From Hospital Interpreter to Spray-Net Franchise Owner: Samuel Espindola on Faith, Visibility Marketing, and Building a Team That Runs Without You

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Samuel Espindola – Spray-Net Franchise Owner

Meg:
efore, this is where the discussion is all about free agency and taking control over your financial future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self employment, business ownership, franchising and freedom.

From corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, to entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey. My podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss. And so today I have the pleasure of welcoming. He likes to go by Samuel, but we’ll call him Samueluel Espindola with Spraynet. And it’s one of my favorite brands.

I’m so excited to have you on today to talk about what is exciting about Spraynet. But first, just so we can set the. Set the tone for the listener. Listener, this is all about taking the leap and going into something that is unknown. So tell me, give me your background so that we can lay a good foundation for the listener.

Samuel:
Absolutely. It’s such a pleasure to be with you, Meg. Thank you. It’s exciting to be able to share the. The journey that I’ve, I’ve endeavored onto and to be able to potentially empower and inspire others to do the Samuele.

Yeah, I, my, my background is I have a degree in business management. I always knew that I wanted to be a business owner since I was a little kid. My dad was, I say, a solopreneur. Always tried to do something, but nothing beyond that, nothing that involved anyone beyond the family. So I always, I was always thinking, there’s always like, you can, you can hire people, you can scale.

You can do all these things. Like I would run the numbers, my calculator or whatever I had on hand and I was like this is like this is huge at the ripe old age of 11, you know. So for me I was, I was eager and ready. I always knew I wanted to be in business. I started, I went to my career pathway, took me to become a language interpreter in a hospital setting, but always with the mind of that being a stepping stone to become a business owner.

Meg:
So back in what two years ago I took that leap with springnet and here we are. How did you find Spraynet? Did you work with a consultant or a broker? I did not. Oh my gosh.

Samuel:
I. What. One of the things that caught my eye with Spraynet was their innovation in their products and services. The fact that you were able to provide something in house, both being made and applied by the franchise with innovation that they brought in was what caught my eye. I didn’t feel like I needed to ex.

To explore other options. I just saw this one and I went all in.

Meg:
Wow, that’s unique in my world as a consultant and a business owner in franchising. My own experience just really quickly for you. My ex husband got us involved with great clips.

He was my husband at the time but there were a few things that he wasn’t really paying attention to that are. Are predicating factors for how I work with people and that’s to take into account your wife, your lifestyle and your money. Because if you’re going to buy a business then what’s working in those three areas needs to work after you get a business. And I do that via a compare and contrast method because my ex husband did not do that. He just saw one thing and, and went for this.

The, the course of the trajectory that you followed. How long had you known about Spray Net and tell me about your process to do your own due diligence.

Samuel:
My process really started with being a real estate investor. Okay. I.

While working in healthcare I, I wanted to become a free agent. So I started investing in real estate to be able to leave my W2 job, my 9 to 5 to be able to focus on real estate because that’s what I love. And I had in buying several homes I, I realized that the two biggest things that I have in terms of expenses are, are one roofs and also just keeping the house looking good so that the tenants can. Can live in there for longer and have, you know, a comfortable stay. So my, the kitchen was a big problem for me to make it look good.

And stay looking good for a long time. And I had a house that had an ugly kitchen and a roof that was, that was expiring. So when I saw Spray Net and the options that they offered in terms of their liquor roof, in terms of their kitchen cabinet refinishing and their exterior painting services, I as a, as a homeowner of several homes realized that this was a solution that I absolutely needed. And I realized that the potential was there for to be able to service other people in the Samuele way, in the Samuele position that I was in. So that’s where, that’s where my journey started with and I can tell you is a very eureka moment.

I saw a video on YouTube, you know, like entrepreneurial type videos. Spraynet came across my feedback. I watched it. My wife was with me at the time. I saw and I told her look, look at what I found.

And she immediately caught the vision, understood what it was about. I didn’t finish watching the video by the time I called the, the franchise to see if there was a territory available in our area. And mind you, at the time we weren’t living in Oregon where we’re based out of, we were living in Mexico City.

My, my wife is a, an academic and she had a grant that allowed her to live and study abroad for like an academic year. So we weren’t even based here in Oregon when we came across this opportunity.

Meg:
Interesting. So had you lived in Oregon previously?

Samuel:
We, this is where we had, we’ve been based, yes.

This is where we live currently.

Meg:
So you had an idea. I find it fascinating when people pick up and move somewhere that they know nothing about, but they’ve got this franchise and they see the potential for it and pick a market. And I had a couple down in Orlando who didn’t want to live in Florida any longer and they picked Chattanooga, Tennessee and wife bought a franchise and they made it work. It was unknown neighborhoods, unknown households.

But how. So you have been from Oregon. You had an idea of where you wanted to move back to or you had a home already and you were just moving back to that?

Samuel:
Correct. We had real estate here.

We, this was our home base. It was just a nine month hiatus for, for my wife to study abroad and I took a sabbatical from work after working for seven years in healthcare and working through Covid, I, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to take a moment of respite for myself. And so that was, that was very helpful. And also I got to finish my, my degree while I was living abroad. The business degree, the Business degree.

Yeah, I finished my bachelor’s and actually started. I finished my bachelor’s by starting a master’s in organizational leadership.

Meg:
So. Excellent. And so Samuel is quite a guy.

Samuel:
Yes, he is.

Meg:
And I remember, I remember when we at Franchoice did a brand launch call with Spraynet, he was an integral part of that launch and he came to some of the conferences with Franchoice. He’s a young guy, he’s very insightful, precise and well, gosh, creating proprietary products.

He, he seems like a charismatic but grounded leader. Yes. How would you describe Samuel? I mean it might sound. And the leadership team, really?

Samuel:
Yeah, a whole leadership team. The, the. I think one of the biggest things that I be. I’m able to see in Samuel and his products and innovation and in spring that as a team and the team that he brings around himself is really to be able to, to deliver innovation.

I mean for example, what service can or product and service can you develop that appeals to a Section 8 landlord with a kitchen cabinet refinishing and uses the Samuele exact product for a million dollar house like that.

That to be able to develop something that is both cost effective and luxurious is extreme. And to be able to do that with not one but like four or five different lines of spray applications, I mean is incredible.

The other example is a liquor roof which you know, being pushed out right now. Samuele concept. You can apply this to a single of a family residence but also go commercial with the exact Samuele product.

It’s incredible.

Meg:
It is. And so there’s his innovation. You, you found spraying it a couple years. You’ve been open for one year, is that correct? One.

Samuel:
One year and change.

Meg:
Okay. Yes. So. And I’ve done the Samuele thing.

I am an a frantrepreneur. I’ve got a franchise that I opened about 14 months ago and I’m still in the. Not where I want to be yet. So how has it been for you compared to what your expectation was?

Samuel:
It’s been a journey. It’s, it’s. It brought out one of the, One of the reasons that I really wanted to be a business owner was honestly to make money. But bigger than that for me was being able to draw out of myself something that business school could not to push myself to. To be able to empower people to do what they can be on me and also to make myself a better person.

And I just knew that business is able to do that for me.

One of the things that kind of the last kind of bumps on the road that we’ve had lately was in July when it’s August, when it’s supposed to be the, the peak of the painting season. We had a lull, we had a valley. So there was, there was nothing coming in. And I thought, what’s, what’s going on?

Like, what can I do?

One of the things that Samuel’s been really good at doing is bringing in more people, the right people. And my, my coach at the time came in with a lot of, with experience in the franchise world and was able to identify, you know, what it is that I could do to turn the boat around.

I mean, it came to the point where I had $2,000 in the bank account of the business bank account. I mean, tough stuff with no nothing in the pipeline to date.

One of the most stressful moments, I think that’s, you know, you can all feel like the writing’s on the wall. But we formulated a plan and I say we. With my business coach, my wife fully supporting me still.

And I just executed. It was, it was very simple. It was not sexy. It was dropping lawn signs across the whole city. And I mapped out my city and I said, how can I make sure that everybody that comes in or out of the city sees my signs at least twice?

And I created a funnel basically to where everybody that came in and around the city would see me see my lawn signs. And that combined with other typical, like just following up with prior leads, following up with new leads.

But making myself visible was a big part of that. So layering into my current marketing expenses, I didn’t have much money, so I had blind size. I could use them.

And I did.

And within about 3 or 4 weeks, I went from having 2k to about 45 days later. I was hitting a stride. I had about 27k in the bank and a 2 month backlog. It just, and out of the blue, it kind of just happened.

And I couldn’t really attribute, I could directly attribute some of the jobs to that, but a lot of the people that were calling me, they said, oh, we’ve, we’ve seen you around. I can’t remember where, but we finally decided to call, you know, so it was, it was incredible to be able to know that I was able to spark that, that turnaround.

So it was incredible.

Meg:
Yeah. Having been there, a lot of the people who listen to this podcast have never been there before.

How, how, how did you manage your emotions with. Because it scares the out of you. You’re like, oh my God, I don’t have, I don’t have Another reservoir of money somewhere that I can put into this. I got to make this happen or we’re sunk. Tell me about you and your wife.

And I don’t know if you’ve got kids, but how did you manage your just your personal self so that you could be present for your family and your business while knowing that all of this crap is running around in your head?

Samuel:
Well, I. I am a Christian, and I. I am a strong person of faith, so I depend on my faith a lot to be able to understand, you know, that there is, you know, bigger power beyond me that can support me.

So if I can do something, it’s beyond me sometimes that I can draw on strength when I feel I have none. There is that, and I share that with my wife a lot.

We do have a lot of moments where I’m like, I can’t unfocus from the business. I have tunnel vision squarely on the business. So it is very hard to disconnect, especially in that situation.

One of the things that we often do with my wife is we take walks in the morning. That’s usually when I feel the most stressed because my mind is clear and everything is, like, everything is, you know, in front of me before I get anything to start doing anything for the day.

So what? That. That is a huge help. I also, you know, realize that there are things that I cannot control, but there are plenty of things that I can. So focusing on the things that I can control is.

I mean, it sounds simple, but, I mean, I worked in healthcare for seven, 10 years, seven of which I spent a lot of time in the er, so being exposed to very stressful situations. Used to it? No, but this is next level because the future of my family is literally in my hands. Right.

But just focusing on understanding what I can control and then just executing, formulating a plan and then doing it has been extremely helpful.

And I think that’s something that I’ve been able to understand and tackle with my. With the help of my. Of my coaches, Jason and Bruce. I mean, they’ve been hugely influential to be able to shape my character around that.

And beyond that, I mean, honestly, just realizing that I am human, I can’t do it all. I need to rest. Like, sometimes I just need, like half a day and say, I am working on the business because I need to work on me first so that I can actually work on the business.

So, like, pushing myself to take a moment to take care of myself makes sure that. That.

That I can take care of the business. It’s an investment in myself ultimately.

Meg:
It’s so underrated in corporate. Use your vacation. I was just talking to a woman who retired after 29 years from a company.

Part of her retirement package was that she was going to finally use those five weeks of vacation. And it’s something that entrepreneurs are horrible about is because. Because we don’t tend to have the Samuele bank holidays. And it lives in your head 24 7. So we’re some of the worst.

Along with sea level people taking, for taking vacation and really taking care of ourselves.

Tell me about your employees and finding those people. We all make mistakes in hiring and whether you do it as a newbie or somewhere along the line, somebody fools you. But how did you build your team?

Because you put that in your paperwork for me too about team building and leadership and the building of your own culture and how important that that has been for you. So who are these people that work for you, work with you? Are you a boss? Are you a leader? Tell me about this whole package.

You’re smiling. Tell me about this whole package of, of creating your business that is a clear reflection of you. And this is where rubber meets the road for me because it excites me to be able to. It probably excites me a little more than seeing, you know, the pianos. Right.

Samuel:
When I hired my first crew, I mean, mind you, I had no background in hiring and managing people as an employer.

The. When I submitted or opened job applications online, I, I had, I think about 500 plus applicants is incredible. Just the number of applicants that, that were coming through. It took me a good amount of like three or four days to realize I’m not going to look through all of them.

So I used my intuition, reading, understanding, you know, what the resumes looked like, what they were saying beyond just what their skills were, seeing what those, what those people could be like.

And then I just started calling and just getting a sense for who they were over the phone and whoever sounded like they could be a good fit regardless of their character, like what they were, what they had on their, on the resume. I’d schedule an interview.

I hired three people just out of the blue, like the formal hiring process, making sure that their skills aligned with what I was looking for. And two people I hired just on, off the, off the cuff based on my gut, what I heard, I liked. I gave him an interview.

And of the, of all the people that I kept, I Kept those two incredibly so that I was able to. And they’re still currently working with me from, from day one. So that’s been incredible.

I mean, just this morning I was having a call with them, a debrief. I was telling my wife, I’m so proud of them.

They’re asking the right questions in my absence and they are in command and out of control. So they have full control of the job site. They are in command of the situation. They’re out of my control. They can execute.

And it is scary to be able to give someone the reins of your business to that degree. But to me, that is the way to scale and to deliver to the customer. There’s. Because I don’t want another job. I want an asset.

And to me, that is the way empowering people to know what to do.

Meg:
That is perfect. Samuel. This is going to resonate with so many people with whom I am working because that, that is the fear is, oh my gosh, I need, I need to know how to do everything.

I need to know how to do everything better than they know how to do it because otherwise they’re going to see that I’m a fake. I’m a. You’re the owner of the business. You shouldn’t know how to know. You should not need to know how to do everything. You need to know why it’s important and what your people are going to deliver.

That’s really good too on the intuition side of things. You can train people to do, but you cannot train people to be good customer service, good diligent, hard working people that shows up in other ways.

One, one person I was talking to said, I particularly look for people who have played on a sports team that went somewhere and did something because they understand about leadership and integrating in different roles on the field and how well that that fed into their hiring process.

And it made them that much, the employees, that much more sticky because they could be trained to do the work, but not trained how to play the game.

Samuel:
Exactly, exactly.

And part of the, part of the job for me was figuring out how to put the team together, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and doing some coaching both individually and as a team for them to collaborate.

So my team, I would say I have a crew of two right now. They’re both being trained as leads. One is Latin American and one is Polish and they are culturally diverse. So it was, it was interesting to be able to merge both of them as and working as a team, but then being able to develop each other as leaders at the Samuele Time has been, has been an experience.

One of my latest experience kind of milestones with them is really working myself out of a job with them. So I told them, you know what can. I was stuck working with them and I could see that they had potential to be able to execute more efficiently with, with me being absent.

So I thought how can I motivate them, give them something, a valley for the, for, for that, for working harder and I get myself out of a job. I don’t want to hire someone yet.

So I told them, well, we have two jobs a week. What if we give you a bonus and if you execute these two jobs with me being absent still meeting the quota of time of hours, you get a bonus.

So within about a month they were able to execute, they’re getting paid more, they’re working a little harder, probably smarter because they know what to do. And I’m for $200 a month, I have a job like that’s awesome. My time is much more valuable than that and I can definitely bring in more than $200 worth of value doing other business related things that they can’t do.

And that was really, really incredible for me to be able to implement. And they’re happier. I’m definitely happier. Again, this is another one of those lessons in ownership. People who, who haven’t done this before get in and think that being visible, working longer hours than anyone else, that that’s, that’s a carryover really from the corporate world.

When you own it, it’s hard for new owners to look at themselves as the owner. Well, if you were working for me, wouldn’t you expect me not to be here all the time? Because as you said, your brain power, your time can be better leveraged for, for building this entity, building an empire, whatever you’re trying to build multiple teams, maybe you’ll get to an empire, whatever, however you define that.

But your employees don’t expect you to be there. In fact, as you’re learning, they’ll do better without you being there to watch all the time after you have properly assessed their skill sets in what you can trust them to do.

Samuel:
Absolutely, yeah. It’s one of the hardest things for new entrepreneurs to do is to get out of the way and watch what happens. It is, it is extremely difficult. I knew that. So even knowing with my, with my degree and experience and really desire to be able to empower teams, it was still been difficult for me to get myself out of the job site.

It’s still because I’m a doer. I love to Be able to work to my hands, like be involved. Very visual. I like to visualize progress. Working in front of a Excel spreadsheet for five hours doesn’t seem like progress to me.

Right. So I’d rather be out there, but realizing that I can bring more value to my team, doing what I know I can do is my way of taking care of them, making sure that they. They’re cared for and really building the empire that I wanted. Need for sure. Yeah.

Meg:
Are either of them potential future foreman who could further lead and delegate to.

Samuel:
Yes. Okay. Yeah. I’m training both of them to be able to duplicate the team next season with ease.

So they’re, they’re both well rounded and the experience, and really the, the customer experiences, I need them to deliver. Yeah, right. So they’re, they understand both of those things and I’m, I’m fully confident that they can deliver when the time comes for them to step up to the plate.

Meg:
Good. Good.

And then as you look at that type of expansion, Samuel, what, what sort of marketing preparations as you’re planning? Three months, six months, I don’t know what your timeline is, but there’s marketing that needs to go along driving demand as well as, as well as then having your labor supply.

So what kind of preparations are you making to expand your business, your revenue?

Samuel:
Yeah, absolutely. There’s.

That’s a really good question because currently, as of this recording, it’s towards the end of the year and this is where rubber meets the road for us, creating the, the budget.

And I have a lot of support from the franchise to be able to develop my business plan and see how down to, you know, the exact number of leads that I need to have month on over month to know what revenue I need to hit month over month and really over the year as well.

So very granular marketing is huge part of the investment that I am making in the business. A lot of people, I hear, you know, that’s the first thing they want to cut when things go south. I, it’s been my experience that that’s when you need to maybe be more creative and marketing.

You can, you can find so many things that sounds really sexy that don’t necessarily deliver as well as something that sounds so boring like yard signs and dropping flyers or door knocking, which probably would be way more cost effective.

So right now what I’m focusing on is expanding and preserving the, the pattern that I’ve developed in dropping lawn signs. Probably expanding that from this city in Salem to Portland, which is a bigger city, and you know, dropping Lawn sense there as well. Spending, understanding where my customer base is coming from and spending more wisely and kind of funneling those marketing dollars into those areas that have higher returns is going to be a bigger focus.

So that’s something that the franchise takes care of for me. And so to some degree with a, you know, digital marketing. I’m in charge of traditional marketing as a franchisee.

So traditional franchising or traditional marketing involves for me the lawn science, you know, door to door type sales things and also doing trade shows, boots on the ground type things. Trade shows are what for me have been one of the biggest ROI investments in marketing.

So very people person. I can understand why. And also what we provide is very visual. So definitely focusing on expanding and now that I have a year under my belt understanding which shows I can go to how I should be prepared for those, what I can expect in return from those shows.

The demographics that I can expect to draw from these, you know, home shows are very different from for example fairs which I do.

They’re not related to home related things but I have found really good success in doing that. So kind of using the out of box thinking to find different demographics from there as a customer base has been really interesting.

So really this year is going to be a lot of fine tuning the the marketing machine and expanding on the what we know works just to continue to grow.

Meg:
It’s great too to be with a company that has some age. They started in Canada, correct?

Samuel:
Correct. Yeah. So there. And it’s a colder marketplace than where you are. I get that objection sometimes.

Oh, spray net. It’s not going to work in the wintertime. Yeah, it will. Company was founded in Canada so they’ve already. I remember that creating the formulation so that they can be applied may not completely year round but certainly more temperature tolerant than other applications.

Meg:
It’s so great to hear your insights and your high touch. I can’t imagine frankly being in your role in the hospital as a translator during the years that you were there. That must have been very stressful.

Samuel:
It was. There was. There was a lot of things and that actually probably I was able to bring and apply to my business here. That’s what I was thinking. Covid time it’s definitely were through a monkey wrench into the function of a hospital system.

So I got to work with one of the biggest hospital systems here in the Take the leap area. And it was very interesting to see as an interpreter to be able to work on going from a clinic to working in in the Samuele day working with cancer patients working in the er, working in labor and delivery, and just being able to understand and see the impact of that throughout for families was really incredible.

And what it did for me, as now a business owner is really connecting with the customer, connecting with the patient. Yeah. Empathizing.

Really. All they’re looking. All we’re solving is pain points. In healthcare, it’s literal pain, actual health problems. In business, we’re solving pain points which may be physical, but are largely psychological.

So understanding what their pain points are and then delivering what they want or need is I think, the biggest practical application that I’ve been able to take on.

I mean, just this last week, I had a customer who lovely, dear old lady, had a beautiful kitchen, had a very long story and about her house. Built for them. Built for them. A spec home in 06 burned down two years later because of a defect in there in the build.

They rebuilt it to what she wanted. So obviously very invested in her house, especially her kitchen. Right. So there was a lot of vacillating with her with like, what color should I choose? What if something goes wrong?

There’s a lot of anxiety and nervousness and you know, with the process, even as we were doing the job to a month later, she was seeing, you know, it’s. I don’t know. Are you sure?

And I could feel myself connecting with the part that I developed in the emergency room in the hospital setting of reassurance, of empathizing. I understand what you’re coming from, validating her.

This is what you do, why we’re doing this. It’ll be great. You’ll be happy. And to be able to see her at the end of the week with the project, she was beaming, absolutely happy. I mean, she did this for herself on the week of her birthday.

No. So it was her birthday gift to herself. So she said, Samuel, it was everything I wanted to see. And she was absolutely thrilled. I mean, I’m pretty sure I have a friend for life in her.

She wants me to go back and visit her. So there’s a lot of things that I was able to draw from that and to. To apply to business. I mean, and beyond that, just the kind of the. In the ER setting, as structured as it is, having, you know, adapting to unpredictable situations.

Fantastic 101 business entrepreneurship lesson. Right.

Meg:
The thing that’s going through my mind right now is I know the pain point of those last $2,000 being in your bank account. But I’m going to venture a guess that this is way better than any job you’ve ever had.

Samuel:
It’s been thrilling to be able to touch so many people’s lives, to be able to empower my crew to be better humans, to be members of the community.

And for myself to be able to also be involved in the community as I’m able to free up my time and do more of that. It’s definitely exciting. And, yeah, it’s. It’s been. It’s been very rewarding.

And also pushing, seeing myself pushing myself beyond what I thought I was, you know, had the capacity to do, it’s incredible.

Meg:
Amazing. Well, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your story and the details of your transition from your past corporate life to where you are now. I’m excited to hear more. I’ll see the guys at my conference in January when we all get together, and I’ll make sure to say hello to Samuel when he’s there, if he’s there.

He’s not always available to come. But this has been really insightful for me. I know also for my listeners to have a better sense of what does Brainet do and why. It’s a disruptor and a differentiator. And we covered that, and you’ve brought a real element of the people side of it.

It’s amazing how you look at one’s career and what we do there and how it can meet in the middle to what your business is. It doesn’t look like it on the outside, but you’ve got that perfect meshing, I think, for what is needed for a spray nut owner to do well.

And I’m excited to hear how this year comes along. And it’s 24 months, man. 24 months.

And then after that, you should be really, really solid. So you’re still in that building phase. And I’ll just tell you, I think you’re doing a phenomenal job.

Samuel:
Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Yeah, I’m excited to see what the next year brings. And as we cement things and actually take advantage of the foundation that I’ve laid, see where it goes. It’s exciting.

Meg:
You’re doing a great job.

It’s truly exciting for me, Samuel, So thank you for making the time. I’m going to stop recording.