From Single Mom to Franchise Queen: Heather McPherson’s Winding Path to Success

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guests: Heather McPherson, Vice President of Development at BrandONE 

Meg Schmitz:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to or. Welcome back to the Free Agent Podcast. My name is Meg Schmitz. I am your lovely hostess. And if you’ve been here before, or if you’ve never been here before, this is a place 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. 

Today I’m so excited. I have Heather McPherson, one of my besties in the world of franchising. She’s one of my besties anyway. But thanks to the world of franchising, we’ve been able to spend twice a year at the franchise conference. We are roommates, I think roommates with the longest duration. And so, Heather, thank you, number one, for coming on my podcast. And number two, happy Valentine’s Day.

Heather McPherson:
You too. Thank you.

Meg:
You and I met. I don’t even know if we know how long ago that was. It was. It was a long time ago. I don’t remember what company you were with. Do you remember? Was it Fran Fund?

Heather:
I think we met with Knowledge Points.

Meg:
Okay. So in the world of Heather McPherson, you’ve done a lot of really interesting things in your career. You didn’t start in franchising. You didn’t start really as an entrepreneur. So take us back in the history books and tell us where you got started. And then where did that entrepreneurial bug start to kick in?

Heather:
Such a good question. Thank you. So, like, forever ago. You know, part of the things about our brains is we have this map that gets happened by your parents, right? That’s how you’re raised. And I was raised in a household where, oh, women, they don’t go to college. They just and, you know, be ready to get married, have babies, do all that stuff. And that was in my brain. And so when I found myself a single mom of four boys, what am I going to do? Got to feed those nuggets. So I did the W2. I did not know what else to do. My parents supported me. I got in the medical field because I figured, what the heck? I can help people and it’s going to work, so it’s going to be there. I went to started in radiology and made all my ways up the ladder to orthopedics, and I loved it. I loved helping people. My senior friends were my favorite because they get so confused and so scared.

Oddly, through that, I met Dr. W. Barry Fowler. He was the founder of Sylvan Learning Centers. You know, I’m in Portland, Oregon, and that’s literally where it started. That’s a franchise all over the place. He pulled me aside and said, “You know how to manage all these 26 surgeons, and you’re doing all this stuff. Do you want to come help me start an offshoot of Sylvan?” I’m like, huh, okay, sounds good. That’s how I fell in. My parents went bananas. They’re like, “That’s okay. I’m just going to go a different pathway and change my blueprint in my brain.” So that’s how I fell in. It was pretty interesting.

Meg:
It is really interesting. I, for all of these years, didn’t realize that that was the expectation in your household, with your upbringing. It’s a bit of a throwback. You and I are about the same age, and it’s a bit of a throwback to a different generation, but that explains a lot. So, you confidently left your W2 and decided this is the path, this is a new path, and you were gonna give it a shot. How did it go? Were there any surprises?

Heather:
Well, honestly, you look at your kiddos and, you know, a W2—I was barely squeaking by, and I’m like, they’re getting older, they’re gonna cost me more. So the opportunity happened, you know and born and raised in Portland Sylvan’s a common thing. I was putting my kids, some of them, through it. So I thought, yeah, why not? I don’t know why I didn’t question. I just did it. It’s just like got to. You just do. And yeah, there was lots of learnings. Lots of things happened. And the brand I was with got sold.

What does that even mean? So I went and got a church job because I was scared. And I was a secretary at the church, and I did all their music and staff. I did that one because, as that transition happened, they kind of stuck me on part-time. I basically got very, very good at all that customer service, receptionist… Anyway, it got bought by Jeff Elgin and Jeff Sieber, and then my life changed completely. I thought I was just going to be the president’s right hand. I could do that and I can take shorthand, and I can do all that good stuff. Then they said, “Oh, we’re going to put you in development.” And I literally lost my mind. I started crying. I was like, no, what did I do wrong?

Why don’t you…

Go into it? So once I calmed down, I had Jeff Elgin in this ear, Jeff Sieber in this ear. I was just blessed to have the two top people in franchising, that’s who trained me. That’s who trained me.

Meg:
That is total karma. I hadn’t realized exactly that piece of it as well. So for the audience, Jeff Sieber and Jeff Elgin used to be with Great Clips, with the corporate office. I met Jeff Elgin when he was VP of franchise development. And Jeff Sieber was, I think, an area developer down in Texas.

Heather:
Correct.

Meg:
And then they come and buy a company that’s in Portland, which is kind of crazy. So who was your true boss?

Heather:
Actually worked with Sieber. He stayed in Portland as the president, trying to turn it around and figure out what the bugs are. And then they brought in—get this one—Achenbach. Barry Achenbach, which, you know, Mr. Oil and all this manly stuff, was going to be the franchise developer for a nice children’s brand of education. And that’s the one they said I had to work with.

Meg:
I was just talking to somebody earlier—oh, Lindsay at our FranChoice corporate office—about some of these disconnects with brands who are all gunning to go and they’re ready, and they bring in somebody like Barry Achenbach. He was Mr. Meineke or Mr.…

Heather:
Yeah, Mr. TunenLube.

Meg:
Yeah, yeah, the oil… I can’t remember which one. Well, he was with a couple of different brands. And so to your point, bringing him in to do development for a children’s education brand—that was a crazy key in a lock. How did that go?

Heather:
Yeah, not for very long because it was just not gonna happen.

Meg:
Yeah.

Heather:
Yeah. So through—and I think with a Sieber—he can shift pretty fast when he sees the writing on the wall. It didn’t take too long. And then yeah, we went a different direction. And then they stuck me in there.

Meg:
So what’s interesting with your trajectory here: you went from being a mother of four, working in the medical field, to karma—you meet this person and are introduced to franchising. So how many years were you on the franchisor side looking and watching franchise development before they asked you to step into that role? It couldn’t have been very long.

Heather:
No. Maybe eight or nine months. Maybe. At the very, very beginning I was in shipping, receiving—I did everything. So crazy.

Meg:
So there you were learning the ropes. And at that point we had a whole different set of terminology and jargon in the industry and you had to learn a lot. So how did it go with franchise development and bringing people on? And then I want to ask you, how did that serve who you are today in franchise development?

Heather:
Yeah. So it came from having kind of the best training period, and I’m a quick learn. It was actually—here’s the big shift—it was the first time I had mentors that believed in me and I didn’t believe in me. No one had ever said to that point, by those two Jeffs, that “you can do it, we believe in you.” Not a soul. And that changed my… He said, “So, then I can.” And what used to frustrate me is, year after year, I would go to the franchise convention and Jeff Elgin would come up to me and go, “You still don’t believe in you as much as I do.” And I go, “What am I doing?” He wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong.

Meg:
Yeah, yeah.

Heather:
But also, when it got purchased, Andrew Horton—who was with FranChoice—and they had him come over. So the two of us were like brother and sister in development. It just started. It all made sense because I care about people. And you care about people getting the business and you want the right fit. And it wasn’t always the right fit, and it was okay to say, “This is not, I don’t think so.” But then the ones you love, you just love. You just love them.

Meg:
So for me, it makes it so obvious. When you’re trying to get your cadence, you’ll talk to anybody and you’re trying so hard to refine your spiel and use the right words and then be able to pivot and read the other person—and over time, develop the ability to lean in and listen to the other party. Because now, rather than talking all the time, you know how to extract what you need from them. And for me today, I’ll go through long periods where I’m working with people who, for whatever reason, they’re not going to be a buyer of a franchise. It’s not the right fit, it’s not the right time—but it’s just somebody to talk to and somebody to listen and learn from. And then when the real people come, it’s like, oh, this is so much fun. Because now you can really see you’re starting to hit your stride and bringing the right people into the right system.

Heather:
Yeah. And all those things are aligning. And to your point, I think one of my biggest skill sets was always I could build a relationship in 30 seconds. I’ve always been able to do that. And when somebody trusts you, that is such an honor. You know, they know words are so important—you said it. And as you mature, you really recognize how much more that is. So you could say, “Well, this audience comes from this type of growing up,” that means my language is going to make sense if I talk that way so they understand. Versus, you know, a really high net worth engineer—that’s a different conversation. You know, all of those shifts and changes. And you get good at going, “This is never going to work.” This is not a person that should be in business. And that’s okay. You know, it’s good for everybody.

Meg:
Well, I’m sure that that’s now, with Brand One and the brands that you’re on, made it so much easier for you to escalate your business success. And congratulations on your—you’ve had a couple back-to-back conferences, awards with FranChoice and with Brand One. And so, talk about how your early franchise development has really informed and created your approach today.

Heather:
Yeah, thank you. And it has been such a fun journey, and it’s not easy. I mean, success is really rarely a straight path, and it gets gritty, and it gets uncomfortable. And yeah, so I went through lots of different phases of growth, and I had to make the decision—like anybody who is on a successful side is—I’m going to fall down and scrape my knee, and I’m going to learn from that and get up and go, and then seek mentors and don’t stop reading and don’t stop learning and don’t get in a pattern of, “Okay, I’m going to say my speech. Okay, recall one, blah, blah, blah.” You know, it took a while, because I was told, “Do blah, blah, blah.” And I’m like, no. It just doesn’t work.

Meg:
And that is the thing about Sieber and Elgin—going all the way back there—they had formula, and “this is how you say it.” And I remember watching the training videos and thinking, I will never ever sound like Jeff Elgin. That’s just disingenuous to who I am. And my authenticity took some time to refine. But those two guys, way, way back then, they were, “Well, here’s how you do it, Heather. Here’s how you do it, Meg. Check the boxes, and you’ll be just fine.”

Heather:
Yes, yes, yes. Embedded, yes. I would say when I got to do finance, I learned so much on that. Because the finance hat—when you’re trying to help someone figure out, how am I going to fund a business? Can I fund a business? What does that even mean? That’s a scary, scary, scary time for lots of folks. And that’s a different audience. One of the things I really learned and grew out of that was, most people don’t really know. “Oh, how do I do it?” So I tended to be the smartest person in the room. And I kind of liked that. It’s going to be easy.

Meg:
And so that then is also a throwback to Jeff Sieber, who then—along with his wife Sherry—decided this whole funding piece really needs some attention. There are serious lack of knowledgeable advisors in the franchise space. And thus, you were there at the beginning of FranFund.

Heather:
Yeah. I kind of have this pattern of starting with the new things and growing them, and then doing it again somewhere else. But FranFund—it was similar. I found myself… Jeff had one gal—me—and it was going to do sales. He’s like, “I’m going to teach you everything you need to know about funding.” I’m like, great. He brings his pen and he gets on the whiteboard and he starts doing his things with his coffee-colored pens. And he goes, “It’s that simple.” And I’m like… oh. I had to study, study, study. But it was a different language. And then I recognized how much fear is behind money. Just money. Not knowing about it. “How do I get it? Will I get more? How should I spend it?” I mean, all of that stuff—totally different language. So I got to learn more things about how people’s brains function when it comes—not just to the fear of owning a business—but “should I even?” and “how do I?” It was very, very good learnings. I stayed with them for 11 years until I couldn’t talk about SBA loans and other stuff anymore. I was like, that’s it.

Meg:
Well, that’s another point of knowledge and information that has helped to shape how you work with people today. And you and I were working with somebody recently—we’ve worked with a bunch of people recently—and some demonstrate their fears very obviously, and others seem to be fearless. But we know that it’s in there. We still know that it’s in there. How do you navigate? Because you see all these different types of people—different ethnicities, different ages, different levels of confidence with their career trajectory—younger, older. How do you describe your approach and what keeps you grounded every day as you’re working with these different people through their fear sets?

Heather:
I love that. Well, I take care of me first. I put the mask on myself before I even turn on a phone, turn on the computer—or else I’m doing a disservice to other people. Because I want to get right into where they are. It’s my favorite thing. Zoom is Zoom. So when I get to see somebody, it’s like opening a present. Who’s inside? Who do I get to know?

And one of the things I like to do to make it make sense is to help people understand what makes a successful person versus a non-successful person in business ownership. Because that’s what’s going on in their head—“Can I do it? Would I? Wouldn’t I?” And if you put it out there and give them, “Hey, franchising is new,” there’s really three top reasons why we’ve got top performers—it doesn’t matter the brand. It could be anything in franchising. They all believe in the system and follow it. Seems logical—you got all this training and all this support. Okay.

The second thing is they all believe in the leadership. They like, trust, respect the leadership. They feel confident that this leadership is going to take the ship down the ocean in the right way.

And then the final thing is they take responsibility for making their own decisions every day and learn from it and grow from it. Versus the unsuccessful—they’re like, “Oh, it’s the market. Oh, it’s competition.” Pointy, pointy, pointy, pointy. That’s an unsuccessful attitude. So once they go, “Oh, well, that doesn’t… I can do that,” that’s helpful. I like to set it up early, like in the very first conversation, so they can start thinking about it. It’s been going on for a long time—people can be very successful.

Meg:
Yeah. And I know that your own personal style—you alluded to it—that you put your mask on first before you put it on the other person. You center yourself every day with your journaling. Talk about that. Because as I’ve known you over the years, that has really become a major force of energy for you—to start your day with journaling and meditation.

Heather:
Yeah, yeah. I stepped into it a handful of years ago, but I really implemented it 18 months ago. And the reference acronym is called SAVERS.

S is silence.
Then affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing.

Sometimes I have five minutes and I’ll do some of them. Sometimes I have 30. I try to make it 30 every day. So I get up earlier. I was never a morning person, but now I am—5:30 am up, getting going, get ready, SAVERS—or I don’t turn on a thing.

And this is from a book. It’s called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. I recommend it to any human being, because it’ll change your life. It’ll change your thought. It’ll change your level of success.

And yes, it has been remarkable. Hal’s story is amazing. He almost… he got hit by a drunk driver. He’s almost died three times. Crazy. And I got to meet him at a franchising convention. He came on the stage, we talked afterwards. I’m like, “You’re my person. We’re so similar.” All I had to do was tweak my—what we call Miracle Morning—a little differently. I was doing all the right things, but not all the right things. And it has literally gotten me centered every day.

Meg:
And that is what makes you such a great partner in business. We have a three-legged stool. We’ve got the candidate that we’re working with, with whom we are working. And then there’s you as franchise development, and me as their Sherpa, their guide, their matchmaker. And having that open conversation—you’re listening for the same level of transparency that I’m looking for.

When we have a candidate who trusts both of us, and he or she is telling us both the same thing, that makes it really easy for us. Transparently for the listener—not everyone is cut out to do this. It’s not the right time. It’s not the… fill in the blank. Something about it isn’t right. But having that honest conversation sooner helps us to let you go. If it’s not the right fit, we can navigate into something else. You can navigate back into the job market.

That’s where Heather and I are so nicely complementary in this process—we’re both building trust and listening for your honest emotion to tell us, “Okay, I’m really afraid about this, but I’m so excited about this. Yeah, I’m scared, but let’s do it.”

Heather:
Yeah. Yeah. And to cap on that, just one little thought: the thing is, thoughts lead to feelings, right? And then feelings are going to either lead to actions—or not. Well, usually actions—but those actions are the result. It really leads to that result. So whatever is here in the subconscious, that’s what’s going to happen. Which is so interesting. I love the mind. It’s so fascinating.

Meg:
And I’m also a big believer: thoughts become things. Choose the good ones.

Heather:
Yeah, exactly.

Meg:
So if you got a lot of negative stuff going on in here, that is what the universe is going to bring to you.

Heather:
It’s—

Meg:
It’s going to manifest your thoughts. So choose the good ones.

Heather:
Yeah. Well, and know—we’re all human beings. And every single one of us has a caveman brain. It’s there. And that’s the one that goes, “Oh no! Be scared! Here comes a saber-toothed tiger! Hide!” You know, or whatever it is. Be afraid of what you don’t know.

Sometimes it’s best to tell the thing, “Hey, it’s okay. You can take your thoughts over there and have a nice seat. I’m going this way.” You know? That brain—everybody has that thing. It’s just either you control it or you don’t.

Meg:
Yeah. And for you and me, it’s a real delicate dance of—I was going to say pushing. You and I have the same philosophy about pushing a candidate. If we’re pushing that boulder uphill, as soon as you and I let go, it’s just going to roll back down again. So they have to have their own level of confidence to take the steps forward along the path.

I can shine a flashlight on what their next step is going to be, but they’ve got to take the next step. But it’s not pushing them. And so that delicate dance, balance, is challenging—people who have been so successful—to understand why they’re fearful. And then they’re going to answer it for themselves. They’re either going to be able to get out of it and get past it, or they’re not. And that’s okay. For some people, that’s just the stage in life, and that’s where you are, and we can let you go and do your own thing. It’s not the right fit, and it’s not the right time for everybody.

Heather:
Yeah, precisely. Precisely.

Have you ever read The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind? Have you read that book? If any of you guys have not read it and you want to have that millionaire mindset kind of thing, it is so good. It talks about the things that Meg is talking about. And then you’re going to make that decision of what you want to do. But it’s so interesting—if you look at just the successful people of the world, they have so many things in common. And it’s so fun to kind of connect that. So I would highly recommend that one. It’s so well done. And yeah, have an honest conversation with yourself too.

Meg:
Those are two really great recommendations. I get asked a lot what it is that I’m reading, and lately I’ve peeled away from business and I actually have been participating more in my book club—with real novels. And so I’m re-enjoying reading. I think I got too much into the Darren Hardy’s and the—you know, just too much of the business mindset.

You do have to have a balance in your personal life and your business life. You’ve got to exercise. And so sometimes, just reading all the same business stuff sort of gets you mired down. And maybe I’m not doing it right, or I’m not doing enough. And look at all these books that are out there and they’re all doing it better than I am.

So you do have to cut yourself some slack and give yourself some grace to just unplug. But really—you used a word earlier that is so important—the real word here is silence. If you can be silent in this world for even a few minutes and really connect to, “What is my body telling me? What is my mind telling me? What are my instincts and intuition telling me?” Don’t listen to the media. Don’t—you really have to just get centered and still.

Heather:
Yeah. Have you ever—I don’t know—I also started a handful of years ago, it was one of those baby steps. You take your phone at night and you put it in the bathroom where you can’t reach it. And then I’ve gotten to a point where I call Saturday my—my technology Sabbath, if you will.

I don’t touch my phone. I don’t turn on the computer. And my family—everyone’s kind of knowing this now—so they’re like, “You didn’t see my text?” No. All Saturday—no communication. Unless you want to actually come over, make the phone ring, I’ll answer it from that perspective.

But yeah, you’re right. That silence is just so refreshing.

Meg:
Yeah. You can’t really hear—the voices are so loud inside your head. When the voices inside your head are louder than the practical people who surround you… And that’s another good topic to talk about—is who are your mentors? And how do you surround yourself?

You had a lack of confidence way back when Jeff and Jeff tapped you on the shoulder. Who have been your best support systems—or, I will say, mentors? But it doesn’t have to all be business. They could be like—your son is involved in your business. He’s been one of your biggest banner wavers for as long as I’ve known you.

Heather:
Yeah. It’s incredible. And he’s doing so good. So proud of him.

But I think in my world, it’s a variety, right? It’s some of my friends that we have a spiritual connection with—you know, a grounding from that side. I have a lot of really strong women in franchising—and you’re one of them—that I can call anytime I want. I can toss things through.

To your point—I mean, I just didn’t have the confidence. I didn’t know I didn’t. But it took mentors. Now I often will look at, you know, who do I… well, I don’t know if you—what’s it called? It’s where celebrities are recorded and you can go on and you can… MasterClasses!

They may not be my neighbor, but I glean so much from what these strong women or men have learned. And they put their time out there, so why wouldn’t I learn from that?

Constant learning is my favorite thing. And I think I stopped dreaming, is what I did—until, you know, I had my mentors around me, my friends, my anybody. And yeah. So—dream, and read, learn, grow.

Meg:
Yes. That’s what makes us interesting human beings.

There is a third person from Great Clips lore—from the way-back machine—Kurt Landwehr, who started Brand One. I know those guys. And you have spent a lot of time—you haven’t been with Brand One all that long—and I remember when you were making a decision about the brand that you had been with. It was fun, it was nice, it was a pretty brand, and you look great in pink.

But it was time to move on. And I so remember how intentional you were at that FranChoice conference to talk to the different franchise sales organizations—the FSOs—who sought you out as a valuable commodity. Those guys at Brand One are an amazing force to be reckoned with.

So talk about the transfer then—from where you were to where you are now—and that level of confidence, because that’s been just off the charts.

Heather:
Yeah. I have to say, I researched every development company on the planet. I had single brands coming after me, wanting me to start from scratch again. I’m like, I’m not doing that. I need a team, and I want to be with those that I can proudly put my name on and say, yep, we’re on the same page.

When I finally had Michael Mudd—everybody knows Michael—and it was at a franchise conference, I had a little chit-chat. A lot of people were talking to me. And he said, “Let’s have a conversation.” And he shared stuff. Now I love and respect Michael—I’ve known him forever, I’ve known everybody at Brand One, all the leadership, for a very long time.

And I kept going, well… yeah.

So I went to the Oregon coast—as Michael said, “I want you to make a decision. Tell me Monday.” I left my family, I went by myself to the coast. No TV, no sounds, no nothing—just the ocean. And wrote it all down, got centered, thought.

And my gut just said, this is your people. This is where you need to be. They’re like the Mount Rushmore when it comes to development. I’ve watched the brand grow from afar and I’m like, nope, this is my home.

And it literally—like, trust, and respect—I absolutely trust everybody at Brand One. And they take that to the next level. They only work with brands that they like, trust, and respect the leadership. So they say no a lot. And I love that. I love that they’re not just trying to shove a bunch of people in a brand and run away. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Meg:
Yeah, they’re not going after the shiny, hot, sexy—what’s going to sell? “How can we sell a thousand of these things?”

That has been so important to me as I’ve grown my business and the companies. Just talking to Lindsay at FranChoice corporate today—she was asking me, how do I choose the companies that I present to my candidate?

So I only work with referrals, really, for the most part—unless somebody finds me and they come through LinkedIn—but nearly everybody else is referred by someone who knows, likes, and trusts me.

So that has been a real game-changer. As Brand One has grown, the number of brands that you’ve brought on—it’s very clearly not because it’s a hot, sexy brand. I mean, it might be a hot, sexy brand, but that’s not point one.

Point one is leadership and integrity so that their franchise owners are going to have a successful outcome.

Heather:
Exactly. Exactly. And that is just—again, that’s who I am. So it made sense. It’s perfect.

Meg:
And so the two brands that you are representing right now are very different brands.

My favorite question—why are you representing these brands right now? You’ve been with a franchisor. You’ve been on the development side. Long ago, you were on the funding side. You saw hundreds of brands. You saw lots of independent brands that weren’t even a franchise yet.

So talk about the two brands that you’re with—and why are you with them right now?

Heather:
Okay. The first one—when I came over—they said, “Oh, we’re bringing a new group in. It’s going to be so exciting. It’s striping parking lots.”

I’m like… really?

Meg:
Woo.

Heather:
“Well, it has to happen, I guess.” And they said, “We want you to meet the founders.” Dave Schaefer is one of the partners here. I’ve kind of come under his umbrella.

I knew Dave from the Meineke/Maaco days, but I worked with all his team and funded all his stuff. But I didn’t get to really be right there with Dave. And he goes, “You got what it takes to do this one.” That’s all I had to hear.

But I met the owners. I met the founders. And they are a faith-based organization—husband and wife team. This is all they’ve ever done for 25 years. So we hit it off—like bam. And I knew what they wanted to do.

And I almost wanted to put my wings around them and just protect them—to make sure they only got the real good ones. Right matches, as you know. That was an emerging—is an emerging—brand. It’s called 1-800-STRIPER. They’re based in Rochester, New York, of all places. And just the neatest.

They did everything right. They got themselves prepared. They downsized financially. They didn’t have to take it to franchising, but they just saw it differently. And their whole goal is to help others recognize the success and change lives. They say it: “We want to change lives.” I’m like—gotcha. So yeah, that was my first one.

And then they said, “While this one’s ramping up, guess what? We’ve got a really mature brand that’s been in franchising for over 21 years. It’s existed for 26. It’s growing like crazy.” It’s called Seniors Helping Seniors.

I’m like—senior brand? Never done a senior brand.

And then I turned the story. I met the current president and COO. This is such a family legacy. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep brand. And I didn’t understand licensing and senior care and all this stuff, but I learned.

And again—they love their franchise partners. They have so much support and coaching and all the systems. And boy oh boy, if someone needs a brand that’s mature and not emerging—that’s a different conversation. This one has got legs forever. And I loved it.

Last year, between myself and my associate, we brought in 50 new franchise partners. And it just boom, boom, boom. Just the nicest, greatest—and they keep getting better and better and better and better.

So I am very blessed to have a B2B side, and then the personal people side. But both of them are the same. The momentum creates momentum.

Meg:
Yeah, yeah. The brands on the outside couldn’t be more different. But the leadership, the legacy for Seniors Helping Seniors, and then the leadership on the 1-800-STRIPER side and how solid those people are—I have total confidence whenever I’m referring my candidates to you.

It’s more than—so for the listener, I need you to understand—it’s more than “Do I like Heather?” It’s the brands that she’s working on and the integrity of the people who are the founders and visionaries, who have your life in as a partner now, going forward.

So they’re on my side can’t be emotion that goes into my brand selection that I’m going to present to you. I’ve got to love the leadership. And that’s what I appreciate about Heather.

And why is she with these brands right now? You’ve also learned over time that there are brand visionaries who are a little bit sketchy.

Heather:
Oh boy. Yep.

Meg:
And they they talk a good game. But when the rubber meets the road, the franchisees… that’s where we talk so much about validation. Current owners being happy with leadership and having confidence in it. If that isn’t there, I can’t. I can’t present that brand to my candidate, my referral.

They’ve got to hear somewhere in there that it’s squeaky… well, not squeaky clean, because that’s… But it’s got to be resoundingly confident that franchise owners are being treated well and fairly. And they wanted to correct that because sometimes you get franchisees who are a little roguish of their own, and leadership needs to make some hard decisions.

Heather:
Yeah, yeah. And I think too is—to go right on the dovetail is, you know, just do the next right thing. And that’s what they do. They go, “Oh. Oh. Well, this is the right thing.” And you learn from it. So it goes on both sides, whether it’s a franchisee or the franchisor. But yeah, I love that. So important.

Meg:
Well, Heather, this has been a great way to spend Valentine’s Day.

Heather:
I know.

Meg:
And I appreciate you being able to carve out the time. I know what your pipeline looks like and how busy you are. Thank you for being such a great friend and business partner. But my friend, you are my friend first and foremost and I love the heck out of you.

And thank you for sharing this winding story of the Jeffs and how you got here today, because it really is, I hope it’s inspiring for the people who are listening. That you started from nothing, and you have been earning awards now back-to-back years based on integrity. So you’re my hero.

Heather:
Appreciate you, hon. Love you to pieces. And this was so much fun. Yes. I sure hope this helped somebody. You know—that’s what we do. We help people.

Meg:
That is what we do. Well, make it a great day.

Heather:
You too, guys. Happy Valentine’s Day.