Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to American wealth in Franchising and Kim Daly tv. I am your host, Kim Daly. I want to educate, motivate and inspire your business ownership journey by interviewing business leaders, coaches and exceptional franchisees to learn their valuable insights and strategies that we can apply to our own business ownership dreams. Now onto the show.
Welcome back to Create wealth through Franchising podcast and Kim Daily TV in the house. Today, a new friend all the way from Houston, Texas, Randy McKay, an 18 year veteran of the ERA Group or the ERA Group. Randy. Welcome to the studio of Kim Daly TV. It's very rare that we get franchisees who've been in a system for 18 years. So if you're out there listening, buckle up your seatbelt because I think this could be a wild ride. So, Randy, let's go all the way back to 19 years ago. What was going on in your life when you answered the call to become a franchisee?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: It was not unlike some of the things that you're accustomed to. As a matter of fact, I owe my exposure to ERA Group to Randy Hovey, who was a friend, that guy in St. Louis that happened to introduce me and the rest was history. I had been in the department store business for 36 years with big names from May Co. And Macy's, had gone through my fifth merger and wound up. Instead of being on the receiving end, I was on the other team and we parted amicably. But I was looking for something that didn't involve the general public as customers and didn't involve me having to hire people because I ran big department stores that during the holiday season we'd have a thousand employees and, you know, they were big stores doing 70, 80 million dollars a year and lots and lots of customers. I just didn't want the aggravation of having to fill a job only to have someone quit and fill the job and have someone quit. And so the idea of ERA Group appealed to me because we are B2. We deal with C suite and senior level executives directly. We help clients really achieve their goals by reducing their wasted cash flow and, you know, turning that cash flow back into their coffers so that they can achieve some of the goals that they had in mind.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: So this is a story my followers have heard time and time again. You find yourself at this crossroad and you now have to go do something different. And so what I love is that life teaches us what we don't want, right? So you're like, I did all of that, I had all that and I'm running fast from all of that when I decide to start my own business. Do you remember when you were at that crossroad? Was a franchise the only thing you were considering or were you looking at buying a business or going back to another corporate job even?
[00:02:52] Speaker B: I toyed with the idea of going back to another retailer. And every time I would speak to another retailer, I'm getting myself back into the same trench that I just dug myself out of. But one of the things I would advise to the degree that your listeners could take advantage of a Discovery Day, no matter who they are considering. Discovery Days are a chance to really speak with the management of the company and talk to some of the franchisees that are there. But the Discovery Day really helped me connect with people I thought I could work with and hear the stories that sort of went beyond the sales pitch that I might have gotten from my first exposure to the idea of joining Aero Group. Probably the thing that attracted me most was that the people that I was going to be working with were not unlike myself. In Era Group, about 75% of the people were vice presidents or had greater responsibility in their last job. A lot of them were presidents and CEOs and CFOs and that sort of thing. About half of them have advanced degrees. So the brain trust at ERA Group is pretty significant.
And I was compelled to join a group that I was very impressed with and didn't take me long to say yes. I think I probably moved on this within about 120 days.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Let me go back and fill in the gap. So for those who may be new to the discovery process. So a Discovery day, which in 2025 is called a Meet the Team day typically. And with the ERA Group, it's a virtual event because there's nothing to go see. There's no pizza to taste or workout to try. But it is the culmination of all of the at home research that you do through Kim Daily. And working with your consultant and the franchisor then prepares you to get in front of the leadership and the executive team. And this is where that mutual evaluation takes place, where they're assessing you to make sure that you're going to be a good cultural fit in their family. You're assessing them to make sure that everything you've learned that got you to this Meet the Team Day is what you thought it was going to be. And the people are your people. Remember, when we say yes to a franchise, ultimately we should be investing in people, not widgets, because it's the people that keep the business growing and Adapting and changing and the widget may have to change in order to remain relevant. Right. So if you invest in a widget, you're going down a rabbit hole that you're going to get stuck in. But if you invest in people and then to add to that, what I love about this is so refreshing. And it might be refreshing to you listener as well because when we think franchising, too many times people think franchising is only Chick Fil, a Jersey Mike's and the Dollar Store. They don't realize that there are business to business options. And did you listen to the leadership team that Randy mentioned he met when he went to meet the team? They these are C suite level executives, not unlike him or like him in his corporate job. So you find people that are your people that together you're going to continue to build a brand that you can level up to. Right. They have something more that you want and you're able to look at them and say, yeah, I respect them, I want to grow next to them. I want to be a peer in this group. The community of a franchise is so important. Community. We're social humans, but community and the people that we surround ourselves with often help either to elevate us or not. And that's one of the biggest advantages of a franchise. That was so great. Okay, so Randy, you've been in for 18 years. So I'm assuming it's because like me, I've been in my business for 23 years because I found people who I just freaking love and I just have never found an upper limit of growth. I can keep growing. And that's why I've been intrigued by this business model of franchise consulting for 23 years. So speak to a little, if you will, about when you started. Did you think this was going to be like a trajectory that it's turned into or what's kind of kept you in it for all these years?
[00:06:38] Speaker B: I'm not where I thought I was going to be, I'll tell you that. When I first joined era, the organization is set up to have people who are client acquirer, client manager type who deal with assigning new business and then they hand that business off to people that we call solution delivery specialists. And it's those SDSs that actually perform the project and deliver that to the client. And I had the good fortune of going in first into the San Diego region and I had an area developer at the time by the name of Barry Bowles. And Barry is still in ERA Group in the Denver market.
But Barry encouraged us to perform a project as an SDS so that we understood the process. And I got engaged with a payroll project with a client of my own and engaged the payroll expert at ERA at the time. He helped me with it, had a good result.
And shortly after, another guy in San Diego had a payroll project, asked Barry, hey, who does payroll? And Barry said, randy just didn't want to have him do it for you. So I did one for Anil Namda. Well, another guy in San Diego signed a client with multiple projects, one of which happened to be cleaning services.
And he asked Anil who was doing the freight work for him, hey, who does cleaning services? Anil said, nobody does cleaning services. But have Randy do it. He just did a payroll project for me. So I did his cleaning service project. And shortly after starting that one, I signed a client of my own who wanted cleaning. And shortly after that, another guy in the San Diego region, Greg Brown, joined and had a client that wanted cleaning. So within 90 days, I had three cleaning projects I had started. And so thus began cleaning services for ERA USA. And I'm closing in on my 300th project today. I'm probably going to hit that next spring. But we've done a lot of those projects and it's the same story. This is one of the other things that has really intrigued me over the last 18 years is as new people join our organization, they bring an expertise that we never had before. And we talked before going on camera about Rudy Baselman's in New Hampshire. Rudy created the copier category for ERA Group. We had another guy from the Carolinas, Rob Katzman, who created the banking services category for Aero Group. We've had people create human resource capital, have people create insurance. We now do over 50 projects because people brought their expertise, their history with them to help create these projects for ERA Group to offer to their clients. It's really been quite a journey in the 18 years to see what we started with 20 projects. Now we do well over 50. So it's an amazing metamorphosis.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: It's a great model. I mean, it's true collaboration. It's what it speaks to. It's so great. And what's even greater, just kind of zooming out and, you know, telling like the bigger story is that if we try to figure out the how before we begin, we just see stay on the sideline and we never get in. Right. So he got in. He probably had one thought about how this was going to go, but very quickly everything takes a different turn and he ends up right where he's supposed to be. You know, 18 years later, he's completed 300 projects in something that the day he signed his franchise agreement, he didn't even realize like was going to be a big grip. So if you're out there on the sideline and you're trying to dot your eyes and cross your T's and make it all make logical sense before you get in, I'm telling you, you're making it too hard. You have to be willing to take that leap into the uncertain area because that's where the magic lives. When you're inside the franchise and you found people, you have that safety net that will catch you. You have the people there who are going to help fill in the gaps and create that certainty that you are looking for before you sign. But if you're looking for it and looking for it and looking for it, you're going to keep looking for it because it doesn't exist on the other side of actually joining a franchise. So that's the a little bit of a mindset coaching for you right there. Okay, so you've been in for 18 years. So share some of the personal growth experiences, things that you've enjoyed as a business owner along the lines over the last 18 years, maybe that you expected, or maybe that you even didn't expect.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Probably the greatest joy that I've gotten out of this is as I mentioned, there are about 80 of us that do this solution delivery specialist work. They do projects that are different than mine, but we all do the same work under a different category and being in collaboration with them to do any number of things. We created tools together, we evaluated systems together, we met for three days in a room together. And just collaborating with people of your own interests that help make you better. Many of them make a lot more money than I do, but it doesn't keep us from all sharing equally in how we can all be better. So that's probably the biggest thing I've gotten out of it. But recently I've had something even more fulfilling that's happened to me about almost two years ago now. My daughter was with a high tech company. She was a communications manager for a senior C level executive, lost her job. And I was thinking, gee, I've been in ERA now for about 18 years. I'm wondering, you know, what am I going to do with my business?
And I sat down with her and asked her, gee, would you ever consider doing this? And she jumped at the opportunity to join me. So she's been with me now for almost Two years. The number of projects that she's been involved in, usually our new people joining in their first year or two years would probably deal with only a couple of clients and maybe 10, 15 projects or most. She's done over 40 of them in her two years that she's been with me. So she'll take this on to the next adventure. The relationship with ERA Group can continue as long as she wants it to. So if she wanted to continue to do this until she retires, that's entirely up to her. But she's really made a place for herself already. And it really is quite fulfilling to know that what I've built doesn't have to stop. It can be handed off to the next generation, you know, and so very pleased with that.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Hey, Daily Coach fans, if you're loving this episode, please do me a quick favor and leave me a five star rating and a short review. Your feedback fuels my growth and rankings and shows others that this podcast is valuable. Now back to the show.
It's amazing. That's the legacy we want, right? And in this particular case, I talk a lot about legacy, Randy, and I say, you know, the greatest legacy is that when you dare to pursue your dream, right? Our kids don't do what we do, don't do what we say they see us doing. And so when you dare to pursue your dream, you're leaving a legacy for them. And in some cases it's an actual business. So in this case, it's both. I mean, that's super fulfilling. It's absolutely my goal. I have 18 teenage boys right now and grooming them after business school to join mom in some franchise businesses. So I totally resonate with that story. I know many, many people listening to this do and it's again, it's an unexpected thing, right? It's not like you built it for that, but you start to think about it as you're in it. Do you ever see yourself retir from what you do or do you see yourself like, kind of stepping back and like taking less and less projects?
[00:13:55] Speaker B: That's one of the other things that should attract people to Aero Group is that it can be a lifestyle business. Your income is basically related directly to how much you're willing to take on in terms of new clients or new projects and so on. So currently we're working on about 40 projects in various stages. That's a lot. That's a big workload. I don't really want that workload. My daughter, frankly, is quite a bit of a machine, so she's thriving under this, but she'll partner with someone else at ERA to continue the business. And it's one of the things that I appreciate about our company is they encourage us to build our own business. We've got people who have dozens of individuals working in their practice behind the scenes work, either doing data crunching or supplier relationships or doing new post implementation reporting. They may do some of that. So you can build out your practice to whatever you want it to be. Conversely, we've got a lot of people that are a little older and have decided that they only want to do this part time. They can certainly do that, but again, you only make what you make part time. But our business is one of relationship, one of trusted advisors. So often one good client a year can sustain you for quite a long time. Our engagements are now 36 months in length. So once you sign a client, you're with them for a while.
My goal is to begin to wind down next year. I've actually stayed longer because I love it so much. I'm 73 now and I am considering next year as I'll begin to maybe wind down a little bit. But obviously with my daughter on board, really want to make sure that she has all the support that she needs. And whether it's part time or full time, probably the next year when I begin to wind down. But I'll be around for a couple of years if she needs me.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: It's amazing though. I mean, I think again that's an eye opening because the traditional thought about franchising is it looks like something very different than the story that you're telling. And I should have said this in the beginning. You know, we've had a couple of other franchisees from this particular franchise on the show and they were both on the more salesy side. Right. So Randy is more on the crunching number side. He's the auditor inside, you know, doing the work like the other two franchisees we've interviewed and we've had as guests here are out recruiting for and finding. So there's two different roles or two different personality types, if you will, that fit within one franchise organization. And that's the true collaboration that we've already spoke to. So if that wasn't clear, I just wanted to clarify that this is such a great story. So with you and your daughter, do you have an office together or does she work from her home and you work from your home?
[00:16:31] Speaker B: We're both in Houston and we don't live that far apart. We're about a mile apart. But Everything we do is on Today.
We meet clients for the most part, virtually. We speak to each other every day. We're on client calls together, we're on supplier calls together. So we see each other quite a bit. We haven't tired of one another yet, so it hasn't killed our social life. As a matter of fact, we vacation with she and her husband often. But we have a number of our people, our partners. There's the dynamic duo in our healthcare practice have been friends since grad school. They are both PhDs, they're both married to physicians. One is in New England and the other one is in Colorado. And they work every day side by side the same way Amy and I do. We have another pair. One of them is in Dallas, the other one is in Albuquerque. Again, they are the largest producers we have in ERA usa. They do over a million dollars a year in revenue between the two of them. And they've been friends since. They both worked at one of the high tech companies they were with. But they've known each other for 20 years, coming before ERA and now they're both raising families, you know, hundreds of miles apart and partnering every day. So we have the ability to partner, the ability to grow your entire practice into dozens of people. If you want to do that, if that's your thing, you can do your own thing. You can do your own thing part time. It all comes down to, you know, making the life that you want. But one of the things that has really been a change in the last 10 years or so is we are attracting younger and younger people who want the lifestyle. They have young kids and they want to be able to be there during the day or take a week and go someplace and they can work if they've got a laptop and a phone with them anywhere. So the lifestyle is something that everyone should evaluate about the business they're considering. Will it allow me to have the lifestyle I'm looking for? And Aero Group is certainly something that sort of fills that need for a lot of these younger people that are joining us.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: I love that. It's very attractive feature for a lot of people.
So if you're out there and you're thinking, wow, is this interview is not necessarily about, you know, quote, selling the ERA Group or the ERA Group franchise. It's more to help inspire you to the dream of franchise ownership and working with Kim Daly. And so you would follow the link in the description below to reach out to me. We're going to get to that call in just a minute. But yeah, so you Understand it's exposure to different types of franchise opportunities. So you understand, understand that there's so much going on in the franchising industry and there's lots of options you would never pick off of Entrepreneur 500. Or maybe they're not even on the top 500, but that doesn't make it the perfect franchise for you. That's where having an experienced franchise consultant like Kim Daly comes in. Because I've been doing this for 23 years. I have worked with thousands of franchisors, I have helped tens of thousands of people walk down this path of exploring a franchise and in that time created nearly 1,000 small business owners right here in the good old USA. So I might know a thing or two about how to explore a franchise and help you achieve your dream. No, you don't have to go it alone. You don't have to figure out is this the right business for you. All you have to do is find Kim Daly and you have because you're listening to my show. So, Randy, I mean, this is a great American story, right? You find yourself at a crossroad which probably didn't feel so great at the time. Now, 18 years later, you've built a business for yourself that supported your lifestyle. Now you've got a legacy piece, your daughter is in it. You're able to transition yourself out knowing that you built something for her. And I mean, as a mom who's a business owner, I tell my kids, if I can teach you how to create cash flow that you own and control, I feel like I would pat myself all over the back like high fiving myself. That's the ultimate freedom and that's the ultimate gift a parent could ever give to a child. Right? Not necessarily even the actual business in this case it is, but the idea and the courage to follow through and to pursue that so that you don't have to go work for somebody else for all these years and then be told one day that you're not needed anymore. And now you've got mortgage and kids and you have to feel all that fear. That's over here, what I'm selling, right? It's freedom via building cash flow that you own and control via a franchise. That's the whole thing in a nutshell, Randy. So you feel in what you want to fill in there. But I really want to go back to, with this lifestyle business, you know, take us back 18 years ago, your health, your how you felt every day about your life, to how you've lived for the last 18 years and especially Once you got your seawigs, which sounds like it didn't take very long, well.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: It took a little longer. I was. When I joined ERA again, I was in Southern California. I had relocated there at the same time I started this business. So I did not have a network in that area to work with. And business in 2008 was pretty dismal in Southern California. I actually didn't find the success happening as quickly as I could. We have such an amazing business model. Our business model is if we can't find savings, there is no fee for our service. I mean, that is a guarantee that you're going to get a free look and someone's going to say you're doing a great job or we're going to find savings for you. You cannot lose on a deal. So I expected that everybody I would talk to would get it. But unfortunately, the people that we work through in the corporate world are sometimes a little threatened by someone taking that deep of a dive into their business. So there sometimes is reluctance to that. And I would tell you that you can't get into this business and think that it's going to come to you. You really do have to work hard those first few years to fill that pipeline the same way as you would have to fill the pipeline with a Jersey Mike or in any other kind of franchise. You've got to fill the pipeline, get those regular customers coming in, give them some reason to come back for more. So our first couple of years, we are in many cases living off our own resources until that pipeline fills up. But today I can tell you I made more money for the last 16 years than I ever did in retail. And this is probably going to be my largest year ever and certainly exceeds all of my expectations. We do have a lot of people with very high incomes. Every one of them works very hard every day. It's there for the taking. If you're willing to work hard at it, love it.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: And just your personal lifestyle in terms of not being tied to like a Monday through Friday, you know, like cubicle or whatever your life was like in retail, you to the freedom and flexibility. Speak a little bit to that.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: I'll give you an example. We in February, I was looking at a magazine and my wife and I are partial to tulips. We haven't been to Amsterdam yet, thinking that, you know, we would go and see the tulips in the Netherlands. But there is in Skagit County, Washington is the second largest producer of tulips. And April is the Tulip Festival. So around March 31, I bought two tickets and we went to Skagit, Washington for three days to go to the Tulip Fester. Well, I made a couple of phone calls while I was away, logged into my laptop a couple of times. I was away to keep up with things. But you can pick up and go if that's what you want to do. We're going to the Albuquerque Balloon Race in October. You know, just go and I can work while I'm still there if I have to. If I don't have to, don't have to. Amy, my daughter has been in Mexico for four weeks.
She was on vacation with her husband at first, but two weeks she's been working from there, doing this work. So you can work anywhere if you've got a laptop. And that was one of the last things I wanted to make a plug for ERA is that the question that you have to ask yourself when you're buying a franchise is what am I willing to invest?
And with some of the other franchises I was talking about before I made my decision to join ERA was that I needed to buy $150,000 worth of equipment, I needed to lease a building, I needed to hire people to do the work, needed to train them, needed to find a way to advertise. With ERA Group, you have a license to buy and you buy a laptop. You have an ongoing cost of about a few hundred dollars for IT services that they provide to you, and that is it. You are basically entering this business for far less than you would for more traditional kinds of operations that are based on a franchise model. So consider that when you're going out there is the cost of entry is really quite attractive.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: And when you come to Kim Daily, we start our conversation right there. I'm going to teach you exactly what your money buys. So what Randy is explaining is that this lower cost of entry comes with more owner time commitment. Right? So money and time are going to be inversely related. When you invest in a business that's more brick and mortar related and you have a lot of structure, there's. That's where owners can start in that more semi active position potentially. But all of that has to be colored through a lot of conversation that you and I are going to have. And I promise you, you're going to learn it all before you ever say to me, hey, I think I'm interested in ERA because I'm not going to hear you until I educate you about what your money buys. So, Randy, you've been an amazing guest today. I always close every show with Final words of advice. So you've been doing this for 18 years. You were in corporate America for many years before that. For that person who's on the sideline, who's still just listening to Kim Daly, who's not yet taking action on the stream to start exploring a franchise, what advice do you have?
[00:25:55] Speaker B: I think I would ask you to spend time talking to people that own the franchises now, if you have the ability to reach out during your process and talk to those of us that have already done this about our experience and the people that we work with. That really is the one reason why I have fought retirement is not because I didn't want to stop earning money. I really enjoy the people I work with and have great admiration for them. Most of them came the same way that I did. They were successful where they were. There was a change in the organization and they found themselves needing to find something different. But every one of them is positive. Every one of them is ready to go. And it's those people that you're going to be working with are going to be there for you. When things may not be quite so good, you know, you can call them for advice, you can call them for encouragement. You can ask them to help you. One of the real keys to this is that I really loved working with these people and I just don't want to give them up.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: That's so good. It's exactly how I feel about my company. So what is basically screaming is you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself. And it's not just a corporate office. It's a family of franchisees. And the process he's describing in terms of talking to them is called validation, which is something that I will handhold you through. Randy, thank you so much for sharing your story. Congratulations on your epic just journey and the legacy that you've built for you and your daughter and your family. It's truly inspiring and I'm so happy to share this story because it really is another great American franchise story. Thank you so much.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Thanks, Kim. I appreciate your time.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Yep, it's been a pleasure. So for those who may be ready now, it's your call to action. There's a link in the description below and I'm going to ask you to follow it right now. I personally will reach out to you so we can open up the conversation to figure out what is the perfect franchise for you. So thank you so much for watching. Until the end and until next time, please don't forget that my name is Kim Daly and I want to be your daily coach.
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@inquireimdaily tv. That's inquireimdaily tv.
