The "Undercover Boss" Playbook for $100M by Jeff Dudan, Homefront Brands CEO

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The 'Undercover Boss' Playbook for $100M" featuring Jeff Duden, Homefront Brands CEO

Podcast Information:

• Title: To The Point - Home Services Podcast
• Host/Author: RYNO Strategic Solutions
• Episode Title: The "Undercover Boss" Playbook for $100M by Jeff Duden, Homefront Brands CEO
• Release Date: June 10, 2025

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1. Introduction to Jeff Duden

The episode kicks off with a warm welcome from the hosts, Chris and Chad, introducing Jeff Duden as a seasoned entrepreneur and CEO of Homefront Brands. Jeff's multifaceted experience spans marketing, operations, franchise development, and leadership, making him a valuable guest for listeners seeking growth strategies in the home services industry.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [00:00]: "Our product is the people and our front lines is the franchisees and their front lines are their customers."

2. Jeff Duden’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Chris provides an extensive background on Jeff, highlighting his roots as a standout athlete at Appalachian State University, his early ventures in the restoration industry post-Hurricane Andrew, and the exponential growth of Advantaclean from a single location to 240 franchise units nationwide. Jeff's transition from hands-on franchise owner to a strategic CEO underscores his ability to scale businesses effectively.

Notable Quote:

• Chris [07:25]: "Today's guest is an absolute force in the world of franchising, leadership, and legacy."

3. Strategic Decision-Making in Entrepreneurship

Jeff delves into his criteria for selecting business ventures, emphasizing the importance of scalability and the potential to achieve significant financial milestones. He discusses his disciplined approach to entrepreneurship, prioritizing ventures that can reach or exceed the $100 million mark to avoid spreading resources thin across numerous smaller businesses.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [16:59]: "Once you have success in a business and maybe you have an exit, then it's like, all right, I'm not going to do any businesses that don't have the potential of this."

4. Franchising Philosophy and Operational Excellence

A substantial portion of the discussion centers on Jeff’s franchising philosophy. He advocates for centralizing operations to maintain consistency and efficiency across all franchise units. Jeff highlights the necessity of leveraging technology and data analytics to monitor franchise performance, ensure profitability, and enhance franchisee satisfaction.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [23:36]: "We centralize everything that we possibly can. We're a big blue ocean strategy company."

5. Leadership and Servant Leadership Model

Jeff emphasizes the importance of servant leadership in his role as CEO. He believes in building strong, trust-based relationships with franchisees, providing them with the tools, support, and tough love necessary to succeed. This leadership style ensures that franchisees feel valued and supported, fostering a collaborative and productive franchise network.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [36:12]: "The buck stops with you. That's it. And you know, a lot of them have... It’s our job to remove the latency from our business."

6. Overcoming Challenges in Franchising

Jeff candidly shares the challenges of managing a large franchise system, including dealing with personal crises of franchisees, maintaining system-wide consistency, and ensuring that all franchise owners adhere to the established playbooks. He underscores the importance of proactive engagement and continuous coaching to navigate these challenges effectively.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [36:24]: "We've had divorces... when you're a franchisor, like, you've got to step in and you got to help these people."

7. Philosophy on Personal Responsibility and Leadership Growth

A recurring theme in the conversation is Jeff's belief in the internal locus of control. He stresses that successful entrepreneurs take personal responsibility for their actions and outcomes, fostering a culture of accountability and resilience within their teams. Jeff contrasts this with the external locus of control, where individuals attribute success or failure to external factors.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [49:33]: "90% of the world has an external locus of control... 10% of people have an internal locus of control and they just say things that just happen and, and I just have to react to it and do the best I can and get on with it."

8. Building and Maintaining Relationship Equity

Jeff discusses the concept of relationship equity within a franchise system, highlighting the importance of trust and open communication between franchisors and franchisees. He believes that fostering strong relationships leads to better business outcomes and encourages franchisees to contribute innovative ideas that can benefit the entire network.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [53:29]: "Relationship equity is a real thing in a franchise system. Meaning you know how much trust you have when something goes wrong or somebody makes a mistake."

9. Embracing Continuous Improvement and Innovation

Jeff underscores the necessity of continuous improvement and product innovation based on frontline feedback. By iterating on products and services three times within a year, Homefront Brands ensures that they remain responsive to market needs and franchisee input, thereby maintaining a competitive edge.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [53:00]: "We've had two iterations on our walls. We've had three iterations on our walls... that's all coming back from the field."

10. Conclusion and Final Insights

The episode concludes with Jeff reflecting on his journey and the importance of focusing on core strengths. He reiterates his commitment to making franchise owners successful and emphasizes that while franchising is challenging, it remains one of the most effective models for wealth creation and business scalability.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Duden [60:06]: "We are an adult learning, we're a lead generation business. We're an adult learning business. We're a crisis management business. And our product is the people."

Key Takeaways:

• Scalability Focus: Prioritize ventures with significant growth potential to ensure effective resource allocation and long-term success.
• Centralization: Streamline operations through centralization to maintain consistency, reduce costs, and enhance franchisee support.
• Servant Leadership: Build trust-based relationships with franchisees by providing unwavering support and fostering a collaborative environment.
• Personal Responsibility: Cultivate an internal locus of control among leaders and franchisees to promote accountability and resilience.
• Continuous Improvement: Leverage frontline feedback for ongoing product and service enhancements to stay responsive to market demands.

Recommended Resources:

• Book Mentioned: Discernment by Jeff Duden – A guide to making better decisions through clarity and principle-based thinking. Available on Amazon and Jeff’s website jeffden.com.

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Final Note: Jeff Duden's insights offer invaluable lessons for entrepreneurs and franchise leaders aiming to scale their businesses effectively while maintaining strong, supportive relationships within their franchise networks.

Transcript

[Jeff Duden]

When I've gotten into too many things at once and I had a genius attack and I just kind of said, no more. I'm not doing any more shitty little businesses because at the end of the day, like, I don't want to be broke and tired too. You're going to have the same conversation a thousand times and it's just with different owners. You got to have a heart for people. Because we've had a husband and wife and their two kids coming back from Cooperstown baseball and fly their plane into the ground. Killed them all. When you're a franchisor, like, you've got to step in and you gotta help these people. Our product is the people and our front lines is the franchisees and their front lines are their customers. So we all have to work on the front line and make sure that, like, we're doing the very best we can to put them over the target and, you know, give them love, love, give them tough love, give them tools. We're a lead generation business. We're an adult learning business. We're a crisis management business. And I mean, it's our product is the people.

[Chris]

You have a responsibility for all, all of these entrepreneurs. Jeff Duden is more than a business success story. He's a blue collar built, boardroom tested leader who's here to pour into our to the Point listeners today. So welcome to the show, Jeff Duden. We're grateful to have you, my friend. This is to the Point a Rhino.

[Jeff Duden]

Experience voted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts.

[Chris]

Cutting through the and getting to the point. Hey, what's up? To the Point listeners, it's your boy, Chris. And on the other side is my man, Chatty P. And the place to be, Chad. What's up, buddy?

[Chad]

Nothing much. We are rolling into Memorial Day weekend and for us Hoosiers, it's about racing time.

[Chris]

It is about racing time. You know what time it's not, though? Right now is air conditioning time because your weather has been shitty for air conditioning business, but great for the normal human being.

[Chad]

It was 52 degrees out this morning and I think it got up to like 65 today. It's not hot, which is unfortunate, but we're still fighting through. Actually, I've been really proud of our team. Even without the weather, they've been knocking it dead, taking advantage of everything they can. So proud of them. But yes, we're hoping for it to get to 80, 90 degrees for sure.

[Chris]

Well, I'm just looking at my app right now here in Phoenix and looks like, we're sitting at about 100 degrees right now so far, so it's a little bit different here.

[Chad]

Yeah, 100 degrees where our guest and I live means you are sweating sitting inside.

[Chris]

Absolutely. Well, listen, we have a great episode today. Finally got it locked down, and I got to be on his podcast. Passed, I guess, probably about maybe a couple months ago or so, I even got to visit this facility out in North Carolina. So I got to. It was still. It was gorgeous out there when I got there, but it was just starting to get a little bit warm, but no humidity. It was pretty nice. But I'm excited to have Jeff Duden on the podcast today, and we've gotten to know each other pretty well, I guess, over these last, you know, few months, and I got to have him out at Rhino X, which is cool. He got to come experience that, which was great. And I think. I think you did it, Jeff.

[Jeff Duden]

You did a podcast.

[Chris]

Podcast with Tommy, like, right after, right?

[Jeff Duden]

I did. I did. Rhino X was incredible. I got to sit. I. Next. Right next to Chad.

[Chad]

Yeah, we're buddies.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah. Didn't even. Didn't even realize. But, like, what I realized is everybody at the Rhino X conference was an absolute baller, and so it was a really. I was lucky to. Lucky to get in the room and had a great time, and you know how to throw a great party.

[Chris]

Thank you. Thank you. That's right. I thought I'd put you guys right next to each other, so that. Great. Well, I'll tell you what. You know, I was trying to figure out, am I or am I not going to read some dad jokes, but it just feels right, okay? Like, I'm feeling good. Memorial Day weekend's coming up. You know, by the time this podcast rolls out, it's already passed, but right now, it's coming up, and so I'm feeling good. So I'm going to share a couple dad jokes, because Chad said, please, please, if you can remember to do it, do it this time. So, Chad, your wish is my command, buddy.

[Chad]

That's right. They were starting to, like, grow on me a touch. A touch.

[Chris]

Okay, well, listen, we're all dads here, okay? So we can enjoy this, right? How can you tell? And by the way, Jeff, if you know this, please chime in. I mean, there's a.

[Jeff Duden]

There's. There's a good chance.

[Chris]

Don't be embarrassed.

[Jeff Duden]

Oh, no, there's a good chance. But let's. Let's see what you got.

[Chris]

Okay. How can you tell it's a dogwood tree? This Is a layup. Come on, guys. How can you tell it's a dogwood tree?

[Jeff Duden]

Something to do with the bark.

[Chris]

There you go. Okay. That was the layup. Is it? But they got it, right, so that was. Should have been a winner. Well, yeah.

[Chad]

What is it with a dad joke? Are you supposed to get it or not get it? And does that determine good or bad?

[Chris]

I don't think it matters, Chad, actually. And I think that Ryan is subjective in his. In his answer. I don't know. He just kind of picks what he wants, so. Whatever. We can agree to disagree on that one. Jeff Ryan's our podcast producer. He is off camera right now, but he is the one controlling the positive or negative response of the dad joke, which I think is total. So clearly he didn't like that one. Moving on. There we go. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, next one. What did the left eye say to the right eye? This is pretty good. What did the left eye say to the right eye?

[Jeff Duden]

Why are you cross with me?

[Chris]

Okay, good guess, good guess. You had. Got anything?

[Chad]

I don't.

[Chris]

Between us, nobody knows. Something smells. Hey. Yeah, that was pretty good. Last one, last one. This one's pretty good.

[Jeff Duden]

I actually like my answer better, but go ahead.

[Chris]

Okay, but it was good. It actually would have totally worked. Nobody knows. What's it called when a dinosaur passes gas? A blast from the past. That's pretty good, right? Okay, enough. I've wasted enough time already. But listen, now you got some bad jokes, listeners. Okay? And those are some good ones, especially the last one. Okay, I'm gonna try a little bit different of an intro than I've ever done in the past five years of running this podcast. Nearly 300 episodes. I've never done this. I'm doing it today. And this was inspired by our guest, Mr. Jeff Duden, who actually did this for me when I was on his podcast. And I was like, that was the most impressive introduction I've ever had as a guest on a podcast or speaking event or anything. So I wanted to return the favor. I hope I do as good a job as you did, Jeff, but I'm going to give it a go. Are you ready?

[Jeff Duden]

I'm all set.

[Chris]

Okay. So for our listeners, rather than do a whole background, I'm actually going to give you his background, and in about a minute and a half, maybe two minutes, depending on how much I animate through this whole process. So are you ready? Here we go. Today's guest is an absolute force in the world of franchising, leadership, and legacy. Love that word from the gritty suburbs of Chi Town and the Friday night lights of Schaumburg High. Go Saxons.

[Jeff Duden]

All right.

[Chris]

Jeff started his journey as a standout athlete chasing a football dream. And that dream took him across the country and eventually landed him at Appalachian State University, where he didn't just play, he excelled. Hey, Michigan, I bet you know where Boone, North Carolina is now. Inside joke. He knows that one. He graduated with honors in marketing while running a demanding painting business on the side. Got a little side hustle. Has a lot of experience with grit, long days, discipline, all those things. Jeff lived it. But Jeff's real game. Jeff's real game began after graduation. Boots on the ground in South Florida, helping communities rebuild after devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. It was there, deep in the trenches of insurance restoration, that the spark for entrepreneurship caught fire. And that fire became Advantaclean, a restoration, water damage mold remediation business. He and his partners grew from one location to 240 franchise units nationwide before selling the company, the successful company on January 1st in 2019. Hell of a new year, Jeff. Hope I got that number or that date right.

[Jeff Duden]

It was.

[Chris]

Thank God. But he didn't stop there. No, no, no, Chad, he did not stop there. Jeff went on to build multiple franchise platforms from home and property services. Property services is a term I learned from Jeff while in North Carolina, by the way. Add that in home and property services, health and wellness, empowering franchisees, creating tech systems and helping others build generational wealth. Love that. I love generational wealth, by the way. He's a CEO and home front of Homefront Brands and Dude Partners executive, a Forbes contributor and host of the on the Homefront podcast with Jeff Duden, a national speaker and philanthropist who's built libraries for kids. Love that. This library for kids, things that we want to talk about for kids. Is a national strategic partner with St. Jude's Children's Hospital, a board member of the Advantage Clean foundation, stewards of the game that serves kids in the App State. Yosef Club Dude's got a heart for serving kids. If you can't tell a little bit in communities and people just in general. So I really respect that. He was Featured on Season 8 of Undercover Boss. Rocking a sweet 5 inch long soul patch. Maybe longer. I don't know if it was longer than that. And went undercover in Advanticlean, which I did not know until I went out and visited Jeff at his place in North Carolina. He's the author of Discernment. It's a powerful guide to making better decisions. Through clarity and principle based thinking. And you can find it on Amazon, which is great, except for Jeff gave me one. So thank you for that book, Jeff. I read it. He's. And by the way, that's how you know it was an easy book to read, because I read it. No big.

[Jeff Duden]

No big words going in that book, sir.

[Chris]

It was great. He's a proud app State alum, a loving husband, a father, a coach, leader by all accounts, and one hell of a human being. Jeff Duden is more than a business success story. He's a blue collar built, boardroom tested leader who's here to pour into our to the Point listeners today. So welcome to the show, Jeff Duden. We're grateful to have you, my friend.

[Jeff Duden]

That is overly kind, sir. Thank you. Thank you for the intro. Pleasure to be on. Good to see you. Chad and Chris. We are. I've been waiting for this. We had this scheduled and then we had it rescheduled. And I've been. I've just been sitting in the dark waiting to come on ever since. I haven't been able to do. I hadn't been able to think, function, eat. Now I can get on with my life.

[Chad]

Yeah. I wasn't sure after that intro if I was supposed to clap, but I didn't know if you could give like a round of applause on a podcast.

[Jeff Duden]

I don't know that's been embellished or not. It's a little bit embellished, but it sounds good.

[Chris]

It was great. And I actually probably rewrote it about 10 times. It's like, what am I doing? And I ended up going back to just like the original version. I kept overthinking and I was like, wait, wait, I listened to yours. I'm like, oh, man, this is. His was better still. His is better still.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah. Sounds to me like a guy who likes to play with kids because he's immature and he lacks focus. So he doesn't can't stick with any one thing.

[Chad]

Well, I think that may be all our story. Yeah, well, focus. Yeah.

[Jeff Duden]

I mean, entrepreneur, man. I had one on. Gosh, it's the classic story, isn't it? I mean, like, we just don't fit. We don't fit into school, we don't fit into traditional things, and we have a different risk tolerance and it's all upside and it's just out. The more that I interview entrepreneurs, people that have built companies and things like that, the more I realize I can spot it now. I can spot it in my kids. I know which ones are Likely to be more entrepreneurial. And it's just, you know, thank goodness, right? I mean, thank goodness for the challenges that I had growing up. I mean, I went to three colleges for five and a half years to get a perfectly good four year degree. I took, you know, Olympic weightlifting and CPR and first aid. You know, 1, 2, 3 and 4. You know, my, my high school guidance Counselor said Algebra 2, not for you. I remember that. But you know, look, you know, it's, it's really just about taking action on things and, and, and I think everybody needs an adventure in life. And just like I just, these young people, man, just don't, just don't worry about it. You got to fail fast and fail forward and I don't know, I guess you, I guess listening to that intro kind of brings me back a little bit and makes me very thankful for, for the journey that I've had. I've enjoyed every bit of it.

[Chad]

Jeff, I got a question for you. Just as it relates to entrepreneurship, because obviously all three of us are passionate about it. How do you kind of balance that? You know, I think all three of us are kind of freewheeling, like, hey, yeah, I got an idea here. I think we can build this and oh, look what I've learned. I could build this business here and so on and so forth. My wife reminds me constantly, like, you do realize there's only ten fingers and you can't have more things going on than what I can count on both hands. How do you balance like that with. We all know too that we need those integrators, those people that can take our ideas and flesh them out. How do you, how do you balance kind of or like, what's your philosophy? And working with those people who, you know, kind of hold you in check and you know, I think we've all probably ran into people in our lives, obviously Chris is married to his that, you know, are able to execute and able to keep us on the rails. How do you kind of navigate that relationship?

[Jeff Duden]

So I.

[Chris]

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[Jeff Duden]

I heard maybe two questions. So how do you decide what you do? Because you can do so many things. You can take your entrepreneurial skills and your energy and you can put it to anything. And I think over the course of my life, when I've gotten into too many things at once and I had a genius attack and I thought I could start this after you lose money in a couple of deals, you start saying, all right, I've got to put some decision filters around this. So there's a couple. Number one is once you decide, like once you have success in a business and maybe you have an exit, then it's like, all right, I'm not going to do any businesses that don't have the potential of this. And I said, I said it to somebody else who called me and used to work for me and he's like, I'm going to do this, I want to do this. And I just kind of said, no, I'm not doing any more shitty little businesses. You know what I mean? Because I saw the business, I think it's a great opportunity, I think you can make money. But it was not. But I just didn't see how it would scale. So right off the bat, you know you're going to cut off 90% of the things that you could get Distracted with. By saying, I'm only going to build 20, 50, 100 million. If it's. If it can't get to $100 million, then I'm not going to do it. Like, at the end of the day, I mean, so like that. And then, you know, kind of a Dan Martell thing, I guess, although I've never heard him say it is. You have to. And I coach our franchise owners to. This is. All right, if I wanted to make $100 an hour, then I can almost do anything. I can, you know, if I want to make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, if I want to make $500 an hour. Now, that's different. Okay, Now I've got. If I'm gonna. There's all. Now my subset of things that I can do is much smaller. What about $5,000 an hour? Or what if I said I need to make $25,000 an hour? @ the higher up you go, the more limited your options become. And how do you calculate that? Well, I calculate that through exit, right? So I say, all right, how much money can I make? How much value can I create? And what do I know that this is going to be worth? And how much money do I make along the way? And then. And I've built. I've been involved in maybe 15 different businesses since 2019. And some of them, you know, there's a handful of them met the requirement. My dollars per hour, you know, when we sold those businesses and whatever, but the majority of them didn't meet those requirements. They ended up being a little bit more of a drag. So I really learned to get disciplined about, you know, what's my return on time in terms of dollars and value creation? And then what's my minimum? Like, if. If I've spent 35 years developing these skills, these resources, these networks, what's the minimum that I'm willing to get involved with? Because at the end of the day, like, I don't want to be broke and tired, too, you know, if I'm like, if I'm going to put into a business, because what happens. And this is. I'm sure you guys have gotten caught up in this, right? Somebody, you get some three or four really smart people, and they say, we're going to do this business. And you're like, okay, I'm in for 15% or 20% of it. And the next thing you know, you've got all chiefs. You don't have any managers, you don't have any Indians, and everybody's got these great ideas. But now all of a sudden something goes off the rails and you're looking around, it's like somebody needs to step in and run this thing. Somebody needs to step in and do some work. And then you get sucked in doing more work to make sure that it doesn't go to zero. And now it's like, why did I even get involved? I got involved in this as kind of a passive advisor and I ended up being somebody that had to step in and operate or save or fix or do something like that. So, so that's kind of the way I look at like how I decide what investments I get into or what I do. And like right now Homefront Brands is, I mean I've, I went so like a private equity firm. I sold my business in 2019. I made a lot of investments, some of which were active, many of which were passive. But then now we're here in 2025. I said, okay, well I've held these things for four to five years. It's time to exit them just like a private equity firm would. And I haven't refilled my plate with a bunch of little. I'm just focusing on making the franchise owners of Homefront brands successful. Like at the end of the day it's nice to be operating again and it's nice to not. It's e. It operating for me is my default operating system. And working with franchise owners and helping them struck through struggles and you know, getting the lead gen right and getting all these things right, you know, so, so right now I, I'm, I'm very focused on just a small handful of things, 90% of its home front brands. And then, you know, down the road maybe I'll, you know, then I'll have to go out and, and look and put chips around the table again. And then as far as man integrators and things like that, I need them. I mean any business that's scaling at any rate needs daily goal setting and review daily KPIs. It just needs daily. I mean a weekly meeting is a week meeting. And our job as business owners is to remove the latency from our business. So from the moment that there's an action that you recognize needs to be taken or decision gets made to the moment of implementation is latency. And our job is to get all the latency out of our business so that like things are just moving in moment to moment to moment to moment. And you know, in that compound interest of positive activities moving the business forward. And that's not the way I Operate. I need those people. Like, I mean, you know, I mean, I'm great and I'm great in a scrum. I'm great in a fight. I'm great in the strategy room and, you know, and I'm great in sales and all of that. But, like, you know, we. We use. We use a lot of. I'm sure you guys do, you know, we. We profile, use personality tools and capability tools and all that to make sure that we got right people in right seats and that we. That we have the people that are going to be very, very focused on the details. So the integrators in the traction model, we run scaling up, which is kind of a version of traction, and. But it's very similar. So, you know, 90 day rocks, and I focus on the rocks, and I focus on the. On the. On the annual imperatives, and I focus on the rocks, and then if I'm assigned something, I make sure I get it done, and then there's somebody else making sure that everything else is. Is getting done. So. But we've been very fortunate to attract leadership and. And directors and VP levels that have served us very well at Homefront Brands.

[Chris]

Yeah, you got some solid talent. Got to meet a few of Michael, and your son works with you, which is pretty cool.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, that's great.

[Chris]

That's pretty awesome. Oh, by the way, like, side note, Chad, you'll appreciate this. And now I think about Chad, you could do this. So because Jeff was also a coach that he made the feel. There's like a. There's like a grass area. I don't know if you bought it, Jeff, or when you bought the lot, you got that, you know, a strip of land with it. But he had the kids that were playing, you know, their sports be able to play in that field next to where his office was. So it was easy to go back and forth between the. Like you could walk like, it's literally, you walk outside and it's as. Right. It's like right there. Yeah, that was pretty cool story.

[Jeff Duden]

Like any. Any growing area with kids, you lack field space. And one of the. So I had this. This moment, this inflection point. I had. I had bought my last partner out of the business. We responded to Hurricane Katrina. We did like $100 million down there over four years. And I went down to set up storm response, and then I was driving back in the middle of the night. I had three small kids at the time. And I hit this inflection point, which I realize inflection points have three things. Number One, people that you're responsible for. People like people, right? You're responsible for people, people you care about, people you want to do something with or sometimes people you want to get away from. The second thing is, is there's an, there's a, an adventure or an opportunity. And then the third thing is there's risk of loss because you generally have to give something up to get something.

[Chris]

So.

[Jeff Duden]

And I was driving from Gulfport, Mississippi to Charlotte, North Carolina and I was in Atlanta and it was like two in the morning and I'm like, I'm never home. We're in Hawaii, we're in California, we're in the Caribbean. We're doing these disasters and I've got three small kids and I'm not home for dinner. So I made that decision in the middle of the night that I was going to sell all of our company stores under a franchise model and commit to that franchise model so I could be present with my family. And that's what we did in 2006, 7 and 8, we sold our offices in Orlando, Greenville, Spartanburg, Columbia, South Carolina and Charlotte. And 2009 we launched to the marketplace with our franchise offering. We end up with 240 over nine years. And in that time I was able to coach 30 seasons of my kids sports. So my daughter was a soccer player. I've coached a lot of youth baseball, a lot of youth football, a lot of youth basketball. And we have a big 22,000 square foot warehouse here, five acres. We practiced every one of those sports in. We had batting cages out back, man, and we, you know, pitchers and catchers in here on the weekend, throwing in the warehouse and football practice. I just had to get them to give insurance to the field, you know, just I had to get the field registered with the league and so the insurance would cover it and man it was great and it was a. And we were kind of out of the traffic pattern so the parents loved it and it was just a great situation. I wouldn't go back and do it. And teaching franchise owners to build a winning team of 5 to 10 people is not dissimilar from teaching a group of 12 year old football players over a four month season how to win. The. It's the similarities and you know, everything you needed to learn, you learned by fifth grade. Communicate clearly, have values, don't, don't have clicks, you know, understand what, what you won't tolerate like all of these basic lessons that you need to instill to have a winning team where people want to play fast, loose and Happy and, and play for each other. It's just, it's just basics, man. And, and it, and it applies to. If you can do it with a bunch of knuckleheaded 10, 11 and 12 year olds, then you can generally do it with, you know, some adults as well. So yeah, it was, it was great. I've got very few regrets in life.

[Chris]

Yeah, that was pretty cool. And just for our listeners too, I want to make sure I share because I don't think I've ever shared this with who's a part of the Home front or. Yeah, the part of the home front brand. So we have temporary wall systems which by the way, I never connected the dots on until you gave the explanation of your walk because I'm in the airport all the time and I always see those walls, you know, around the, those are temporary wall systems. So if you're listening, that's what, that's what that is. They're in Phoenix Airport right now. Quite a bit of them actually.

[Jeff Duden]

Yep.

[Chris]

You also have top rail fence, which we've just started I think doing some stuff with at Rhino Window Hero, the designery which is some kitchen and bathroom modeling. I think it's yarn yard patrol pros and then roof scientists.

[Jeff Duden]

That's right.

[Chris]

So there's the six. So actually it's interesting because, and as I'm, as I'm listening watching you go through the process with the, with the new franchisees that were coming in there, I started, I was thinking a lot and I took a, I took so many notes on just things that like things I weren't, I wasn't thinking of. You have to, you, you have a responsibility for all, all of these entrepreneurs. Yeah. It really all comes up to one. All these entrepreneurs and some are want tripreneurs. Right. Like they think, they think they want to do this thing, but they, you know, they, they maybe they, they got into it and they're getting a little over their head or they're not, you know, really using the playbook that you've created for them and now somebody's got to coach it. But there's all of these, like you talk about chiefs. There's a bunch of chiefs that you're trying to like corral and manage and get them to scale and grow and, and take into consideration the other franchisees and like how they, how one could impact the other. It's a lot of. And I just sit there and wonder like Jeff, what the hell are you doing, man? Like, you just keep adding brands.

[Jeff Duden]

Look man, there's 4,000 actively growing brands in the United States. There's 829,000 franchise establishments. One out of every eight people work in this country that work, work by or for some sort of franchise system. It's a massive thing. Yet 90% of franchisors go out of business within 12 years. And there's one that comes into business every day, about 600 new franchisors a year and there's about 600, you know, 560 of them that go out of business. And it is a very. So what I've learned is that there's a perfect balance and it has to be. And what I mean by a perfect balance is there's a perfect balance between the fees and where the fees lay out and who does what, what the activities are inside of a franchise system. So we need to, we centralize everything that we possibly can. We're a big blue ocean strategy company. So you know, in advantaclean we had 16 FTEs in our call center that answered calls for all the franchise owners, took over 250,000 inbound customer calls a year, booked every mold, estimate every, dispatched every water damage. And we replaced three to 400 operators that they would have had to hire, train, manage all of that. Right. So that's a clear win from centralization. And do you want 200 franchise owners being great at Facebook, ad manager or whatever it is. So it's like the things that you can centralize, you centralize and you want franchisees that are going to be in the market, selling, fulfilling, being the face of their business in the community, building a great team, collecting their dollars and doing all those types of things. So there's this perfect balance between the, the, the fees, the activities and then there's only three metrics. There's only two metrics at the top of the house, happy and profitable. Okay, so happy is franchisee satisfaction like net promoter score style. And then profitable is, you know, we care about system wide revenue because we get paid on top line. And then what are the unit economics like what's the four wall economics happening in the systems? Because they're, they'll be, everybody's happy when they start but if they're not profitable, they're not going to be happy for long. So making sure that you have a path to profitability and that and that it's, you know, and it's, it's hard like you know how it is starting a business. You guys have done it like, I mean Chris, we talked about your story at length and how long and hard that was for you. And these guys are no different. Even though they have guardrails, even though they have a system, even though they've got coaches, even though there's a lot of things they don't have to do or do as well or do alone, it's still hard for people coming from corporate America just to say, well, now I'm a fence contractor. Right. It's, there's still a learning curve involved in that. So, you know, for all of that, it's, you know, it is a very nuanced thing. And what happens a lot of times is, and it takes a lot more money to be a franchisor because we get paid pennies on the dollar and we don't break even until we have 50, 60 franchise owners operating out there. So like, we have to have enough staying power to be able to make the investments ahead of time to create an environment where the franchise owners can be successful and all of that. So like, so people get into it and then, but they don't realize how much money it's going to cost, how long out the break even is for a franchisor. And then honestly, you gotta have a heart for people because you're going to have the same conversation a thousand times and it's just with different owners. And you can, just because you tell somebody something one time doesn't mean that they've learned it and they can do it, you know, so it's, it's, it's really, I mean, I've hired corporate people before to that run direct businesses or even bank of America of level five executives, man. And they're in for a year or two and they're like, this is, I understand it, I'm out. I can't, I can't, I can't show up like this for these people every day. I mean, it's just, it's the same again, you know, and, but like, I love that part of it. I mean, I love it when an owner, you know, gets their business to a point where, you know, you call them and you know, I'm calling, I call, I call like 5 to 7, just randomly a week. You know, you got the top line, you got the bottom line, you got the front line, right? So like, you got to talk to the front line. You want to know exactly what's going on. You want to, you want. As a CEO, we get filtered stuff. So I want to hear the unfiltered stuff and I reach out randomly to get it. And you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it is a, it is a, it is a labor of love. But when these guys say, and you know what, I got into this, I'm doing this amount of revenue, I made this much last month. I come home at 6 o' clock, I take off my top rail shirt, I put on my kids baseball shirt and I go to coach them. And this is what I wanted because I was on the road 35 weeks a year last time. And now this is the life that I wanted. And I see that I can even grow this business and do more than the minimum that it's going to take for us to survive. And then you have people that struggle sometimes, right, to follow the plan and, and all of that. And that's on us to make sure that we wrap our arms around those people and I mean, take the punches, take the bullets and, and just, and just get to a place. That's why one of our values is service or servant leadership is because, like, we have to be in the pocket with these people. Like, we have to be close enough to them that they'll tell us the truth about what's going on. Because they'll say, what's, you know, hey, your numbers are down. What's going on? The leads are weak, or, you know, the leads aren't, or my salesperson's not working, or everybody's slow. All this crap, you hear? And then like, you know, that's, I don't, I don't see that. They'll be like, hey, I'm going through a divorce. You know, we've had a husband and wife and their two kids coming back from Cooperstown baseball and fly their plane into the ground. Killed them all. We had last week, we had a franchisee that had been in and out of rehab. His parents were trying to run the business. He tried to commit suicide. That business has to be sold. We've had divorces. I mean, it's, it's like we're dealing with, you know, if you're an employer and that happens, I mean, you have to deal with it to a certain amount. But when you're a franchisor, like, you've got to step in and you got to help these people and you got to recover their money and get what you can to their family. And I mean, so like, that's what it is. I mean, people, it sounds glamorous, man. If you want to be Jimmy John's Make 8 Billion doll, right? But like, it is a, that is, that is a long road to hoe people to get there. But Anyway, it's a, it's a, you know, it's. I, I think it's one of the greatest wealth creation business models. Doesn't matter what the widget is, it's a leverage play. Everybody shares the expense of acquiring customers, building technology, building brand. Franchise owners participate in the equity when they sell their business. Like, it's a great business model. Not the easiest dollar you can make.

[Chad]

Jeff, how do you look at. Because I think that the parallel for me here is bringing a guy out of the field to be a manager. You're bringing people from outside the industry that maybe were in banking or whatever, they want to own a business. That sounds great to me. The parallel is you're bringing people that don't yet have the skill set to be maybe a manager, a leader that, you know, they ran a business. Especially in our businesses that are so people focused. How do you, like, what do you guys do to prepare people? Because I think that would be really important for the listeners because I know everybody's struggling with, I gotta find a service manager, I gotta find this, I can't find any good people. What if, like, what do you guys do? Obviously you've scaled this model. You've been able to find these people, train them, coach them, set them up for success. Like, I know you said you do some personality tests to find out if they're the right fit, but like, what are the other things that you guys do from maybe a, maybe a corporate level that like set them up for success and allow them to be successful.

[Jeff Duden]

Are you talking about our internal staff? Are you talking about the franchise owners?

[Chad]

The franchise owners? Because they're coming from maybe all walks of life and thinking that, yeah, this sounds great, I think I'll start selling fences. Like, what does that process look like for you guys as far as setting them up for success?

[Jeff Duden]

Look, it's an interesting mindset and the difference between promoting someone to be a manager of a territory or maybe a new location versus a franchise owner. And you guys know this, like, who's writing the check? Like the end of the day, man. Like, I have respect for people that write checks. Like, I've been in business. Like, I've, I've, you know, I've, I've had businesses and we wanted to bring in a, an executive. And it's like this guy's been around, he's run big brands and stuff and he wanted to be part of the organization. And I said, okay, well, you can come in and, but like, if, you know, and he wants equity, I said, okay, we'll give you equity. But like you have to write a check. It's not a big check, but you got to write it. And they'll be like, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, well, what do you mean you're not going to write the check to get you asked for the equity, you know, write a small check or something like that. So, you know, when, when people step across the line and they say, I'm going to write a check, like that's a different level of commitment. They're inter, they've, they've crossed over the line. I mean, I used to do this thing. You probably, you guys remember a company called H Vac Agents. It's a recruiting website. It was a recruiting website and we cut a deal with them to try to. Because to try to place ad. We placed ads on. And they had like 14,000 people that were looking for jobs in the H Vac industry. And at the end of the day, those people were all looking. You can't get somebody that's looking for a job to decide that they want to run a check and own a business. Like that's something people have to come to themselves. So once they're in that place, like there's a good bit of fear. And you and that fear, it needs to be a healthy amount of fear. But I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's giving them the proper training, it's putting them in peer groups so that they can model the type of behavior that is going to be to be successful. It's putting up big guardrails around them. And generally how somebody behaves after 90 days is how they're going to continue to behave. So if you don't get all the way around these franchise owners in the first 90 days and provide them consistent coaching and feedback, then like now you're in change management. So, you know, we have a saying here that says start well and so it goes well. And you really have to focus heavy in the beginning to make sure that. Because in the. When there's a lack of clarity, then people hesitate. And when there's a lack of clarity, three things happen. Number one, people do nothing or they hesitate or they make something up. So if things aren't clear about what to do, they're going to create workarounds and systems and, and they're going to create beliefs. So now you got to go in and they're going to say, well, the business isn't performing and it's going like, well, yeah, you're not doing these things, but now, now you're. You're untraining them. So you have an opportunity in the very beginning to provide the blueprint for success and then to create the muscle memory around the right behaviors. And I think at the end of the day, I mean, I could go into all the details of the different area of the business is how we do that, but that's basically it is make sure that. That you're training. I mean, think about it. Like, it's crazy. Like, athletes train twice a day. They lift weights, they work on their form, they work on their footwork. They break everything down to the minute details of it, right? And then a business owner that thinks they want to be a business owner get into it, and they don't even watch the videos. It's like, you know, it's. It's like, man, like, are you. Like, how. How much are you training to be an entrepreneur? How much are you training to be an athlete? Athlete? Like, how. How right do you want to get this? So we have to make determinations about, you know, about that. And then, you know, and then we've. We've got to kind of do our best to immerse them in. In the things that are going to help them to be successful. Look, it's not perfect. You know, they're. Because at the end of the day, and this is, this is another. The other big difference. They don't work for us. They don't work for us, man. And, you know, we're not there when the alarm clock goes off, walking in the room saying, time to get up and go do your business development activities. You know, I mean, so, you know, to the extent that we can, we monitor, we. We can monitor activities, behaviors, results, and things like that, but at the end of the day, some people get into it and they're just like, I see it clearly. I want to go back to my job. You know, that happens because, you guys know, like, it takes a long time to sleep well at night when the sea is rough and the waters are choppy. Like, it takes a long time as an entrepreneur to not, you know, I mean, I had a. I had a rough day today. I had. I had a bunch of rough phone calls. I got a lot going on. You know what? I took, like, five deep breaths when I came in here to this podcast. And I'm good. I'm ready to go. It's just, you know, it's on. You know, how quickly can you move to the next thing? And, you know, and really, so we're an adult learning, We're a, we're, we're a lead generation business. We're an adult learning business. We're a crisis management business. And I mean it's. Our product is the people and our front lines is the franchisees and their front lines are their customers. So we all have to, we all have to work on the front line and make sure that like we're doing the very best we can to put them over the target and you know, give them, give them love, love, give them tough love, give them tools and at the end of the day, you know, it kind of works like this. 20% of them just right off the, right off the get go, man. They're amazing. Like no matter what you give them, they make it go. They just do it, you know, they just get on with it. And then, you know, there's 70% of the people that are, you know, need more work, but they're trying to get up into that top percent and then there's about percent of them that just, you know, for whatever reason they're going to struggle. You can save about 5% of them and then 3 to 5% of them just aren't going to make it. I mean, that's just the way it is. So I think one of the things, if there's a great. I don't know if you've seen these books by Chris Collins, but they're called I Am Leader. It's about a $250 book set. My highest recommendation, anybody that's got $250 if they don't know what to do with is to buy this book set from Chris Collins called I Am leader. They're like 12 pounds of books, man. They're like, they're like massive. And it's one is I Am and the other's leader. And it's the most interesting books I've ever seen. I love this guy, he's so smart. But what landed on me and I had to. Why did I have to be 56 years old to learn this? 90%, like 90% of the world has an external locus of control, meaning no matter what happens to them, they're looking for who to blame. It's the market, it's the weather, you know. Why are you slow, Chad? Well, because the weather's bad. Come on, you can do better. So, but like, or it's those people or it's the leads or it's my wife or it's whatever it is, you know, and you're always looking for somebody to blame. 10% of people have an internal locus of control and they just say things that just happen and, and I just have to react to it and do the best I can and get on with it. Like those people crush. But people that are just constantly. And you. And now that you. Now that I. I've learned that I can't unsee it. So I was watching a golf tournament a few weeks ago and there was the guy who won, and then there was the other guy who didn't. And the other guy who didn't is a top player in the world. But he was just like, yeah, well, you know, my back and, you know, I'm not really healthy right now. And then that, you know, and that one, I think I missed that. But, you know, the wind probably kicked up and like, I mean, this is a top player in the world. But he was still talking about external things that he had no control over. Where the other guy was just like, man, my team, my wife, my family, they did great. They did great. They did great. And you could just tell he just had a real genuine. I'm in the middle of it and I'm responsible for it. And everybody did their part and I'm not going to blame anything else. So a lot of times when you come from corporate America, when things don't go well, what do you do? Well, I either report it to hr, I kick it upstairs. I blame the other department. You know, the, the, you know, the salespeople. You get mad at the marketing people, the operations people, can't stand the salespeople because they overbooked them. It's just like they didn't sell it right. And you know, at the end of the day, there's always somebody to blame. But like, when you're a business owner, that's it. It's you. I mean, like it. The buck stops with you. That's it. And you know, a lot of them have. It takes them a little while to, to get there.

[Chris]

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[Chad]

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[Chris]

Chad, were you going to say anything?

[Jeff Duden]

No, I'm not giving you the chance to say anything.

[Chris]

Because I didn't want to derail you if you did, but. Okay. Because I actually wanted to just take it. Take a step back. I mean, this is like. It was great because I got to sit and listen to Jeff, you know, talking to, like, one of the guys in there was a banker, I think, who. Who. I forget what his name was, but there was like a nice mixture of people who came from different, you know, different industries to run these things. But I want to take a step back because the one thing. Chad, did you ever watch Undercover Boss at all when that was on tv?

[Chad]

Yeah, I used to watch it all. It used to be on. What was it on? ABC for a minute, and then I feel like it.

[Jeff Duden]

Cbs.

[Chad]

Cbs, that's right.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah.

[Chad]

And then it moved. But yeah, I used to watch those all the time.

[Chris]

It was.

[Chad]

I remember in the restoration. I can't remember Belfor. I think he did one. I remember that one. That was interesting because that was like home service. And I feel like weirdly seeing you, Jeff. I'm like. I think I saw his episode. Like, I think I remember this guy from tv Now I'm like, connecting all the dots. But yeah, it was. I love the show.

[Chris]

Yeah. And what was. And Dino Dwyer was on there. So I actually met. From. Dina. Dina being on it. She was. What was Dwyer Group, then became Neighborly. Neighborly, yes. So, but where I was going with is what I always loved about that show was not just your 5 inch soul patch, which was ridiculous, but what I loved about this show was it is cool to go undercover. Like, you know, the thought of going undercover into the different departments to get the real raw information about the business. Because you. Like you mentioned it earlier, Jeff, we get like a filtered version.

[Jeff Duden]

Yes.

[Chris]

If a version at all. You know, however they're willing, you Know like what they're willing to share but puts you in the position to be with them and to learn from them with like no filter, which is great for business. So when I hear you kind of talking about you still try and stay in touch with your, you know, with the different owners of the, of the, or the franchisees, the owners. I'm assuming, like some of this has to come from that because I've, I have, I, I, I've always dreamt of being on that show. Like back in the day I was like, oh, I can't wait to do it when I have a company big enough. Back in the day I didn't have a company big enough to do that because everybody would know it was me. But do you take some of that stuff away? Because really that, that is a, like you, you can't go undercover, but you're still you. Surely you figured a way to go and get that information back to you from these different phases within the business to know, is it an operations issue, is it a sales issue, is a marketing issue, is it a whatever issue? Are you using some of those things now in these businesses or have you found like, okay, cool. Yeah, I totally took that away from that process.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, I mean we've done a really nice job with our data and you know, we have a data lake, we run a big Microsoft environment. So power BNI across the business and you know, and then there's some of these great new tools coming out right now for data visualization, even enhance our ability to look and deploy business and coach franchise owners. But look, franchisee sentiment matters. And you know, we do a survey every month and we get 15 or 20 responses out of 250. And you know, a lot of times it's things that like they like to talk to somebody about or they're not happy with or whatever it is. But you know, at the end of the day, you know, you can either, you know, I would, I would rather rush to conflict and have conversations with owners and them know that I care about what's going on and be proactive about it and as opposed to wait until they haven't heard talk to me in a year and now they're upset and I'm just hearing about it for the first time because it never, you know, the data or the conversations never got back to me. So look, relationship equity is a real thing in a franchise system. Meaning you know how, you know how, how much trust you have when something goes wrong or somebody makes a mistake. And we are constantly working to build relationship Equity with our franchise system. Not only just to kind of keep everything moving in the right direction, but look, all of the great ideas are going to come from the front line. I mean, McDonald's fish filet sandwich was a franchisee in Chicago, the good Catholic area. Nobody ate meat on Fridays. And all of a sudden you got this one store just crushing it on Fridays. And they. And you know, Ray Kroc goes out there and it's like, what are you doing? He's like, I'm serving these fish sandwiches. Well, now you too can have 1500 calories between two sugar buns anytime you want at any McDonald's. Right? So it's. But like, that's. That's the way it is. Is. Is. We've had two iterations on our walls. We've had three iterations on our walls. Seismic testing that we went through, fire rating, also a lighter panel so that we can go up higher and also use it at a lower price point. So we've actually iterated on our product three times over 12 months. But that's all coming back from the field. Like, if we had this, we could do this. If we had this, we could do this. So, you know, it's. It's a collaboration within reason, you know, because you can't let franchisees manage up and drive your strategy. But you have to incorporate the real needs of the business into the strategy within a reasonable amount of time. Because at the end of the day, we get paid on top line. So the more that we can get them to do, the more that, you know, the more that we do, the more their businesses make. That really just undergirds the, The. It.

[Chris]

It.

[Jeff Duden]

It shores up the quality of the franchise system. If the franchisees, the more profit that they make in their stores, you know, it's, it's. So it's like top line. But unit profitability, unit performance. The last thing I'll say about units is, man, when you're, when you're bringing in new owners, many of which are entrepreneurs for the first time, you cannot put them in a jet airplane. Like, the businesses need to be good for people. Like an average person on an average day putting an average effort, needs to be able to make some predictable amount of revenue and profit. You know, I mean, like, at the end of the day, I mean, it's. It's a belk. It is a. I mean, there's two ends, right? And then there's a big fat middle and that you got your rock stars, man. And you try to get everybody up into rock star Status. But like, some people, people rise to their own level. Like, it's interesting. I was in. One of the guys that, you know, I saw him at Rhino. I was in a MA marketing mastermind. He's a $35 million H. VAC guy. And I asked him, I was in with Dean Jackson in. In. In Orlando on a little marketing mastermind. And I said, okay, well, do you do controls? Do you do residential commercial? What do you do? He told me. And I said, all right, you probably have about what, 70 trucks, and you got this many in dispatch and you got this many that. And he goes, yeah, yeah. And because every business has a dollar per. Dollar per person, right? So think about it like, if you can only build a team of three people, it doesn't matter what the business is. It's only going to be so high, especially in the service industry, if you can build a team of 10 people or 15 people or 20 people. So, like, their leadership capacity is a direct. And maybe they're not all employees. You know, we have some subcontractor models. Some of our. Some of. Some of our businesses use subcontractors for installation. But I would also include referral partners inside of that, like how big your network is in referral partners, then how many salespeople you can manage and how many technicians or how many subcontract crews. Like, that basically determines the size of your business. And honestly, there's some people that like. Like they get over five people and they just. They can't handle it, you know, and it's just so the size of their. That's the size of their business. Some people are like, I've done this, Been there, done that. Next thing you know, they got a massive company, Russian, you know, we got a guy in Denver, one of our businesses. I mean, second year in business, I think he'll do $10 million. It's like, okay, this guy's a baller. I got a call with. I put him on my call list for tomorrow. I'm talking to that guy tomorrow. Well, actually, no, I'm not. I'm talking to a different guy tomorrow. But, you know, and I'm not going to say we can't say numbers. Like, so I can't say which business it is or whatever. But, you know, it's. We're regulated, so we. We don't talk about a lot of numbers and things other than what's in our documents. But, you know, it's. It all comes down to, you know, every. And. And I. And I say this, and I don't mean this in a negative way. We. We all. We all rise to our own level of competence or incompetence in every aspect of our life.

[Chris]

That's. That's the. The lid theory, too, right? That we talk about this. You know, you gotta raise your lid.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And you can only coach to your lid.

[Jeff Duden]

Yep.

[Chris]

What's up, Chad?

[Chad]

Yeah, I was gonna say that's Maxwell's law number one.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Jeff Duden]

Lawful lid all.

[Chris]

The lid. I heard Tommy tell me that, like, 500 times.

[Chad]

Was that after. Was that before or after back?

[Jeff Duden]

L.

[Chris]

I know probably a bit of mixture of both those things, because I know.

[Chad]

I always. I always tell people. I know the foremost expert on backlinking.

[Chris]

He's pretty good at.

[Chad]

He's phenomenal at it.

[Chris]

Well, I. I. Man, there's actually. Here's what really sucks. We're gonna have to do it again because I only got through, like, two questions.

[Jeff Duden]

I'm sorry, man.

[Chris]

No, no, no, it was good. That's why I'm saying, like, that was awesome. We just blew through a freaking hour so fast, and it's like. I just. I mean, listen, I love. I love listening to where you're coming from. From, like, from your organization, from your experience, just because it's different, but same. Like, it's. There's. I love to see how you're managing this process, because to me, it seems so chaotic, and the more. The more you add another brand, the more chaos you. It seems to me like you're entering into your. Your life, man. And. And I'm like, jeff, how much further you want to go, dude? You've had some great success. You're still successful. You just want to keep. You want to keep going. Like, what? Pick something a little less stressful, man. Like, I don't know what's going on here.

[Jeff Duden]

Unfortunately, I've tried other things, and this is the only thing I'm good at marginally.

[Chris]

Well, listen, I think that, you know, I'm really grateful that, you know that. That you and I've got to become friends, and I was. And I was thankful that you made it to Rhino X on such short term, you know, And I. For our listeners, I invite Je out as my guest just to kind of come and be a part of it. Once I learned a little bit more about his business, and I guess I didn't know the. The Undercover boss part of it then, but. And then I got to go and see his business and. Which I thought was awesome that he extended that invite. And it's just good to be around People. Right. Like that are sharp and like to talk about business and hear different perspectives on things, on how to manage these things and, but also it's nice to hear similarities. No matter kind of which walk of life that you're in, we're dealing with some of the same things. Right? Yeah. So, I mean, if it's not a franchise, franchisee, owner, it's a leader on one team. Right. It's a, it's a T. It's a manager in another team. It's. It's the same thing. Like, we're having to lead these people and give them the playbooks and hold them accountable to the playbooks and give them all the things they need to run the playbooks. So. But, man, I didn't get half the stuff because there was a part on this in the discernment that I read around personal inequities I wanted to hit on. But we are right. Or the personal. Personal equities that I wanted to hit on around, like learning how to tip the scales with your relationship and reputation. But now you're just going to get the damn book and read it yourself. Okay.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah. Hey, you can go to, you can go to my. If you want a free copy of Discernment, just go to my Instagram, Jeff Duden. There's a. Give me your email address. You get a free copy immediately. Electronic. Or you can get it on Amazon. I think it's, you know, 11 cents on Amazon or whatever it is now. It's not expensive.

[Chad]

Fire sale.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, Lots of, you know, there's, there's literally dozens of copies in print and at least 90 of those are up for resale. So I don't know, it's really sticky.

[Chad]

Selling it on the black market.

[Jeff Duden]

That's right.

[Chad]

Secondary market.

[Jeff Duden]

Well, you know, my kids never forget to remind me that they use it to unwobble our Christmas tree stand every year. That's what they do.

[Chris]

That's very thoughtful. I mean, it is about that size, so it's about to.

[Jeff Duden]

It works perfect.

[Chris]

Well, listen, man, I'm super grateful for you, you guys coming on and staying, you know, a little bit, you know, staying later there than it is here. But, Jeff, I appreciate you giving our listeners, you know, pouring into them a little bit on this and, and just, you know, coming on here and, and listen, I'm grateful just to be a strategic partner with Homefront Brands. Like, it's a blessing to be that. So I get to be friends and partners at the same time. So it's pretty cool for me. And, and I Love being able to do these types of podcasts with, with, you know, with people who have relationships with. So appreciate you taking the time for us, brother.

[Jeff Duden]

Well, it's an honor to get to know you guys. I just, I. I feel like I was missing out on a whole segment of the home service industry. Not knowing you guys and coming out to Rhino was a real eye opener for me. So I really appreciate the invite. I'm honored to be on and looking forward to growing a great relationship.

[Chris]

Awesome. Well, to our listeners, you heard it, man. Go pick up the book. It's free or it's 11 cents. Actually, you might pay more for shipping.

[Jeff Duden]

Yep. And you can check us [e-mail] or my new website out jeffden.com I've closed down all the other ones and got everything on jeffden.com so you can reach out to me there. And if you need anything, always here and available.

[Chris]

Awesome. And to our listeners, if for whatever reason you need us to connect, just reach out to us. We'll make sure we get you connected with Jeff. Chad, I know you gotta run, buddy. I hope everybody has a good Memorial Day weekend. And if you're listening this, it's already Memorial Day weekends passed. So hope you had a good Memorial Day weekend a few weeks ago. But listen, he shared a lot of information. You don't got to do everything, but you got to do something. No. Zero days.