← Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
From Hollywood to Franchising: Aaron Harper's Journey with Rolling Suds
00:59:24
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- [00:00]
John Gafford
Obviously your business is AI proof. AI is not going to show up in power wash the roof of the Superdome. How are you using AI in your business to improve it? And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, Escape the Drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again. Back again in time for another episode of like it says in the opening, the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, if you have an interest in maybe potentially owning your own business at some point. I got a guy that is well versed. I'm not say well versed. I mean he's an expert in the subject matter. If the idea of franchising not just buying a franchise, but also how to franchise your own business, because this is a guy that bought a small regional power power washing company and turned it into a franchise that now has over 100 locations nationwide called Rolling Subs. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Aaron Harper. Aaron, how are you, man?
- [01:11]
Aaron Harper
I'm good. Thanks for having me on. John, I'm excited to talk with you today.
- [01:14]
John Gafford
Yeah, thanks for joining us, dude. So you know what did you. So you weren't always obviously in, in the pressure washing business. What did you do before this?
- [01:23]
Aaron Harper
I'm a recovering Hollywood executive that grew up in las south of Los Angeles and went into Hollyw it after college trying to make it as like a talent agent and realized I didn't want the life that a lot of my, the people I was working for had and didn't know what I wanted to do. And so I reached out to some buddies that I knew from college and one told me, you should get into franchise development. And I was like, what's franchise development? Because like, I really don't want to develop Wendy's locations or like I'm not a real estate developer. And that was kind of my understanding of franchising. And he told me he kind of opened my eyes to like this whole world of franchise ownership in, you know, two men in a truck, 1-800-got junk like Roto Root or Mr. Rooter. Like, I didn't know any of these brands were franchises and I didn't know that franchisees were independent business owners that own 100% of their business. And so ultimately I was just excited about the idea of being Able to help people become business owners. And so that's, that's how I got into it. And I started working at a carpet cleaning franchise.
- [02:30]
John Gafford
So you went from Hollywood to working at a carpet cleaning franchise? Correct. It's interesting because it's funny. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on was because a lot of dudes that I have, a lot of dudes that I'm connected with that have a lot of money and when I say a lot of money, I mean a lot of money are all diving headfirst into the trades businesses, they're all can't get H vac, plumbing, flooring, roofing, anything that is hyper trade specific because obviously AI is not gonna come roof your house. AI is not gonna come unclog your toilet. So these are technology proof businesses that go forward. So if you are someone that is out there and you're thinking about maybe starting your own business, what's the advantage of buying a franchise versus just starting your own? What do you think?
- [03:17]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, I mean, well, when you start your own business you have to figure out a lot of things. You have to figure out which website provider to use, which marketing companies that are gonna produce revenue for you. How to figure out systems, sops of that takes time and time is money. And oftentimes you could spend all that time and still not get the systems right and therefore stall revenue and not grow as fast. Whereas I found a 35 year old power washing company out of Philadelphia that has perfected a process of power washing that no one else can do. We, you know, build the trucks ourselves. And ultimately when you buy into a franchise, you're buying all of that knowledge, you're buying all those years of experience and trial and error so you just don't have to make those on your own. Now there's always going to be hiccups in business no matter what, but it's kind of like putting guardrails on, on those, on some of those risks.
- [04:21]
John Gafford
Well, it's funny, I saw, I saw a meme, I don't know if it was a meme or whatever you want to call it the other day, but it was showing like the differences in franchise restaurants and it had Jack in the box and it had Chick Fil and it was saying like a Jack in the box that does $500,000 a year makes more money for the franchisee than the Chick Fil A that does like 5 million because they just take so much more of the top line dollar and then the bottom line revenue of the profit. So when you're looking at, you know, is there a play? I don't even know, dude. Is there like a website that does comparison of like and like businesses like this?
- [05:00]
Aaron Harper
Yeah. So you can, you can go online and you can download what's called the franchise disclosure document. These are all public documents that each franchise has to file every single year. And then in, in a certain item of that, which is called item 19, you can see the representations of all the locations that are reported from the year prior. So revenue, whatever the franchisor decides to disclose, profit, everything like that. Ultimately, the absolute best way to determine the health of a franchise business is to talk to existing franchisees. But it's funny you mentioned Chick Fil A. Every single person thinks that Chick Fil A is like this gold standard of a franchise. They aren't a franchise. Like the person who comes in to runs run a Chick Fil A is effectively a general manager. So Chick Fil A owns the dirt, they own the building. They own 50% of the profit.
- [05:55]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [05:56]
Aaron Harper
And they take a royalty off the top. So essentially the, the general manager, which is the franchisee, he makes good money or she makes good money because It'll do maybe $8 million and you know, let's call it a 10 net. So you know, they split that 50, 50. So now they're making 400 grand a year. But like they're just a really high paid employee essentially. They can't sell the business for a multiple of its earnings. But everyone's like, oh, I want to get into a chick only 10 grand down. It's like, yeah, you're paying 10 grand to like be an employee.
- [06:28]
John Gafford
You're paying to get hired is what, you know now also, you know, I remember and again my, my previous life to, to real estate was, was in the restaurant industry. I did that for many, many moons. And I know that, you know, we sold franchises with the restaurant company that I was with and part of my job was to go take them back over when the franchisees failed. My job.
- [06:48]
Aaron Harper
Yeah.
- [06:49]
John Gafford
Which was always a fun, fun part of the job because they were failing for a reason and they weren't run very well. What let's say, let's talk about Roland Suds. Like if you're looking for somebody that wants to buy a franchise from you. Right. What characteristics are you looking in that person that you think is going to make them a successful operator?
- [07:07]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, so we were very intentional about this when we launched that we were going to have a really high bar for people that come into our system. A lot of Home service franchisors will decrease the amount of capital required to come in. Just they can get more people, they'll kind of sign up whoever wants to come in.
- [07:27]
John Gafford
We could be obvious it's a gold rush.
- [07:30]
Aaron Harper
In most cases we did the opposite. So we said you need to have 250 to 300 grand, like liquid or in retirement assets ready to go for the business. You'll need to buy a minimum of two territories. We don't even do a single unit deals because we're not looking for single unit operators. And you have to be willing to reinvest in the business for the first two years so that you can get to Truck 2 and Chuck 3, which means you're not taking, you know, you're not replacing your $150,000 a year salary from Oracle that you have year one. Like you're coming in and you're grinding, you're going to build a valuable pressure washing business. And a lot of the reason for that is, is we're predominantly commercial, so we do really large jobs, $30,000 hospitals, you know, we've done jobs in the multi six figures commercial buildings, which is what we're built for. And in order to do that work you have to have the capital to be able to support the, the staff and the, the sales cycle to win the work and then the, the AR cycle to get paid. And so it's like this kind of.
- [08:36]
John Gafford
Big thing, the AR cycle being. Being the most important part.
- [08:40]
Aaron Harper
Being the most important part, sure. So, so we're looking for people who want to build large businesses. Like they don't want a 3, $400,000 a year power washing business. Like they want 3, 4, 5, 10 trucks on the road. I call our franchisees goalpost movers. They're going to set a goal and then they're going to hit that goal and they're going to move the goalpost. And so they're coming in and they want to build like a sizable company. And so a fun stat is about 30% of our operating franchisees are former C level executives and they left that job that they were running full time to go and open a commercial and residential power washing franchise. Because they saw the upside of what happens when I build this to 3, 4, 5, 6 trucks with a ton of recurring commercial revenue.
- [09:29]
John Gafford
Yeah. And they're not out there actually pressure washing.
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Aaron Harper
They're not. And in fact if they tell me they want to, I'm like, this isn't.
- [09:35]
John Gafford
The opportunity because you're looking for business.
- [09:38]
Aaron Harper
People, not we're looking yeah, we're not. Yeah. I tell them their time's way more valuable than the $20 an hour they're going to pay someone to the cleaning. So we require they hire a general manager in training and a junior technician prior to going to training and they bring them with them to training.
- [09:53]
John Gafford
A friend of mine, Jeff Fenster, owns a company called Everbowl.
- [09:56]
Aaron Harper
I know Jeff.
- [09:57]
John Gafford
Well, you know Jeff. Okay, there you go. Yeah. I say a business done exploded with franchisees and probably some of them. I'm full disclosure, I'm an investor at the corporate level of Everbowl. But some of the franchisees that were selected dropped the ball pretty quick. Some of the stores were a little bit of a mess, including the one right down the street from me, which was, always drove me nuts.
- [10:21]
Aaron Harper
So.
- [10:21]
John Gafford
And Jeff was pretty quick to pull the plug on those guys. So what? Like it's a little different with you because you're, you're not, you're not really a brick and mortar location. What KPIs are you looking for out of people that like, you're like, dude, I'm gonna pull the plug on these people. This is not good.
- [10:36]
Aaron Harper
Yeah. So we have, we have a very aggressive development schedule. And what, what that means for your listeners is when they buy, let's say three units, that means that they are opening three trucks within 18 months. So during that time they're going to have benchmarks that they're going to need to hit in terms of revenue where they're going to open those trucks. The trucks are about $155,000 all in, but they're huge. 16 foot box trucks, two machine, two to three machines on every truck. Like we can do a 3,000 square foot house in 20 minutes. We can hit five stories from the ground. So like you end up making it up the value of the truck in the jobs you're doing. Yeah, but if they don't open those trucks, we can, we have the, the right to take the territories back that they have not opened. Now fortunately, we haven't had to do that, but that's part of, that's why we have the development schedule written in there is to show, hey, like you gotta, you gotta reinvest and you gotta grow these, these areas. What I can say is like we try to treat people with the same amount of grace on the way out, the same amount of grace and help on the way out as we do on when they're launching their business. So if someone comes to me and says, hey, this isn't working out, I Actually want to go back and get a job. We're, we have a very robust resale program and we can get their territories resale sold really quickly. I mean, we've. We've done 320 units in 28 months in resale. No, in total from zero units to 320. That's trucks on the road. That is territory sold.
- [12:15]
John Gafford
Territory sold.
- [12:16]
Aaron Harper
About 112 trucks on the road. So we have 112 territories open out of like, because we're just the nascent. We're just very early. I mean, we launched in 2023, in the beginning of 23. So franchisees are still very early on. So we've had to do a handful of resales, but all of those have been purchased, almost all of them by existing franchise owners in the system who are crushing it. There's only been two that we've done external, outside the system.
- [12:45]
John Gafford
Why do people fail with what you're doing? Were they just not good operators? I mean, they couldn't operate anything.
- [12:51]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, so two, two of them were like, I'm buying this for my wife. And both of their wives didn't want to do it. So those were like, those were, those were where it was like, yeah, it's like, yeah. And then another one just wanted to go back into brick and mortar retail. It was, he was more comfortable with like showing up to a place every day and like having customers walk into the door, which is what he was doing before. I mean, service businesses going back to like your, your wealthy friends going into it. Like, you still got to go out. You're a hunter, you know, like, like you are a hunter. Like, you go out, like, you go get the customers, you go get the relationships. And so if a franchise owner isn't comfortable with that, they want to maybe sit behind their computer and analyze data or spreadsheets. Like, this is just in the business for them. They got to be out in their community shaking hands, kissing babies every single day. And is there a, is there a.
- [13:50]
John Gafford
Personality test that goes into, into your qualification? I'm just curious about that.
- [13:54]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, that's a good question. We've considered doing like a Zoracle. We're looking into that right now. Which would basically just say, here's what the Zoracle of our top franchise owners who are doing, you know, high revenue volume within 6 to 12 months.
- [14:12]
John Gafford
Because my, my, my, get my guess, My guess is the people that are doing incredibly well are great salespeople and then they have good operators that are running the numbers behind them that, that would Be my guess, that is part of it.
- [14:25]
Aaron Harper
Here's why personality tests become risky is some of our best franchise owners are ones that we let in that we weren't 100%. Like, we were like 80% on. And we're like. And then they come in and they just crush it and figure out why. We don't figure out why. And. And so, like, it's really hard to measure the most important ingredient in business ownership, which I know you know, is grit. Like, are they going to give up? Are they going to give up when things get hard? Or are they going to continue to push through during tough times? And if the answer is that they're going to continue to push through during tough times, there are leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of business owners that just want to give up and say, hey, this is too hard.
- [15:09]
John Gafford
Well, if you don't wake up in a. If you don't wake up in a cold sweat once a month and want to burn it all down, you're not entrepreneuring hard enough. I don't care what level you're at.
- [15:17]
Aaron Harper
Totally, totally. And, you know, we've seen, we've seen, you know, the people who have extreme ownership, meaning, like, everything in their business is dependent upon their ability to execute. Like, they're just happier franchise owners. They. They feel better about their business. They have more levers that they personally can pull on their business. And no matter what, in any system, especially one that grows fast, like, ever bull, which is an awesome investment for you, or rolling suds, like, not everyone's cut out for business. You know what I mean? However, those that come in and follow the model and execute on, like, what our founders have done for 35 years, like, it clearly works. You know what I mean? Like, we're in 35 states. There's a lot of franchisees. Majority of our franchisees are killing it. So it's like, just do what the other people have done before you and it will work. You know, like, if you try to reinvent the wheel and tweak things, like, don't buy a franchise. Like, that might be interesting franchise.
- [16:21]
John Gafford
You know, the flip side of the coin, if you will, like, you look at me and our business, you know, prior to, we have the largest independent real estate brokerage in Las Vegas. We're number two in the market, but it's close to a 7% market share. 580 agents that work here, I mean, we're humming. We've been doing this for 16 years. And I used to own two Keller Williams franchises. I was a Partner to Keller Williams franchises. And me personally, what I found, and it's just a lot, probably my personality type, it made me lazy. And what I mean by that is for that statement that you just made, it was like, don't think, just execute. Just follow the plan. Just do this. And you become so dependent on the ideas and the execution and the processes, and you're just sitting around waiting for something new to come down the pipe. And I found when I went independent on my own own and built this company, the thing that gave me the most juice was, I guess a good story is my son, when he was like 8 years old, I said to him, I said, what do you want to do when you grow up? He's like, I want to do what you do. And I said, okay. What do I do? He goes, you're the boss.
- [17:27]
Aaron Harper
I said, okay.
- [17:28]
John Gafford
I said, what's the best part about being the boss? He goes, nobody tells you what to do. I said, okay. You know what the hardest thing about being the boss is? And he said, what? I said, nobody tells me what to do.
- [17:39]
Aaron Harper
Yeah.
- [17:40]
John Gafford
Every day I gotta wake up and cast off and figure out a new way. So, I mean, there's a fine line between just shut up and execute and it'll work. And it's just how it is. And then there's the innovation that comes from the other side of we gotta figure this out.
- [17:55]
Aaron Harper
Yeah. And let me make, like, make sure I'm super clear so your listeners understand, like, initially, when you launch a business, most people don't know anything about business. Like, they're going out and they're figuring out they might have some elemental knowledge about, like, the product or whatever, but like, if it's their first business, they're going out and they're figuring it. Right. So that, that's. Anyone who launches a business, that's a.
- [18:18]
John Gafford
Chef, a chef is not going to go buy a McDonald's.
- [18:20]
Aaron Harper
Right. That's the line.
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John Gafford
That's the point.
- [18:23]
Aaron Harper
So you're going out regardless of whether you started from scratch. You buy a franchise, you got to go out and figure, figure these things out. Now what I, what I tell our franchisees is, is imitate before you iterate. So do the systems, get it down, and then come up with new ideas, bring them to us. And then. Because the best ideas come from franchise owners in the field. And. And so then when you have a great idea come to us, we'll see it's working there. We'll create trainings and systems around it and then we'll roll it out to the rest of the system becomes the collective.
- [18:59]
John Gafford
The collective genius of the.
- [19:01]
Aaron Harper
Yes. Yeah. Some people have called it the Zenius because franchisee Zenius did there. So you have to, you have to basically, like, it is a balancing act. But like in, in your first six months of, of a business, let's just call it six to 12 months. Like, and you have all these tools in a franchise. Like, this is how you sell, this is how you talk to customers. This is the technology use, this is the website. This is like all the stuff that you don't have to figure out so you can go out and execute. But inevitably you're going to get better at running this business because you're already years ahead of where the original owners were because you have all that knowledge right out the gate. Then let's kind of like tweak things. So like, we've rolled out door to door programs which came from a franchise owner in South Carolina. We've rolled out technology and AI programs that came from another franchise owner. Like, so those, those things are really, really important to the growth of a brand.
- [19:54]
John Gafford
But you have a recruiting office in Salt Lake City yet for your door.
- [19:59]
Aaron Harper
Oh, a franchise owner. Yeah, we had a franchise.
- [20:01]
John Gafford
No, I'm saying for door to door you should have a recruiting office in Salt Lake City.
- [20:05]
Aaron Harper
Yeah. And believe it or not, the franchise owners who helped create the door to door program grew up in Salt Lake City. Like, it's just like, it's just like what they do, you know? So like they built all these other businesses.
- [20:17]
John Gafford
They spent two years of their life knocking on doors trying to sell, trying to sell the Book of Mormon. I mean, they have zero fear of knocking on a door to sell anything, let alone power washing. They don't care. Easiest thing in the world for them to do. That's why literally I've talked to people that they're like, yeah, we just recruit straight out of Utah for nationwide door to door.
- [20:38]
Aaron Harper
And I'm like, those guys make so much money by the way.
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John Gafford
They do great.
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Aaron Harper
Yeah.
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John Gafford
It's what you train for.
- [20:46]
Aaron Harper
Totally. Yeah.
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John Gafford
So if I'm somebody and I'm thinking about looking at a friend, tell me, walk me through, walk me through the biggest mistakes that somebody would make if they're thinking about purchasing a franchise or getting into that business. Where do people screw up?
- [21:00]
Aaron Harper
Biggest mistakes in the selection process or biggest mistakes they've selected.
- [21:06]
John Gafford
Here I am. I'm sick of the man. I want to quit my job at mgm. I want to own my own business from that moment. Where do we Screw up.
- [21:15]
Aaron Harper
The biggest screw up that I see in franchising in general is franchise. A lot of franchise owners come to franchising and think the systems are so dialed I can keep my full time job and this business will run itself and it can run itself out the gate. All I got to do is find this great manager, pay the manager $60,000 a year. The manager will build me a multi million dollar business and get me a return on my investment while I keep my cushy $175,000 a year job with health insurance that pays all of my bills. That is single handedly the biggest mistake that I see franchise owners make regardless of which brand they go into. Now we're, we do not allow that clearly, which is why I've been talking about it. Many franchise owners, many franchisors in my position aren't as selective as I am and aren't as good as finding franchisees as we are. So they take whatever they can because maybe they're under capitalized, maybe they need the franchise fee. Whatever reason there is to like bring that franchise owner in and then they're sitting there and competing with, with, with, with for that franchise owner's time and they have some general manager that isn't the franchise owner, that doesn't have skin in the game that could go get another job at any point in time and that entire territory that they just sold is at risk and that franchise owner's capital and investment is at risk. And so that's the biggest mistake that people make going into franchise ownership.
- [22:54]
John Gafford
Yeah. Starting out you can't, you just don't have enough, you just don't have enough bandwidth to create redundancy in, in jobs. If you lose a key person, it's your, your, you know, your, your quarterback, you're screwed. You know you're going to have a real problem. And I can see where people be like I'm just going to hire somebody to deal with it and then that person quits. And it's also like I don't even know where anything is.
- [23:14]
Aaron Harper
I don't even know where the door and the light switch are.
- [23:16]
John Gafford
Yeah, I don't have a key to.
- [23:18]
Aaron Harper
The 4,000 do month lease that like an entire build out and like I can't leave my job because like I won't be able to pay bills. So now I've got this unit sitting here bleeding cash. And that is the demise of so many franchise systems is franchisors allow franchisees to come in that want absentee businesses. Franchisees expect that the systems are so dialed that they can be absentee. And here's the reality of it, John. If, if the business was so dialed that the franchisor could run it absentee, there'd be absolutely no need. There'd be absolutely no need for a franchise. For franchisees, like, they're.
- [24:00]
John Gafford
Just owning everything. That's all they would do.
- [24:02]
Aaron Harper
We just own everything.
- [24:04]
John Gafford
Not at all. Yeah, there's such a, like we talked a little bit earlier about it, but there's such a wide price range of franchises. Does the amount of money that you got to come up with upfront, is that indicative of potential future success? I mean, it seems like here's a really low barrier of entry to get in that just kind of screams turn and burn to me. Is it the more expensive, the better the opportunity probably really is.
- [24:30]
Aaron Harper
Typically the investment you're going to make, the size investment is going to be relative to the potential return you can, you can make. So, and, and this is generally right, like there could be franchises that just charge a bunch and it costs a lot and they don't get a return on it. But generally speaking, like, if a franchise is going to cost, let's call it 250 to 350 grand to get in, like, they should be able to within a reasonable amount of time get to that kind of net profit from their business to, to get a return on that initial capital investment. Investment. If that takes too long, what do.
- [25:11]
John Gafford
You think the Runway should be? What Runway should you.
- [25:13]
Aaron Harper
Look, ideally it should be three years to, to get to like to get to the net profit of the original investment. Like, and it could be less than that. It could. It also depends on how aggressive that franchise owner is if they're investing everything back in. But I ideally, like for us, we want franchise owners to get to three trucks within 18 months. It's in our FDD. You know, currently it's 2025. Like a truck does over $400,000 a year in revenue. So three trucks at $400,000 a year in Revenue is 1.2 million dollar business. By 18 months, they're gonna have three trucks on the road. Like if they're opening all three territories, which most of our franchisees buy. Three territories. Well, now they're on a run rate for a $1.2 million business by year three. And we've seen a lot of our franchise owners far exceed those development schedules. I mean, like I said, we're most of our franchise owners launched last year and we've got like 35 second or third trucks on the road right now. Right. So, like, that's a significant portion. So you do have to be wary of the franchises that are like, hey, the franchise fee is 25 grand and it's only $5,000 for equipment. And so you're, you're in for 30 grand and you can do this on the side and like, you know, wait till your job, you know, wait till it ramps up before you leave your job to be safe. It's like, okay, this is like kind of weird, you know, like, I don't know in any business that you go into, whether it's mosquito, whether it's like food, whether it's, you know, business services, like, it's going to take everything you've got to make it work. And if it doesn't, like, then it's not going to be worth it. Like, it just really isn't. Like, the price of like building something great is challenge. It really is.
- [27:04]
John Gafford
It's funny. One of my favorite quotes is if you have a choice, if there's a fork in the road and you have a choice, the right path is normally the one that produces the most short term pain. Yeah, that's normally going to be the better of the two choices for that short term pain. Right. Look for that stuff.
- [27:23]
Aaron Harper
It's part, it's the price of admission for building. I mean, like, I was, we have three franchise owners at training that are launching. I'm here in Nashville and I went to lunch with them yesterday and I was like, guys, like, your number one job when you launch.
- [27:37]
John Gafford
I got a bill. I got a commercial building in Nashville. Oh, do you, which, which 805 Leah. It's a, it's a high rise apartment building.
- [27:45]
Aaron Harper
Oh, nice.
- [27:46]
John Gafford
We just, yeah, we just built it like four years ago.
- [27:48]
Aaron Harper
We can absolutely clean it for you.
- [27:50]
John Gafford
So just like, look at that business podcast. Look at that. Look at that happening. Look at that.
- [27:57]
Aaron Harper
But yeah, so I mean, it was like your number one job is revenue generation. Like, and I shared my experience with them. I was like, listen, like, we raised capital to build this the right way, but from 8am to 6pm every single night for the first, every single day for the first 16 months. Months, I was doing sales for the business, like finding franchisees and bringing people in. And then from 5am to 8am I was running the business. And from 8pm to 12pm I was running the business. And so, like, and I, we had capital in the bank, we had team members. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, this is going to take everything you've got. But like now I'm the chairman of the board, we have a full C suite in place. Like it's, you know, I went and put the short term pain in so that I can have, you know, an outstanding outcome, you know, and I think.
- [28:42]
John Gafford
She'S really done a good job at putting this at the forefront of American thought, which is buying an existing business, which is Cody Sanchez has done a great job with this. And a big part of her pitch and what she talks about is getting seller financing from boomers that are retiring is what she talks about, which is smart. So if you're somebody that's, I mean like you're in the business of saying, hey, you gotta come up with $250,000 worth worth of, you know, racks that I can see that we can do this straight away versus Cody's like, find somebody that's been the pressure washing business in Kentuck. Lucky that you can walk in and sell or finance that thing.
- [29:16]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, I mean you, if you ask Cody how long it takes someone to typically find that kind of personal business, like, and Cody and I have, we recorded some content together last year. Like, she's awesome, she's great. I think everything she does is incredible. And if you ask her of the people in her business buying course, how long it typically takes to find this business business, it's like 18 to 24 months. And some people find it sooner than that. But ultimately you're spending most of your time vetting these businesses. And private equity is now playing more downstream. They'll go buy a million EBITDA business, whereas a year ago it was, it had to be 2 million or you know, 2 million in EBITDA or more. Yeah, so, so they're playing more downstream. So this kind of demand for these like existing unicorn businesses is really high. And the supply is, is, is not getting bigger, the demand is getting bigger. And so a lot of the franchisees that have signed up were former searchers, meaning they were searching for an existing business for 12 months. They had burned a lot of their cash on due diligence. They had gotten outbid and they were like, like wait a minute, what's the opportunity cost of waiting a year and a half when I can buy a really hot brand, get in and execute. And then like potentially in a year and a half or two years, be to a point where I'm like pretty set if I work hard at it. So what's cool about what Cody's doing is it's opening up a lot of opportunities for those same interests, those people that are Interested in business ownership that are interested in a less risky option because it's an existing business to then consider franchise ownership because it really checks a lot of the same boxes, right? Like, oh, we want proven systems check. We want quick quickness to cash flow and ramp check. You know what I mean? Like, those are the very similar things. And I think that's evidenced by her investing in a franchisor. She invested in my buddy's business who owns Resi Brands, which is that one painter and Pink's Window Cleaning. And like. And so she knows that this is a great path for wealth. And, and, and you know, people are still getting SBA loans with us. They put 54 down on, on the SBA loan. They get a half a million dollar SBA loan. We just don't want someone leveraging all of their assets. Sure, sure. To buy a business.
- [31:57]
John Gafford
So do you allow seller fight, like say you have a franchisee that wants to get out. Do you allow seller financing or is.
- [32:03]
Aaron Harper
It got to be that's between the franchise owner and whoever's buying their territory.
- [32:08]
John Gafford
There's nothing in, in your paperwork that prohibits that?
- [32:12]
Aaron Harper
No, and I, that's fine with me. We've done deal, we've done deals with like that, with some. With a couple resales. I mean it makes a ton of sense because that franchise owner gets the majority of their cash back. The new franchise owner that's buying that territory doesn't have to outlay that cash right out the gate so they can invest it in marketing and additional trucks to scale. So I think that works great.
- [32:33]
John Gafford
Yeah. Well, let's shift gears, man. Let's talk about your business, the business of franchising. Because we have been down that, we went down that road briefly and we thought we might want to sell franchises of our business briefly. We went down that road and just the, the siege that is the attorneys and the filings and all that stuff is insane.
- [32:53]
Aaron Harper
A lot.
- [32:54]
John Gafford
Let's go back. When you bought your business, did you always intend to franchise? It was. Did you walk into it with that intention?
- [33:01]
Aaron Harper
That's exactly what was my intention. So there's this whole push. What you're talking about with Cody is entrepreneurship through acquisition. Eta. For your audience that doesn't know that's what it's called is eta. What I, what I did was franchise through acquisition. So I didn't actually buy a power washing business that now I'm gonna go run that power washing business. My intention was always to buy the systems, processes, trademarks, rights.
- [33:32]
John Gafford
You bought the franchise rights?
- [33:34]
Aaron Harper
Yep.
- [33:35]
John Gafford
Everything you didn't buy the business, you bought the franchise rights.
- [33:38]
Aaron Harper
I create a separate business which is the franchise business. I raise capital for that business. The founders of the original business get to keep their location. They become of everything else they become. Nope, they get, they, they essentially are a royalty free affiliate franchise location that licenses. Yep, that's the way I did it with the deal. I mean there's a ton of different ways.
- [34:02]
John Gafford
That's a great deal.
- [34:03]
Aaron Harper
It's a great deal for them. And then they get upside in the franchisor. So they're minority partners in the franchisor. And so they have this great business which they would have had to sell or finance if they wanted to sell it to someone because of the way their like business works and stuff like that. But they didn't want to do that. They want to keep running their great business that's done over $2 million a year for the last handful of years, which is a great business. They love it. And so I'm like, cool, keep your great business. In fact, it's so great, why don't I take that and put it in every single major market across the country. And you don't know anything about franchising. I don't know much about power washing. So why don't you do the power washing part and I'll do the franchise part. And so we partnered, created this new company, the franchise company, and we went from zero franchise units to 320 franchise units in two and a half years.
- [35:00]
John Gafford
What, what's your bandwidth like to do that again? I mean, that's my question. I mean, look, because that, yeah, that's the play, man. I mean, like I talked earlier about the restaurant chain I worked for, which is now pretty much defunct, but it was Hooters of America and same story. Right? So you had these six dudes that like to get drunk and sit on bar stools and look at women in Clearwater, Florida, created a damn gold mine. Had no idea. In walks Bob Brooks who owned Naturally Fresh, the salad dressing company that was providing them their salad dressing and says, sell me the rights to sell the franchises. And they just handed it over to him. Yeah, he turned that into a damn empire.
- [35:37]
Aaron Harper
I mean it's the same thing that Ray Kroc did with McDonald's. Yeah, with the McDonald's brothers. I mean it's, it's not a new concept, but it is still pretty neat niche because you really have to understand franchising. I, I think in order to do it the right way, you have to really understand Franchising and franchising is a completely different business than power washing. And where a lot of franchises. Yeah, it's completely different than everything. And so where a lot of franchises get in trouble is they're like, hey, I have this great, like, salad concept and six people told me I should franchise it, so I'm gonna go franchise it. And. And then they franchise it and they're like, oh, wait, now I'm a coach, I'm a therapist, I'm a marketer. I'm like, all those things in under an hour on a Tuesday morning. And they're like, I just liked running my salad business. And. But this has been an incredible partnership with the Wendling family, who are my business partners. There's debt. Dad and son are senior and junior are the second and third largest shareholders in the company. And then I raise capital from people who have franchised businesses before to thousands of locations that could provide guidance in addition to it. So to answer your question on bandwidth, I could very simply do this again. It's probably faster than I did this time. However, I'm heavily focused on making sure that the franchisees that sign and become Rolling Suds franchisees have the resources they need.
- [37:01]
John Gafford
I mean, of course, but Even even though SPACs have kind of lost their. Their sizzle a little bit, I mean, the word roll up is still pretty sexy. And it seems like you could roll up a lot of little. A lot of home services businesses under this little umbrella and it would be a little, you know, a bunch of them are worth a lot more than a few of them.
- [37:20]
Aaron Harper
Yep. And I have thought about it and I have thought about it, and I've got friends that do it where I'm really focused right now. Have you read Sahil's Bloom, Bloom's book, the Five Types of Wealth that he released recently?
- [37:33]
John Gafford
Nope. But I'm going to write it down right now. What was it? Five types of wealth.
- [37:37]
Aaron Harper
The Five types of wealth. The thesis of the book is like the financial. There's. There's four other types of wealth other than financial. It's like time, wealth, social, fitness, and.
- [37:49]
John Gafford
Okay, yeah, I've heard the concept. Yep.
- [37:50]
Aaron Harper
Yeah. So, you know, basically, like, most of people's decisions are designed, at least in the United States, are designed around, like, accomplishing financial wealth. Well, we've done really well with Rolling Suds. We're very fortunate. And. And my goal was always to get it to 300 units and then hire a professional CEO that can take it into, like, a more mature brand stage. Well, I've done That now he's. He's a month into to running the company.
- [38:19]
John Gafford
That's awesome.
- [38:19]
Aaron Harper
I stepped into a chairman of the board role. I spend about 10 hours a week roughly on the business, and the rest.
- [38:27]
John Gafford
Can ask you this because I have this. I have this experience every time. Every time I do what you just said. When I hire somebody better than me to take over a seat at one of our companies and I watch that first month unfold, I'm like, how did I even get it to where I got it? This person is so much better than me. Are you experiencing that right now?
- [38:46]
Aaron Harper
Yes. Yes. I mean, like, you. You're. You're. You're a founder. I'm a founder. Like, to be a founder, you gotta, like, break a lot of stuff and create a really big fire. And then, like, that fire turns into revenue and employees and like, a great business, then at a certain point, someone needs to come in and maintain the fire and make sure it doesn't keep growing and create systems to optimize the fire. And, like, the founder's job is very different than that person's job in terms of how their mind is wired. And we're just at that stage where, like, we need someone who's, like, gonna optimize and professionalize. And this guy's been doing it 22 years with Serve Pro Pure Clean Restoration. 1. Like, his resume is insane.
- [39:33]
John Gafford
I think one of my favorite ways to put it is it's one thing to make. It's one thing to make a baby. It's a whole nother race, children. Two completely different skill sets, and we've.
- [39:42]
Aaron Harper
Got 90 franchise owners who are the beginning of their business. Yes, That's.
- [39:47]
John Gafford
That's a whole nother. That's a whole nother deal. So, okay, so you. You. You acquire the franchise rights, you get this done, you go through the filings, which were. Which were disaster. What your filings cost you, if you remember ballpark, Just so people understand how expensive?
- [40:02]
Aaron Harper
10 to 15 grand a year, roughly.
- [40:04]
John Gafford
No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about your initial franchise filings. What did that package. What do the attorney cost you, charge you for that?
- [40:10]
Aaron Harper
Oh, so. So if you don't know what you're doing. Yeah, so if you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. So if you don't know what you're doing. Right. Like, you don't. Like, you'll go. So, like, It'll be between 50 to $150,000.
- [40:24]
John Gafford
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:24]
Aaron Harper
I. Because I worked at a franchise company prior to this. I just did it. Like, I had a lawyer. I paid the lawyer 25 grand and I. But I came to him with a templated FDD that I had used for other brands.
- [40:41]
John Gafford
Wow.
- [40:41]
Aaron Harper
I re. Like, I had done this before. We had incubated brands at a larger company. I had reformed brands prior to this.
- [40:50]
John Gafford
Kind of the whole reason to buy a franchise, you were just repurposing what was already done that worked.
- [40:55]
Aaron Harper
I. So I just basically took what I. So we didn't pay. In fact, the founders of Rolling Suds, like the original OG location, they paid a company 100 grand to like, franchise their business. And I basically had to start from scratch because the stuff that they gave me wasn't usable.
- [41:17]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [41:18]
Aaron Harper
And so, like, what they didn't tell our my founders is that they would need another million dollars and 150% of their time to actually grow the business and, and franchise it. And so they just were like, wait, this is like, like way more. I bit. We bit off way more than we even knew we needed to chew. So what if I just kept running my great power washing business and the. I partnered with the franchisor who did the franchise part.
- [41:46]
John Gafford
Yeah. What's your marketing plan look like to get franchise franchisors? What's the marketing plan?
- [41:51]
Aaron Harper
Franchisees. Franchisees, yeah. Yeah. No, no problem. So we work with franchise brokers predominantly, which are kind of like real estate agents for France for franchises. So you'll go to a franchise broker and say, hey, I'm looking, or a concept where I can make this amount of money and, you know, I have this much to invest and they do kind of an assessment on you, personality assessment, whatever, and determine, hey, these are some brands that I think would work for you, for you to dig into. So the majority of our franchisees come from really solid relationships that I've got. I have within the franchise community. I've become kind of a. I hate to say it, but like an influencer in that franchise world.
- [42:34]
John Gafford
Titro and horn man. I don't. I don't hate it at all.
- [42:36]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, I mean, the reality is if you have influence, that's a good thing. But that word has been negatively impacted by those who have abused it in other industries. And therefore people think it's not a good thing. But I actually think to do something great and have influence is actually a really positive thing. But yeah, so I've kind of become like a known entity in that space. And so franchise brokers trust me and therefore they trust that we're building great systems for franchise owners. So they Present our brand to a lot of prospective franchise owners.
- [43:14]
John Gafford
Additionally, do you have an affiliate program that runs through your existing franchisees?
- [43:19]
Aaron Harper
Yes. And then we pay them. We'll pay franchise owners if they refer someone to us as well. And then I put out a lot of content online and do stuff, stuff like this that I really enjoy to talk about the brand so that we are able to find franchise owners organically. And so like Cody, like I was saying, Cody Sanchez and I recorded a, a video where we break down the whole business so what the business looks like from a franchisees perspective. From franchisor perspective. It was an episode of Main street millionaire on her YouTube channel. So like a lot of we've had a handful of franchise owners who watch that and they're like, like I know you Aaron. Like we're good, like let's move forward. You know what I mean? So like I put out multiple pieces of content per day on all the channels that actually last year was around 40. A little over 40% of our franchise sales revenue came from content.
- [44:15]
John Gafford
Yeah, it's always a win when that first conversation they already feel like they know like and trust you. It's always. It makes things so much easier when that happens. Whenever somebody sits in my office and they're like I feel like I know you. I'm like oh this is going to be easy. Whatever we're doing. I'm like yeah, I know where this is headed. This is going to be good.
- [44:32]
Aaron Harper
Yeah.
- [44:33]
John Gafford
So, so what's the long term play man? What's the.
- [44:37]
Aaron Harper
What's the rolling Suds will be a billion dollar company. There's absolutely no reason it can't be. I've done the math. It's about 2,400 trucks. I think we can get there in about 15 to 18 years depending on how well our franchisees do. 2400 chucks ends up being $960 million in system wide sales. 1, 800 got drunk. Junk got to like 760 million in system wide sales in about 20 years. They didn't have any systems in place for the first five from, from what I understand and did not have experience in franchising either. Just kind of had a great junk business. But they really professionalized the junk industry and there was no one prior to that that did that. And we are doing the same thing to the power washing industry. Prior to us there was no one that was professionalizing it. There's no PE roll ups of power washing companies. There's only a handful of like two plus million dollar power washing companies. Nationwide there's like no national, national brand other other than us. We're in 35 states now. And so what, what's happened is, is like we're really kind of like commercial market because the majority of your power washers are going to have like a small machine and they're going to be able to do driveways. We have big trucks. We did the top of the Superdome before the super, the Super Bowl. Like literally that's the kind of jobs that we, we do. And so we're servicing this kind of like underserved part of the like exterior cleaning industry. And our franchisees are seeing like really quick wins as a result of that unmet demand. And so really it's just making sure we continue to reinvest in the business and reinvest in helping our franchisees be successful so that we can achieve that. And then my goal as the chairman of the board is to make sure that the proper resources that my CEO needs are allocated to him and then holding him accountable to really like aggressive initiatives that allow us to take these massive of steps forward every quarter.
- [46:53]
John Gafford
Well, let me ask you this because like my friend also, you probably know him, Tommy Mello, for they Won Garage. You know, Tommy is insane about the customer experience when dealing with garages. And I've had his people at my place and it's insane how on top of it they are with their, their SOPs for how they deal with customers are just so far beyond. Is that some. Because again this is like it's press washing business, right? Same, yeah. So what are you doing to ensure that elite customer experience? What SOPs have you baked into your people that make sure that happens?
- [47:27]
Aaron Harper
So every franchisee uses the same technology. So that's one piece of the business that otherwise they'd have to figure out on their own. Meaning the field management tool, the CRM that follows up with the outstanding leads that you have, the field management tool that manages the customers that you've already booked. They get text messages when, when their technicians are on their way with a picture of the technician. Like they get reminders afterward like days before they get thank you emails. They get like the customer, we obsess over the customer because the customer ultimately is going to be the best salesperson for that franchisee to get more customers in their market. Like, and so what we've done is basically like before, before we even launched this business, I sat with like a blank piece of paper or blank document on my, on my computer at like it was one of those, like it's Friday at like, 8 o', clock. And I'm like, Sarah, like, I tell my wife, like, I can't watch another episode of Bridgerton. Like, I have to go sit in front of my computer for, like, an indefinite.
- [48:37]
John Gafford
I can't watch a single episode of Bridgerton. That's where I draw the line, my friend.
- [48:41]
Aaron Harper
Not one.
- [48:42]
John Gafford
Never seen an episode.
- [48:44]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, well, so. So I'm like, I gotta go. And I sit there from like, 8:00am and just wrote out the customer journey. So, like, what I want the. The. The call center to say, because we've got a call center that answers calls for our franchise owners. What are the objections that you might get? What are. How do you overcome them all the way down to, like. Like, what texts and messages are the. Are the customers getting on the way? When are the reminders coming in? How do we personalize those reminders? And then also did a separate document that was the customer, like, the franchisee kind of journey. So the franchisee knows what steps are happening at the same time. And then basically, I took that document to a handful of CRM companies in the franchise industry, and there were only three that could build it for me.
- [49:37]
John Gafford
Salesforce was probably one of them.
- [49:39]
Aaron Harper
So, yeah, so there was Service Titan and then there were two others. And Service Titan is insanely expensive. And for our business, it's not as complex as, like, H vac or plumbing or, like, restoration. So we didn't go with Service Titan limits or anything.
- [49:56]
John Gafford
Yeah, I think I get it.
- [49:57]
Aaron Harper
Yeah. So we went with one of the more, like, niche options. But anyways, like, I did that before we even launched this business.
- [50:06]
John Gafford
Well, that's an. So. So you're using outside tech, but at what point do you say we've got to get some proprietary stuff within the company?
- [50:15]
Aaron Harper
That's always an option. From my experience talking to other franchisors, and I run a mastermind with other service franchisors we meet once a month, is that it becomes incredibly expensive to maintain and upkeep. There's always bugs with custom stuff, at least initially. So then there's a staff internally.
- [50:38]
John Gafford
Yeah, but you run a mastermind. Why don't you just turn into an SAS play and then sell it to them?
- [50:44]
Aaron Harper
Hey, there's a lot of directions I.
- [50:46]
John Gafford
Can go, Josh, I'm trying to find every nickel I can squeeze out of you. I know.
- [50:51]
Aaron Harper
And I think the same way. I'm just like, I'm so exhausted from the last two and a half years that I'm like, I don't want any other businesses right now.
- [51:00]
John Gafford
I gotta, I got a big enough.
- [51:01]
Aaron Harper
One now to figure out.
- [51:02]
John Gafford
Yeah, I tell people all the time, that's my. They say, like, what's your toxic trait? Is I can talk to anybody and they can talk about their business that I know nothing about. And within five minutes I'm like, I could do that and I'll go down some black hole and have to bring myself back. Like, no, no, no, no. Stay in your lane. Do what you do.
- [51:19]
Aaron Harper
You're doing well because you're an entrepreneur, man. That's just the way we're wired. That's the way we think. Like, I have conversations with people and I immediately start thinking about ways they could, they can make money starting a business. And they're like, do you want to invest? Do you want to do it with me? And I'm like, no, no, you know.
- [51:36]
John Gafford
You know, you know what I finally started doing, dude? Okay, so I have a friend named Josh and my buddy Josh, like, every time I see him, no matter what product is in his vicinity, right? If it's sunglasses or if it's this or if it's that, whatever it is, he's like, oh, yeah, I got a piece of that company. I got a piece. Yeah, I got a small piece of it. Because he's like, finally. And I'm that guy that I'll go to dinner with somebody and I'm not smart enough, I guess, to see that maybe they invited me because they want my expertise in a particular area that I am very well versed in. And then they'll be like, hypothetically, how would you do this? And I'll spend the next 40 minutes like, oh, you know what you could do? And then you do this. And then, oh, but you know what, you should attach it to this. But if you brought this, it would make it better. And then over a 45 minute meal that cost them $30 to buy me a bad steak, I've now given them the $20 million playbook.
- [52:28]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [52:29]
John Gafford
After talking to Josh, I'm finally. Now when people start that, I'm like, oh, you want to, you know, you want to market this prop. You want to market this product into the real estate industry to either loan officers or realtors, or have them help you sell their. To their, to their customers. Yeah, I can consult for equity on that of the upside. Yeah, that's what I do. Consult for equity. And I'm done being the free advice guy, man. I'm done with that. Now it's all going to be Consult for equity from now. My wife was like, stop doing this. You got to make this look harder than it is.
- [52:56]
Aaron Harper
Yeah, totally. And I think that makes a ton of sense.
- [52:59]
John Gafford
It does. Let me ask you one more question, which is this. So obviously your business is AI proof. AI is not going to show up and power wash the roof of the Superdome. How are you using AI in your business to improve it?
- [53:12]
Aaron Harper
So a handful of ways. We do a lot of. So we do a lot of lead generation for our franchise owners, particularly around commercial outreach to customers for commercial work via email, via direct message. And a lot of that is AI generated and it's personalized to whoever is receiving that email. And across the country we spend send out thousands of emails per day across, you know, hundreds of different domains. And property managers, property managers, facility maintenance managers, general contractors, HOAs, people who own restaurants. And we have national accounts for our franchisees as well. So we do it on the national level and on the local level. So we've generated work with like Starbucks and Panda Express and Popeyes. So we're kind of like taking the same approach that we do locally and we're doing it nationally as well.
- [54:09]
John Gafford
Well, okay.
- [54:10]
Aaron Harper
And so that, that kind of allows us to really speed up a lot of lead generation for franchise owners through these different kind of efforts. Additionally, we've taken our operations manual, which is all of the 35 years of knowledge that our original location has, and we've uploaded it into its own large language model so that instead of them having to go to the founders and say, hey, how do I do this one thing? Or hey, how do I I clean breezeways? Or hey, how does this happen? Or what chemical do I use for this? They just plug it in, they just literally ask the AI and it answers. And then if it's a question that is not being answered, they send it to their business coach. We answer the question, we upload it back into the AI. So it's like this constant, constantly, like strengthening knowledge base for our franchise owners. And then the rolling GPT.
- [55:06]
John Gafford
I like it.
- [55:07]
Aaron Harper
Exactly. And then there's some other stuff that we, we do on the kind of operations level for onboarding that's AI generated, which takes a lot of heavy lifting off of my team. Like the follow up of have you connected with this supplier? Have you signed up with your insurance? Have you done this piece? Like all the kind of nitty gritty stuff that has to happen before launch. But it used to be like my team sending out individual emails to every single franchise owner.
- [55:38]
John Gafford
Not anymore. Yeah.
- [55:40]
Aaron Harper
And now we don't do that.
- [55:41]
John Gafford
So when you're. So you're doing marketing nationally for those guys, I'm guessing there's a call center on the back end. Do you see in the near future being able to automate that call center or. You always want to maintain that personal touch.
- [55:51]
Aaron Harper
So we, we outsource it to the best call center that's in Utah in the home service space. So we don't do it internally. We have a vendor that we've held accountable to make sure that they have.
- [56:08]
John Gafford
Yeah, one last thing to worry about. And if they don't perform, you can replace them. I get it.
- [56:12]
Aaron Harper
Correct. Whereas if you do it internally and you invest in a call center and it doesn't work now, you're out all this cash. And franchisees aren't happy. Smart.
- [56:20]
John Gafford
So you try to keep it lean, keep it simple, and hand off as many problems as you can. I like it. I think that's a smart way to do business.
- [56:28]
Aaron Harper
It's about leverage. Right. Like, what is the highest leverage thing that my team should be doing on a daily basis? And we have 24 team members and a full executive team in place. But like, what should they be doing? They should be supporting franchise owners to help them understand how to make their business economically sound. And they need to be working hand in hand with franchise owners to do this. That not creating call centers, not creating chemical plants, not creating all these other things helping franchise owners be. Be successful. Now, as we grow and we have 250 franchisees operating, does that, does that change because we have more cash and we get like potentially. But right now it's like we're working to help our franchise owners get off the ground.
- [57:12]
John Gafford
I love it, man. Well, if they want to find more yet, what do they find? Jaron.
- [57:15]
Aaron Harper
So rollingsloodsfranchise.com they can request information if you people want to become a franchisee. Additionally, I just put out a ton of content online that is about franchising. And so you can follow me on Twitter, it's Aaron Harper, CEO Aaron T. Harper on Instagram. Admittedly, a lot of the content I'm putting out right now is me training for an ironman. And then whatever business stuff comes up in my mind as I don't hate it. Yeah. So it's kind of a different vibe, but anyways. And then there's a bunch of resources online like you can type in my name and there's a ton of articles, those stuff that have been written just about franchising in general.
- [57:54]
John Gafford
Cool. I love it. Well, thanks, brother. If you're ever in Vegas, man, you're more than welcome to come by and see us.
- [57:59]
Aaron Harper
Thanks, John. I appreciate you.
- [58:01]
John Gafford
So, dude, if you, if you're somebody that's aspiring to open your own business, I mean, that was kind of eye opening. I mean, there's, there's a lot of pitfalls. And trust me, as somebody that has opened businesses that have highly succeeded and open some that have highly failed, I think the one thing I'm taking away from this is this, number one, if you don't have expertise, and when I say expertise, I mean you absolutely know what to do. Don't go at your own, don't go at your own way and try to open your own business because the amount of mistakes that you will make and the time that it will take to get the education will probably eat up all your capital and you go out of business. This is probably a much safer route for you. Find a franchise that resonates with something that you want to do. Understand that you got to work. You're going to have to put effort in. But I like the, that three years. I like that idea of what Aaron said when he said, you know what, try to choose a franchise. You're going to be making that amount of money at whatever you put in within three years. So anyway, we'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always, always go over to escapingthedrift. Com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, Throw up that five star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.