Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Create wealth through Franchising. I'm your host, Kim Daly.
Whether you're a CEO, a military vet, a real estate investor, or simply in career transition and ready to take ownership of your future, with each episode, you're gonna learn valuable insights and hear inspiring stories from within the franchise industry.
On that note, my guest stories are their own. And as a franchise consultant, I do not make personal brand endorsements or earnings claims, but I do educate, motivate, and inspire dreams.
Now onto the show.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Welcome back to Create Wealth Through Franchising podcast and Kim Daily tv. In my studio today, Nick High from Alexandria, Virginia of Rolling Stone Duds. Nick, welcome to the studio of Kim Daly tv.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Hey, thanks for having me.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: He is a seasoned professional at podcast, so he is going to wow us with his story of changing his life, doing whatever he was doing when he answered the call to franchising. So, Nick, let's start all the way at the beginning. What was going on in your life when you decided, I need to do something different? And I think I want to explore a franchise.
[00:01:20] Speaker C: I was running basically a distribution channel for a national brand.
Worked a little bit like franchising. I had my own little territory and they kind of sent me on my way. Eventually, I got a little too big for the national brand and got bought out and started to look around at what I wanted to do. Thought about buying a business for a while, decided I didn't love the risk profile of that. Started searching around with brokers for a franchise to get into.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: I love it. So prior to working with a consultant and investing in rolling suds, did you have any misgivings about franchising or was franchising just sort of like this thing that was out there? He just never really gave any thought to it.
[00:01:57] Speaker C: I'm not the most creative human in the world. Like, I don't have a lot of preferences as a human. I like to say that all the time. So in terms of, like, coming up with a brand and doing that whole thing, I don't have a lot of interest in doing that.
So the. The concept of being with a group and having a brand already established and that kind of thing was very entertaining to me. I didn't have any misgivings. In fact, I was very interested in at the time, I was an Orange theory fanatic, but I wanted to kind of get into fitness type stuff.
Kind of realized you had to nail the brand the first try or you were getting nothing. Kind of searched around for four or five months and wound up where I wound up.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: But A guy that builds too big of a business and gets cut out, he kind of belongs in a business like Rolling Suds where you can build whatever size future you want, right, and make it your own. And there is no ceiling there compared to like an orange theory where there will be a ceiling, right? So like if I was your consultant and you came to me and you had like massive growth goals and you had proven success in your past and you were, are you, are you a business developer guy? Are you a sales guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like I would be like, Nick, you're wasting yourself in an orange theory. Like for those of you who are listening, let me just clarify that. So what I mean by that is there's different investments for different investors. And some investments like a Rolling Sud, a power washing franchise where you can go out and you can charge the market so you can drive as hard as you want into a market to create whatever size financial future you want. Well, that does not happen when you settle into four walls or a brick and mortar location. When you think franchising and you confine yourself to only brick and mortar, you're confining or tapping out kind of financially. So the name of the game is always going to be how many can you build? Because you have to be able to scale versus in what he decided to do, it's more unlimited because there's things in Power Wash everywhere. No matter. You know, you could double down and buy two territories and double your population but you're still never going to cap that whole market. So sorry for the coaching moment, but.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: Yeah, oh no, it's all good. I agree with that. I think it really depends on your risk profile. At the end of the day, any business is you're in a sales position whether you like it or not. More often than not, I think people assume that they'll just hire somebody to do something for them that does not exist. Someone's lying to you. Like for example, Rolling Suds has a lot of amazing franchisees, but we also have people that I don't think quite understood what they were necessarily getting into. And I think that's true for every franchise that exists and every business that exists. I think that you just have to be very careful and understand and validate and go through it. But Rolling Suds is a marketing and sales company. It is. This is, that's what this job is. I'm a B2B account manager to a certain extent and that happens to be what I was doing prior. If you're bad at that skill set can you learn it? Sure. But is this gonna be a hell of a lot harder of a run? Yeah. And Rolling Suds, for example, has a hard.
It has a hard climb. You have to get past this kind of window, and then once you do that, it all starts to get a little easier. But I think that's true of most franchises, and I think that's what you have to explore is what does that really look like? Because not everyone's buying into Crumbl cookie and, you know, making 200 grand and walking away every year.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: So how long have you been a franchisee, Nick?
[00:05:31] Speaker C: Oh, boy. I was the fourth franchisee in the system. So I guess June of 23, except for the company and the brand were not exactly the same thing as they are now. So I like to tell people about.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Two years, tell us a little bit about the growth journey that you've gone through, things you've learned. You said that this is a little bit of, like, it's. It's kind of hard to get the engine going to get out of the gate. Let's qualify that a little bit.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: Rolling Suds in general, and in this business in general, we are trying to capture a part of the market that requires a lot of networking and a decent amount of fulfillment. And what that really just means is you have a lot of expenses because the equipment to do that is high. And so you basically have to get your sales to a point where you start to break even. And until you do that, you're basically on a startup Runway. Just like any other business that you've seen, you're burning cash until you get to break even. And then, for example, myself, I get a lot of inbound leads now or stuff from last year that I sent out.
And that base takes a long time to build. And if you're in parts of the country that don't necessarily get super green, you have to find a niche. So, for example, I was with somebody who's in South Texas, another franchisee, trying to help them out, and they're struggling. And he came up with a soap that is environmentally friendly and can clean docks. He was not marketing that. And I'm like, well, no one else knows how to do that, man.
So maybe we go after that. You have to find something that makes you a little special and then build that out. And that's kind of business in general. It's called moat. But in terms of our franchise, we have, like, a lot of stuff going for us and national accounts program and things like that. But the. The climb to get to A break even and then start to cash flow positive is tough. I think it's tough in most these businesses, especially once you actually start to talk to people, you hear a lot different stories than you hear survivorship bias.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: If it were easy, everybody would do it. It's not impossible. It's just coming in without rose colored glasses on. I think a lot of times to your point about people buy franchises and they don't think they have to sell anything. I think what happens is when we're full of hope and we have the dream, we hear what we want to hear, right? And then when you get in and then reality sort of slams you in the face and then you're forced to hear the parts that when you were exploring and dreaming and hoping you weren't willing to hear. And so it's not like you're being oversold. I think that's just human nature. And so when you work with a good, experienced consultant, I'm going to, you know, not just align the right opportunity to the skills that you have, but I'm going to help you take off those rose colored glasses. Really being able to hear and to think, is this who I want to be and how I want to show up every day?
[00:08:15] Speaker C: You're correct. Like you do need. Especially if you haven't built a business before. I do think you should be with some type of consultant and take personality tests and kind of figure out what your strengths are. And since you talk to the franchisor and like there are business development departments, you can kind of get a good idea of what the most successful people have been in. But I would say that you should talk to the struggling people. I want you to hear what their mindset is and I want you to hear like where they're driving down.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Let's talk about that. So what do you think? Someone who. Because this is what I think happens. This is awesome. So I was 8 years average performing in my business as a franchise consultant. And then one year later, back in 2011, I grew my business by 350% in one 12 month period. When I coach on validation, I tell my candidates, do you want to meet me when I was average for 8 years or do you want to meet me last 13 years where I'm making and breaking my own historic records? Right? Because I had a truth for eight years, but I have a very different truth now. I'm the same me. My process has never changed. The economy went up and down, did all kinds of crazy things. And especially in the 13 years that I've been Top performing and I've never slid back even during COVID or anything. So prior to knowing what I know now, which really was a mindset shift, I would have blamed the economy. I oh, it's summer, business is slow. Oh, it's an election year that just knocks. You know, I would have blamed external circumstances, but today I don't blame anything. I just look in the mirror because I'm the cause of everything that happens in my business. So those factors can impact your business if you allow them to, but they absolutely do not have to and I can prove that to you. So from your perspective, why do you think somebody should validate with the me who is average performing or worse, someone who's really like struggling. What do they have to offer to the success formula?
[00:10:08] Speaker C: A lot of what makes people successful with money is their emotional capabilities. And I think a lot of where people struggle in business and this is myself too, you just have bad days and you I caught, I caught quitting for a day. But you should do that a decent amount. If your mindset's just completely wrong, then you're just going to tumble and make poor decisions. And the ability to recognize that in yourself and see it in others is half the reason that you'll get where you, you actually want to go. Being able to self regulate your emotions but understand that like this is temporary and that these problems are temporary and, and you're just hitting a bad time and you just keep pushing forward is really important. And then seeing the people that are failing and hearing the emotion in their voice and what's wrong and what they're doing to try to fix it or are they trying to blame stuff? And I think that a lot of times in franchising if you choose a bad brand, you do have a reason to be upset. Like to your point, that's not necessarily always true. Someone is probably killing it in the model and that's just kind of who they are as a human. And so I think you going around and listening to different types of people and then reflecting back on yourself and saying, okay, if I'm being realistic with myself, if I'm failing, which of these two voices do I have? And then you can kind of make a choice on where you think you would end up if you were struggling. Because the reality is, is the startup point, you will struggle. At some point you are going to get your butt kicked.
There's me a fire, there's me a crash, there's me something stupid. Your main employee quits, whatever it might be, but you will fail To a certain extent. And you just have to get back up and try again. And that's business.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: Oh my God, that was so good. Like, I was just like, keep talking, keep talking. I love it when I meet people who like, you're so on target. Everything this man just said is so on point. Emotional regulation, knowing yourself, awareness. So with what you just said, Nick, I would agree if you're validating with a struggling owner to understand emotionally where they're at and become self aware, cool.
But what mostly happens is when people are standing at the edge of changing their life. And maybe you'll. This will resonate with you. Go back to the days weeks before you signed your franchise agreement. Right? Now you have been a distributor before, so you've sort of been out on the bleeding edge already. Most people haven't, right? They, they receive a paycheck every two weeks. That's, that's their identity. And so this is the jagged edge for them, right?
So while they are calling in the growth and the change, they're absolutely scared out of their minds, every single one of them. I've done this for 23 years. I don't care your net worth is 250,000 or 5 million.
Every single one of you out on the bleeding edge is afraid. We're all afraid because we're built for survival. Humans did not survive for millions of years because we're comfortable in the unknown. We're comfortable in what is known. And that is the way our mind is literally programmed. So that's survival, though. But when you're stepping out to own a business, we're not in survival. This is thriving. So my whole point here, Nick, is most of the time, people's fear aligns to the Struggler's fear and then it knocks them off of their own ability to push forward. So if somebody's empowered enough in their belief that they're going to change their life and you're validating with a struggling franchise owner and you can see it for what it is and not allow that to impact your decision.
Have at it. But the vast majority of people, that Struggler will take you down every single time. And if you're listening to this, just laugh at yourself. No judgment over here by Kim Daly. Right. We love testimonials. Why, why do we read the reviews on Amazon before we buy a new product? Right? Because if one person says something bad, then we're not doing it. You think it's going to be different when you're investing your life savings and stepping out into the unknown to go do this risky thing called business ownership.
[00:14:15] Speaker C: I agree with you. I think you have to really kind understand what you're getting into and then hearing from it. Especially if you haven't owned anything before or done anything commission based before.
You can always tell when someone is having a bad sales slump because there's like you said, there's, it's the economy, it's this, it's that, but it never is, right, Nick? It not, not often.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: I love this conversation. I love high performing people because there's just a different level of you get it ness. And that's just so fun to like bump into.
So. And I want the person who's listening to fall in line with this conversation and be like, I get it too. I get it too. That again, that's the point of all these interviews, that's the point of all my content. So you don't feel like you're on the outside and you don't get it. You just have to open your heart and you listen with your ears, but you hear with your emotions. And so that's what you have to do. So, okay, so Nick, so how many territories do you own? How big of a business have you built and what are you looking forward to over the next few years?
[00:15:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I have six territories. I started with four and bought two more. So I own the majority of Northern Virginia.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Wow.
And how did that go? So you, you started with four, did you want six, but then shrink back a little bit like it's too much? Or did you get in and realize what you had and you said I gotta buy it all.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: I basically thought about it and people were sneaking around my western side. Rolling suds was very hot for a while. It's not to say we're hot now, but we're maturing. So you slow down your, your growth a little bit. But I did not want someone to take the western flank.
Half the Internet runs through Loudoun County. Well, I think it's like 70% so losing that area would be a detriment to my future growth. So locking that out and then making it less advantageous to buy around me was the purpose of the expansion strategic.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: And because you're growth minded.
[00:16:11] Speaker C: Right. And if you're going to do it, you might as well just do it. I don't really do stuff halfway and I think I'm gonna do about a million 1.1 this year running at like 27 net or so. We'll see where we end up.
But the business has changed. For me. The, the first year was a hell of a struggle.
Last year went okay. At this time last year, I was about as burnt out as possible.
I had found somebody that I thought wanted to be a general manager. But, like, for example, on the 3rd of July, we killed an elevator by accident. And now I'm dealing with liability insurance for the first time and all the normal problems that you get with a business that I'm trying to tell people, like, listen, this goes great and also goes bad all the time. And if you want to build this, you're probably not paying yourself for a while or very little. I skim off, like, four grand a month every once in a while. But you're learning a whole new set of skills. Accounts receivable, how to get that to go through all these individual systems.
And you're just getting your butt kicked on a daily basis until it starts to get easier. And this year has been one of those years where you're like, all right, this is getting easier. I think last July, I did about 80 grand, 88,000. We did 122 or three this July, starting in August. It's the fifth currently, and I already have last year's number booked without selling any residential work yet and have more opportunities coming in, contracts coming in, and it's just word of mouth. I found a couple of niche products that I use, and people love them that are real differentiators in the market. I'm also so outgoing and so salesy, so I will legitimately tell people. I just. They're like, why is it cheap? I'm like, because it's my I want to be friends price. It doesn't stay that cheap forever. It's to prove my point. You don't know me, and I don't know you. Let's see what we can do together.
I'll show you what we can do, and then past that, we'll see where we go. And I do that a lot.
And so I think where we're going with this is I think I can get it to four or five million dollars over time. I have major competitors. I'm in Northern Virginia. Everybody has money here.
So, you know, navigating that area, making new relationships and kind of just continuing to push forward, and you. You got two steps forward and one step back all the time. Sometimes you go two, four. Two back and one forward.
So, you know, you're. You're just trying to regulate and make sure that you're doing the best that you can and. And being fair with yourself. It took a. I don't know, 18 months, 20 months to really start to turn a significant profit. And I think that's kind of what we're going to see across the board at rolling Suds. And I think, believe it or not, regardless of what Internet tells you, that's realistic. Unfortunately, it does take time to get cash flow positive and continue that, that climb. It's not something that just happens.
And no one's giving this to you either, by the way.
Franchising is a business in a box, but you still have to make all the rules in the box and you have to make sure the box runs well. You have a brand and ideas and they can help you, but chances are you're in a new market for them and they've got to figure it out too. So this is, it takes a lot. If you're the type of person who thinks that they can probably figure out almost anything, this is definitely for you.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: So you feel like you can build this to 4 or 5 million. Are you looking for an exit strategy at some point? I mean, you're a young guy, so are you, are you looking to add on another business? What's your long term vision, Nick?
[00:19:36] Speaker C: I want to be the richest person. No one knows.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: I love that. The millionaire, the multi gazillionaire next door.
[00:19:43] Speaker C: It depends. It depends on the market, depends on the world where we're at.
Ideally I'd like to keep it and get it cash flow and really nice and have a nice team. I'm good for five to seven years and then I'm probably gonna get bored and I'll want to build something else. I, I want to get into QSR a little bit.
Just because everyone says it's impossible. I want to try.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Oh, I love that spirit.
[00:20:05] Speaker C: But I don't want to do it until I have a nice, you know, cash cushion. It's like every guy's dream is to open a bar. Yeah, that sounds great until you burn a million dollars in six months.
So I'd like to, you know, get myself into a nice financial position and then take on additional risk and, and see where we go with that. But yeah, no, I'd like to own a little portfolio of stuff. I think most people would, but the thing that makes most people successful is doing the same dumb thing over and over and over and over and over again and just making it bigger. So who's to say maybe I keep hanging out with rolling suds and buy out other franchisees and, you know, kind of make a little empire for myself or we move into something different.
I'm not quite sure. But I do know that I can't do the same thing forever.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: You've always paved your own way, just like Kim Daly. I. I totally recognize that in you. And for anybody who's out there, it is business in a box, like Nick said. But you do have to show up and unpack the box and do the work and fail forward, like you said, every single day and emotionally regulate yourself. Not to be seen stuck in what isn't working, but to keep dreaming and to keep figuring out how to solve that problem in a new way. That's just business ownership, and that's life. And does it happen overnight? It can. Does it? For most people? No. It takes a little bit of time because it takes time to grow into the owner who professionally and personally has grown enough and figured out how to deliver enough service that then renders you that financial result. Right? That's the missing piece that people forget. Right? They look at the item 7 of the FDD and they think, I'm going to put this money in and I'm going to make this earnings claim. And I say, no, you're not right. You're going to make the earnings claim when you grow personally and professionally and figure out how to serve enough customers in a way that they then want to pay you. And that's when you're making $1 million or $5 million or $10 million. So it's not this magic formula because you invested in a franchise. You are the magic formula. The franchise just gives you the strategy, but it's what you do with the strategy that creates the outcome.
[00:22:10] Speaker C: They might give you some, like, very nice vendors, some exclusive, like, discounts and whatever that might be, but it's not solving your daily, like, problems. And then the other parts of this, too, is you have to be able to take a look at the problems and understand that it's a really big problem in your head right now. But does it matter in a month, two months, or three months from now? More than likely, no. And then the next portion of that is when this problem comes up again, there's almost no chance you care. We have, like, right now, I have one of my trucks is down, and it's not like the truck's not broken, but I let the pumps leak a little too long, whatever. So I replace. I'm replacing the bodies myself. But on, like, my garage floor are two pumps that I'm working on. And so we just figure out a way. I think last year I would add a conniption. We move around business and we make it work. And they'll be back up and running, running by the end of the week. And all right. I mean, it happens. At least it didn't happen in the spring. And so you just have to keep thinking positively and then realizing that all of this pain is somewhat temporary and that the problems that you're facing today are not the problems you'll face next year or two years from now, and you just keep building on them. But it's the same concept. And this is true for all a business. And every commission salesperson or anyone who's lived off of 1099 money knows you're going to have these wild raids. And. And as long as you can kind of cut through it and not ride that experience, the people who are obviously going to fail are the people who sit there and go crazy with their highs and their lows. Their, I sold 30 grand and they're super pumped. And then the next day they lost 10 because somebody put the wrong thing on the wrong thing. So as long as you can stay as even as possible, for as long as possible, you can get where you want to get. But if that's not you, this potentially is not maybe the right avenue.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah, Love it. It's great advice. So, Nick, to wrap this up for those people who may be listening who have not yet taken the step of reaching out to Kim Daly. So they follow me. They're interested in this topic, but they haven't taken any action to say, I want to stand up to my dream. What advice do you have for those listeners?
[00:24:18] Speaker C: There are people who do stuff, and then there's people who talk about stuff.
And you can sit there and say, oh, well, somebody's done that idea or whatever. No, they haven't. People who do stuff do stuff. People who think about it, think about it. And they read seven books, and then potentially when it's too late, they try to jump in because there's proven success already. And I think somebody who is a very good broker has the ability to kind of see within somebody and be like, all right, they would be a good fit for this because of these qualities. And that's why I spoke to, like, maybe a personality test or something like that. But doers do stuff, and doing stuff is the hardest thing in the world, whether you like it or not. And there's no time. There's no. If you don't have urgency in everything you kind of do, then you're never really going to get into this type of a role. And I think if you think that you're a doer and and you're on the fence, you should just go for it because. Or at least start talking to you. I'm sure it isn't going to like break the bank by talking to you and trying to figure out a franchise that will work best for you or a business that might work best for you. And that's kind of the biggest deal here, is not that, not that that you shouldn't be thinking about it and making sure that's right for your family and all of those things all combined. But if you're going to go, you need to go now and start the process and go through this. I think I went through 20 brands before I was like, yeah, cool, this works. And because if they're my risk tolerance, at the end of the day, if this fails, I can run it myself. And that's really what it's all about, is just going for it. And consider your options. But do that, do that carefully. Make sure this fits your mindset. And at some point you have to look at yourself and your family and just say, effort, let's do it.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Doers do. So if you're out there, take the first step. I won't bite. And it's a totally free service for you. So it doesn't cost you any money to reach out to Kim Daily, ever.
So with that, let's end this amazing interview. Nick, thank you so much for sharing just your your humanness, your experiences, your. You are so inspiring. Thank you for being our special guest here today.
[00:26:23] Speaker C: Sure. It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Thank you. And best of luck to you as you build out that multi million dollar dream. And for those who are inspired, again, please don't forget that my name is Kim Daly and I want to be your daily coach. So follow that link in the description right now so we can start building your dream.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: You can find more content just like this on my YouTube channel at KimDaily TV. And if you're inspired to take the next step to explore franchises matched to you, please email me right now at InquireimDaily TV. That's InquireimDaily TV.
