Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Create Wealth Through Franchising.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: I'm your host, Kim Daly.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: 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. My special guest today, all the way from my old stomping grounds as a franchise consultant. He's in McKinney, Texas. His name is Patrick Dickinson, and he's a franchisee of Hallmark Home Care. Patrick, welcome to the studio of Kim Daly tv.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me on the show today.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: It is my sincere pleasure, especially now that I know who changed your life, because he's a great friend of mine. So let's dive into your inspiring story. Tell the followers of Kim Daily TV what was happening in Patrick's life when you answered the call to franchising.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. I'm going to start back in 2019.
My background is retail. I spent 11 years with Costco and almost 25 years with Best Buy.
So 36 years roughly in the retail area.
And those who are familiar with. With retail, they know that you go through a lot of reords, and it's a needed thing that has to happen. Otherwise the retailers cannot. They. They can't stay afloat. They gotta adjust with the. The times. So I've been through 13 reorgs is what I had been through. I was gonna be going through it again, and I kind of knew at that point that, oh, this is not. This is probably not gonna last long. So I had an opportunity to leave Best Buy and actually go work for an old boss. So I went ahead and did that. I went ahead and, all right, I'm gonna jump on it. I'm gonna go do that. What ended up happening, though, is that it only lasted for about six months that I worked for this, because it was in another merging actual kind of business. It was the CBD industry is kind of what I was actually being part of. And so they laid off the entire team. There was like 15 of us that got laid off. I luckily got into another role quite quickly on behalf of my old boss. He helped me get another role, and it was to do the same thing. CB I was going to open up retail facilities is what I was going to do, but then Covid came. So Covid came, scrapped all of that. It did. It was just one thing after another. I left that company and went to another company. And then I got laid off again. It was at that moment in 2022, I was like, you know, I need to do something on my own. I had always wanted to do something on my own anyways, and I felt like this was the right time. My daughter and I had dabbled around of trying to figure out what we wanted to do because she had worked for a company called Uptown Cheapskate. They are a franchisee, and she had worked there for a while. So we were thinking about maybe buying it into there. We just weren't kind of sure what to do. But I always had wanted to. To work with my. With my daughter. As I got laid off, I was trying to figure out, okay, what's next?
Do I sell on Amazon? Because I'm. That means I'm working for myself. I just didn't want to work for anybody else again. I wanted to have more control is what I wanted to do.
And. And you know what? And so I was trying to go back and forth figuring out, okay, what. What am I going to end up doing? You know? And then I remember I'm getting this email from this gentleman, David Weaver, and I. And I got it consistently for two years, probably, that I remember. And it wasn't. It wasn't overwhelming. It was just friendly about, hey, franchising, if it's into you, reach out to me. So I decided, like, I'm going to reach out. And I. And it took me a while because I got laid off in June, and then I finally reached out in November. Initially thought it was going to be just this quick call, and he was going to ask me to send him $10,000 because that was what I experienced in the past, that they were going to actually take my money and then me work with him and figure it out at that point. Well, it was total opposite. The experience was. It was absolutely incredible. David did a fantastic job of getting to know me and understanding what it was that I do well and what I'm passionate about.
And so that's when he brought to me basically three franchises to go and look at. He brought me a retail one, which I understand why he brought me home care. And I was just like, home care? What the heck was that for? Why would he bring me home care?
And so I'm like. And then I asked him that, why did you bring me? He said, well, you told me about your mom. You took care of your mom at home. And he said, you really like helping others. You're committed to that. You want to improve people's lives. I'm like, okay, that makes sense. Then I started the process. I started process, and let me tell you, it was within two weeks that I knew that Hallmark was the right place.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: This is amazing setup. I have the backtrack. I got to get in the coaching moments like so much gold in this story. So, first of all, let's start with the 13 layoffs. Okay? How many people out there are shaking their head, resonating with this man's story? Right? So from 2002 to 2020, the reason I say McKinney, Texas, is my old stomping grounds is I would fly to Dallas every six to eight weeks, host a live event at a business event or a career outplacement center. I became so popular in Dallas that I could literally send my database an email of people in Dallas and say, kim Daly's in town for one night only.
I'd open up the bar and have some appetizers, and 40 people would show up. This is how I prospected for 18 years. And I would come home with all the leads. They'd all buy franchises, and when my pipeline would get low, I'd get back on the airplane, and I go back. And so people associate Kim Daly with Dallas because that's what I did for so long. But in March of 2020, when they told me I couldn't go to my live event in April, I got in the fetal position like every other business owner, and listen, I turned on the camera, created YouTube, and I never went back to Dallas after that. So sometimes your biggest hurdles end up being your greatest blessings. Because not that I didn't love going to Dallas, but I'm a mom, and it was very disruptive to my kids in the flow of life and traveling and all the things, right? So. So to be able to just, like, get leads in my sleep now, because I have content out there working for me every day. Like, that's the goal. That's the dream. And so would I have got there? I like to think I would have, but maybe not in 2020. So Covid changed everything for me for the better. And I love this man's story. And so many of the people that I have worked with, those of you listening to me who've already bought a franchise due my process, or those of you who met me from a referral, you resonate with this story.
There is no security in corporate America when you're working for someone else. So while we stand on the sideline of life and we think, oh, business ownership is so risky.
Is it? Is it really compared to when you're out there working for somebody else? And like, like Patrick has said in his industry, like other industries like telecom pharma, like reorgs happen all the time and they have to happen in order for the business to adapt and grow and change. So you're at the mercy of other people. And I'm not saying that working in corporate America is not great.
There's a time and a place. Maybe it helped him build his net worth. It helped him build some skill. It helped him get that the gumption to say, God, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do it for myself. The other thing I wanted to go back to is I'm a total daddy's girl. So I love that you always wanted to open a business with your daughter. So I want to come back when you take pick up your story. I want to come back to that legacy piece because that's another big resonator with my crowd of people. Right. There's something greater happening when we take control of our lives. We become role models for our family, for our kids, for our peer group in our, in our local community. But you really have the opportunity to change the trajectory not just of your life, but of all of those peoples around you, most especially your children. And a lot of times people will say, I want to invest in a business that I can leave to my kids and I want to lighten that up. And I want to say, no, no, no, let the legacy you leave to your kids be the role model that you are as a business owner. And if they're old enough to participate in the business, bring those kids in because you're giving them the opportunity to be that business owner alongside with you. So that's an amazing legacy that I couldn't just like let you gloss over. So go back to your amazing story because I'm, I'm leaning in and I want to hear what happens next.
[00:09:08] Speaker C: No, I mean, it was, you know, so, and my daughter came along the ride with me going through this process. When we started the whole discovery process and we were going through the three choices I had and, and Hallmark was a slam dunk for a few reasons. One, especially because they have a game changing model around the home care industry and they're solving two of the big concerns that are industry right now, which is affordability and caregiver retention. So it helps solve those actual issues. Then I had all of the areas up where I live.
Frisco, McKinney, Plano, Allen, Carrollton, all those areas available.
And so. And I wanted to go big. I wanted to build something really, really big. And. And yes, I want to leave it for my. To my daughter, but I want her to be part of it, too.
And this is why she actually came to us. She's working within the company. That was part of the big reason why we have. I have her working beside me. And for me, it's. There's nothing more proud than as a parent to have your. Your child to work side by side with you.
So. And we. And we wanted to do that for a while. We just didn't know how to do it. I think we were just of floundering. We weren't really sure what to do. And that's where I'm saying that partly this is where David Weaver and getting a franchise consultant changed my life. It really did. It got me on the path I wanted to be. Because you spent all this time at Corporate America. And by the way, you're right. You know what? Corporate is great. They're good, but you're just another person.
You could be replaced.
That whole thing around everyone's replaceable. That is exactly true. You'd be replacing a heartbeat that would. That would happen.
And so that's kind of. Kind of where we kind of went to. And I picked Hallmark also, because the one thing was important to me is what's the vision of the founder? So Steve Everhart, the founder of Hallmark, he got on calls during that discovery process, and we got to ask some questions. And it was important to me to go, all right, right now, it's very entry level. I get that. And you're building your team. So walk me through kind of what your vision is and who you're bringing aboard. And let me tell you, he was checking all the boxes. And what's ironic around the whole thing is that when I started this process, he had just hired the CEO.
Julie Perry just hired her. She. She had just started maybe a month before I started the whole discovery process. I only had that example. And he talked about all the other ones. Well, as I look now, two years later, all the people who talked about bringing on board, he's done that and more. He's provided the support. Support that we wanted. So that was when I was ready. And I was ready early on. I got to the end of December, started this process in November, and at the end of December, I was ready to Go. I'm like, I'm ready, look, give me gold, let me start now. I even tried to convince them, hey, I don't need to go to confirmation date, I'm ready if you guys are ready, let's go. They said, no, we better go. And I'm like, okay, can I bring my check with me that day when I'm in a confirmation date? And they said, yeah, if you want to. So I, at the end of confirmation, after a two day piece, I ended up signing on the dotted line at that point and did it when I was in California and I signed and boom. And then I had the franchise got it ready to go.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: So let's go back to the franchise consultant piece and changing your life. So he was floundering, right, thinking about a cheesecake retail business, right, and didn't know what he was doing. And then he meets a franchise consultant who's one of my dear friends here at Franchoice. And he said, this is where the franchise consultant changed his life. Because we have knowledge that you don't have. That's what we're trained to do.
And so then his consultant shows him retail, but shows him something that seems out in left park until you start to make the connection of the stories that you shared with the consultant.
So people ask, well, what is your like algorithm like? How do you match?
It's not a science, it's an art. And sometimes it's not what you say, it's how you say it or when you say it, right? Sometimes I'll ask a candidate the same question multiple ways looking for consistency or lack thereof. And sometimes it's, I think, you know, you tell me, this is what I want, I want fitness. And I say, okay, why? Well, when I really dig down deep into your attraction strategy and I measure your risk tolerance, I know that you're going to freak out in a fitness business that's trendy and changing all the time and you might need something that's more stable and steady. And then therein lies where you find a curveball that you didn't expect.
But that's the fun part of what we do. And when you give us our trust, look at the end of the day you can say no, it's a free service, you don't have to do anything I tell you to do. But if you take my hand and allow me to lead you, you can end up with a story like this, where you come from a retail, you know, seven day a week, crazy kind of a business to a Monday through Friday, basically business to Business opportunity that matches all of your characteristics, allows you to have full control, allows you to build a business with your daughter, allows you to not have to collateralize your home to open it and take a big, you know, fat SBA loan that's going to take you years to pay. I'm putting words in his mouth, but I know the characteristics of this business. And he's shaking his head. So he's saying, yes, yes, yes. And then the final piece is that he's in a market that, in my opinion, having done it, been there for 18 out of my 23 years, is the number one market in the country for franchising.
Anything that has any traction will have a presence in Dallas. And he happens to live in one of the two top cities in Dallas, which are Frisco and McKinney. Why? Because they have very rich demographics. Rich in all the ways population density, diversity, and household income. And that's what people want. Right. So that's where franchising thrives. So if I got very used to telling all of my candidates from Dallas, like, if you live in Plano, Frisco and McKinney, and you want your backyard, maybe you better be ready to be a part of an emerging brand. If Frisco and McKinney are open, they're commuting, they're opening in Frisco and McKinney because everybody in Dallas knows this is where the growth is. And now we go further north, right? Salina and Prosper, which back in the day, those weren't even a standalone markets. That was like, if you got Frisco, you. You just get those areas. But now they're standalone markets. I've sold franchises up in Salina and Prosper because it's such a growing. It's all pushing further north. So, again, this is where a good franchise consultant comes in, because we have access. We know when we do the territory mapping what's available and what's not. You could fall madly in love with a concept, live in a market like McKinney, Texas, and, you know, request information, start moving through the process, only to find out at some later date, oh, my gosh, in order to do this, I have to commute an hour from my house. Well, that's not quality of life, especially in a market like Dallas, where you got to drive, it's traffic every day. You don't want to do that.
So the whole idea here is it is a little bit of a sales pitch for, you know, working with a good franchise consultant. That's the whole point of all the Content Kim Daily creates is that you'll want to work with me, but to show the. The inner workings of how what we do matters and saves you so much time and brings opportunity to you that is nowhere in your thinking process or realm of what you think you would qualify for. And then did you hear the man? He was ready to sign before he could go to make the team day. But kudos to his franchisor for saying, no, we want to meet you, because this is another myth. Franchises are sold. They're not sold. They're rewarded to people where it feels like a mutually beneficial relationship. So Patrick was eager and ready, and we all love that. But the franchisor pumped the brakes and said, hey, wait, we're excited. I'm sure we're excited to meet you, but please come experience us fully before you fully commit and allow us to. To experience you so we can make sure that this is going to be a mutually beneficial relationship. So then he went one step further and said, well, can I bring my check? Not too many people do that. That's not how it's typically done. But that's amazing that he had that much confidence in himself and in that franchise even before he went out to their corporate offices and then followed through on it. And so that takes us to present day, Patrick. It's such an inspiring story. There's, like, so much gold in here. So tell us a little bit about the last two plus years of your life and how it's been going and maybe some of the biggest, like, gains from your corporate life to this life, and then maybe some lessons you've learned from the transition from working from for somebody else to working for yourself.
[00:18:05] Speaker C: I always think about what I learned from Costco to Best Buy is it's what got me ready to do this. I felt I was super ready to be able to go out on my own. I had all the experience. I've done so many different roles with, especially with Best Buy. Did pretty much everything from operations to covering half the US to covering Dallas to just covering. I did. I had all of that is. Is what I had. So all that stuff I learned, I was able to bring it in to actually Hallmark. So I had all that skill set. It was great. Yeah. You know, and I think the rewarding part, I think that for me, one of the biggest things out of all this is the rewarding feeling that I have that I'm helping the senior community in a way that you really can't always do. When I worked at Best Buy, we. We sold stuff as A want they weren't a need. Yeah, maybe you could argue a cell phone is a need these days, but most everything is a want. Get into home care. You're changing people's lives. I mean, think about that. You're helping someone stay in their home, what they call home. Instead of going to an assisted living, you're allowing them to get some help on their daily activities that they do and to make their life better so their life becomes better at that. And we don't do know the majority of our centers are at the tail end of their time, whether it's the last 10, 15, 20 years. But, but to be able to be there, to be able to do that and to be able to provide them stuff that they couldn't do before, just a simple thing of taking the client to the park, to walk around the park that they couldn't do before is to me, it's just, it makes me, makes me smile, you know, and, and when we started the business, just my daughter and I, it was just us two and no different than anything else you get into. Yes, it's hard. It's not easy. It's. It was easy. Everybody was simply do it. Yeah. So we, you know, started to go and you learn, you, you learn through the, you, the trial and error stuff. You start going out there and you think, you know, it's one way and then you figure out that, okay, I gotta do a little bit different too. I think early on in the first year, the important part to me, I kept telling myself, don't be afraid to pivot, don't be afraid to adjust. You have to be open and willing to adjust because things are going to be a little different than what you did for the last 20 some years. Because you, you did that for 20 years and you were good at it. And it was, you saw it.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: You know, that's a lot of self awareness, Patrick. That's really good. Everybody lean into that one, right? He's on the balls of his feet. Like if you're playing ball sports and you're flat footed, you're screwed. You always got to be nimble and adaptable. I love that.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: And I had to make sure that because, you know, my wife always says, sometimes she says, yeah, I know. If, if people just listened to what you said, everything would work much easier. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I go. But I knew in this I needed to be a little bit more open because I didn't know everything. And I had, I had to be willing to learn and adjust and pivot you know, and I realized probably because I had planned to hire people into my company all along, that was a plan, but it was going to be a year later. But I realized at probably about, I'm going to say four months into the business that, oh my gosh, I need some help.
I need some help. And let me hire early and. Because if I hire early and I'm at the front of it instead of chasing it after, I could probably create my growth and I'm on a better track if I do it that way. And I did. I went out and hired me a business development manager that was in the industry and then it was just us three. She was a game changer for me because she came already with the right attitudes, right approach, she could build relationships. She brought a book of referrals with her.
She came in, she just had to learn a little bit about Hallmark, which, which was obviously a little different than working for another home care company who was a traditional agency. But I hired her and then we just started to take off.
You know, my first year in the business, we averaged about 120 hours per week. That was in 2023 global hours to the clients. Well, and then in one. And then the next year, 2024, we actually jumped up from that 120 up to 1,000 hours per week, which was a 770% increase. Good traction, good momentum. And the other thing that I kept doing too is I, I was trying to stay ahead of the bro to hire help. My, my daughter who, who, who obviously works, works for me. She does all the client relations stuff. She's my client relations director. Title doesn't really matter, but she, she does a whole lot. And I knew that she needed help to. And so I brought on a recruiter ahead of time. You know, so far this year we're actually running an 80% improvement in our billable hours from 2024.
So we are actually on track. We are making great progress here. And you know what? And you go through the normal pain that most franchisees go through. You just, you do. You just have to learn as you're going through the process. And I do believe the mo. One of the most important things to do is to be open, to be able to pivot and to make those adjustments.
I even got my business development manager after she was in the industry for a long time. And I always, always tell her, hey, look, Christie, you've got to pivot. When things aren't going exactly the way you had initially planned, that means you got to do something A little bit different. And she got that, understood that, and she's been fantastic. She's been a superstar since day one. She really has.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: It's your nimble mindset. It's your leadership. It's what you're building. It's emanating from you. Patrick. Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited for all that, like, what amazing, amazing growth. And I just want to point out all of that in one of the most hyper competitive markets in the entire country. So for those who are out there and they think, oh, is there a place in the world for another senior care business?
Trust me when I tell you that McKinney, Texas is a highly regarded territory. I'm not saying it's not a competitive territory. So when you are in the creative place, there is no competition. He's carving out his own niche. He's carving his own path. He's attracting his own clients.
And the supply increases to the demand, and he's creating the demand. And the people are there, the supply is there. It's absolutely an amazing story. I am so honored and excited to meet you, Patrick. I want to end this very, very inspiring episode by asking you to offer a little bit advice to any listener out there who is kind of at that sticking point. Maybe they're still clinging to. I love my job, even though I worry about losing it. I. I love what you're saying, but I'm afraid to leave. Maybe they're at that fork in the road and they've already been let go and they're trying to decide, is it a franchise or is it a business ownership? What advice? Knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer to that listener?
[00:25:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we all are confident in our abilities of what we can get done. I think most people are. And I think, because if you're not, then you probably wouldn't jump into franchise. You wouldn't be considering it. To me, get a franchise consultant. That is to me the most critic critical part. Because that to me was the game changer. I had this conversation with my daughter probably about a year ago, and I go, you know, I go, danny, I go, can you imagine if I didn't connect with David, we. Or where would we be today? What. What do you think we would be doing? Because. Because I was thinking I had to go out and find a business myself. I'm buying myself. And my gosh, if I would have done that, I just think like, oh, that could have been tragic. I could have picked the wrong one, didn't understand it. And I think that, to me, is what's really important. Is it. I think what.
Now I know a little bit more around what franchise consultant consulting is.
I just think that that is a critical part. And the thing. That was great, too, and I'm sure you do this too, but what David did, he didn't just, you know, give me those three actual franchise opportunities and then just walk away and leave. He followed up with me. Matter of fact, he followed up on a consistent basis every quarter. And he would give me books and things to read and we'd talk to me. And, and, and because he would be able to share insight around what other franchise owners had gone through, and he would be able. And, and at that point, it made me feel comfortable going, oh, so basically what you're saying is that they're going through the same thing I'm going through. So I, I. Because you don't know that, you kind of feel like, oh, my God, am I not. Is this not right for me? Am I doing it wrong? But no, you figure that out. But getting a franchise consultant to me is hands down the most important thing to do. Because, like, he's. I think he said earlier, it. If, if you don't like it, you just, you don't. You don't sign up with that. You, you just find the one that gets to what matches what you feel like you want to get done.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: I love it. Patrick, thank you so much. You've been such an inspiration today. I know that your story is going to inspire so many people, especially that 13 layoff story in the beginning, leading you to a place of security and sustainability and building a legacy and all on your own terms and feeling totally free to just accomplish whatever you want and watch you go look at you do it. It's so amazing. God bless you. Thank you for being our special guest here today on Kim Daily tv.
[00:27:41] Speaker C: Thank you, Kim. Thank you.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: It was pleasure, super pleasure to meet you. Well, for those. So for those who are ready to answer the call and not stand at that fork in the road one more minute, you know that Kim Daly wants to be your franchise consultant and your daily coach. Please follow the link in the description right now, because I can't wait to meet you.
[00:28:03] 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 T.
