Franchising as a Wealth Engine with Jeff Dudan

0:00Hey there, this is Casey with the M&A Launchpad Podcast. I want to invite you to our next conference, May 2nd, 2026, in Houston, Texas. Now, this is a one-day high-impact event for anyone serious about mergers and acquisitions. And it's our third one. It's going to be huge. You get to hear from top industry experts about sourcing deals, running due diligence, structuring deals and raising capitals. Plus, you're going to meet our vendors, people that we have used, and people that like to help you source fine diligence and get your deal to the finish line. I want to do a special thank you for our podcast listeners. And we're going to offer a limited-time discount code, launch, L-A-U-N-C-H. This is for a discount on your tickets. Now, our past attendees love the conference. We feel like we're going to have a lot of return listeners. If this is your first time, we can't wait to see you there. Mark your calendars, May 2nd, 2026, in Houston. We can't wait to see you. All right, on today's episode, we're going to be a friend, Jeff Duden, and really did a deep dive into what franchises look like.

1:00What's the mindset of a franchise? What's the mindset of a franchise or why do people do franchises? Why do people become a franchise or? And some of the risks, benefits, pros, and cons around those things. And last but not least, we touched on the people aspect. And how a lot of business, as a whole, is done around people. And how do you continue to really nurture those relationships? So, Casey, what were some of your takeaways? First off, Jeff, what a great story is an entrepreneur. And I loved it. And then the power of a franchise, right? Because there is a lot of that network and a lot of taking care of people and relationships and finding the right franchise, how to build a franchise. I mean, it's a business, but I did not realize how much of an impact that franchising has on the lower middle market in regards to employees and cost. And even the idea of how private equities now moving into the actual box and not just the franchise, it's a pretty exciting man. And it actually got me thinking about some of the franchises I've looked at and going, man, we saw that even at the Harvard ETA, right? The guys that bought out, I think it was the kind of big pool of that they were on the stage about the Big Pool, the Burger Kings, right?

2:02And so, yeah, and they took it public. So again, even a franchise, the franchise door doesn't have to be public. You can take a group of them public. You know, how many times does an entrepreneur sit there and think, like, man, a franchise is kind of a cop out? Or it's not, there's no. It's about making money. And it's about having a proven system, right? And that's some of the hardest parts of far listeners that are thinking about going and buying a business. You know, also think about potentially looking at a franchise because you're going to get a full-blown system in process. Going from zero to one is hard, right? And sometimes some people just, you know, it's not their cup of tea, right? So sometimes it's better to be the one to take it from one to two. And again, it was just interesting. We haven't talked to a lot of franchise doors, and so it was great to just see the perspective of how the franchise door looks at, you know, the business and the people they're trying to cultivate. So lots of an interesting nuggets in this one. Welcome to the M&A Launchpad podcast with your host, Casey and Ferris with Equity Launchpad. On this podcast, you will get insights on acquiring investing in and selling profitable businesses in the lower-to-middle market. Whether you're a business owner, investor, or a spa entrepreneur,

3:03at Equity Launchpad, we will provide you with the knowledge, guidance, and capital to navigate the world of mergers and acquisitions. Hey, Jeff, welcome to the show. Oh, you caught me drinking coffee. Welcome. Hey, it's one of my favorite things to do. It's a no problem, man. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. No, likewise. And so for the listener, just want to give a brief overview on you and kind of what you're doing? Yeah, absolutely. My name's Jeff Dude, and I'm currently the CEO of Homefront Brands, which is a franchise platform. We have five fast-growing property service brands. So think roofing, think cabinetry, kitchens of path and closets, think fencing. So we are these services that everybody's going to need all the time. So I like to say you'll never find a Homefront Brands nestled between a blockbuster video store and a curves fitness franchise, because there's no obsolescence and home and property services. I know you guys think a lot about where trends are going to be and where people can safely put money.

4:05And that's what we do at Homefront Brands. So Jeff, in regards to like your home brands, you know, one of the things just, just idea I was having the other day. I think this could be a great franchise. I'll throw it out there for you. All right. You know, one of the things that you got to deal when you sell your house, right, you got all this touch up and all this work you got to do. It'd be amazing if I had a maintenance contract, right, with a handyman that came in every quarter or did whatever and just started doing touch up. I mean, there's just so much touch up in my house and we're talking about, hey, baby, we want to sell in two years. And it just almost becomes overwhelming at the checklist that I've got to accomplish. And I was like, man, that'd be amazing. If I had like some kind of a handyman service that I paid a monthly fee on, and they came in and gave me so many hours to fix certain things. Anyways, just an idea I had, I thought could be really cool. Now, we just take, you know, 7% royalty on that one, Jeff. No, I get by a franchise, probably if you could start it. Well, I tell you, it's interesting you say that there are a couple of franchises out there that have gone really, really fast over the last five years that focus on,

5:06if you're going to sell your house, doing all of the things, right, that it's, you know, if you're doing all the things you need to to get it sale ready. And they just focus on that. There's another one that focuses just on second homes and rental properties and things like that. So there is a couple of niche-y type franchises that are, like you said, they're their handyman services, but they focus on a specific client. Yeah, cool. And I'll look them up because I was in there looking at my task list, and I'm like, my God, what we normally do is we wait to the last minute. You know, it's like, oh, we're going to list in 45 days. And then you're like, oh, there's no way you're knocking all that out. Oh, yeah, I have, I have air filters from 2019 that are still active in my home. Nothing on that, all right. Maybe one day, I'll be a tool to help capture that. But I guess before we hop into just kind of the franchise side of things, I mean, what did you do prior, Jeff, right? How did you get into it? I think really a lot of our listeners, there may be newer in M&A, right? And it's always the question of, hey, you know, how did people transition into the space? So long, long time back, I was a college athlete that started the

6:11painting business in college. So that's where I became an entrepreneur. I cut my teeth in the insurance restoration business in South Florida, Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and 93. And then I started what would become a national restoration franchise in 1994. So I was really a direct restoration remediation business. We responded to disasters. We worked all over the Caribbean, Hawaii, California, doing kind of air duct, mold remediation, water damage, emergency services, and all of the things. So we built a very big direct business, government contracting, big box retail, national accounts. And, and then ultimately in 2009, I took it to the market as a franchise. And we ended up with 240 locations and 37 states. I sold it. So I think I entered, although I had acquired some small businesses along the way, I really kind of entered the M&A space by exiting my own company in 2019 to home franchise concepts out of Irvine, California, the parent company, a budget blind, combined sales post merger was about $780 million. We were

7:15the smaller piece of that, but a significant piece of that nonetheless. And, and then from there, I took an active role as an investor and a board member advisor investor. So I built a fitness concept through franchising that I acquired with two locations, sold it with 70. We then spun up from one location, 300 locations and an infrared sonic concept. And I sold that just a year ago, right now, built a franchise sales organ, built some servicing businesses in the industry. So, for me, most of my business builds have been in and around the franchise space, whether it be on the brand side or a servicing company side. And why is that? What do you, what do you find in franchising that just really makes it, you know, you, you tick? That's a great question. The president of our International Franchise Association, which is our trade association, says franchising the greatest wealth creation business model ever invented. And look, I care a lot about, I care a

8:16lot about our country, I care a lot about children, I care a lot about families. So I'm kind of a purpose driven guy when I, when I sold, when I, when I came off the road, and I sold our company locations under the franchise model in 2006, seven and eight to commit to franchising as a model, it was just so I could be home for dinner. And I coached over 37 seasons of my kids sports. So, I love coaching, I love learning something, teaching it to other people. And if I can, you know, make money along the way and build impact people. So that's really the core of it for me. It's, it's, you know, there's over 829,000 franchise establishments. One out of every eight people employed in this country work for a franchise. Nine million people work in franchise companies at the franchise or out at the franchise. It's massive. 90% of new jobs in this country are created by the lower market, which is families opening up a business in any town, USA, and going out into the community being the face of that business, getting off the W2 chain. Now you, you're a business

9:19builder. You're an entrepreneur. You know, it, it, it provides one of the most important things. It provides access to all of the tax benefits that people have by owning a business, right? It's, you take advantage of the tax code. You have freedom of your own curiosity, meaning you can choose what to study. You can choose what to learn. You can choose how to build. So, so businesses just create freedom. They create economic security. You, you, you create the first person in a family that's ever had a business. And one of the predictors of future entrepreneurial success is exposure to entrepreneurship at a young age. So it could be a child or an aunt or a nephew or a cousin, somebody watching you build this business, which is you're the one in your family that created that first entrepreneurial step. So, franchising does all of that. And for me, that's exciting. And I get to work with people coming out of corporate America or some of our, I have one French as owner that's a $50 million contract. You're building MRI centers for hospitals across the country. And,

10:19you know, at home, we have good businesses that are fit into a portfolio of its sophisticated, well capitalized, serious business builder as well. So, I mean, you can look at it. You can look at all the celebrities that own five guys or Papa John's or all of these things or I just friend of mine, Devon with Bern Bootcamp just said, Kevin Hart invest in his brand and become an ambassador and an operator inside of there. So, you know, franchising makes business accessible for people that haven't had access to business before. And then it also is a, is a good wealth building strategy for serious sophisticated, you know, experienced business owners. And, you know, what that, what that all does for people is it is creates this, you know, it creates, you know, more entrepreneurship in the country. And in doing that, it creates deals. It creates M&A, right? So, we're at home from France, we talk about outcomes. And it used to be 10 or 15 years ago that I, you know, an owner would create it, get into a franchise and they would create a

11:21lifestyle and maybe they built it into a big business. Maybe it was just a lifestyle business for them and their family. But today, private equity has gone through the brands into the boxes, meaning franchising is such a good leverage business model that the private equity is buying groups of franchisees and cobbling together EBITDA in that way. So, now when somebody comes into a home front brand, I, you know, we talk about outcomes and we push them, you know, we have, we have a performance coaching plan that has five levels of revenue. And if you know where the inflection points are in a business, you're more likely to go them through, through them smoothly and make all the right investments at the same time. So, every tool that we have is to get them to build bigger businesses that are going to be transactable and attractive to somebody who will pay them a real, a real multiple for a business that they built from scratch. So then just one question, I mean, where do I sign? But, but, but, but, but really quick, you know, since you've clearly been around the franchise blog, I'm sorry, Keith, I know, you have a question, I don't want

12:22to cut you off, but, you know, what I'm actually more interested in because we haven't really dived into this is, you know, let's say I have an idea for a concept that I think to be a franchise. Yes, what should I do? What's the process? What should people understand? How much does it cost to start? You know, I know there's like the FTD, there's always a kind of legally legal pieces that have to come into place. What do you recommend? Right? You know, back to Casey's point, I want to go create, you know, what, prepare your home.com to be the, you know, the turn vendor that prepares any house, getting soul, everybody wants to use it, right? Listen to her. If you take that one, absolutely. It's, we've already, I've already, while you were away on break, I bought the domain. Fine. Seven percent. Now the case you'll sit back. Exactly. Exactly. Now, look, here's, here's thing, franchising to prove in business model. And franchising gets a bad name when people who know how to franchise take under baked concepts and franchise them and use franchise owners

13:24as guinea pigs. So if you want to avoid that, you need to build out your operating model and you need to prove that it works and you need to operate it long enough to know all of the KPIs, how to acquire customers, you know, what kind of, what kind of where the margins are? How do you need to build the supply chain? And then I tell people too, if they come to me, I said, now that you've done it, you need to, you need to build a second location and you need to put somebody who is not you operating it following your systems and see if they can do it. Franchising is not about jet airplanes, okay? If you want to be a jet airplane pilot, what? 99.9 percent of people are going to crash, okay? Franchising is about specificity and simplicity so that an average person on an average day and show up, put a good day of work in and make a predictable amount of revenue and a predictable amount of profit. Like it needs, businesses need to be good for people, right? Because a lot of times they're not going to have operating experience. A business is hard. You guys are in it,

14:25like you know how hard it is. And I mean, business all businesses hard. So we don't tell people, you know, now we tell people, you have to, if you're going to tell franchise owners to follow the plan, well, you better have one. And it better be very specific, it better be very detailed, and it better be proven. So to answer your question specifically is prove it. And before you ever ask somebody else to invest in it, you need to understand all of the things. So there's a lot of people like me and in the industry where you can reach out and I can give you a roadmap if you have whether it be an idea or if you have one proof of concept, what are the things, what are the litmus tests that you need to pass, what are the steps that you need to take to make it a really solid franchise offering. I love it. I have a very good front of mine who had a lot of great success in I think the amazing eyelash brand. Okay. You know, and he told me very similar things like when they looked at taking over, you know, really they took over a state, whatever that licensing is. And before they did that, they wanted to see multiple locations. They wanted to see the

15:28financials, the numbers, the proof. And then what they'll do is they'll go out and buy a, I guess what you call that regional, you buy almost the region territory or territory. Sorry. Yeah, you buy the territory. That's more of what they play. They look for a guy like you that creates the franchise has a system proves it up. And then they'll buy that that territory or they'll buy a couple of stories. But they want to see all those things. So it's pretty it's it's pretty great because one of the things they like is they don't have to come up with the system of how to make it work, right? They may have to find the people that can execute that in their investment, but they don't want to come up with this is what you do. This is how you do it. This is the the system that we use, the accounting, all of that turnkey that you should be getting from your franchise. It's very nuanced. Not a great software that will run a large 50 or 100 million dollar business. If they don't have a free tier approach to allow franchises to operate independently yet within the framework, then that software is not going to work. So there's very specific tools

16:30in franchising. And there's companies that are huge, you know, billion dollar companies, but they only operate servicing the franchise industry. So you know, it is a learning curve. And for a lot of people, they want somebody else to take all the bullets and, you know, take get all the road rash and and and make all the mistakes. And now look, here's if you just if you if you make this low investment. And then if it's a location based, you've got to do a lease and you got to do an upfit. If it's a service business like us, not so much, right? I mean, it's really low cost to get into a homes or property service business. And then you just come in and you follow the plan. And what we say is no genius attacks for the first 12 months. Okay, follow the plan. The reason people don't follow the plan is because they've come to an area of the business that they're uncomfortable with, which is okay. Like I don't they their sales reluctant. They're conflict diverse. They're not deep. They don't have a high detail orientation. You can hire people to do the things that you're not good at, right? It's diversity of team and building that. So, you know, but here's another

17:37interesting thing. All the great ideas come out of the franchise network. You know, you got the top line, you got the bottom line and you got the front line, right? So, you know, the big story, you know, an old story in franchising is McDonald's, which is headquartered just in the Chicago land area. And I grew up in Chicago, a Shamburg High in 1986 for anybody who's listening out there. And we were, you know, big Catholic community. And there's separation of the church and state. But for some reason, we didn't eat meat on Fridays because good Catholics don't eat meat on Fridays, right? So, so we get cheese pizza, macaroni and cheese and salad on Fridays. If you go to McDonald's on a Friday in Chicago land, their sales were down because they served hamburgers. So except one location. And Ray Crock got in his car and drove out this location and found he was serving a fish sandwich on Friday. And everybody was going there on Friday because that's what the good Catholics eat. You can eat fish, can't eat the beef. And then they took it back and they made it. And now you too can get a double filet of fish sandwich, 1500 calories on two sugary

18:42buns. You can enjoy that because it's funny. So, have you ever watched the food that built America? I highly recommend it. It's one of my favorite shows. There's the men that built America, which is talking about, you know, the Rockefellers, those, but the food that built America's 30-minute episodes and they dive in at different topics. And one of the really interesting ones is exactly your point. The guys that bought KFC from Colonel Sanders, right? You know, KFC wasn't doing great. They looked at who their top performing franchise was. Well, as a gentleman who fast-forward. And, you know, he's the guy that had the bucket, right? They didn't have a lot of standardization. So he created the bucket. He did all these different things and his franchise was very successful. They bought him in that obviously grew KFC and he ended up being the guy that started Wendy's. And so very interesting kind of how again, you have a lot of motivated people to help solve a problem. And so if I was to thread the needle, Jeff, to my question, but it sounds like you're an ideal franchise is basically, hey, you know, back to Casey's example. He creates a parent company, which is the franchise is hypothetical and he creates his, you know, local franchise, right? The

19:43woodlands, the woodlands location and he goes and, you know, kind of test the two together. Okay, there's the parent. There's the franchise builds it out and validates it. Then he goes and gets his friend Bob to go own a different territory and helps validate it. And then once he's kind of figure that out, is that the point in time you think, hey, now it's a viable franchise? And that's the point time to actually formalize all the franchise and kind of the legal pieces and how much does that cost for a listener? Yeah. So generally, that's exactly where I see people enter franchising. They've had a business for five, 10, 15 years. They're really good at it. Maybe they got, maybe you know, there's some scale to it. And they're in one or two markets and somebody calls taps them on the shoulder and says, you know what? I could franchise this. Are you interested in doing it? At that point, look, you know, there's people that do this generally underestimate what it's actually going to cost to build a franchise system. And here's what here's what, so I will

20:46tell you from the blocking and tackling, I mean, you can get franchise documents created for 25 to $50,000 from a lawyer. And that's fine. And are they going to be really strategic? Are they going to be legally able to sell? Yes. Are they going to be really strategic? It's not the attorney's job to make these strategic. So then there's other companies that say, we'll work with the lawyer, but we'll make your operations manual. We'll give you some training and education. And maybe you pay a hundred for something like that, all in a hundred to 150, all in. Now you've got your ops manual, you got some training, you kind of, you get that maybe you got some advisory as to what to use and how to do it. But look, you know, you don't make any money selling a franchise. You know, the entire initial franchise fee is really earmarked towards finding the franchise, awarding the franchise and training the franchisee. That's all of that is invested right back in the in the franchise, either the process of getting them or the process of getting them open. So and then you're only making five to seven points on the back end. You've got some other fees for marketing, which is largely

21:50a reimbursement. You got some other tech fees, which is largely reimbursement, but you know, you're after that royalty. So if you think about it, you're not going to be royalty self sufficient in some brands to you. And maybe if it's a smaller average unit volume to you have 40 or 50 or 60 units open. And so like you've got to have a pretty good piggy bank because you have to have at least a marketing exact person that knows what they're doing, operations person that knows what they're doing, probably a franchise salesperson knows what they're doing. And depending on how lean you run, I mean, that's your kind of minimum team. And you're going to have to get go through the sales cycle, get people open. They're not generating a lot of revenue the first year. So I like to tell people like if you don't have a million and a half or two million dollars, then you really need to think about and you know, and that's only if you know what you're doing. Now, there's people out there that are going to say they did it for less or maybe they nibbled at it, but it took them forever. But I mean, just think about the math of it. You have an overhead. Yeah,

22:51pre revenue. And and then and then French, it's very competitive to get franchise owners to join your system. So. And is that why they sell the territories? Is that part of the idea behind like, hey, I'm kind of, I've got a concept, a couple stores. I'm going to go ahead and sell the territory. So I get the upfront cash to continue to build this out. Is that is that usually what the thought process is around that? It's what the thought process is, but it's a fallacy. Okay. Because that money's gone. Like just to acquire just, you know, just the ad spend either you're going to get franchisees through brokers, and you're going to pay them more than 50% of that upfront fee just to get the candidate. Or you're going to be spending $10 or $12,000 in ad spend to get to get a lead to close if you know what you're doing. So you got, so you have all this acquisition cost. Then you got a franchise salesperson to pay commission to. You've got whatever overhead you're running during that time. And then you got to pay, you got to train these people and hopefully send somebody out to help them open. So most of that fee, that upfront fee for

23:56territory. So what do they get? They get a franchise agreement 10 years, whatever it is. They get a, they get a proprietary or protected or exclusive territory, depending on what it is, a geography that's theirs to operate in. They get all the training, they get the operations manual, they get ongoing support. So they get all of these things. That's what you're buying with the franchise. Speed to lead clarity, absolute certainty about what the program is, what to do, where to go, where to hunt, how to execute it. But generally, you know, everybody in the industry will say, you, you do not, you do not make your money, you do not make money to build your system on the initial fee and people that are uninformed and start their franchise model without, without being property capitalized can get five or six or seven owners. And then they don't have the money to support them. And then it just, it's just, you know, if the franchise or is broke and now you've got seven, eight, nine, ten owners out there and they're screaming for things and you don't have the money

24:58to, you know, push them over the hill or do the things you need to to make sure they're successful. You know, then it's kind of a bad story. So I always answer the question honestly. I think if you don't have access to a million and a half to two million dollars over the first 24 months, then you really need to think whether you should be taking other people's money and putting their money at risk. Because the very simple math, right? I mean, let's say you have a, you know, a team of five at 150,000 a piece, right? You know, your burn rate is 800,000. And to find that first franchise or let's say it takes you four months to get them going and then they need a year to ramp up, right? So you're at 12 plus four, you're a month 16 before you're even getting anything and that's 7% of what that guy's revenue is. So even if that guy's at 25% operating margin, you're getting a fifth of his operating margin. And so you need five of those guys just to make what that guy is making, right? And that's kind of, so then, you know, given all that uncertainty that risk, where's the value in being the franchise or? Well, it's a very stable business model. I mean, it's a, it's, it's a very stable business model.

26:00So when you have, think about it, like, I think, oh, I'm not going to say what fast food chain, but there was a fast food chain that like killed like seven people with botulism in the 70s, you know, and they're doing quite well. I mean, it's a, you have, if you have a hundred franchise groups out there operating across the country, those are a hundred families that invested in that, that put their face on that business. And they're out there fighting for their life every day to stay in business. So it's a very secure revenue stream. It's at the franchise or it's recurring. It is at scale. It's extremely high margin. It's very secure. And as M&A guys, when you see recurring revenue, contractual long term contracts, captured revenue stream, super high margin. What do you, what do you think? High multiple. Yeah. Yep. So it's the long game, right? It's really the answer. I mean, it's not the, it's the longest game. Yeah. And I do think just what to answer. Fair question is, is that in order to go and do a franchise,

27:03it goes back to what you said, Jeff, is go and take your concept, make your business profitable. Open up a couple locations yourself, get the cash flow in a system, get all your, all your pieces in your own business and then go, hey, now I can take this. I got three or four locations. Those locations are generating enough cash to support all of this growth. Then I can go and do it, right? I mean, so that's the whole idea. It's like, go prove your concept. Then think about franchising. Take step one, get one off the ground, get all these tools and plays and then get it there. So if someone's got a great idea, it's probably a couple of years, three to five years, right? Before you should probably start thinking about franchising. Yeah, I mean, I think you can do it quicker if you have domain expertise and you've been, if you've been doing it for 20 years and then you start up and you're wildly successful and you know the numbers and all the things. So now, if you, and that's where people kind of get in trouble,

28:04is unfortunately, many franchisees purchase on relationship or story, okay? And so if you're charismatic and you have a business, but it's not fully sorted, but it seems like a great idea, you might get people to join. And what happens is, it's not the first year, it's not the second year, but the third, fourth or fifth year, people realize, oh, I can't make, this business doesn't make money. And people are not going to be broke and tired too. If they, if they, the minute somebody sees a business for what it's worth and they realize, this is going to take me way too long, way too hard to make too little money, and it's not the easiest dollar I can make, then they're going to leave the system. And once people start leaving the, start, start a writing the system, right? And you can't replace them. Then, you know, that's where the system goes bad. So it's like, it's like you have to make sure that what you're franchising, you know, creates margins that are attainable for kind of normal people to operate, not the top of

29:07the top people. You know, so, so it's, yeah, I mean, it's, it is what it is. I mean, it's like, we're kind of getting right to it here with, you know, where, where things don't go well. But I think that's a good, but, but it also highlights why franchising is such a powerful business model. I mean, think about it. It's leverage. It's leverage in that, you know, we're all sharing the expense to acquire customers, to build a brand, to build an LMS system, to build technology, to, you know, to adopt new things. So we're all working together to do that. It's transitional and transformational that you can, you can very affordably get into businesses and entrepreneur, take your lumps, learn how to do it, build your capabilities, you know, in a safe, safe, tight place and, you know, have some sort of an outcome there. And if you want to sell the business after five, six, or seven years and take your money and now take all everything you've learned to go do something else, then that business, that franchise has served real valuable purpose in your life. And then there's a community of, in our case, hundreds and hundreds of people across the country

30:10that are successfully operating these businesses that you can lean into. And it's like any group, you're not going to get along with everybody, but you will find your tribe of people that are like you and up to something and going somewhere that'll reach back and help you. And, and again, I'll tell you what, the two, two metrics man in like that, if you've done this a long time, you understand engagement and citizenship. Okay. If you are every top franchise owner are the most engaged, they're, they attend the calls, they get their team involved, they bring people to convention, which we call homecoming, they reach out to other franchise owners in a positive way. They look, if they hear somebody struggling, they reach out to help and they're engaged in the system. And they are always the top performance in terms of revenue and in terms of profit. And then being a good citizen, it's, I mean, it's every, all of our, the value of our franchise system for us as the franchise or is just as some of the parts of the franchisees.

31:13So it's like if they make money and, and they're happy and they're growing and they're doing well. And then, you know, then, then our, our system is more valuable. And then the engagement is key because the engagement correlates directly to adoption rate. And this is not just in franchising, it's in anything. If you have a 100 person company and people are actively disengaged and then you try to roll out something new to take care, take advantage of the market opportunity, they're not going to adopt it, right? Because they're not really paying attention. They're doing the minimum, you know, they're not given discretionary effort. So, you know, our, our goal is to make sure that like we, we are properly not over engaged, not wasting people's time, but we're actively engaged, bringing value to these franchise owners and building that trust. So when we say, hey, hey, I just rolled this out. We see this opportunity, but we've got to move as a group that they'll move as a group. Fair enough. And so what's next for you guys? You know, what's next? Well, I mean, I don't know when this podcast is going to drop, but we are,

32:18I mean, we work backwards from a powerful future. I mean, we, you know, and this is not learning to claim or anything. I mean, we, you know, we, we, we can't really talk numbers in the franchise space, but, you know, we're, we're working backwards from a future of a $5 billion dollar platform of brands in 2037. It's just about half the time that it took other franchise, property service platforms to get to $5 billion. So, you know, but again, it all starts with creating a powerful future. And if you're very specific about what you're building, then you will make different decisions along the way. So right now, I know that if we want to have, here's some of our constraints, right? Here's some of our, our, this is our, these are our walls, okay? We want to have a smaller number of high revenue franchise owners. We want, we want serious business owners building big businesses. If we want to do that, then we got to make sure that the brands that we select to bring into the platform have high revenue capabilities. And that they're, that sophisticated high net worth owners are going to think they're worth building, right? They're not going to,

33:21you know, it's like, okay, I can build that into a multi city, you know, empire. And I can do that here. These people are sophisticated, I believe that they'll support me in doing it. The legal mechanisms are there for me to be able to be successful in that way. So then if we're going to work backwards from that, the other thing is we've got to have more transactions with this what we're talking about here. So, you know, sell cannot be a four-letter word in a franchise. Like, this is, this is a vehicle. Your business is a vehicle for you to create some positive change and momentum in your life. And if you come in a home front brands and you've never built a business and you go through it and you build a great designary franchise and you decide that in year five, you're like, I'm a top performer. I want to sell this. There will be a market for that. And then you find you sell it to somebody that wants to build four designary locations and, you know, quadruple it. Or if you're a kind of middle of the road franchise owner and you've had the same revenue two or three years in a row. Look, sell that. Give it to a top performer who wants to,

34:24who has the courage to invest more and lead spend and lead generation and crews and sales people. So for us, it's really about having adult conversations with our franchise owners about like, I mean, you hired us to help you grow a great business. And this is, and everything that we're doing is focused to get you the best outcome, you know, the commercial, you know, the best return on your time, energy and money and opportunity cost by joining us and diving into it. So if we're building back from that outcome, we need the right brands. We need the right owners and we need to create a lot of transactions for owners where they can cash out and feel real good about what they achieved. Got it. And maybe one last question on the top before we go on to the rock around. How many of your owners are typically, you know, you have multiple brands in the same space, right? And is that by design to basically say, hey, you know, Casey, you're doing the roofing, it's going well, how about you hop over and also build in your market, a sister company that's focused on this other kind of orthogonal brand, right? Was that by design or, you know, and how many of people actually are, you know, basically looking at it from that perspective.

35:28Yeah. So our theme is definitely home and property services. You won't find a, you know, ice cream shop in there. We're all about, you know, contractors doing contractory things. And that's, that is definitely the thesis for our platform. And we only have, I mean, a very, very small number of operators, because again, you have to prove to us that you can be successful in the opportunity that you're in to win the next opportunity. So, you know, you, you have to be in the top 5%, or 10% of a network for us, even to have a conversation about becoming a multi brand owner. You need to show us that you're properly capitalized to do it and that one won't cannibalize the other, because it's easy for an operator to get big eyes and say, you know, give me, give me all the sides, you know, and we have that conversation. We're like, hey, all you have to do is be in the top 5 or 10% and be, and you have to be a good citizen. You got to be in the top 5 or 10% and you got to demonstrate that you can, you know,

36:29you have the sophistication as a leader to build more than one company time, because these companies aren't the same. You know, they're, they all have different little niches that you can't, you know, they're all different businesses at the end of the day. The customer types a little different, the project sizes, some are more recurring, some are more project based. So, you know, so we, but, but ideally, yes, that is part of the thesis that we, we are welcome to that. But if you look across, you know, if you look across the main, the big multi-billion dollar platforms, I mean, you might have somebody that does the plumbing and the restoration or the HVC and the plumbing, but it needs to be, it needs to make sense. It really needs to make sense if you're going to let people do that. And sometimes a lack of focus will lead to a lack of greatness. So like, I'd rather have you be a massive top rail fence franchisee than have you be a mediocre, you know, two brand franchisee. Yep. We get paid on, because by the way, we get paid on top line. So we, we want, I'd rather have two owners in their focusing on their business than one, you know,

37:31than one not. Yeah, fair enough. No, and for the listeners, you know, what's the average royalty for any franchise? Not just yours, right? Just kind of what you can expect. Yeah, I mean, it depends, you know, there's sometimes there's a little sliding scale, but I think six or seven percent is going to be right in the middle. One of our brands has an eight percent. It's particularly, but it's, it's certainly worth it. And then, you know, one of our starts at six and most of them are right around seven percent. All right. There you go. Listeners. All right. Time to go and hop into our rock around where we ask our guests the same three questions. In case you want to get off. All right. First question is what do you like to do in your free time? Okay. So I am a horrible hobbyist. I mean, I tell you, but if I, if I had my brothers, I would, I would wake up. I would, I am, I am a coffee addict. I love coffee. So I'd start my first of 20 cups and I would, I would journal. I would, I would, if I had a perfect day, I would journal

38:32in the morning, drinking my coffee. I'd walk my dog. I'd go see my trainer. I'd get in the sauna. And, uh, and then I would, uh, I would do some reading and some cooking. Those are, those are the things that I do in my free time. It's the only thing that's not that exciting. Yeah. The only thing missing from that is that needs to be all franchises that you have. You need to have the coffee shop that you own, the sauna that you built, the book that you wrote, right? And then, you know, the dog walking service that you franchises started as well. So, I'm, I'm not, you might, I got the sauna. I know that one, sir. I'm a little late in my career, but I haven't given up on coffee yet. I just think, I think coffee's great. And it's, there's, you can never have enough coffee. I'm with you on that one, man. That is my morning to make those. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Here we go. All right. Next question. Most memorable moment in your business journey. There's two. So there was one. It was January 1st. It was 2019. I had sold my business with

39:33240 locations. It was a good size deal. I had taken the family. We were in Breckenridge the weeks before. And I mean, this was again, this is like an 11 month process, right, for us to sell this business. And I mean, we had a 131 indications of interest. We had 35 otherwise. We had 10 managed 10 groups and management meetings. We kept it down. My investment bankers did a great job. Boxwood, they operate in the franchise based Pat Gallagher. And we had three companies in the seat at the end of it and all of that. But I remember signing all of the documents. We had to go like a kinkos in Breckenridge, Colorado. And they needed wet signatures on everything and notaries. So I had the, you know, we had a little notary party there with all the kids all that was going on. And then on January 1st, New Year's Day, we, we, what we decided closed New Year's Day. And we woke up and we're around the kitchen table. And I put the speaker phone down on my phone and the speaker phones on. And there's like 32 people on the call. And it's just one of these. It's, it's just like, are you sign or, you know, a roll call? Are you signed off,

40:35signed off, signed off, signed off, signed off, signed off, signed off, signed off. Okay, everybody have a good New Year's and the line went that they didn't, I didn't say word. And the kids looked at me and like, is it done? And I'm like, I think so. We'll know tomorrow at like 10 o'clock when we check the bank, you know, when the wire hits the bank. So that was pretty memorable because it was, you know, it was New Year's always as nostalgic for people. And I built that business over 25 years. And it was, it was one of those things. And then the other one was, we were on undercover boss. Not a great episode on under. If you go to my LinkedIn, just Jeff Duden, it's in the Vimeo, it's in the videos. You get it for the listeners. Yeah, we put it in the Vimeo showcase. And when you do undercover boss, you have no creative input. You have no sign offs. So you go out and you do the show around the road for like 16 days doing this thing, man, because we had to record a bunch. There was a bunch of political stuff going on. We had to read, they said, you can't use that state. And so I had to re record a bunch of stuff. So we went on the road twice as long as normal.

41:38And so we, we rented out a restaurant. And there was like 200, I, all the kids that I coached came, all the parents came, all our employees came, past president. It was just 250 people there at the sports bar. It was on like 50 televisions. And we got to watch that episode for the first time. And I'm telling you, it was such a good episode. Our French owners did so great. They showed like they were good people. They had character. It was a real tear jerker. I mean, they, you know, they do a good job with that, like finding people that need help or that are struggling or things. So that was another thing that I think about was kind of like, you know, this is, you know, it's, yeah, I mean, it's a little, it's a little thing, you know, and it has nothing to do with the business really. But it was kind of a testament to the hard work that all of the people, I had nine employees have been with me more than 20 years. I mean, it was, so it was kind of a, it was a team victory for us and all of our French as owners and meant a lot. Awesome. All right. Then last question, favorite tool of resource.

42:40Man, underutilized my network, my network, you know, I, we do a podcast. It's called Unemployable. You've been on it. Appreciate that. We have over 250 episodes on it. We've had just incredible guests on there. I mean, the genius network, I'm a strategic coach. I'm in YPO and, you know, it's, the network has gotten so fast and so big that I touch people once and I don't get back to them. And it's just like, why, why am I even going out and cultivating all of these new relationships? When I probably have a thousand people that have everything that, that if I would go deeper with these people, we would get all that we need out of it. So I, when you ask that question, you, I appreciate just sending it over. I'm like, well, I could say, I could say some AI tool because we use a bunch or I could say this and that's probably what you're looking for that's actionable. But you know what? I think it is actionable. Think about, if you're listening to this podcast, think about your network and think about the people that did something for you or you did something

43:43for them that made a difference and you hadn't talked to them in three years. What are you doing? Like why are you, why are you, you know, you can own, I think it was Burton Snowboards where he, there's this thing where you can only keep 150 relationships in your head at any one time. So anytime that he only built buildings that had 150 parking spots and then he would build another building and he would create a separate division because he wanted the people to work together and he wanted them everyone to know everybody that worked together. He didn't want to, he, so that was his way of not letting the company get too big even though the company got bigger because he kept having to stamp out new buildings. But I mean, there's, you know, like, who's your top, who's your top 50 that if you needed something out of your past that you would go to and then who's your top 20 and who's your top 10 and then ask yourself when, when's the last time that I had a meaningful conversation with them? No, I agree. I mean, Jeff, you know, now I don't feel as bad for you not getting back to me. All right. I'm kidding. You know, it's funny because like, were you? You know, your network really is your net worth and I know that's kind of overutilized, but

44:45I can attribute so much of this because that I've had is just having the right people, the right place, finding ways to work together because ultimately any business is people, right? There is no business without people, right? Meaning, you know, whether you're a Microsoft or you're, you know, a home services company or you're a software company or you're, you know, a restaurant like it's all catered around people and, you know, it takes people to get things accomplished. And so it's all about just having the right people, having the right goals, the right vision and, you know, yeah, it's funny. We've been making a lot of changes. The company to try to get me in a situation where I can spend even more time nurturing those relationships, right? Because that's where, you know, that's where the stuff that can actually needle move the company happen, right? It's with that partnership, that relationship, that idea, that conversation, that vision. So I'm 100% ready to second that. Well, if I can just put a little comment on it, if we have time, is look over the last nine, over the last five weeks, I've canceled three trips that saved me nine days

45:46and nine thousand dollars in travel and expense. And I've been having 30 minute meetings with all of our employees. That's what I spent my time doing. And it's, I mean, it's, and it's the, you know, why is, why are we getting so disconnected? I mean, I don't want to sound like a boomer, but look, social media, social media is what tells me where to point. Because it's just in my face. And so all of the people that aren't on social media, I forget about, I mean, because they're not out there in, you know, scrolling into my feed. So that's a good endorsement for social media, but it's also to say, I mean, some of the best business partners that I have don't even have social media. They're just, but they're killers. And they call, and they call, and they meet, and they do this then, and they don't even have social media. And it's just like, it's kind of like the old, it's the old way, but it's, it is the way. And, you know, when you get distracted from, I mean, just that quick call or that quick note. So when I started doing, I mean, I had a business, last guy I bought out of

46:49Advantage clean in 2004 was a great mentor to me. He was about 11 years older than me, but I, I needed the company. And he, he was not in a good place mental health wise. And I, it was the only M&A negotiation. This is a great. Okay. I hired a consultant to mediate for us. And he, he looked at us, and he said, this is the only mediation I've ever done where the, where the buyer is trying to pay more, and the seller is trying to take less. I was like, Dan, you can't give it away. I said, you've got to have this. You need that you've deserved this. And he's like, no, no, no, no, that's too much. And I don't, you know, because he knows what we, you know, what we bought the other guys out for. But, you know, so it's, but I called them, you know, I, I hadn't talked to them in years. And I just, I called them. And so I've been calling people from my past and making a point to call somebody almost every day. And, and, and, and get, and this is the important part, not because I need something. Do you ever call somebody just to, and, and like, they're all waiting for the ask, like, last time, every time you call me, it's like, hey, I was thinking, you know,

47:53if you could do this for me, hey, I'm just calling to check in, man, I just want to talk to you. I hope you're doing well. Stay in touch. And that's it. Without a team of those I do here, you know, just people that do you? I was, yeah, I do to like close friends, not usually not even business associate some, some, but I try to hit 15, 20, you know, I'm driving down the road. I'm like, how do I use this time just to touch base with somebody? You know, and I have, I've made that a habit, but I could go wider, right? Instead of that same kind of pool of 15 or 20, this kind of gets me to think like, hey, how can I set a goal to maybe touch 50 people that I haven't touched in a while? That's actually, that's my takeaway from this podcast. No, and then you hit it on the head. It's, it's, you don't do it when you haven't asked, right? You've already failed. You've, there's a little for failure, right? It's building a relationship, be a good person, add value. And if, you know, if something happens on the road, where there's something that makes sense, great, if not, then that's fine. Keep on letting that harv, letting that kind of grow, you could harvest it later. So yeah, and if they are kind of a business colleague, I'll tell you what happens within like 30 days, you get a message from them. They're like,

48:57how I was thinking about you and this, you need to talk to this person. Yeah. So it ends up, it ends up doing the business anyway. You know, so it doesn't, that's fine. Well, thank you very much, Jeff, for the listeners. How can they get a hold of you? All right. Jeff, dude, and DUDAN, and as a Nancy, Jeff DUDAN, at, you just go to LinkedIn, connect with me there. You can go to JeffDudin.com. If you are a franchise or and you're interested in, I do have a mastermind out there, it's, it's at franmastory.com, just F-R-A-N-M-A-S-T-E-R-Y.com, franmastory is a great place to find me, or just JeffDudin on Instagram. We'd love to hear from you, but anyway, you can go JeffDudin.com, or if you are interested in one of our great brands and homefront brands and you're looking to add to your portfolio, just go to homefrontbrands.com and check out all of our incredible offerings. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jeff. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. All right. Enjoy it. Thank you for listening to the M&A Launchpad Podcast. If you've enjoyed

49:57today's podcast and would like to support us, please leave us a rating and a review after you listen. If you're looking for guidance on your next business acquisition or sale, capital to support your next business transaction or to invest in a private equity opportunity, visit equitylaunchpad.com to learn more and to connect with our team. If you know of an individual, you would be a great guest for the show head over to equitylaunchpad.com or slash nominate where you'll have the chance to refer yourself or someone else to be a guest on our show. I'm Casey mentioned and I look forward to talking with you next week.