Integrity, Influence and Intentionality: How to Build a Winning Franchise Team

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guests: Bobby Brennon, Managing Partner at Front Street Equity Partners

Meg Schmitz:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to or welcome back to my podcast. It’s called the Free Agent. My name is Meg Schmitz and the discussion here 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 seems a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss. Today, I’m so excited. Bobby Brennon is here.

Bobby Brennon is somewhat of a legend in franchising, and he is now partners with two other guys who are legends in the world of franchising. They created a company called Front Street Partners, but Bobby has history in the industry, not only as an owner, as in the role of franchise development and now the money and the brains and the good looks behind a development company that is building a really interesting portfolio. So, Bobby, welcome to the show. I’m excited to have you on.

Bobby:
Yeah, thanks for having me, Meg. Excited to talk and share all things franchising.

Meg:
Yeah. So you have been around the block and I have been around the block and what people really enjoy about this show is real stories about real people now. So I would love for you to go back in history just so we can lay a little bit of groundwork on Front Street Partners and what you’re doing there. Talk about your history, how you got started in franchising and some of the navigational directions you’ve been in touching different aspects of franchises.

Bobby:
Yeah, I think, I’ll go back that if you would have told me in 20, 24, 20 years ago, you know, I was graduating high school, I think, and so you would have told me, hey, I’m dating myself now. You’re going to be in this position, you’re going to do this. Like I would have said, what? You’re crazy. Like, what are you franchising? What’s that? So I kind of think it’s like the accidental C level role that like you would have never, I would have never thought this was going to be the case for me.

So my quick history, a funny story. Actually one of my first jobs was for a friend’s dad who owns a Dairy Queen. I actually owned multiple. So I kind of saw, whether I knew it or not, I kind of saw the, the lifestyle that he had built a business and kind of, he had some flexibility. But I still laugh because one of the really interesting lessons, and this stuck with me 20 plus years later, is when he came in, he would still pay for his food. And I thought, I’m like, well, it’s your business, it’s free food.

He’s like, no, no, no. There’s a cost associated with Bobby. And if I start taking things, what do you think that teaches my employees? So if they see the owner paying for it, I better pay for it too. So that was just one of those small nuggets, but grew up very modest means in a small town in St. Louis, worked for some friends jobs in high school. I graduated, got my degree, was getting ready to go to work for corporate America. And this is 2008, 2009.

And so the best thing that I would have never chosen to happen to me might have been the recession of 2008, 2009, because when I got into college versus when I left, the landscape was completely different. So call it dumb luck. I was working for those who age up, but those that remember Al Bundy. I was a shoe salesman in college and so 100% commission. I just loved it. I was making really good money selling shoes in college and a franchise opened across the way in the mall and we had those glass windows, they called it the Fishbowl.

And they said, the owners came over and said, hey, we see you just hustling in here constantly. Like you’re just always in there, you’re always hustling. Like, would you ever be interested in working over here too? I said, well, you know, was it pay? You guys can’t afford me, Sorry, I’m making way too much money selling shoes part time in college and then. But I loved like it was in the fitness and Wellness Realm.

And I just loved that. So I decided, hey, let me, let me go work for you guys part time. And it went really well. We became a top location. It was one of the first franchises within this system and the competitor to GNC or a vitamin shop. And they said, you know what, Bobby, this is going really well. We love what you’re doing.

You have all these great ideas. Because I had never worked for a company where they give you ideas to go execute is Bobby, hey, go do this, go do that. Don’t think this is the first job like how do we generate revenue, how do we generate market awareness? Because they were brand new to the market. And anyway, long story short, we became a top producing location.

They said, you should move out to Kansas City. Forget corporate America, you just got your business degree. Forget corporate America in the 401k and the fancy title and all this. Why don’t you go launch these locations for us and if it goes well, maybe you become a partner, maybe you open a couple locations of your own. As a 22, 23 year old that grew up very modest means that sounded a lot sexier than going to work the corporate grind, you know, working for Enterprise, washing cars in a suit.

Meg:
Yeah.

Bobby:

So I took the leap of faith, moved out to Kansas City where I knew nobody. That’s where I still reside now over a decade, almost 15 years later. And we launched the franchise there. And it was the hardest thing I’d ever done because nobody knew who we were, we were emerging brand. So not only were we emerging, but we’re in a new market, there’s lots of competition and it was kind of a sink or swim for me.

And the owners didn’t live there, so they said, Bobby, FIO, what’s that mean? I’m stressed, figure it out. And the owner said, Bobby, you want to be an owner one day, right? I said, yes. He goes, you’re being paid to learn how to be an owner. Go out and figure it out. He goes, the higher you go up an organization, and I was making like my base salary was peanuts. It was like $16,000 a year and this is 2009.

And now I got commission on sales and all that, very much performance incentive. But he said, the further you go up in an organization, the less direction you’re going to get. So for me, I said, I got, I’m going to own that. And so now, 15 plus years later, I still say, figure it out, FIO, because it just you, you take a ownership perspective when you approach problems. It’s not my Fault, but it’s my problem.

And so I found a way to drive business and we eventually had some top performing locations. We opened up three, then five, then ten. I got an offer to leave and go make a double my income doing medical device sales. And I went to them and they said, you’re not leaving. We’re giving you phantom equity for the time you’ve been here and we’re going to allow you to buy in as well. We can’t afford to lose you. 

Meg:
Wow.

Bobby:
And eventually we got to 65 locations and we were the largest franchise, even this within this system. So I, that was my first tour. That was my first real job. 

Meg:
Wow.

Bobby:
No, was not prepared for it, but it’s the best learning experience I would have never done if you told me how much work it was going to be.

But it forced me to be good and it ruined me honestly for corporate America. Briefly after that I exited, sold to some partners, saw the E Commerce and Amazon that was going to eat us alive. And then I actually reached out to the franchisor because he kept offering, hey, come work for corporate. And this is a guy that I admire, that I know very well. He’s been around for a long time and he said, I’m going to start a franchise development company.

And I think I was employee number four or five there. And so I joined another one of his startup companies and I’m like, are you serious? How did you convince me to do this again? And within a couple of years we were one of the number one organizations within the industry. I got a chance to work with about 15 brands.

Several of those went to scale and exit to private equity groups. Other ones kept it in house and just continued to grow to several hundred locations across the country. But it was the fun part for me is I took that leap of faith and bet on myself. Then I got to help other people do that in a lot of cases, told people not to.

A lot of my friends and family members said, oh, you’re a franchising, I want to buy a franchise, Bobby. I said, no, you don’t. I know you too well. You will not enjoy yourself and you will not be happy because you can’t golf four days a week or whatever it may be. It’s, it’s probably the hardest things most people will do outside of marriage and a family, is business ownership. 

Meg:
Right.

Bobby:
So I don’t sugarcoat that, but I had the opportunity to work there.

That company scaled massively for about five or six years and then they exited as well, they, they brought on some private equity partners. And so I kind of saw this. Hey, I was growing and scaling. Kind of like a lot of your listeners, you’re building businesses for other people. And outside of the franchise, I was building majority of the business for other people.

I realized, hey, there’s an opportunity for me to participate in some of these if I do the right thing and I help these businesses scale and add enterprise value. So I went to a couple people you knew, Jeff Burr and Eric Van Horn, which are legends in the franchise industry, and just started talking to them about what else was out there, what was going to be next for me because I learned so much within great leaders and great organizations, but I kind of outgrew those companies.

There was nothing wrong with the company, but I outgrew them and looking for the next challenge. And Front Street Equity Partners was doing things slightly different. Whereas a lot of the franchise sales organizations are referred to as FSOs and our language, they do sales, they do development, and they do it very, very well. That’s kind of my expertise. But I’ve also been an operator. I’ve also been the therapist for franchisees and other franchisees when I was an owner of just, hey, here’s how we band together and let’s grow, let’s build this.

So I had the operational side of me, I had the franchise development side. And at Front Street, what we do differently is ,so I joined there as a partner about 18 months ago. But we really focused on strategic advisory first. So with most of our brands, we don’t even sell for the first six to twelve months.

We learn the brand, we look at infrastructure. Because a lot of franchisors, just like a lot of us, we have business coaches, a lot of franchisors, they’ve never done it before. So figuring it out by themselves or having someone who’s scaled franchise concepts either as an owner or as a franchisor themselves is a huge value add. So we bring kind of that learning curve to the table for emerging brands. So we mainly work with emerging brands.

We help with franchise development. We also help with executive recruiting. So one of our brands that I know we love, Go Glow. We love the products. It’s a spray tanning, natural, you know, plant based, product based company.

They just brought on a brand president that has a ton of franchisor experience, but they came through our services. So a lot of these franchisors say, I want to grow. How do I hire the right COO or brand president? We have a Rolodex of people that are constantly looking. So we have executive recruiting, we have franchise development, we have strategic advisory.

And then to your point earlier, we offer capital opportunities so we can raise capital, we can do lines of credit. And if and when a brand needs to bring on capital to grow, or if they want to exit after, after successfully building a system, we can help them go through that process. So we’re more of a full service agency than just focusing on one parallel. So that’s a very long winded response to your question, but I’ve been very fortunate over the last 15 years in franchising to see supplier side, franchisee side, franchisor side, franchise development. 

I don’t want to say I’ve learned it all, but I’ve seen a lot of it and I’ve got a lot more to learn still.

Meg:
Well, I was thinking about it earlier if there was one word that I would call Front Street Partners. You’re an incubator.

The multi pronged approach towards that incubation of the concept. And what I appreciate about the brands that you have brought to us at Franchoice is that you’re spending time up front with these founders, with these visionaries and grooming them because they’re entrepreneurs. For those of you who are listening, every franchise starts with an entrepreneur who had an idea but they’re not all qualified then to lead a franchise concept.

It might, it might be a great. As my husband and I say, you’ve got the jockey and the horse. One of the concepts in particular, it’s been a great horse, amazing horse, but the jockey is not the right one to get it to where it needs to go ultimately. So I appreciate that about you, Van Horn, Jeff Herr, y’all have made some big headway. Are there when you’re looking for brands, there’s got to be pros and cons, things that, that are hallmarks of what is an attraction and what is an avoidance, can you go through what some of those are so the listeners understand just how hard it is to hit the nail on the head?

Bobby:
Yeah. And I mean just like your listeners, they should be looking at a lot of these same things as well too. Now we’re, we’re probably a little more open to risk because we’ve been there before and we’re, we’re looking for the diamond in the rough or the brand that’s going to be the next crumble, the next orange theory, the next whatever. We do have specific criteria and it’s, it always starts with a dynamic founder I mean I like you said the jockey and the horse, you can have the best system or concept in the world but if the founder stinks, I mean it doesn’t matter.

They’re the one calling the shots. At the end of the day it’s, it’s sometimes it’s a dictatorship sometime when it’s just that one person versus you know, a democracy. And so we look for dynamic founders that are also open, entrepreneurs to your point, sometimes have egos, you have to have an ego to be an entrepreneur.

You have to have some ego. Right. Doesn’t mean you question, don’t question yourself. But sometimes founders, they’re never wrong and those are going to be hard franchisors. So we want to find dynamic collaborative founders but also that are self aware. They know what they’re good at, but they also know where they need help.

And so most of the brands that come to us, they already know they need help. We talk to five or 10 brands a week, 99% of those, if not more, we say sorry, not ready, not a good fit, go do this on your own, go do this and let’s talk in a year or two. Because to your point it has to be a finite amount of these necessity list. So dynamic founders, number one, strong unit level economics.

We love to see brands that can generate, you know, upwards half a million to a million dollars in revenue, drive six figure income for the franchise owner. That’s kind of one of our necessities of where we play. Doesn’t mean we won’t go below that or around that. We like moderate investments whether it’s a home service, whether it’s brick and mortar, whether it’s, you know, whatever type of industry you’re thinking. We don’t like overly complex or expensive businesses to scale because that just weeds down the pool of franchise prospects significantly.

But we also look for what I consider is raving fans or a dynamic customer experience because there we want an emotional connection to a brand and whether it’s, it’s not necessarily the what it’s the why. So again the brand we mentioned earlier, go glow is we sell confidence. That’s what, that’s why they do it is they want people to feel better than when they walk in the door. I walk out feeling better about myself. This is a women, female entrepreneur, empowerment type of brand. 

Meg:
Yep

Bobby:
How do they do that? Well they have patent, pended, pending or excuse me, patented technology. They’ve got proprietary products all but what some saying nobody buys the what they buy the why. So we look for a really compelling brand story, but also raving fans that that person walks in and feels differently or you do something for that customer that just, it changes them.

We also look for what I call operational moat. What’s unique, what is a differentiator around the brand. So one of the brands we recently launched, they’re really focused, hello Sugar, is really focused into the AI, automation and technology. So they really are what I consider the franchise of the future. They lean into that so it’s less reliant on the traditional staffing model.

They do lead generation. They do a lot of different things that not all franchise words today do. So we look for waxing or sugaring or laser. That’s that’s been around forever. There’s nothing unique about that.

The services of service, what’s unique is how they get their customer acquisitions, how they support franchisees, their go to market strategy. And so we look for unique selling propositions or what I consider like that, that operational moat that protects the castle. So we like to see those things. One of our brands has patents. Those are really important for us to protect the brand and give them a differentiator in the category.

So it’s either a disruptor in the category or maybe it’s a brand new category itself. It’s white space that, you know the analogy of a shoe salesman goes to Africa and two of them go, one comes back and says there’s no market there, nobody wears shoes. And the other guy comes back and says it’s insane, nobody wears shoes. It’s a huge market. So we look for those opportunities where others might be missing or ones that just really are ripe for disruption.

But that’s. Those are the three or four things we really look at as we evaluate brands.

Meg:
And so you had so much experience with franchise fastlane and your own personal experience. I’ve been around for a long time. I’ve been in franchising for more than 30 years. I think I’m pretty good at picking out companies that are going to do well, but I make mistakes.

Did you not see it coming some of the surprises where the founder just flips out and is really any clues that were there along the way or were they kind of sneak attacks where suddenly the wheels started to fall off?

Bobby:
Yeah, you know, I’ve had a couple in my career and some of them you kind of saw the writing on the wall and you just didn’t have the experience to recognize it of things of,again, like I mentioned, egos. Egos are one of the biggest issues I’ve seen with founders or, you know, we set expectations. The first rule, franchising with Front Street Equity Partners. The first rule, franchising, don’t franchise your business.

That’s literally what we tell people. Because this is not a get rich quick scheme for franchisors. You’re going to put in hours and time and blood, sweat and tears before you even in black. It’s going to take a while to get to that point.

So our big thing is, hey, we really want to make sure that the franchisor knows what they’re getting themselves into. Do they have the infrastructure? Are they willing to invest? You know, some brands are. They don’t want to spend money, and that’s okay, but you shouldn’t franchise.

So I think there are some things where we saw a founder that maybe wasn’t listening. Or again, we’re advisors. At the end of the day, we don’t have voting shares or anything like that. We’re advisors. You can lead a horse to water, just like franchisors can provide all the tools and resources for franchisees.

The execution is the most important part. So we’ve had surprises with a bad franchisor or maybe an industry that wasn’t fully vetted, that looked right on paper. But then you get into it and it’s like, oh, well, actually this is a lot harder. And every county or city might have different laws or regulations around something that no franchisor can ever know. But as you dig deeper into those, it becomes more nuanced and more complex.

So we try to avoid those complex businesses that have some of those. But there are still some really great brands that require a contractor’s license or a brick or something that is a, a more challenging obstacle for some people. But it just, it depends on how you approach it.

Meg:
Yeah, the. And the truth of the matter is, in the end, the franchisee owns what they bought. The buck stops with you. I hold up my little silver bullet every day.

I am the silver bullet. I got to figure out what that answer because I’m the franchisee. So the reality, for those of you who are listening, is the franchisors, a development group, an incubator like Front Street Partners, amazing depth of history and experience in the world. But what should, what should a franchisee do, Bobby, is what you and I talk a lot about. You’ve got to do your research.

You, the listener. You still have to do the research. So How, Bobby, have you refined your process over the duration of years that you’ve been in franchising as you’re working with candidates and doing their validation?

Bobby:
Yeah, so the first thing is, you know, I try to scare people off. And I say that somewhat jokingly. My title, I tell myself, is I’m the world’s worst closer. Because for most of our brands, they’re emerging, they’re young, we need pioneers. And so for your listeners, they’ve got to kind of see, the bell curve.

Am I an early adopter and a pioneer, or am I a late majority? Am I the person that’s like, oh, I want, I want crumble. But somebody had to be the first crumble franchisee or somebody had to be the first orange theory or McDonald’s, whatever it may be. Knowing yourself and knowing where you fall in that bell curve is really important, but knowing that, and then when you go through the process like validate, validate, validate, not only with the franchisor, but the franchisee. Because to your point, the way I look at it is you’ve got the franchise group I was a part of, we acquired 35 of the locations.

We didn’t buy the license for those. We acquired them from other owners. There was nothing wrong with the space, the lease, the product, the market. We would go in and sometimes we would double the revenue in one month. What was different was that the operator, the execution at the local level, we had these people that thought, oh, it’s a residual thing.

I’m going to put a high school or college student, you know, in, in place. They’re going to run this nutrition shop for us, and I’m going to make 150 grand a year. I wish, I wish it was that easy. And they were sorely disappointed when they realized you still have to be engaged in your business. You have to manage it.

So really find out what it takes to be an owner, whether it be talking to the franchisor, but then also making sure you validate that with franchise concepts. With our brands, a lot of them are emerging, so they don’t have the same type of validation. I was with a brand that we know really well in the installation space. It grew, came to us with three locations, and by the time I exited, it was a 350 plus locations. Early on, it was really difficult to validate that brand, and afterwards it was almost too much and you had a wide range.

And the bell curve is the same for franchisees. You’re gonna have 20% of franchisees that just don’t. Life happens. They don’t work, they hire the wrong people. They just not cut out for business ownership.

That’s 20%. 20% are going to blow your mind that I never thought this was possible. They kick Butt and 60% fall in the middle. So making sure you’re looking at, okay, I’m validating. I know what the owners are saying, I know what the franchise were saying.

But then introspectively, what do I bring to the table with their systems and processes? Can I execute? Can I do it? Do I feel confident in my skillset, my ability? And that’s looking in the mirror a lot of times.

And if you look for somebody else to tell you what to do, you’ll never make any decision. So my rule of thumb, like we have a confirmation day going on this week for one of our brands. My homework for them is come up with two lists. And they should do this even when they’re talking with franchise consultants like yourself, in my opinion is what’s my why list? Why franchising?

Why now? Why am I going to be a good fit? What’s my why? What’s my compelling why? To my storytelling earlier.

But on the flip side, what’s my why not? I ask people to come up with your why not list because I want, I want them to quantify it because otherwise I’ve done pros and cons list. The con list never goes away. Writing it down gets it out of your head. And then afterwards, when you, when it comes to make a decision, you got to listen to which one’s louder.

If your why not list is louder after confirmation day, I tell people, don’t buy the franchise. It’s as easy as that. If your why not list is too loud and you’re not dragging us across the finish line, we don’t want you. Now, that’ll be different when we have 5, 600 locations. The maturity of the brand matters.

But early on like that, why list has to be. They have to be a pioneer and trudging forward with the brand knowing that, hey, the brand’s going different, it’s going to evolve. You’re going to make mistakes. As a franchise owner, the brand’s going to make mistakes, it’s going to make changes. Staff turns over all those things.

But like you said, I’m betting on myself with their systems and processes and knowing that, hey, this is, you know, in my case, an emerging and growing brand. But I really like quantifying that. So that way, when they come back from confirmation day, they sleep on it. They look at that list and they really do some soul searching because a lot of people don’t quantify that. If you don’t quantify it, it’s hard to really overcome it.

Meg:
One of my favorite comments, I don’t remember where it came from, was if the voices inside your head are louder than any other fact based resource that’s coming in, don’t do it. 

Bobby:
So your gut’s worth listening to. Yeah, yeah. Know thyself.

Meg:
That’s right. But that’s also what helps some of these people self select out is that they can’t get out of their head and the facts don’t resonate with them. That’s a perfectly good reason why it should be a no.

Bobby:
There’s, there’s a lot of folks that are great entrepreneurs and I don’t mean that in a negative connotation. I don’t. But again I mentioned some of my close friends and family members, they, they love the idea of a franchise, but their idea of a franchise versus the reality is different. And so as we evaluate and I encourage all franchisors in candidates I’ve got, I call it the five Cs that I want them to look at as they evaluate a brand. And this is how I encourage brands to think of them.

And number one is, is it a culture fit? That’s first and foremost. Is it a good culture fit? Are they a net giver or a net taker to the culture of the franchise? If you add value, awesome. We want you, if you take away, if you’re, if you’re negative, toxic, whatever. Most brands don’t want that person.

Number two is capital cap. You know, one territory versus ten. I’ve seen a lot of people bite off more than they can chew. I will be the first to say if one territory versus two scares you, start with one. Because that extra money on the sideline helps you. The extra money on another territory that you’re not developing that costs you money.

So again, knowing, sometimes not getting ahead of yourself and biting off more than you can chew.

Meg:
Right size.

Bobby:
Yeah, right size. Number three, I’d call it, you know, capacity. Can they do it? Do they have the mental bandwidth? Do they have the skill set? Have they have they built the resume? You know, don’t get into franchise ownership in my opinion, unless it’s a solopreneur type of business. If you got to manage 20 people and you’ve never managed a person in your life, like can they do it right?

And then number four is probably the most important that is hardest for anyone. If I could figure out a test to do this, I’d probably be a billionaire. But commitment, and I call it great stomach. Do you have the stomach for business ownership?

And you’re up in the north in the tundra. So I use skiing as an analogy. The first time you go skiing, it’s kind of like business ownership. It looks cool from the outside. Then you go do it, and you’re like, what the heck did I get myself?

This hurts. I don’t want to get back on this cold. It’s not fun. Why do people do this? It’s expensive.

Like, all those feelings you go through the first time I went skiing, that’s year one of business ownership. Nobody gets into it for year one. You’re getting into it for year three. Year five and an exit down the road.

So the second and third time I went skiing, the slopes didn’t get any less steep. There weren’t less people on the mountain. I got better. And so I try to encourage people to think of that as, this is what you’re getting in. This would be the hardest thing, other than family and maybe marriage that you’ll ever do.

And for most people, it doesn’t mean you won’t be wildly successful, but you got to be able and willing to do things people can’t do in order to have the things people don’t have. So I really believe that those four.

And then number five is cooperation on both sides, right? We’ve all worked with that. The best of what they do, and everybody hates them. They’re number one. But they’re toxic. A toxic top producer. Get them out. That’s why franchise agreements are written the way they are.

It’s not with you in mind. It’s who is the worst possible neighbor the franchisor could give you, and how do they protect the system. So those five criteria, you know, the culture, the capital, the capacity, commitment and cooperation, those are the five. If I had to blow it down to those things, that’s what I encourage our brands to look at, is they make approvals on candidates.

But a candidate should kind of be looking at whatever that list is for them. If it’s that, they should be going through that list as they evaluate brands, too. Because what makes the most money, it’s like a job offer, right? There’s job offers that make a lot more money. And you get into it and you’re like, this is miserable.

It’s toxic, terrible.

They’ve got to really evaluate more than just one or Two items on their list.

Meg:
I am thinking about right now are some of your development people and some of the questions that I get from people who’ve never owned a business or done this type of research that. Oh, you’re going to connect me with. He’s just trying to sell me. He’s just going to try to sell me.

I said, no, no, no, hang on. Let’s back off of this and think about it a little bit. What’s the point of a franchise development company in selling franchises? You go to a store and pull one off the shelf. If that’s the way that you want to run it, then both sides are going to make mistakes.

So as you’ve been hiring and expanding Front Street Partners, and I don’t get to work with you as much as I used to, there was, there was for a lot of us, that fear of, okay, Bobby’s doing this great thing and he’s our man. You have been for such a long time because of that takeaway style. Not the takeaway, but the maybe this isn’t right for you. And you don’t push and you don’t sell.

So what do you look for in the Take the Leap of the world as you’re expanding?

Bobby:
Yeah, so I’m all about the acronyms and all these things, as you can tell. So it’s just, that’s. That’s how I operate. And I, I’ll be the first to say one of my favorite sayings is R and D. I got this from the same guy that told me FIO, my first franchise owner. R and D is rip off and duplicate. I don’t need. I don’t need to be the one that creates all these, but find I’m really good at recognizing patterns.

Recognize the patterns and then make that pattern work for me.

And so I look for what I call three eyes whenever I hire.

And of course, yes, you want people to have, you know, a reputation would be great, but some of the people we’ve hired don’t have a reputation prior to joining Front Street. Yeah. And so number one is integrity.

At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing. Lose sales, not sleep. Mission over commission. Whatever you want to say. Like, those are the most.

Do the right thing. It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing. That is paramount. If there is ever an integrity issue, that person will not be on my team. That’s, that’s kind of my commitment to, to our brands, to our partners, to our franchise Owners.

Number two is influence. Do they have influence? Can they generate influence? Because this is an influence business. You can have the best franchise in the world, but if you have no influence, no one’s going to listen to you.

You’ve got to be a compelling storyteller and have influence and help people understand. Like you said, sometimes good influence of, yes, this might be a good fit for you, or sometimes, you know what, here’s what I want you to think about. You’ve never managed people or you’re not in this category. How are you going to be successful? And it’s not negative, it’s just, hey, help me understand how you’re going to do this.

Yeah. And then number three is intentionality. If people are intentional in this business. Again, a lot of businesses, there’s, there’s some really great franchise development people out there, some really great concepts. There’s also some really bad ones.

And so what I like to think of is if I just have those three eyes, that’s my foundation, that’s what I build everything off. I can teach people how to, you know, weed people out. And are they a good fit? Are they a bad fit for the brand? Because a lot of that’s brand specific and, and really finding the right fit with the brand.

You know, you mentioned Nick, one of the best that I think does it in the industry. He wouldn’t be the first person I thought when I thought of spray tans, but it’s a really good mix with that brand. So finding the right fit with the franchisor is really important for us too. And again, at the end of the day, knowing that, I have zero question.

You know, I think there’s a Simon Sinek as a leadership speaker and I kind of think of this as well. And he talks about, you know, performance and trust on like an x, y axis. And everybody wants someone high performance, high trust. 

And they talk about people that are low trust by high performers. Nobody wants them. And well, we would choose, I would choose a high trust, lower performer over somebody that’s high performer, low trust any day of the week. Because the analogy they break it down to is, would you, would you trust that person with your, your wallet, your life and your wife?

And I think that’s a good litmus test for like, those are the people that I want to work with, not only from franchisors, but on our team, if they have those three eyes and I trust them. Then we can really focus on doing big things and not worried about are we doing the right thing or do we. You build the culture and they, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. I’m a firm believer in that strategy in that, in that saying as well.

Meg:
I love it. I have looked forward to having you on for such a long time. This has been rapid fire and the questions were not pre prepared in my head or from you. So this has been a really chunky, chewy episode of the Free Agent and I’ve been looking forward to having you. I knew it would be good, but I didn’t think it would roll as nicely as this just did, Bobby.

So kudos to you.

Bobby:
Yeah, kudos to you, Meg. You’re a great host, you make it easy and your listeners are lucky to have you on their side and hopefully they get some nuggets of value out of this conversation.

Meg:
Well, it’s been valuable for me and I’ve been around for a long time and every day, every day I wake up and I have to remind myself I’m doing this for joy, fun and yes, because otherwise it’s no, but it’s still, you’ve given me some little nuggets of inspiration for the rest of the week. So thank you very much for being on the show with me today.

Bobby:
Thanks for having me.