Your first plumber is not going to be your only plumber. If you want to scale, you got to add more plumbers. You got to add more vans. Well, who’s going to train those apprentices, right? Not train them, but like, who’s going to watch over them? because you don’t have the experience as the owner, you need to find a plumber who’s willing to be that mentor and not all plumbers are right. so not all plumbers are created equal. You got to find the right one. That’s going to be excited about what you’re trying to build.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (10:11.702)
Yeah.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (10:19.362)
Yeah, that makes sense. And I’m sure there’s incentivizing suggestions to want them to offer that service that they may have a natural skill set. That makes sense. And then you also brought up in the business model that, obviously, you’ve got that corporate national support from higher up. But also, you want to have those boots on the ground to really build that relationship.

How difficult is to get customers? What is the most common way your customers come to you?

Zach Munroe (10:54.324)
Yeah. We refer to our go-to-market strategy or otherwise known as the strategy to get the phone to ring. It’s a two-headed snake. It is boots on the ground or the grassroots marketing combined with digital marketing. So we got to be present when someone Googles us, right? Our name is pretty unique, Blue Frog. Most people remember that handsome looking frog if they see the van out in the field. And we’re going to come up, right? So we’ve got

Shari Currie Skjoldager (11:01.877)
Gotcha.

Zach Munroe (11:23.116)
the digital side, but the digital side’s ever changing, right? That algorithm can change every single day. And if you think you’ve got it figured out, just wait a month and it will humble you because it does change. And that’s why we tell franchisees, leave the digital marketing to the pros. We’ve got a preferred agency that most franchisees work with directly in combination with our oversight where they’re handling the digital. And the franchisees main goal is to handle.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (11:31.136)
Yes.

Zach Munroe (11:47.595)
execute on that boots on the ground marketing strategy, which we have a playbook to do obviously, and how to do it, right? How to get out there, how to host events, what type of things should you be sponsoring to get the word out there? All of that. But I mean, it all goes down to just being present, right? Most people aren’t thinking about a plumbing business till they need it, right? So you have to be visible.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (11:53.877)
Awesome.

Zach Munroe (12:10.644)
enough to where people have seen you a few times, they’ve got familiarity with you so that when they come across an issue, they’re like, what was that? What? yeah, that there was that blue frog, right? Bingo. So like franchisees, those vans can be quite expensive, right? And the wraps are even pretty pricey too. We run, usually most franchisees are running Monday through Friday, nine to five, which is kind of nice in the home service, emergency service industry. but

Shari Currie Skjoldager (12:21.302)
memorable.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (12:27.329)
Yeah.

Zach Munroe (12:38.774)
Why don’t you park that van at the sports complex on a Saturday, right? How many families are going through that thing? And if you get there early enough, you can have the spot right in front and you just leave the van there all day and it’s free advertising. so there’s little things like that that are all, I don’t want to give away too much of our secret sauce, but things like that, that are in that playbook that are not hard to edge or execute on. Nothing that we are going to have a franchisee or ask a franchisee to do will be rocket science. It’s just going to require a little.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (12:55.372)
That’s a good thing.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (13:08.45)
That makes sense. Yeah, as simple as I had three boys who went through sports and there was always somebody advertising on the back of those t-shirts when it was elementary, t-ball, all that stuff. Yeah, and all the schools.

Zach Munroe (13:16.302)
Yeah. Jersey’s in good. Yeah. Well, when you think about it, it’s smart. I mean, mom and dad are washing that Jersey twice a week, right? So that logo is in front of their face twice a week. What’s a Jersey cost? 20, 25 bucks. Well, what’s an impression or an ad on Facebook or Google cost more than that sometimes. So the Jersey can actually be a little bit more effective.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (13:26.079)
Yep.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (13:38.114)
And it also shows investment in your community, which I think people would really like to know that you’re committing to the community. Okay, so the day in the life role of a franchisee, you’re not the plumber, you’re out in the community letting them know you’re investing in them and hopefully they think of you when you their services. Is there anything else that really kind of happens in the day in the life that gives us somebody an idea of the skill sets that they have to do this?

Zach Munroe (13:42.871)
Absolutely.

Zach Munroe (13:48.878)
Correct.

Zach Munroe (14:04.524)
Yeah, I’ll run through it. mean, they’re focused on leading the business, not turning the wrench. it’s the first thing you kind of hinted towards that, they’re overseeing daily operations, staffing and scheduling. in the beginning they’re doing, they’re kind of holding all the roles because they don’t have the luxury of the revenue to go hire a bunch of admins to do a bunch of things for them. so owners, we want owners that are going to be involved early.

And if you’re involved early, then you don’t have to spend money on people to do stuff that you as an owner could definitely do. so that can help with cashflow, right? But they’re also gonna be spending time on like performance coaching and team management, performance coaching with a plumber could be just how to talk to a homeowner, right? because some plumbers, while they’re great with a wrench in their hand, they might freeze up in front of a homeowner. So kind of helping coach them and get them out of their shell a little bit, to be more effective selling in the field.

customer experience is huge, right? So if your plumber’s on site at a property, don’t be afraid to stop by and just introduce yourself to Ms. Johnson, right? I, this never happened to me in my house, but if the owner of a home service, brand that I was using came out, I’d be pretty impressed. pretty impressed. It’s not hard to do. It’s just effort, right? but then also local marketing, there’s a free lunch every single day. If you try hard enough, there’s a networking event every single day. Get out there.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:12.788)
Yeah, that’s it.

Thank

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:24.84)
Uh-huh.

Zach Munroe (15:26.094)
Um, everyone can be a referral partner, um, literally everyone, cause everyone probably needs a plumber sometime in their life. Um, and then collaborate with us. Um, I tell my candidates when you get awarded a franchise, like still stay in my text feed, right? Like ask for help. Um, all franchisees are dealt the same level of resources. Some are just more resourceful than others. And that’s the end of the game.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:33.25)
you

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:51.562)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Zach Munroe (15:53.871)
But it’s it’s really you’re you’re working on the business not in it. That’s a common saying but they’re They’re definitely not cranking wrenches the extent to they what they might actually be doing in the field is a plumber might say hey Can you help hold this pipe while I saw something like that? that’s about it They’re not crawling into crawl spaces or anything like that Unless they truly wanted to just to get their hands dirty They are executing on growing the business and then make sure customer experience is where it needs to be

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:59.03)
Mm-hmm.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (16:08.738)
you

Shari Currie Skjoldager (16:23.796)
Awesome. So it sounds like the operator model that you’re primarily looking for is fully involved, or do you allow semi-involved for those people who want to keep their W-2?

Zach Munroe (16:30.222)
Yeah, semi-involved, semi-absentee is dirty word and franchising in the last couple of years. I’ve just watched a TikTok the other day that made it sound way easier than it is. And I’m still looking for that truly semi-absentee option for myself. But we will approve a candidate.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (16:39.34)
great.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (16:45.746)
Mm-hmm. Hey, always do.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (16:50.401)
Yep.

Zach Munroe (16:54.22)
that wants to be semi-involved, semi-absentee, if they have an operator identified prior to becoming a franchisee, that we can vet that operator. Because quite frankly, vetting the candidate is just a financial vetting, because they’re the bank, right? It’s that operator that we really need to vet, because that’s the one that us at corporate are going to be dealing with on the day to day. That’s the one that we’re vetting, not the bank over here.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (17:07.19)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (17:17.94)
Yeah, I always say that you guys aren’t looking for a franchise fee. You’re looking for somebody to scale that business. And that means you need an operator that knows how to do that. So that makes sense.

Zach Munroe (17:28.096)
Absolutely. So if we can get them ahead of time and we can vet them, we’ll look at it.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (17:32.854)
Okay, fair enough. All right, you kind of tapped into this already, but maybe we can dig a little bit into a little bit more and that’s training support. There’s a lot of value in franchising because of that allows you to open your doors a lot quicker and scale a lot faster. So do you want to outline any specifics in regards to how you train support and guide them to get open and scale?

Zach Munroe (17:54.051)
Yeah, I’ll highlight our brand new vice president of operations brand leader. You can call him. His name is Richard. He came to us with 19 years of experience in this industry. So a lot of technical experience, but he wasn’t cranking the wrench at that point in his career. He was more on the leadership side with many plumbers underneath him. But he started as a technician, right? So he can speak to the life of the technician. He can speak to.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (17:55.841)
you

Shari Currie Skjoldager (18:05.068)
repeat.

Zach Munroe (18:18.946)
How do you treat a technician? Right? Like what gets them going? Right. because of white collar employee and a blue collar employee are different people. and what motivates them is totally different. And a lot of candidates come from the white collar world. So a lot of our coaching and a lot of our training is just how to interact with the people that you’re going to be hiring so that you can build a strong culture and you can retain them. so that you’re not always looking to hire. You’re looking, you’re kind of turning candidates away because your people are happy. Right.

But there’s roughly 48 hours of training. We just built a new state of the art training facility in the colony, Texas. So just north of Dallas, really proud about that, where we do all of our training for all of our brands that we have. So they’ll come there. There’s tons of online stuff. There is a full 12 week checklist that they’ll go through with weekly calls with someone actually on my team that handles all the onboarding. So making sure that they get the little stuff out of the way.

Insurance the DBA filing with the state all the little things. There’s someone holding their hand and holding them accountable because It’s a process but we break it down into bite-sized chunks and in that Onboarding that we take them through there might be four or five boxes. They got to check every week We’re not throwing it all at them at one time because most people still might have a job that they haven’t left yet Or they’ve got spring break summer vacations, what have you?

Shari Currie Skjoldager (19:42.978)
Okay.

Zach Munroe (19:44.193)
So we work with all candidates to make it work. And then they come out of the gate. We’ll usually try and match them up with another franchisee. I always tell people, Hey, go work for another franchisee for free for a week. There’s a reason why the NFL has preseason. It’s so that you can get all the kinks out. Well, I’d get all the kinks out on somebody else’s dime, not mine. And a lot of people do take us up on that. And there’s plenty of franchisees that will be there to mentor if somebody wants it.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (20:00.268)
Yeah.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (20:13.986)
You know, it’s something you mentioned, love all of that Zach, but something that really stood out to me was transition. I think a lot of people are looking to maybe leave their W-2, but they’re not ready to let go of that W-2 income and grab that other, you know, line of owning a business and they want to make that as tight as possible. So it sounds like you are very open to what I call

on-boarding, getting everything organized, ready to go. You can still keep your W-2 income coming in until it’s time to shut that down. You guys can work with them on that.

Zach Munroe (20:47.15)
I call it milk in it, right? Milk it, baby. Milk you for long enough, it’s time for you to get some retro. It’s funny because funding becomes a piece of this, right? Our initial investment’s 144,000 to 345,000. And funding becomes the question, right? And some forms of funding require someone to have a W-2 income to get.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (20:48.47)
Milk it.

Exactly.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (20:59.5)
can.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (21:11.903)
Exactly.

Zach Munroe (21:13.056)
So that’s pretty important that you keep that W-2 until you get that loan. And then you have a lot more flexibility after that. There are creative financing options that allow people to tap into their retirement and pay themselves a salary through the business, a moderate salary, but it’s something as they get the business spun up. And that can be really creative. And most candidates don’t know about that. When I bring that up to candidates, they’re like, wait, what? And I’m like, yeah, you could like pay yourself a modest salary.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (21:15.042)
Keep it.

Zach Munroe (21:42.636)
So you’re guaranteeing yourself something and then you can reinvest profits back in the business and you can get that second van, the third van a lot quicker and scale faster as long as the funding is set up right on the front side.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (21:54.114)
Perfect. So I love that I was going to get into money matters. We know how important that is and you’ve already really tapped into it. Investment range. And it sounds like you guys are pretty informed on funding strategies. We try to support our candidates on the funding side, but I always defer to the franchise or if they have a specific funding strategy that works well for their.

So I love that you guys are already very in touch with the Robs, the SBAs and whatever it takes and obviously keeping that W-2 to make sure that money comes in before you let it go. Yeah.

Zach Munroe (22:24.046)
Yeah, we don’t want you to keep it after you open but is let’s milk it if there’s a word of the day

Shari Currie Skjoldager (22:28.448)
That’s right. Milk it. I love it. And I love that you can strategize with them. All right. We have really covered a lot. I’m trying to think. Is there anything that I’ve missed? Any other thoughts that maybe we should share about Blue Frog?

Zach Munroe (22:43.969)
We’re an emerging, I wouldn’t say we’re emerging brand. We’ve been doing this since like 2015. So not emerging, but we’re still small enough to have some really good territories available in most major markets absent of like a DFW. Um, so that most markets have very good territories available. The other thing is we give very large territories. Um, so many of our plumbing, uh, competitors are given a territory somewhere between a hundred thousand to 200,000 people.

which is kind of common in home service. We actually put territories up to somewhere between 400 to 450,000. So someone doesn’t have to feel the pressure of, I’ve got to buy multiple territories to own a market or I got to buy multiple territories to be successful. No, you can get in and kind of get your feet wet. No pun intended before you all in. And it’s kind of cool when you can buy one territory and own a whole market. So like a Huntsville, Alabama doesn’t require

Shari Currie Skjoldager (23:14.229)
Okay.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (23:20.321)
Not me.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (23:37.792)
That is pretty cool.

Zach Munroe (23:41.938)
territories to be called Blue Frog of Huntsville. So you get a lot of bang for the buck, you could say. But we want to give people ample runway for success and give them plenty of room to grab a lot of market share.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (23:47.937)
Yeah.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (23:55.65)
That’s great. So basically, when we’re talking about territories, there’s a franchise fee that you pay to get that territory. And you’re saying we’ve got one franchise fee that might cover actually the cost of two franchise fees if you go with somebody else. Yeah, that’s nice. That’s very good.

Zach Munroe (24:07.694)
for a competitor.

And we give a very healthy discount on the first franchise fee for veterans. $9,000 off.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (24:15.586)
Okay, we love our veterans. Good. We love our veterans.

Zach Munroe (24:20.044)
No, we guess. Very good veterans because they’re just process people, right? We have a proven process. All you got to do is follow it.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (24:28.2)
Exactly, that’s exactly what I say. And anything else, that was a great extra piece of information.

Zach Munroe (24:35.884)
I think that’s it. mean, if someone’s interested, they know how to get a hold of you and they know how to get a hold of me then. So I would direct them that way.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (24:39.746)
Absolutely. I love it. Okay, so how we always wrap up the podcast back with the Franchise Sisters is we like to wrap it up with one final question. I’m going to throw it at you and then we can wrap this up. So in closing, what tip would you give to budding entrepreneurs?

Zach Munroe (25:00.494)
I hinted on it, but make sure the logistics are right before you get into it. And when I say logistics, make sure you can allocate the time needed to be successful. And don’t just listen to people like me on the time needed. Validate that with franchisees too. So if I tell you it’s going to be 20 hours a week, that would be a lie. It’s going to be more in the beginning. So make sure you’re asking that question to franchisees. Like legitimately, how much time do I need to dedicate to this to be top tier or above average? So time and then money, right?

making sure that you’re not putting all your eggs in and immediately day one, having to go on a ramen noodle diet. We don’t want that, right? Of course. The first year, we’re probably not going to Disney world. You know what mean? Like we got to be conscious of money, but making sure the logistics are correct on the front end so that you don’t have to stress. I always tell people, they kind of get scared when I say this sometimes, but we plan to lose money.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (25:37.526)
Mm-hmm. I agree.

Zach Munroe (25:56.504)
Cause businesses don’t break even the first month typically. So let’s plan to lose a little bit of money so that when you do, you’re not panicked and you don’t shut off the marketing funnel. so let’s fit, make sure the logistics are right on the front end. And then if we can get that right, then if you love the brand, let’s do it.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (25:56.854)
Yeah.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (26:12.104)
Love it. Great, great suggestion. Being strong from a cashflow perspective and validate, validate everything you’ve heard with somebody who’s already done it so you can feel good about doing it yourself. I love that those suggestions Zach. Okay. So if you are listening and considering franchise ownership, request a free franchise sisters consultation call by simply completing the online form on our podcast website, which you can easily find by typing in franchise sisters. We will send you our ebook.

top 10 questions to consider before investing in a franchise. So our mission is to help you navigate the franchise selection process through our client-centric align methodology and to put you in a position to make an informed decision with the help of our Investigate Before You Invest toolkit. So just want to thank everyone for tuning in and we look forward to you joining us next time. Fist pump.

Zach Munroe (27:06.786)
Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, everyone.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (27:08.054)
Thanks, Zach.