Transcript

Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan

From Home Service Expert · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 9 min · 14,990 words · 95 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan", an episode of Home Service Expert published May 8, 2025 (1 h 9 min, about 14,990 words). It mentions 12 people, works and ideas, including Jeff Duden, Homefront Brands, Neighborly, Can't Hurt Me, Al Levy.

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on the challenges and realities of franchising as explained by Jeff Dudan, CEO of Homefront Brands. Key points include the high failure rate of franchise operators, the significant investment required to establish a successful franchise system, and the necessity for collaboration among diverse franchise owners to adapt and thrive in a competitive landscape.

Key takeaways

  • Franchising is akin to a revolving door: 90% of franchise owners fail within 12 years—it’s not just about opening doors.
  • With 829,000 franchises in the U.S., one in nine employed Americans are on the franchise payroll—talk about Main Street muscle!
  • Franchising isn’t an escape route for failing businesses; it's a collaborative jungle where passion meets profit—choose your players wisely.
  • Want to franchise? Better know it's a people business more than a product business; people can make or break your brand.
  • A retail franchise can cost upwards of $1.4 million just to get the door open—talk about a steep price for entry!

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Neighborly, Jeff Duden, Homefront Brands, Kevin Wilson
  2. – 20:00: Homefront Brands, Can't Hurt Me
  3. – 30:00: Al Levy, Chirp
  4. – 40:00: Kevin Wilson
  5. – 1:08:54: Jeff Duden, Homefront Brands, Can't Hurt Me, Advant

Notable quotes from "Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan"

  • All right, guys. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I got a good buddy in town. you're always in town.
    about Jeff Duden · at
  • Just if it's for the right reason, I'm good buddies with a guy named Kevin Wilson, Mosquito Joe's that sold to Neighborly and I'm friends with really good friends with Mike…
    about Neighborly · at
  • Got CO and I not walking pneumonia after that. So like I was down. So what I did was I went deep into David Gogggins. So yeah, we had that written down can't hurt me. Yeah. So here's the great thing. He says, you're performing against your.
    about Can't Hurt Me · at
  • The founder of Chirp. We're back and forth like I and I said, Well, we would like to use Chirp, but it doesn't integrate with our thing. He goes, Oh, don't worry. I'll do it. and just meeting him yesterday, and he said, Oh,.
    about Chirp · at
  • Business builder, a visionary and an entrepreneur. I got to 17 million by brute force and then I met Al Levy, number two on the podcast, Home Service Expert, which we're on…
    about Al Levy · at
  • Of the other stuff that I felt was important to me. So, but I knew but I didn't make a decision to sell the business until I got into something called YPO, Young President. And then what I realized was everybody in YO had sold.
    about YPO · at
  • Pathetic. Yeah. what other the other question I always ask is there any books other than like Rich Dad Poor Dad and E-Myth and you know the famous Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill books that really shaped you and you really think that.
    about E-Myth · at
  • And then I see the gentleman, young gentleman with them, and I recognize it was one of my Advant franchises. I saw you interview them. Yeah. Who was there getting franchisee of the year? They're they're from another country, right?
    about Advant · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Jeff Duden — Person · Main guest · 2 mentions · first at
    Primary interview subject explaining why most franchisors fail, what it takes to build durable franchise systems, and his approach at Homefront Brands.
  • Al Levy — Person · Referenced coach/consultant (inflection point) · 1 mention · first at
    Credited by the host as the turning point from brute-force growth to systemization via SOPs, documentation, and operational discipline.
  • Kevin Wilson — Person · Referenced industry peer · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as an example of a successful franchising operator (Mosquito Joe) and as part of the host’s network of franchising leaders.
    Own to prove it's possible, right? I just if it's for the right reason, I'm good buddies with a guy named Kevin Wilson, Mosquito Joe's that sold to Neighborly and I'm friends…

Books & papers

  • Can't Hurt Me — Book · Primary recommendation · 2 mentions · first at
    Highly recommended for its motivational and self-improvement content.
  • E-Myth — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a foundational book for understanding business systems.
  • Good to Great — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as a key book for understanding what makes companies excel.
    God shaped me way back. Well, I know the David Gogggins Can't Hurt Me Can't Hurt Me is great. you know Good to Great was something early for me.
  • Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an influential book on team dynamics and leadership.
    Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencion was something that was very instrumental for me early. Man, I'm big into Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time right now. if I had to if I had.

Companies & orgs

  • Homefront Brands — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at
    Primary company discussed by Jeff Duden, focusing on franchising in home services.
    He's Jeff Duden, the CEO of Homefront Brands. he's an author, podcast speaker, expert at franchises. he leads the one of the largest franchises I know of. And here's what's crazy.
  • Neighborly — Company · Case study · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced as a successful franchise platform in the home services industry.
  • Advant — Company · Case study · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a franchise brand with successful franchisees.

Products & tech

  • Chirp — Product · Referenced product · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a product that could be integrated into business operations.

Places & events

  • YPO — Event · Referenced organization · 2 mentions
    Mentioned as a network that influenced the decision to sell a business.

Full transcript with timestamps

All right, guys. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I got a good buddy in town. Uh you're always in town. Uh he's uh Jeff Duden, the CEO of Homefront Brands. Um he's an author, podcast speaker, expert at franchises. Um he leads the one of the largest franchises I know of. And and here's what's crazy about franchising, Jeff, is the more I learn about it, a lot of people start a franchise, but the same amount of franchises exist every year. So that means people are failing just as quick as people are coming in. Now, are you talking about franchiseors or franchises? Franchiseors. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So 4,000 actively growing franchise brands. 90% of franchiseors fail within 12 years. And and there's and there's good reason for that. Uh so yeah, every day roughly one comes into business and every day roughly one goes out of business which is which is crazy. Uh but I don't know is that is that any different uh than traditional small business stuff like that? Um maybe not. But look, franchising is a um it has to be a certain passion play because there is so much collaboration that has to happen with these franchise owners. Um they all have they come from different places. We have a a high sophist high sophistication, high net worth franchise owners and then we got people coming out of corporate America for their very first business. And you've got to be able to meet them all where they're at.

So a lot of times people franchise their business and they don't realize that it's going to take upwards of maybe a couple of million dollars of investment ahead of their revenue to be able to um build the systems and the processes and put the people in place to meet these franchise owners when when they're emerging. So unfortunately a lot of brands get 5 10 15 owners and then they realize they you know what it is and uh and then you know maybe they decide to uh you know discontinue it but but ultimately um look uh franchising is accelerating at an accelerating rate.

There's 829,000 franchise establishments in the United States. One out of every nine people employed works by or for a franchise system. Almost 9 million people. and it's a significant part of small business GDP which is generally 46 to 60% uh of our GDP. So, you know, franchising is giving people entrepreneurial opportunities on Main Street USA for their families. Uh so, you know, when you're when you're scaling a big direct business, um you can go fast because you make the decisions. You say, "We're going to implement this. I'm going to pay for this. This is the way it is." But if you took your employees here, your cross-section of your employees from your seauite to your directors all the way down to your techs and you and you gave some random 50 of them a franchise, think about what you'd be dealing with.

Oh, no. It's just Well, here's here's the biggest thing, Jeff, that I think about is it's not uncommon that I'm at an event or I'm at a meetup or just around a company and they say, "We're thinking about franchising." And like it should be a passion project. Except here's what I know is going on in their mind. I can't make it in the real world. I haven't taken market share. I'm going to franchise because people will pay me for my business idea and then I'll get to take 7% off the top and they don't have a website that works correctly. They've never taken market share. They only got one location. You should have at least a few franchise or own to prove it's possible, right? I just if it's for the right reason, you know, I'm good buddies with a guy named Kevin Wilson, Mosquito Joe's that sold to Neighborly and I'm friends with really good friends with Mike Davis and he just took over as a CEO of

Neighborly. Um, and I just think you got to start a franchise, but you got need to know you're no longer in the garage door business or the roofing business or the gutter business. You're now in the people turnkey business. That's right. And I think that's just I don't think people are starting some people do. You I think you started it. You knew what you were getting into. you you started it for the right reasons. You knew you got with the right lawyers. You built the right systems. You have the right meetups. You have the right prizes and gamification. But most people, they just say, "I can't make it in the real world. So, I'm going to franchise and I'm going to sell a bunch of them." And also, they sell to the wrong people. Like, if I started a franchise, it would be almost possible.

You'd have to have all these prerequisites to even buy a franchise, right? Because it's like one franchisee could screw it for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Uh look um franchising uh like let's think about like retailbased locations, okay? If you if you want to make real money in franchising it, if you're in a retailbased locations, it's hard to do it because a fitness studio or a sauna or something like that might have $500,000 of revenue. So if you want to do what some of these now there's a lot of big multi-unit owners in there uh inside of these retail. So they'll have, you know, 100 or 200 or 300 restaurants or Hardies or restaurants, things like that. So you can make uh real money in retailbased franchising. You can build a big team to support all those things and people do it all the time especially in food, haircuts, you know, retail, all these uh lash lounges and things like

this, all these retail services. The service side on the other hand, uh well before I get off of retail, think about the risk and the investment of just doing one because you've got a $5 to $700,000 buildout. You've got a $5 to $700,000 lease guarantee. you've got a business that might do55 to $700,000 in sales, right? And if you hold your mouth right and do everything perfect, you know, you're going to make a certain amount of money on that. What's your what's your goal of a retail ROI? Five years to get your money back. So, the the standard is you should a good franchise should be able to demonstrate a 30-month payback. Cash on cash. 30 month. Yeah. 30-month payback, cash on cash. That's what you're going for.

That's retailer. That's everything. That's retail. But, I mean, I I think it applies to everything. So when private equity comes in, that's one thing that they're looking for. So think about what's happened with construction costs over the last few years. Uh and cost of leases and things like that. So you've got a business model that is inelastic in what it can charge. I mean people will fitness is funny, man. Like you go from $129 to $149 and you know people are going bananas, but then they'll go spend $400 a month at Starbucks and spend $400 a month on supplements. So it's different. but yet they want 30 or 40 hours of service from you for that $129. So, so it's very inelastic. So, you can't really raise price, but now your cost to get into business has gone up. So, so that's a big challenge. But that's why I love service franchising. I mean, if you look at some of the big platforms like Neighborly or like

Authority Brands, you know, there's a great example of a kid that was 28 years old in Central Florida and bought a electrical franchise, you know, first time in business and eight years later he's 36 years old. at a $70 million electrical franchise. Right. So, and what's happened is private equity has gone uh private first of all, private equity loves franchiseors. Yeah. I think the multiple even higher than it's like in the I've heard of it going into the 20s. Oh, yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Because think about it, 20x on a 25x, but a crazy numbers. Yeah. So, think about it, the diversification of risk. You know, you've got hundreds or thousands of families that are out there. They're deeply invested in the business. They're deeply invested in their communities. They're working hard. And I mean, it's it's hard to kill a franchise system because everybody's out there, you know, with the with the ownership mentality right

at the point of attack. So, you know, once at scale, franchise systems are very profitable. They're very durable. But the great thing about property services, and I mean, like you've proved it to an extreme, is that these businesses can get large every year by taking more market share. And I mean our businesses cost $150 to $200,000 to get into. So it's not and there's no big lease guarantee. So you know people can get into business in a homeront brand and they can liquidate their investment relatively quickly. And then really it's this monopoly game, right? Where um and you'll see it over time uh as as we evolve and and you'll get people that are buying their neighbors or they're stacking more than one homeront brand on top of each other building 5 10520 million businesses. And when I first started franchising really in earnest in 2006 and seven um you know there wasn't a big private equity market for the

boxes but now if you can cobble together you know some amount of IBIDA and some amount of topline they they love it being in a franchise system because of the the leverage and because of the systems and that. So so it's really and and I guess that comes down to like like I mean I sold my business in 2019. and I was a restoration contractor, you know, built a national and even international restoration business and then decided to franchise it. It was a personal family decision because I was we were working in the Caribbean and Hawaii and Canada and all over the place and I had three small kids and I decided that I wanted to be home. So, I decided to risk all of that and uh really turn it into a franchise system. And then we ended up over nine years. We had about 160 owner groups operating in 240 markets and I sold it to uh um home franchise concepts in 2019 but uh you know coming back to

operate again it's it is all about being outcome focused right so I'm sitting here in 201920 I'm comfortable uh which I fight every day uh I'm comfortable I'm doing investing advising I'm taking action you had a large exit after this is post exit yeah it was good so you got lots of millions yeah I had plenty of money. Um, but I'm sitting here and I'm like, "All right, do I want to do I want to take my chits and run off to the golf course and to fishing or do I and I do I really want to I'm looking at the country and I'm looking at everything that's happening in 20 and 21 and I'm like, you know, capitalism and families need businesses because they're a high class asset." And, you know, we're we're looking at uh 100 to 150 million more people in this country by 2050. There's increased migration. So, uh, is it about 350 right now? Yeah, 339, I think, or something like that. So, there's a housing shortage in all of these hot

markets where the markets are growing. So, there's going to be massive home building. There's going to be retail, there's going to be hospitals, infrastructure, all of this stuff. So, like you'll never find a homeront brands nestled comfortably between a blockbuster and a curves, right? Because there's no obsolescence building into home services. So, I know with confidence that if I look a franchise owner in the eye and and if I'm committed, I can say if you put your shoulder to this, if you follow the plan, if you make this a priority, and if you execute, you can build a material business inside of the Homefront brands platform with this one that you're starting with or additional ones. And, you know, we're never going to run out of opportunities to compete in property services. So, it's it to me it's the most durable segment in franchising and it's uncapped because you're not capped by a number of seats in a restaurant or

a number of spots in a fitness routine or anything like that. And uh and that's that's what gets me up every day. But like at the end of the day, you have to be really really focused on the four-wall economics for the franchise owners. You have to care deeply about these people because in the example that I use, like we get a cross-section of the population. We've got people, we got one guy that build $50 million business building uh MRI setups in hospitals, multiple businesses, guy's been successful over and over and over again. Well, he came in and did a big buy with us. And he's like, I like the model. I like the space. I like you guys. So, we have a lot of people like that. We have we have private equity refugees. Yeah. Investing in our business. Well, they want they they need the playbook. They don't know.

It's not easy. By the way, a lot of these PE guys, they they're very smart. They're systematic. They understand financial engineering, but they don't understand what it's like to manage a blue collar worker. That's right. And it's it's so funny because they're so smart. They're they got their their master's degrees and they come in and they just But they talk down to people and they a lot of them are that they have this inferior in what's the word I'm looking for? Like this complex that they're just I I know a lot of my guys didn't have a good mom growing up. A lot of my guys didn't pass 10th 10th grade.

10th grade. A lot of my guys aren't happy with their smile. color teeth are screwed up. Yeah. And that's different for most people. But I like it because I can talk to the white collar guys, but I can still I love the blue color because I'm a part of it. It's my DNA. You know what was so great? Uh so I do, you know, I'm in the I'm in the franchise industry kind of like you're in the home service industry, but I got to go to this Rhino X event uh with you and with Cristiano yesterday. Man, it felt good to be amongst contractors again. Yep. Yeah. I mean like that's my DNA and and all of these guys are building you know 20 to400 million businesses in there and you know they started in their garage and and uh it was I mean it was really great to be in that room for that day.

It is great and it's great like I get a lot out of this and a lot of it for me is it's just reminders like sometimes you forget the the simple things about business. I uh when you said no retail store, one of the things I talked about when I briefly was on with Tom Howard was the way you pick your Google My Business, uh location matters, right? People when they lease a building, they're looking for something that's going to suit their needs rather than thinking about it as a marketing play. And I just so feel like if you knew, you don't want to be close to big competitors with 10,000 reviews. You want to be in an affluent area where you can get a lot of clients. And that's the gift that keeps giving. You could get 15 to 20 leads a day if you pick the right location for your Google My Business page to get enough reviews and citation sites to make it rank. Yeah. Well, one of the things that you've demonstrated

over and over again is this concept of regression analysis. You know, many people start in business and I I you know, if you think back to when you started and probably I think back to when I started it was the same way. I was trying to figure out, okay, what's the next step? What's the next step? What's the next step? If you work backwards from a very specific future, yes, it'll be a completely it'll be a completely different set of steps than had you tried to work forward to it. And that's just it. It's like, okay, well, I'm going to pick the location not based on proximity to a highway or traffic or storefront or drivebys. It's like, where am I going to get the business from?

Yeah. And it's just But the here's the one thing, too, is I give it all away. A lot of people go into a situation uh of how do I win? Yeah. And I think about like how could I help them win? And I think that's like the the hostage or not the hostage negotiator, that's Chris Voss. Um Michael Franci Francini. Yeah. So I said, "Hey, listen. I got a really good podcast. It's number seven in the country for business. I'd love to have you on and and if if you like me, maybe you'd have me on yours." Yeah. But I said, "We'll see how that goes." I go, "What's your email?" And he gave it to me. Worst case scenario, he says, "No."

Right. I don't care. I don't care if you say no. Yeah, because I'm not afraid to ask. Uh, he's cool. I know you you you're doing what I'm doing on health and we we sometimes, you know, I'm a social drinker. You're a social drinker. Tell tell the audience here the line you told me because this is hilarious. Oh. Uh, yeah. I uh So, you broke after 37 minutes. I did. I was. So, like look. So, so I've so I've done three things in the in the last uh probably 120 days. is I've cut my alcohol consumption down by like 97 98% which wasn't a ton but I still don't recover like I used to. I mean I got a good 15 16 years on you and and I need every bit of energy that I got. um started that journal that I shared with you and uh cut my screen time down to an hour and and it's a so like part of our job as business owners is to create space so the universe can organize itself and we can calm the swirl around all the opportunities that

we have and uh so you know I shared that with you and and uh you had shared something similar with me and then we're at this great party right and I I was I held off for a little while you did great and then I and then and then it's like we went to the VIP dinner and it was a special drink paired with a special uh so I had f I had to have five drinks with five courses. Right. So that was out the window and I and I he did you do last night? Well um you know I I said he said look I I I tried to make it but I broke and we started laughing and tell tell the lines. Yeah. I said I I tried to stop uh after 1 but uh it it was actually 1:30. Usually it's 1:30.

Yeah. I try to stop after 1, but it usually lasts till 1:30. That's so good. Yeah, it was so fun. My other one was is uh I tried to make uh I I tried to figure out if I could make an oldfashioned uh last night, but I couldn't make one. But I could make four. That's great. I um you know, you were saying about gyms. Uh I know this company called TSG and they invested in Planet Fitness and the model there is like let's give it away for nothing but no one's going to come. Yeah. I mean, what is it 15 bucks? Yeah. I mean, they'll do a million5 to $2 million in a location, but they'll make500 or $600,000 and just on, you know, who cancels $10? Nobody. That's That's the cool thing is that my my What is What do you think my service agreement costs a month? Yeah. $12.95. It cost you more in gas to drive over there and cancel.

Yeah. Than it does to cancel. And nobody like It's not a gym if you're really serious about working out. I hate to say this because it's not like a bad gym. I know they got nice equipment, but it's not something that I'd want to be involved in because there's not enough free weights. It's not made for your like a bodybuilder, right? But that's okay and it's affordable and it's a decent gym. I mean, what's cool is like we worked out a special deal with them through our HR department of like we even get a better price for our employees. Healthy employees that are working out, they think better. They they they produce more. They're happier in general. Um, let me ask you a question. I was thinking about this because my mom asked me this question years ago and she said, "When's enough enough for you? Like what what's the goal here?" And uh I said, "Mom, don't you understand?" She says, "I understand

what?" I said, "Mike, Tiger Woods won four majors in a row." Did his mom tell him to stop golfing? Right. I go, "This is my this I'm Tiger Woods, but I'm in business." I I not Tiger Wood, you know, that's kind of cocky, but that that's the I said, "Mom, this is what I love to do." You you're pretty close to the Tiger Woods of home service. Yeah. Um but not to glaze you like a donut but um but but um okay so so the fourth thing I did uh during this last 120 days and and part of it was h again creating this space then uh I was coming home from uh Vegas I was out there doing Ryan Paneeda's podcast the man and I got uh I got co Oh you did that was just I got a Yeah, I got CO and I not uh walking pneumonia after that. So like I was down. So what I did was I went deep into David Gogggins. So So yeah, we had that written down can't hurt me. Yeah. So here's the great thing. He says he says, you know, you're performing against your

own standards. And he goes, if you can perform against your own standards, void of any purpose, most people go to train for a marathon and then that's because, oh, I'm going to train because I'm training for a marathon. No, man. You just train. You just push yourself. So, you know, really, it took me a good bit to un because he says the same thing just over and over and over again. And it took me a good bit to understand, but like we are just competing against our personal stand. I'll give you an example from this morning and I probably shouldn't, but I'm going to do it anyway. All right. So, I get checked out of the room. I great workout this morning, right? Got up, worked out, they had a sauna, great. Um, I get my stuff packed together. I'm like, "All right, I got just enough time to grab something to eat and then to get over here and be on time." So, I go down to this little kiosk and and I get a breakfast burrito

and a cup of coffee, which is sitting right here. And I and I shove that thing down my face and uh I'm heading back into the hotel to go down to the first floor and catch an Uber. And there's a there's a homeless guy sitting there and he's just got one sign just says food, question mark, and then he's got this dog. Yep. Okay. And I go in and I'm standing at the elevator and I'm like right outside is a kiosk. They have these beautiful sandwiches or I just go and I make sure that I'm here 5 minutes earlier. And I'm like screw it. What are my personal standards? I put I left my luggage there. I went out and I bought two. I said, "You have anything for dogs?" They said, "No." I said, "Give me two ham sandwiches." And these beautiful big fat ham sandwiches there. And I just walked them over and I gave them to the guy. I just did it because like number one take an action and number two what are your personal standards you know and

and like probably nine times out of ten or before 120 days ago I'd have been I'd have thought it and not done it but like you do it man like you do it by the time you get a thought I try to delegate almost everything unless I could do it quicker than I could delegate it you know what I mean does that make sense like if I if I will call my assistant to do an email and I could have done the email in the same and by the I don't do email anymore, right? I'm emailless. And by the way, this cell phone, I'm keeping the cell phone, but the phone number is going to online. You have to do that if you Well, I'm giving up control, which is hard for a lot of people and it means a lot of trust. Or are you taking control of the rest of your life? I'm take that's a good way to frame it, but most people will go number one, privacy.

Number two, what if they screw up? Number three, what what if somebody important texts me and they don't get back in time? Here's what I figured out. When I go on vacation, this is what I figured out about 15 years ago. You think the company's going to fall apart. But if you hire the right people, they actually do better when you're not there. It's like all these problems, they got to they're forced to solve them themselves. That's right. And they don't call me anymore. They say, "Tommy's not even going to have the answer. I can't even log into payroll. I have no I've never logged into the payroll software.

I don't even know how to get into it." Well, why would you? No. Well, the the thing is is there's a lot of people that still say, "I'm the smartest guy in the building. I like to walk into my building and say I'm not the smartest guy. There's a lot of smarter people that are focused on one thing. And I'm trying to make myself useless in the company. I It's a I'm struggling every day to hire amazing people to say there's no way I could have a better idea than this person focused or the CFO or the controller or the COO or whatever. Like the whole goal is to make myself obsolete. And I don't think people understand that because they want to have a me they want to have a meaningful like they want to be part of the business and meaningful. And so it's almost like it it's contrary to what most people think is like you want to feel important in your business and feel like the main person. I'm like listen if

I just had made TV ads and radio ads and kissed babies and accepted trophies, my life would be amazing. Yeah. That's a business that like like uh Built to Last by Jim Collins. He wrote a whole book about it. Yeah. So I got two things on that. Number one, you pay people here by the hour. You pay I know you pay a lot of commission because you allow people to make a lot of money within your organization. Performance pay. Performance pay. Um but but we get paid by the conversation. Yeah. You know, the the quality of the conversations we have, the caliber, the with the right people in the room, that's when everything moves forward. I mean, I met the founder of Chirp. We're back and forth like I you know, and I I said, "Well, we we we would like to use Chirp, but it doesn't integrate with our thing." He goes, "Oh, don't worry. I'll do it." and just just meeting him yesterday, you know, and he said, "Oh,

okay. Well, then then he'll do it." Um, the second thing is is is, you know, one of the things I think that's rare about your company is the execution and the implementation. Like ideas are great, but ideas unimplemented mean nothing. So, you know, the ability to when when so when things are going well for you, okay, you can move your gaze out farther strategically um in and and think about, you know, new opportunities, new businesses, your water treatment business, you know, you can and but when things fall start falling apart, business owners have to go in, they got to jump back in. You got to you got to get right back down and figure out like what what spring or what sprocket fell out, you know, to allow this to happen. So now the more capable organizations we build the the more time that we get to spend out there uh going to places like this because my job in in our platform is to be out and understand

what's cut well what's cutting edge. I hate actually hate that visionary word because it's just like you know I love it when people put it in their LinkedIn title. Well yeah visionary officer I'm I'm I'm a visionary and I'm letting you know that I'm telling you to call me that. Um but but um you know like like our our job is to be on the cutting edge like what's you know we're both in the genius network like what's happening six to 12 months from now that we need to make sure that we we're ahead of Yeah. that well that's that's what I do is like you so Dan Martell I had a meet with my team to explain who I was because no my team doesn't really understand this entrepreneurial itch and he goes I'll tell you one thing about Tommy and Tommy doesn't even know this about himself but Tommy anything you ever tell them to do you never forget some days you wake up in the middle of the night remember it and did it get done and how

often do you remember I go every freaking time. He He goes, "Now guys, listen. He needs to feel heard. It needs to get documented and it needs a plan. It might not even be important. It might not even be You might have to tell him it's going to start in six months, but you got to document it." Now, here's the deal, Tommy. Your team is going to help you buy back time. Your job is not to fill the void every single time, like I know you do today. You fill the void every single time, and you make yourself busier every time they buy back your time. So, this is something I've been working on. But I'll tell you, Dan Martell taught me to I'm very good at business, but he said, 'Why not get a driver? And I said, 'Because I'm humble.

I don't like that's that's He goes, Tommy, how often do you drive? We did some math. It was 10 to 12 hours a week, right? He goes, "What could you be doing in that 10 to 12 hour? Do you love driving?" "No, I don't." Yeah. Okay. Well, then I got a chef. And so, everything I've done in business, he said, "Why don't you apply this to your personal life?" And I'll always have coaches around me. And by the way, I'm always going to be curious and always going to ask questions. I'm always going to have mentors. The day I stop is the day that I want you to be like, "Okay, Tommy, he's lost his purpose. He's lo like there's no like I want to be the dumbest guy in the room and there's a different mountain to climb every time."

So, where was your inflection point? Like where was the inflection point where you were an operator of a garage door business and then in the in the next day or the next week you were a business builder, a a visionary and an entrepreneur. I got to 17 million by brute force and then I met Al Levy, number two on the podcast, Home Service Expert, which we're on right now. And Al did a tour of my shop. Then he said, "You remind me." He goes, "You're one of the best firefighters I've ever met." He goes, "Your mind is incredible. The fact that you could solve these problems, you know how to handle every single thing."

He goes, "Is it documented?" And I go, "You're looking at the document right now." And he goes, and he just pointed all this stuff out. goes, "You know, Tommy, would you mind if I worked with you?" And he just reminded me of this two weeks ago. He goes, "You remember how much money you were paying me?" I go, "Al, I paid you hundreds of thousands of dollars." He goes, "You remember where that account was?" He goes, "That was your personal account." He goes, "You didn't have enough money in your account when you were making 17 million to pay me out of the business."

Wow. He goes, "The reason you did everything I said is because you were paying for it personally. You had to implement it to save your business. You had to put systems and SOPs and we we call the triangle of communication and and the checklist together and the safe way to do things and are you allowed to have facial hair? Are you allowed to get tattoos on your face? How do you get PTO? All these things needed to become documented and my team continued to develop. And here's what I needed to do is is take my pride out of it. I'll tell you this, pride is probably the one reason is I started hiring people that I couldn't control. They were smarter than me and they'd say no to me and they'd give me reasonable explanations why I were not doing that. And now if you walk into the next door building, I've got a lot of no people. They say no to me. And but they give me they don't say no because I said so. They give me

empirical evidence of why we're not doing something. They show me the data, right? And I say great because I can't handle no. I can handle no and here's why. Right? So most people don't have a no person in their life and they read a new book or listen to a new podcast or they go to a seminar like Rhino X and they come back and they got all these ideas. No one in that company has ideas because you're literally going to Rhyno X by yourself. I like the I didn't bring anybody to this event, but normally at every event I go to there's seven to 10 of my co-workers and they're at Pantheon. There's 25 of them at Pantheon. Wow. And not only that, they're listening to the podcast.

They're reading the same books. They're coming up with the ideas now. So, it's not the Tommy Show anymore, right? And I So, I can't take the credit. I try to give them as much credit as I can, but also I love what I do. I love podcasting. I love going to visit markets. I love going to visit shops. So, I started bringing them with me. And that now they're curious. Yeah. And now they want to learn. And now it's like I leave. We're taking 40 guys made Pinnacle. We're going to Cabo next week. I'm taking my top producers and all my managers and every single person that makes decisions in the company is going to be gone for a week. We're not going to skip a beat. Revenue is not going to be impacted because all the technicians say I get the good leads because the good guys are gone. Yeah. And it's crazy because you think all of the business is leaving in the Cabo, but we're not going to skip a beat. And that's what I'm the

most proud of. Nice. That's like it's a feeling of like and that here's one thing that I that no one has that I have is I have the ability to imagine the craziest numbers possible. They're like where did you come up with a billion and I'm like well we just need this many leads based on our conversion rate if we if we change our average ticket. So my job is to make them dream again and believe that we could do it because if they got the belief it changes everything, right? If it change and they're like, "Dude, you're nuts." But when I explain to them the math, they're like, "We're really going to do this, aren't we?" And I go, "Yeah, but how do we do it quicker?" Like the company will grow without me, but I don't think it'll grow at the same pace. Yeah. Uh best business question. Uh if you gun to your head, if you had to do twice as much in half the time, figure it out. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, well, that's the deal is, you know, Dan Dan asked me two months ago. He said, "Tommy, if you wanted a 20x next year, this is right before the new year." He said, "If you wanted the 20x, what would need to happen?" And he goes, "Don't answer. Think about it before you answer." And he basically made me build a guide to 20x. Yeah. And now it's possible, but it had to be really deep thinking. It was about the question. But here's the deal. You got to think outside of the box to do 20x. You anybody could double, right? But to 20x, now you got to start thinking way different. You got to start doing stuff like not normal. Yeah. I love you can tell how passionate I get. I uh I just This is like And here's the deal. I I talked to uh Gino Wickman a while back and he he wrote uh EOS, the whole idea of how to systematically change your life and business. And he said when I sold EOS, he still owns 12 and a half%.

He goes, "I feel like I lost a piece of me." He goes, "It was I was like super depressing. like I was depressed. And he goes, "I lost purpose. I had a pot of gold. They gave me a lot of money, right? But I lost purpose." And a lot of people when they sell their business, I don't know. Did you feel this way initially? Because you you said I don't want to disappear to the golf course. Yeah. No, I was ready. I was I built I'd built the business for 25 years. I was 50. I knew that there was more to do, but like I couldn't I I was not good enough to extract myself from the business. And plus, man, like you have a business for 25 years. All my personal real estate. It was handled by my business office. I mean, everything was mine was really a li actually for as well as we did. It was a lifestyle business. I mean, I I pro I worked I probably worked the minimum that I needed to to build that company. I

coached all my kids sports. I prioritized my family. You know, I did I did all of that kind of stuff. And now what what I if I knew then what I knew now, it didn't have to be mutually exclusive. I could have I could have built five times that business if I had the right attitude that I have right now. Uh and still not uh sacrificed any of the other stuff that I felt was important to me. So, you know, but I I knew um but I but I didn't make a decision to sell the business until I got into something called YPO, Young President. And and and then what I realized was everybody in YO had sold the business. So, I just hadn't been in the right rooms, you know, because I was to your question, man, when I went to sell the business, like it was a no, it was a no-brainer and and I never thought twice about the decision, but that doesn't mean it wasn't hard to basically take my identity and strip it away from this

business and then go into nothing. And uh and I did I did fill it with a lot of business activity but uh in which I learned some stuff but you know I probably probably should have followed some advice and maybe taken six months sabbatical and uh but I took three days. What would you tell yourself if you could go back 15 years? What would be the advice for younger uh I guess? Oh I would have I would have focused on I look we franchised our business and we didn't hire one person that had experience franchising. We figured it all out. We went and got got like the the the the the guidelines from the from the government and we wrote our own thing. I mean it's like it's like we were so proud that we were doing it ourselves which was the stupidest thing on the planet. So if I would have just got two or three like your guy that came in here if I would have if I would have been humble enough smart enough to do

that earlier that bit everything uh would have been different. Now I have no regrets. Like you know I'm big I've come I'm big on this concept of body of work. Okay. um every action that we do, every single day, every conversation we have, like it's either additive or subtractive to who we are and our body work. And at the end of the day, at the end of our life, like we got to be good with it. Like we we it's just this huge it's just this huge ledger of pluses and minuses. How'd you spend your time? What' you do? And you know, your your body of work, you know, like like you're you mentioned it, you're very giving. You you got you got home service freedom, you got your vertical track, you like you're like, "Hey, if you can execute on what I do, God bless you." Here it is. The 1% the one the one or 3%. Yeah. So, you don't even have to worry about giving everything that you know because you

know darn well that like almost nobody's going to be able to do Everyone knows how to get a six-pack, but they don't do it. They They're waiting for the magic watermelon diet. Yeah. And nobody's going to catch you. So, you're you're you're So, you're fine. Um, but what's nice is like, dude, like people like me and trust me because I don't hold back. And I'm like, dude, I'll give you guys everything I know. And you're not crabby. Yeah. The deal is is like in the future, I promise you what what what Joe Paul taught us is easy, little recruit, and fun. Yeah. I'm going to be business partners with a hell of a lot of people.

Yeah. And I won't do it unless I think I could improve their lives more than it is today. People say, "What do you want?" And I say, "When I die, I want people to say when I shook Tommy's hand, he meant it. And if ever I screw somebody over, I'm just going to give them the money back or the get like let's let's separate. We're gonna have a prenup in every deal I do. Yeah. And if it's not fun and it feels like something's not working, I'm out. I don't want your money, right? I want to have fun and I want to be a a blessing in your life, not a not like the the rule I always give Jeff is when you look at your phone when you see somebody calling the caller ID, do you get excited? Do you are you want are you like excited and going, "What's up?"

Yeah. How's your day going? Like what happened today? Or are you like ah like I understand family you can't get rid of them but you know but but when you got businesses when you get that feeling then you need to make a change because your life's going to end prematurely with that stress anxiety and depression of just dealing with people like that in your life. Yeah man. So like body of work at the end of it you want to go back and you want to be in business with people that you like. You want to have made a difference. You want to have impacted their lives. you want to I mean so you know everything we do man is um uh and and you know people are so sloppy and lazy and undisiplined with how they invest their time and energy and their money and you know so um yeah man 15 years ago I would have I would have been I would have given up so much more to get the right people around me and focused on grow you said you given

up a lot on this new deal you you said you were almost too nice about the way you gave money out on this. It's been um Yeah, I don't have any heartburn about it, but like you know, it's um Yeah, it's it's you almost went the opposite direction. Yeah. And and we have great people. We got really strong brand presidents that are proven in the industry. We got a really strong seauite. Um and you know honestly that's one of the reasons that like fundamentally when whenever it is at the end of the day when whoever it is looks at this business like private this thing is ticked and tied from day one. Uh every document legally I mean usually when you get into emerging franchiseors like everything's a mess. territory policy is a mess. Like they've just, you know, like I tell whenever uh whenever I talk to emerging people, I'm like, "The decisions you make in the first six months are gonna if you make the wrong

decisions in setting up your program and then you go out and award a 100 franchise owners, you've just cut 75% of your exit off just because of the structure of what you've done. You had the territory policy wrong. You didn't charge right. You got all you made all these concessions and it's just a mess." So like we we did set the foundation of this business up with excellence and you know we haven't been perfect in everything we've done. I mean there's definitely some marketing things like we we got you know you launch five brands you got to rebrand four of them and all of a sudden franchise owners just start pouring in. You're chasing your tail. Um and and the interesting thing diff one of the probably the biggest difference between a direct business like yours and a franchise business like ours is you know if you want to roll out chirp you just roll out chirp. If I want to roll out chirp you know those you know I need

to have some sort of a consortium of franchise owners that are going to get on the program with that. So you know we we do you know there are if I'm willing to pay for it then I can do it. Um, but in our model, like there's things that the franchise owners need to pay for. And again, you've got this wide distribution of people that have different outcomes. You know, some people are like, "Hey, I want I want to build a 500,000 or a million- dollar business and I want to make a couple $300,000 a year and have a nice lifestyle and and manage three or four people." And then there's other people that just want to be monsters and they want to build a $50 million business.

So, you have all of that and they're all going to take a different approach when I say you need we need to do this. So if I really want to do something then you got to shell it out. Then I got to shell it out. And then you know over time you can make it mandatory but it has to have uh proof. Yeah. That that's one thing is like I think I'll end up doing a franchise and I I'll definitely if I do it it'll be most likely alongside of you. I mean I don't want to do it. I I like Kevin Wilson. I like the guys I know that have been in the business. But I'm not going to go learn it. But I'll tell you one thing. one out of a hundred people that actually have the money to get in will actually make it in because I will be very very selective. My goal, I will not rate my success on franchises sold.

It'll be franchises that do overbudget every year as a percentage of the whole, right? And yes, it might take longer, but people underestimate what they could do in five years and overestimate what they could do in one year. And I I just keep reminding people like, dude, I'm 40. I'm going to be 42. Yesterday I was 21. Tomorrow I'm going to be 70. It's so you know we want things like we're the type of country and people that we tap our foot at the microwave for 30 seconds. Yeah. There's no patience. And the one thing that China does very well is the art of war says they don't want to use any weapons. They do it over time. Right. And that's one thing is like so many people are like, "Man, I want to do 100 million. I think I could be there in three years." I'm like, "The one question I ask them is why?" They said, "Because you proved it could be done." And I go, "Yeah, but why?

Like, what are you going to do?" And the problem is people say, "Well, I want to do this with the money." And I'm like, "See, I don't even view money that way. I got to make money. I plan on spending the money off the compound interest, not the principle." And people don't understand that concept at all. People write down when they're going to make, and they write down their cars, their houses, what they want to do, where they want to travel. Yeah. And they blow it all. Like I know half the people you saw in that room yesterday with an exit don't have any money. They've got a lot of assets, but they don't have like like they're not liquid. It's crazy to me.

Like I'm super super super liquid. And um you know, I I know I can make more irr if I put some of the money into PE, but after I did my deal, and as it wasn't too far after your deal, it's 2022, the the tail end of 2022, I uh I'm addicted to deals now. Everything I'm going to do is run towards the next deal. Yeah. Everything. Yeah, it's they got to hold for three years. Private equity. Well, we get paid at the closing table. But everyone but here's the deal. Everyone else gets paid. All the P units, all the equity incentive programs. Yeah. Everyone else gets paid, too. So, I think it's selfish of people not to want to sell because they're like, I make enough. I do a draw every year. I pull I take 500 grand out. I'm like, yeah, but what about your team?

How you going to change their life? Yes, they make 120 grand, but how you going to really impact their life is through a close, through a change of control. And people are afraid because they make a lot of people make the wrong deals with the wrong people. Well, that's true, too. And that's you hear the nightmares, but there's also really good stories. Yeah. You got to be really You got to be careful on your roll back. Like, you have to know what you're rolling back into. You got to There's things that What do you What do you wish you This is important. I want you to chat about this for a minute. Like, what did you learn about rolling? Yeah. So, um you know, I I had the top two people that were in my deal at the end. um one was paying a little bit more. Um but what I didn't really fully capreciate that like we were a tuckin prior to them reselling.

So my hold time on my roll back was short whereas the second place person uh you know I probably would have somebody else sold to them about the same time and they 5xed their roll back. So it you know like just that one little thing and I rolled back eight figures, right? So I mean it was a big chunk of money and it would have Yeah. It would have sat in there for another three or four years, but like I would have 5xed that money knowing looking back at it. I I probably could have had I don't think anybody could have known, but what I the fact that I did have is that this one was I could have got the information that they were already in process and that we were a tuckin and that we were, you know, whatever I rolled in was going to roll back relatively quickly. And I could have acted on it and said, "Well, this $8 billion private equity firm is really growing this other thing." I would have

been one of the first investments in there and now Yeah. You come in early. Yeah. I mean, I was I was relatively early and now, you know, they're a $2.2 billion company. They're the they're the ones that own uh Clockworks and everybody. Yeah. So, um Yeah. So, like I would have been third company in at the beginning. Yep. and you know and so like that that different the the am the amount of economics that so like know who you're selling to um you know and there's a there's another private equity company that um I recently met and now you know there's probably one of the like one of the more famous ones and they own they do a lot in franchising and they're huge and all of that now they want to fly in and meet with us and we're not in the market or anything like that but they just try to get they got they want they want to they want to get to know you want to get to know you and all that but you know in that particular

one. I mean, they have they have uh 10, 15, and 20 year uh fund lives now. Much longer. So, they what they talk about is long-term greed. Yeah. Long-term, which I heard you talk about the other day, which I was going to ask you about. But but the reality of it is then if it's not going to flip in three to five years, when are you going to get your You got to build liquidity events. They they'll explain to you how to build within there because your COO, the people don't want to wait 12, 15 years. That's right. But here's the deal. if I could 10x my money and have three liquidity events alongside of there, which I'll build into I'm glad to do a 15 year fund long term. Yeah. And I and by the way, talking about Blackstone and and anything I do, uh no close, but um the the uh but you know, anything uh but they've done a great job by the way with um uh their investment in Serpro. I mean, they've 3x Surfro is massive.

They've 3xed or uh um you know, their their revenue. So, they've done a really really good job uh with them. But, um Oh, I can coach people. I This guy came up to me yesterday. He goes, "I'm about to get this much money next week. We're closing." I go, "Why in the f did you not call me?" And I go, "I want nothing to do with this deal." But I'm like, "How much are you rolling?" Yeah. He goes, "25%." I go, "Did you read the private equity playbook?" 35% minimum you roll if it's the right company and you're love with them. Yeah.

And I go, "What is it gonna the extra 10%? Will that change your life if you you rolled that?" I go, "That's the bare minimum." And I'm telling them all this stuff. I asked to roll 60%. Now, they were still going to have control no matter what. So, people think it's a control thing. They said, "The size of our fund, we need to make it equitable for our limited partners that have invested. So, we'll give you 49%." Mhm. Um, and people thought I was nuts. They're like, "Dude, you're kind of that a lot of your net worth is still wrapped into one thing. You're not diversified."

Yeah. But nothing is going to change your life from here on out. That's the deal is like like But you might as well go big. I mean, here's the deal is like now it's like my buddy Dale went to California to visit a friend of his and he goes, "You know what everybody says about you, Tommy?" He goes, "This guy, you don't even know who he is, but your hope, your hope that you that that that somebody in a bluecollar industry, you're a garage door guy, could potentially become a billionaire is you are walking hope and everybody's cheering you on and you got to hold yourself and make the right decisions to prove it's possible." So, I'm freaking I'm sprinting, man, and I'm making all the decisions and I'm pulling in help and I'm the first one to ask. Listen, my my my dad and my grandpa, they're manly men, man. They don't ask for directions.

They take stuff apart and fix it. I'm the first one to beg for help. And if I get a no, if I get a no, okay, I'm okay with it. Some people don't Some people don't. They don't say yes to me. Some people they're like, they're too busy, you know? They they they they literally say, "Sorry, kid. I can't help you." And that's okay. I don't feel I don't take it personal. It doesn't mean they hate me. They don't even know me. So, I don't take offense to it. But so many people, they're so afraid to ask because they don't want to get let down. Yeah. Do you do you think it's rare that your equity partner gives you this much latitude to do whatever it is you want or was that the deal going in? Well, that what they always tell me is we didn't buy A1. We invested in you. That's right. We wouldn't have done this deal without Tommy Melo. Not a chance. Sure. And they said you were a uh they they said to be

honest, you were a uh an educated gamble because nobody knew if they were going to be able to tame Tommy Melo. Yeah. And they, you know what they told me is 10 PE companies called him afterwards after six months and said, "What it's like to work with that dude. Were you able to even does he listen at all?" And one of the guys goes, "Dude, he not only listens, but he calls and asks for help every day." And he takes our advice and he runs with it. And I don't know if I should say this, but a lot of these other companies flew back out and they said, "We're sorry.

Uh, we should have bid more." Yeah. We you would would have been a great partner. And here's the other thing is in hindsight, well, the fact is the results speak for themselves. After two years in now, they're like, they trust me, right? But if you have a bad first year, they're gonna come in and you know, look, I'm fireable. It's very hard to fire me, uh, but my contract is very, very hard. But if I'm getting a bad results, you there's no other choice than to get rid of the leader because, but believe it or not, it all rises or falls on me. Uh, I'm not going to take the credit for doing great, but I would have to take the credit for failing, right? I mean, I I it was a team that brought us here. And it's a team that fails, too. But literally, like if there's anything bad that happens in the company, all rolls up to me, and I got to face that. So, um, I it's hard because certain times it sounds like I

might take the credit, but I try to pay it forward to my team as much and guys like El Levy, guys like Joe Polish and Yano that helps me out and introduces me to people and the network. And I think it's important and I I hope you open your doors and I hope I I know you're teaching the next generation and you should be teaching out a franchise, too. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I'm probably rolling out an education business in that space just because, you know, I do care about expanding the reach and relevance and the professionalism of the franchise industry. I mean, I've heard you say before, you know, hey, it's a lazy way to do a if you can't do it, you know, it's a lazy way to build a business. Well, there are I think that's 90% of them, but the 10% that do it for the right reasons are incredible. Yeah.

And well, people get big eyes, right? and they say, "Well, I got this doughnut shop." And you know, there should be a thousand of these doughnut shops. But they really don't understand what it takes, but you know, they get around somebody that and the bottom line is families get hurt. Like many franchise owners invest their life savings in a business, and it's really important uh that it's done well. Let me ask you this, man. Uh three years from now, who's the CEO of A1? So I've been do doing a lot of thought on this like my team came to me my my whole seauite and they sat me down and they said why do you feel like we need a president or why would we need a chief of staff and I looked at them and I said you know potentially you know I'm not married I'm about to be married yeah congratulations I want kids thank you I want to be a great dad I said awesome you guys don't need me to run this company but I'm not

going to be able to give you what I give today But I I need to make sure the vision stays because it's a growth mindset. And and so there's a few choices I have. I could be the chief, you know, the head of the board. I can switch to a chief growth officer. Or my preference would be to be a co-CEO where I'm the glue. I'm the orientation guy. I'm still handling the marketing side and going to looking at deals and still inputting, but I'm not going to all the I'm not flying out to New York to Manhattan to go to all these quarterly and monthly uh PE where they're talking about the financials. I just that's not fun for me. Um so, you know, the deal is um as the way I see it today, you know, I've got a family office that A1 pays lots of tens of thousands of dollars to a month. That team does a lot for A1.

like I've I've been able to use this instrument to make A1 grow faster and excel way quicker. So the question is can this can this entity live alongside of it as a sister to continue to scale it because look I'm still going to roll 4 to500 million into the next deal. Right. So I I I want to I got to stay relevant in the business. It's my face on the side of the truck on purpose. Well I think you're going to be like the Empire carpet guy. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Empire today. Yeah. Yeah. like 58A 2300. Like I grew up in Chicago. That's where that guy's from.

And it used to be him when I was a kid. That was him, you know? But now he's dead. So now it's a cartoon guy, but it's still the same guy. Like one day you'll still be all over the face of this and probably many other businesses, but it'll be it'll have to be the cartoon. No, the cartoon and like because they don't age. Yeah. No, that's that's the whole theory of it. But you know, I I I'm passionate about what I do. Uh, I'm going to build a fund for my employees that I'll actually uh I'm going to ensure the money and I'm going to be putting it into really really high return and I'm going to employ them and I'm going to give them bonuses through this structure that sits there. And my main goal, um, I did this math. I posted it the other day on Facebook. Uh, 18 to 65, you put 300 bucks a month away at 12% irr. I saw that you got $8.4 million. That's right. So my plan is just if I could get

them a million bucks over time. Yeah. And give them but but it's going to take some discipline and some consistency. It's a delayed gratification. But my plan is to teach people this and and I'm not their provider. They everyone that has got equity in the business, they've earned it. I I can't take credit for that. Yeah. So I tell my kids like when they want to buy something like rims or something, I'd say, "Okay, you're going to spend $1,000 on this. Are you willing to give up $65,000 25 years from now?" Because that $1,000 if you do if you put it in the spreadsheet and you hit it with 8%. It it's some like right in that 25 year range it turns into 65 grand. Yeah. And I'm like are you willing to give that up? Like I mean compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. I mean you're young. You know thank god I invested in a lot of real estate young.

I was just a kind of a contractor and I know you did apartment buildings but I was just building houses and owning rental property and everywhere I went we bought an office building and stuff like that and you know thank God. Thank God. I mean over time it was it's just you know it's it's it's you could never you couldn't afford to buy this stuff today for what we what bought it over over time and you know it's the same thing for them. They need to be putting together these uh these assets but like people don't do it and then what happens is right they have just enough to live and all of a sudden we go through an inflationary period. People are in their 50s and 60s they don't have the same earning potential or the energy and next thing you know like I I've my mom's still living and she is tight. I mean, like one rotisserie chicken, three days, but and she's got some money. And I told her, I said, "Please spend your money.

I'll take care of you. You know, you don't have to you don't have to worry about running. You got your paid your house is cash." We bought her a house for cash when she moved to North Carolina 3 years ago. Um, she's got money in the bank. But what what year was she born? Let's see. She was born in 44. So, her parents lived through the Great Depression. This is when people used to like they they looked bad at money. They like like look at the rich folks because you know there was very little rich. I mean you you would like you were one of a hundred that would wait to see if you got a job that day just That's right. You know and the deal is and that's if your family's going to have bread that week. And so like at Thanksgiving the old saying would be like look at us. We're eating like rich folks cuz being rich was bad. It was evil. And so people have this really bad con this con conception of money. And

it's not a bad thing. Like now luckily we're phasing out of this great depression mode and but I'm like dude I have an an obligation. You know one of the things I went I went to church uh I went to breakfast with my pastor and uh I'm like man that this next turn I'm going to give like tens of millions of dollars to the church. But I 10% I got I you know what I got a pretty big tax bill waiting in heaven because I haven't given the 10%. And I made a deal and you know this is a bad deal. If I died I got to put this in my will. But uh I just said God let me let me reinvest this money for you and I'll give it to you at a much bigger value. I mean I remember praying and saying this. I'll make it up to you. I'll make it up. But you can't I guess you can't buy your seats in heaven. You know this idea more money more problems. More like like dude my houses they always have issues. My cars they have issues. Like people don't

understand the reason rich people get depressed and get on drugs and become alcoholics and don't have great relationships is I'm fine. I'm ready for it and I'm prepared. But a lot of people is it's miserable. All of a sudden people don't treat them the same. They use them. They look at them as a piece of money. And I go people are like what do you think when people look at you as like having all this money and they use you? I'm like this is just it's okay. I'm like this is this is what happens and I I'm prepared for it. All right.

you're already a billionaire, just not today. But it's the it's it's destined. It's the the car the dy has been cast and um you you get your family going. By the way, you'll never regret doing that. You'll never regret. That's my legacy. Entrepreneurship. I hang uh I hang my hat on uh that. I'm we're three for three with our kids and uh you know, I'll never regret anything that I sacrificed for that. Do you think you'll you'll so you're a billionaire, you got that going. Do you think you'll do the giving pledge? Because to your point, when people get billions and billions and billions of dollars, like 75% of these people, whether they're like uh Ryan Jumavville, you know, Ryan, no.

Okay, I need to introduce you to Ryan Jumavville. I think he's uh sorry, Ryan. I think he's probably I don't know, four, five, six billion dollars or if they're the hundred billion dollar people. They sign up, man. They say I'm giving away 90% of this by the time I die. Because at the end of the day, I mean, how many how many hundreds the book died with nothing? I don't know, man. But how many how many hundreds of millions of dollars like I think was it the Rockefellers are the ones that that kept their money the best? The Rockefellers is called the Rockefeller method. And basically what they've built is a family trust that you could borrow against against a life insurance policy.

So it refunds itself when you die. You can borrow against it a certain amount and you want to pay it back over your lifetime, but if you die, it refunds that. And it's all a mechanism that has to be done this way. and it's wrapped around a charitable trust, right? So, they're the ones, but like at the end of the day, like all I have two different sets of trusts. They're both dynastic in nature. My daughter who's in law school right now at one time said, "When do we get our money out?" And I'm like, "Never." And she's like, "Well, what'd you do it for?" And I'm like, "I'm not sure, but I don't want to I want to I want you um to have enough to do something, but never enough to do nothing." No, that's a great I like that quote. Yeah. And Yeah. That's That's so So, you'll give struggle with this. So, I like I at the end of the day, like I don't know why I made all this money. I mean, it's great, but like I don't have

things like I'm not a big I'm I got some stuff, man. I I'm buying a helicopter, buying a private plane. I'm taking people with me. Here's the deal. I want to teach a man to fish. That's the goal. But I'm never going to go through economy again. I want first class in life. And I want my entire I want I want to go to the 16th chapel and have breakfast. Yeah. Yeah. I want to do things like not VIP but 10 times better than VIP. Yeah. And you know quality of life and I look I also but the problem is I want to take everybody with me and that that takes time, energy, money, focus. Um it does but also they sometimes they don't want to go. I mean like you you you like because they really didn't go through what you went through to get it. So they're not going to have they're not going to get the same out of it that you do. It's true.

But it's very noble and I think that's why you're going to be a great dad is because you care so much about your employees. Like you have a massive heart for people and that's I think that's one of the keys to your success. I mean every time we talk it's like my employees doing this for them. I'm doing that for them. I want these guys to, you know, not only go to Disney, but do the fast pass and and like at the end of the day, man, givers, it is a givers's gain. You can make money and still do do right by people. And I think if you do it the right way, you can even do better by taking people with you. And that's you know, perfectly said. I by me. They they they have the ability to probably get paid by someone else. I mean, there's a couple companies out there that are getting the game that could probably pay more. Um, I think we pay I I want to intentionally pay the most by far, but just say somebody just decided to take a

risk and pay more. I uh I don't think they leave. They wouldn't leave. They wouldn't leave. Why they did? I I have had about five people leave and guess what? Every one of them are back. And they came back preaching the grass is not greener. The promises weren't kept. A lot of uh chitter chatter, but nothing got done right. And everything I say, I got to I I got to live by example. Lead from upfront. leaders eat last the whole thing. And uh but I'm a work in progress. I always tell people I'm not I'm not arrived. I'm not perfect. I I could say these things, but I want to I want to talk the talk walk the walk, too. Like I But being on here saying these things also holds me accountable.

It does. You know, this is the nice thing. When you when you commit yourself publicly, and I talked about this yesterday, and you write it down and you tell your team you're going to do something, you kind of have to do it. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I love this, man. So, you know, you're the franchise king. You you teach people, you know, everybody. I know how much you care too about your franchises. I do. Um, what if someone wants to just reach out to you, get a hold of you, ask you for advice? What's the best way to do that? Yeah.

Well, I used to say uh my LinkedIn, but man, uh I got a company working in there now and I don't I just a lot of messages get gone. But, uh should I get my email out on a show this big? I'm not sure. Uh you know what? You got somebody screening it? Yeah. Okay, then you're good. All right. Well, hey, you can just reach out to me at uh Jeffden.me. And uh Instagram's a great way to to message me. Just Jeff Duden. If you go to Jeff Duden uh on Instagram and you want a free copy of my book, Discernment, the business athletes regimen for a great life through better decisions. There's a link in there. You give us your email address and we get an electronic copy immediately. Um, but uh or you know you can uh shoot me a message on YouTube and on the Homefront podcast, you know, just just there. But uh not hard to get a hold of. Uh Instagram's good. Uh well, if you So if you're hanging out and you're at home

and you got an hour a day, are you on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, YouTube? What What's your choice? Okay. Uh my choice uh is probably is Instagram and LinkedIn. Okay. Instagram and LinkedIn. Instagram and LinkedIn. And usually I'm just in there just checking for anything that I need to do, any engagement, uh, that I need to pay attention to, you know, how things are performing or or whatever it is. An hour a day between Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn is enough time to check, but not enough time to get to scroll. I say majority is Facebook for me. And it's and and the problem is I got to get Facebook up because I I still handle my own messages. And people are always like, "This can't be really, Tommy." I'm like, "It's really It's pretty pathetic." Yeah. Um, what uh what other the other question I always ask is is there any books other than like Rich Dad Poor Dad and E-Myth and and you know the

the famous famous Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill uh books that really shaped you and and you really think that the listeners should get a hold of? Oh god shaped me way back. Well, I know the David Gogggins Can't Hurt Me Can't Hurt Me is great. Um uh you know Good to Great was uh something early for me. Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencion was something that was very uh instrumental for me early. Man, I I'm big into Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time right now. I mean, if I had to if I had to pick one book for people to read right now, that might be it. Listen, we talked about a lot of stuff, though.

What I'd like to do is give you a few minutes to just finish us up on anything you want to talk about. Oh, well, hey, I appreciate it. Um gosh, um I don't know. I don't know, man. We we went all over the place here. This is what I love to do. Yeah, I mean I think I think if if anything um you know just encouraging people to be outcome focused uh encouraging people to you know we we we heard this great thing about internal external locus of control. You were talking about that earlier like I'm in charge of this. I'm in charge and you know letting letting people understand that like um like you are in control.

Every decision that you make, every action that you take determines the slope of your line. It determines the velocity of your business. term is the quality of your life. And you know um and you can do that in a franchise model, you can do that in a in your personal life, you can do it in a direct business, but at the end of the day, man, like it's body of work. And every action that you take or every inaction that you should have taken that you didn't, it it's a plus or minus check, man. And at the end of the day, there's a tally. At the end of the week, there's a tally. And at the end of your life, there's a tally. And you know, just for God's sake, stop worrying about what other people think. Stop making decisions based on ego. Don't And we t had a great conversation this week, man.

Um people, there's these HVAC guys and some of them have 11 locations and they're like, "Yeah, uh we should have stayed in one location because it was our ego that drove us to open up those other cities and they weren't fully committed." So, I mean, you know, I I hate that I have to be 56 years old to continue to learn hard lessons, uh making mistakes, but man, just uh take care of your business. uh raise your, you know, like only care about your own standards. Uh do things like that when nobody's looking. Like I brought the guy the sandwiches today.

And um and just uh you know, people people should have a great life. I don't understand why everybody can't within their own capabilities, within their own skill, from wherever they sit have a great life. And uh I would I would like to leave people with that. Um, at Homefront Brands, man, we are 100. We're It's It used to be There's lots of different things in franchising people that responsible franchising or autonomy or freedom. Like, we are focused on outcomes. Yeah. Outcomes, outcomes, outcomes. I want you uh if you're a if you're a normal person, it's your first business. Can you build a 3 to5 million business in five years and sell it for several million dollars and make it be that first uh chunk that you have to give yourself that little bit of freedom? break the generational curse.

Yeah. Yeah. And then like you know can you um you know you you you win the next opportunity by succeeding than the one that you're in and business is an infinite game. So, if you can come to us and we can and you can and it's hard and you can learn these business skills and you either expand within our platform on this monopoly board that we call homeront brands and you start building hotels and grabbing territories or you sell your business with us and you go on and do something great. I had um I'll tell you I'll I'll leave it with this.

Um, we were at our industry event last week in Vegas and one of our they they award franchises of the year. So, if you have a franchisee of the year in your system, they give about a hundred of these out across the 4,000 brands. So, one of our top roar fence franchises, Bob Stewart, uh, from Richmond, got franchisee of the year and he walked across the stage with these other people. And I'm walking out of the room and I see a woman that I recognize, uh, kind of smiling, light, face lights up, and then I see the gentleman, young gentleman with them, and I recognize it was one of my Advant franchises. I saw you interview them. Yeah. Who was there getting franchisee of the year? They're they're from another country, right?

Originally. Yeah. So, he was an E2 visa. They were in Argentina. the economy was falling apart and they came to Advanc and they brought their entire extended family over. He was one of the young brothers or sons or nephews or whatever it was. There's about 10 of them that came over, built a great business in South Florida. They half of them sold it uh made really good money and went on and built an import export business and and Mariano is still operating there. And I mean, what impact did we did that little Advantic business make in their life?

and the fact that we see we see each other. We tell each other we love each other. And then the the one of the executives from Advantacle uh came up to me and he said, "Hey, I've been trying to get in touch with you. I go around to these offices with Advanc and they've all got the pictures up on the wall from the conferences that you had and all of that." And part of it is how can we get the culture back when when Jeff had it? And he asked me to do a video to play at their owner's conference. Oh wow. So I I did the I did the red eye. I got home and I'm like, "Oh, he said he needed it today." I hadn't slept all night. And I'm like, "Well, let me put some preparation preparation h under the eyes." Yeah. And and and I did just a three or four minute video. You know, he asked me to say a few things, but just to encourage them and just to just to praise them and let them know like they're carrying on a tradition. We It's

31year anniversary we just had last week. That was the same day that I met Mariano. And like, okay, body of work made a difference in that life. Ah, it's so great. Yeah. So, um, and that's at the end of the day, man. Like, we can't take it with us, but like just it just matters what we do while we're here and and who we do it with more than anything. I love it, man. Well, this was fantastic. I really appreciate you sticking around to do this and uh honored. Yeah, man. You're an amazing guy. Um, I'm going to come visit here soon, too. East Coast Charlotte area, right? Yes, sir. All right, man. Well, listen. I'll let you get out of here. I appreciate it. This is Groom. Thank you guys for listening and uh we'll catch you on the next episode.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan"?

Tommy Melo (Host), Jeff Dudan (Guest).

What is "Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan" about?

The discussion focuses on the challenges and realities of franchising as explained by Jeff Dudan, CEO of Homefront Brands. Key points include the high failure rate of franchise operators, the significant investment required to establish a successful franchise system, and the necessity for collaboration among diverse franchise owners to adapt and thrive in a competitive landscape.

What is mentioned in this Home Service Expert episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Jeff Duden, Homefront Brands, Neighborly, Can't Hurt Me, Al Levy, E-Myth. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Mastering the Art of Franchising with Jeff Dudan"?

The episode runs 1 h 9 min; the transcript is about 14,990 words in 95 timestamped sections.

More from Home Service Expert

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.