Episode Transcript
Welcome back to create wealth through franchising podcast and Kim Daily tv.
So, you know, when you're planning your life, you don't really plan for the unexpected, because the unexpected can't be planned for.
Well, our guest today, his name is Matt Dorman. He lives in Southern California. He's a former candidate of Kim Daly. And life was happening in a very unexpected way when Matt found himself on my YouTube channel, reaching out to Kim Daly. He's here to share his incredibly inspiring story of transforming every part of his life over the last year or so. So, Matt, with that introduction, welcome to the studio of Kim Daly tv.
[00:00:50] Matt Dorband: Yeah, thanks for having me, Kim. I appreciate it. This is exciting. I'm looking forward to it.
[00:00:54] Kim Daly: I. I remember when we met and you came through YouTube and I was like, one day you're gonna be a guest on my show. And here we are today, not just dreaming the dream, but we're living the dream. And Kim Daly loves to live the dream. So thank you for being a guest. And what was actually happening, too, was Matt recently sent me a referral, and so that gave us an opportunity to catch up. And he said to me, this was the greatest decision I've ever made. And I was like, oh, boy. Let's turn on the video camera and let's tell the story. So, Matt, take us back to when you were on Kim Daily tv. What was happening in your life that led you to thinking about making a big change and starting your own business?
[00:01:34] Matt Dorband: Sure. Absolutely. Taking a step back to, let's call it 2012 was when I moved to Los Angeles and I was working in financial services. Basically, I was marketing stock funds to dig institutions to pension plans, endowments, foundations, what have you. And it was a good career. It was lucrative. But towards the second half of my career, the products that I was marketing were not very competitive. It came to a point where I was picking up the phone and the nearest was always going to be back. There wasn't. Here's a new sale. Here's a new business. I love you. You're the best. It was more. Why is your stop fun losing me all this money? And don't ever cold call me again.
[00:02:13] Kim Daly: Yeah.
[00:02:13] Matt Dorband: I was in the point where I was like, you know what? This is something that's probably not sustainable for the rest of my life, but I'm making money. Let's stick with it. And then In January of 25, I actually lost my house in the Palisades fire here in Los Angeles.
And it was a thing. It was definitely a life changer. People always say life is short. You never know what's going to happen. Make every day as special as it can be, and it's a lot of lip service until something actually really happens to you and you realize that life really is short and you can't be stuck doing something that you don't like to be doing, even if it's a lucrative thing. You don't want to waste your life away unhappy in an environment that's not. It's not good for you. Yeah.
[00:03:01] Kim Daly: So literally the first conversation I had with Matt, he's in an Airbnb, his wife's in the background. I remember they were like going out at the time in Malibu. They were setting up food and clothing areas where you could go because literally people lost everything.
Right. I remember living this experience vicariously through you as you're living in an Airbnb with your son, wondering, what the heck are we going to do? Our house just burned to the ground. We literally lost everything except our lives. Thank God. The most important thing.
And I remember internalizing, like, what do you do when you go to get dressed and think about your undergarments? You literally have nothing. I remember going through those feelings and gyrations with you.
Talk about going into a total survival mode for no fault of your own. A lot of people meet me in survival mode because they were like, go from their job and they weren't prepared to lose it and through no fault of their own. But this is like a whole nother level of like actual survival. So. So sorry, back to you. I just wanted to like insert a little more color into how I recall these early conversations we were having.
[00:04:10] Matt Dorband: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you're right, it is a very surreal experience. I remember right after it happened, we had gone up to Northern California to live with my in laws for about a month while we figured stuff out. And I remember walking into Target and you look around and there's all these clothes and there's all these essentials that you need. And I just stopped and I was like, I need everything. Like, I don't know where to start here. It's a very weird feeling. And then as you live your life, you realize you need a ladle. You don't have a ladle, you gotta go buy a ladle. It's honestly, you have nothing and you have to rebuild from scratch. Luckily, my son, my wife and I and our dog are a tight knit group, so we can kind of rely on each other making it through that. My son was maybe 17 at the time, or Something like that. And so it made it easier on us that we could kind of count on each other. And it wasn't like a friction already existed before that it kind of ripped people apart. We know a lot of friends are having divorces right now, but, yeah, it was survival mode. It was like, go find a place to live for the next three weeks and then take it from there, and then go find an Airbnb and then go find another Airbnb. And it took us till May to actually find a permanent residence. And it's. We've got a great apartment in Brentwood, California, right now. I'm actually digging. Living in a house. My toilet breaks. Somebody else fixes it. Right. That's a great thing. And it's just. My son just left the college, and so it's just my wife and I. And it gave us the opportunity to kind of do evaluation of what do we really want out of life? Do I want to live?
[00:05:43] Kim Daly: That's really important here. Like, when you lose everything and you got to start from the beginning again. It's such an amazing place. Not that anybody wants to be there or wish anybody on that, that. But you were granted an opportunity to just say what really matters most here? What do we want to rebuild and what do we never want to bring back into our lives?
[00:06:04] Matt Dorband: Yeah. It is a reset. Right? It gives you that. Most people don't have that opportunity in their life where they're like, they're in their daily life, they're living, and they say, stop, reset. What do we really want to do with the rest of what we're going to be doing here on the planet? Right. But it was a forced reevaluation, which, to be honest with you, it was a blessing in disguise. Right. It got me to think about what I really wanted to do. It got me to think about how I really want to build not only my professional life, but my personal life moving forward. And it kind of got us to a spot where I don't want to say we're better off, but very. A lot of positives came out of the whole situation.
[00:06:43] Kim Daly: I love that. Winners always find a way to make things the win. Right. That's amazing. What an amazing gift and that you and your wife have between the two of you to turn literally the ashes of your life into something new and beautiful. Okay, so what transpired to. Do you remember what you were searching for when you found my YouTube channel?
[00:07:06] Matt Dorband: I recall specifically we were in an Airbnb up in actually the Napa Valley area, and I got on A call with some folks that I worked with. And it was just a miserable call. It was just. I got off of it and I was almost in tears, saying to myself, I had this whole terrible experience happening to me. Now I'm again dealing with these people that it's not. It's just. It's not a pleasant environment. It's toxic.
And I just decided work is not
[00:07:33] Kim Daly: even a positive escape at this point.
[00:07:35] Matt Dorband: Yeah, no, it's not. And I was looking at that. I'm like, this is not sustainable. I can't do that. And you start thinking about things in your head and you're like, maybe I'll go out and buy a business. Maybe I'll go find a career in a different industry that I might find more enjoyable. But the more I thought about it, I was like, coming in and doing a franchise and being able to build a business within a business with a lower investment, with a lot of resources that are available to you, that probably is a good path to explore. Then I went onto YouTube and I saw the Pro Kim Daly. And you definitely had the best presence out there. And you're fun and you laugh a lot, which is always a good thing.
[00:08:12] Kim Daly: And now you're a guest on Kim Daily tv.
[00:08:16] Matt Dorband: Yeah. Just gave me a call and we connected. And as soon as we had a chance to get on the phone together, it was obvious that you would be a great resource for me.
[00:08:24] Kim Daly: It's so good. And I remember as we were building your model, I remember asking a lot of questions. And the thing that I remember the most, though, was how at the time, you weren't sure if you wanted to be settled in Southern California or Northern California.
So one of the most important criteria for you was the ability to be able to be mobile or do it from wherever you ended up being. And that's a very difficult ask in franchising, Right. Because franchises are local businesses. They're tied to a community or a zip code. Right. And so there was. It narrowed the field. But as I got to know you and look at what you were doing in the past and what the major skill set you had was bringing to the table, and there was, like, one clear answer. I presented a few options to you, but the one you chose was like, the one in my heart that I was like, this is the one. If he's going to go and become a franchisee, this is the one for him. And he ended up a franchisee in. What's the name of your company?
[00:09:22] Matt Dorband: Error Group.
The Error Group.
[00:09:24] Kim Daly: Everybody knows that, like, Planet Business Right
[00:09:26] Matt Dorband: Analyst, but now it's ERA Group because it sounds more consultancy, it's got that cashing. But yeah, now ERROR Group is where I ended up.
[00:09:34] Kim Daly: So for the listener, by the way, if you're marking time, he we started this process together in January of 2025 and at the time of this recording it is October of 2026. So about a year and a half later. So Matt, tell the for the listener, just for context, a little bit about what the ERA group does.
[00:09:52] Matt Dorband: Sure, sure. So we are a cost consultancy. So we work with mid market companies but also schools and nonprofits to help them look at their overhead expenses, isolate areas where they may be paying above market or have services that they don't need and then we have specialists that can go in there and look to try and reduce those costs and right size what they actually need for their business. It's pretty interesting model. It's performance based. We get paid out of the savings we generate. It's basically free. Until we get to the point of here is we've looked at your insurance, we've gone to market, we understand where there's opportunities. Here are your savings, here's your alternative. If you want it, take it or leave it. If you take it, we'll get compensated out of the savings we generate. If not, you got a chance to take a look at the entire market kind of benchmark what you're doing. So it's basically giving companies the ability to do full diagnostic of where they're spending their money and identifying areas where they can do it a little bit more efficiently. You know, it's cost optimization basically.
[00:10:57] Kim Daly: So when we were going back to building the model for the listener who may be on the sideline thinking what does a franchise consultant actually do for me, I want to explain. So we took from his desire to be less community based, more have more mobility. That was a big factor. He was a B2B sales guy in his past life. But more consultative. Right. Building long term relationships. We took that, we took the more professional environment the Monday through Friday. The ERROR group isn't a franchise that the average consumer even know exists. Right. We know the big brand names, we know the Jersey Mike's of the world, the planet Fits of the world, but we don't know the ERROR Group. So this is in fact what a really good franchise consultant will do for most people is broaden the scope of options that are out there. Because a lot of people steer away from franchising simply because they're like, I know that I don't want to operate food, and I definitely don't want retail. And then the conversation about franchising dies. But if you came to a consultant like Kim Daly, with 24 years of relationship experience and knowledge, you'll find there are thousands of opportunities that don't require you to be in food or retail, most of which you've probably never even knew existed as franchise businesses or maybe even businesses in, in and of themselves. So just a little insert a little plug for, again, for context, for the listener.
So, Matt, back to you. So from your side, as I presented the Aero Group, what were the characteristics of this model that you started to cling to, to think, wow, this actually could be a good thing for me.
[00:12:33] Matt Dorband: Yeah. So to take a step back, like you were talking about the initial conversations we had, you said to me, look, let's do research on who you are, what you're looking for, and how that maps to the opportunities out there in the world. And I came in and I was thinking, okay, I'm gonna, I guess on the subway or maybe I'll own a Midas and change tires. I didn't know. You didn't know what franchise opportunities were available.
And as soon as I talked, you were letting me know that it's not retail only, it's not restaurants only that are available out there. There's a lot of B2B, white collar type of opportunities that are available as well. And I was still on the fence with whether I wanted to be like, just leave the corporate world behind, leave B2B sales behind and go. And like I said, mop floors or whatever. So I think we, we looked at a restaurant hood degreaser. So something like that, that was more your idea of what a franchise is. But the more I worked with you, the more you understood exactly what it was that I was looking for. You started bringing in the opportunities that kind of more fit the mold of where, one, I would be successful.
But two, fit the requirements right, fit the potential mobility, fit the low capital investment, fit the leveraging, the skill set that I've gained from my previous career. The more we talked about, the more you said, these are the alternatives, this is an ideal solution for you. But what I liked is that you didn't necessarily push it 100% up front. You said, now here are four or five different types of businesses.
This one does this, this one does this, this one does this. Let's explore all of them and see what resonates. And as you go down the rabbit hole there, it becomes obvious, oh, okay, this is the right Opportunity for me, it has all those characteristics you're talking about and it made it pretty easy to make that decision after go through the due diligence process, I'm sure we can talk about that, but it made the decision pretty easy.
[00:14:30] Kim Daly: And so what happens in the discovery process is you come with ideas of what it's going or what it's going to mean to you. And a lot of times the consumer idea is, I want to buy something I'm going to enjoy doing or I enjoy being in the gym, so owning the gym would be fun or I enjoy eating, so owning the restaurant would be fun. And so, as experienced franchise consultant, I want to help you understand that when you're the owner of that business, that's not what you do.
Since owning a business is really about customer acquisition, you're really in the business of finding people who. Right. No matter what you're in, that's the business you're in is customer acquisition.
And so we dial it all the way back to how it's going to look and feel for you as an owner. Rolling up your sleeves every day, walking into your office or walking into that place of business and being the CEO, the owner, the business developer, the HR guy, the person who takes out the trash. Because at the beginning, in the early days of owning a business, you're probably going to do a lot more jobs than you ultimately want. But that's because there's a lot of jobs to be done, there's a lot of money going out, and you certainly can pay other people to do it. But most people tend to think, okay, wait, it's my business, I want to learn it, I want to be a part of it. And then as I have revenue to pay other people, then I'll start to pull myself back. So it doesn't always have to work that way, but in many cases it does. So, yeah, this is a great explanation of, from my perspective, what I remember of the model that we built over a year and a half ago, and from the candidate perspective, what he saw in the magic of what I delivered to him and, and maybe not initially was like, oh yeah, the error group, that's obvious. But by staying open and kicking the tires of all the options and thinking about what he ultimately told me and the ultimate goal for what he wanted, what he said was the business became obvious. So it's not obvious when I present it. It's obvious when you stay open and you start comparing and contrasting ideas and we start relating those ideas back to your goals and dreams. Worksheet why you're here, what you ultimately want out of this. There's a lot of people who invest in a franchise because they believe the franchise is going to make them successful.
So, no, a business doesn't make the owner successful. The owner makes the business successful. So we're coming at it from the other perspective.
What are the skills? What are the attributes? What are the quality of life goals? Because let's be real, success has to match your quality of life goals. Right. So that's part of that definition of wealth and abundance is serving the people you want to serve in the community that you want to be in. You don't want to be commuting an hour to the open territory. And there's a lot of people who do that. They bend their life to buy the quote, right franchise. Where I'm like, no, the right franchise is the one that delivers to you the ability to serve your customers in your hometown and to be 10 minutes from your office. Right. If quality of life is in fact a goal for you, enough on that. But I think it's important to. When we can help you, the listener, follow along to the value that a franchise consultant brings along with the value that the interviewee is bringing in terms of sharing his inspiring story.
So, Matt, let's go back. So you're honing in on the Aero Group. You decide this is the one for you.
So it's been a year and a half. Take us through some of the early days of even just emotionally moving yourself out, because I'm sure you had to do this, whether you realize it or not, moving yourself out of fight or flight for real and in your life and stepping into creation, which is what we're doing when we're building a successful business and like how you managed your personal life and what was happening there and finding stability there at the same time. You're like working to redefine stability for yourself as a business owner. Do you remember those early days or is it all.
[00:18:34] Matt Dorband: Yeah, yeah. No, it's. It's. Trust me, it's ingrained in here. I remember we kind of made the decision kind of first quarter of last year. I took a couple months off, went to Europe with my son. He had a. An internship out there. So I didn't actually start working with Air Intel July or August, some period of time there. It was interesting. I had a few months to think about it before I got into it. Yeah.
[00:19:01] Kim Daly: Can I interrupt you? Because I think the listener may be like, what? I want to say, what? You signed a franchise agreement and it didn't automatically change your life the next day. Matt, do you know how many. I'm keeping sarcastic, but do you know how many people put off making the decision for the fear of the next day? Everything in their life changes now. It can change, right? If you're anxious and ready to go. But Matt had plans with his son that were already in place before we started talking. He was upfront with it about to the franchisor. Franchisor doesn't care, right? There's always a grace period. Now most people just when you pay that franchise fee, you're eager to start making money and getting an ROI on that. But life is happening in the middle of building the new life. This is what I want you to understand.
You as the owner of this business have freedoms. Franchise is not a prison.
This is an opportunity for you to build your life. It's your playground. Now, there are standard operating procedures, there are restrictions about what we can and cannot do in certain instances. But typically the timing from signing a franchise agreement to opening, there's usually at least a six month window where the franchisor has got a grace period because sometimes people will sign a franchise agreement in a new where they're going to move to, but they don't want to put their house for sale until they know what they're moving for or to.
And so now they got to sell their home and they got to move before they open. In a lot of cases, if it's brick and mortar, you're signing a franchise agreement and then nothing is happening. You're in a hurry up and wait situation, waiting for the right type of real estate to present itself, all kinds of scenarios there to impact how quickly from signing to opening, you actually, you know, achieve that. Okay, back to you, Matt. Sorry.
[00:20:44] Matt Dorband: Yeah, so the good thing about kind of that grace period you're talking about as well is you can mentally get yourself ready, but there's steps you can take to get yourself going before you actually have to probably put the fee out for the franchise and all that sort of stuff. It's interesting. So most franchises provide training upfront. Now this is a B2B, not asset heavy franchise, right. So it doesn't require renting space, building a building or something that takes a huge lead time to get going. Right. If you're doing a dog daycare, you're going to have to go find a building and then you're going to have to go do the 10 improvements and it's, there's six months of stuff that's required before you can Even start business.
This business is different. It was fully remote, it was asset light. It was me by myself doing, deciding how I wanted to build the business. And one of the biggest characteristics I was looking for is I don't want to manage a bunch of employees. So that was a big deal for me as well. And it gave me that opportunity to go ahead and just build from scratch the business the way that I wanted to build it. So they send you to training. I had a couple of weeks of training. It gets you up to speed. But real world, way different than training world. Right. So you get the tools, but you get out there and it's different. So it takes a couple months before you can even tell the story. And it's. Even though you're in a franchise, it's still building a business within a business. Right. It's not like you can go in and rely on the franchisor to deliver business to you. You have to go out and make it happen. Maybe it helps expedite that a little bit. But you're still going to have to start from ground zero, figure out a plan, execute on that plan. And however long the deal cycle is, or however long it takes to get the facility ready, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to weather that. You're gonna have to realize that it's not something that instantaneously happens just because you have somebody else as a third party helping you out.
[00:22:42] Kim Daly: Okay. So Matt, you had sent an email to me and you said this was the greatest decision I've ever made. So what led you to say that to me?
[00:22:52] Matt Dorband: Yeah, no, I. Absolutely, 100% is. It was interesting. So getting into a franchise, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be able to get up, start and start making revenue the next day. It is building a business within a business. So it's on you to go ahead and make it happen. You'll have some resources, which is great. You're not going to have to figure out how to build a website, but it's still, you're still going to have to go out there and get clients. And it's a long lead time. Right. Even if you're doing a restaurant, you still have to go lease a space, you have to go do the tenant improvements. So it's not something where you dive in and you make money right away. And what I'm doing now is very much a consultative selling process. So it could take a year to get somebody to get excited about what you're doing and trust you. And Then go ahead and pull the trigger. So it's a grind. It was a grind for the last year and a half, which is good, though I knew I was building my own thing, just grinding to help some other corporation out.
[00:23:52] Kim Daly: It must pay off pretty well to be willing to endure that kind of a lead time.
[00:23:57] Matt Dorband: Yeah, no, it is. And it's. It gives me everything that I'm looking for. It allows me to work from home. I don't have to have a lot of employees. The upside is up to me. I can make as much money as I'm willing to work for, and it allows me the lifestyle of not having anyone I have to report to. So it's working 40 hours a week, but it's 40 hours a week of work I want to do versus work I have to do. And the nice thing too is it feels like I'm offering an opportunity to somebody versus my last job. I was kind of trying to dupe them into using us. Right. Like putting lipstick on a pig a little bit.
Now it's like I have something that I believe in that I can go out there and offer to you. And it's an amazing model and it adds a ton of value. So it gave me the ability to do something that I wanted to do, to have ultimate freedom. I had to work for it, but it was worth working for. And that year of buildup is now paying dividends with the machine starting to work. But it's. Yeah, it's great to build a business within a business, but it is definitely building a business.
[00:25:01] Kim Daly: Good for you. It's so happy to reunite with you. I appreciate the referral that you sent to me. He's a great candidate also. I just appreciate every single part of the story. You're like the guy that I wake up to find. You found me through YouTube. You were open minded. You were ready for change.
That might be an understatement.
[00:25:18] Matt Dorband: You were forced to change. It was happening regardless of whether it was with you or not.
[00:25:22] Kim Daly: So. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that. Maybe that made it easier, maybe it made it harder, but you're a winner. And so you found a way to spin it and win it. And you found a perfect franchisor for all the things that you were looking for. And here we are a year and a half later. You're not just watching Kim Daily tv. You're now starring in Kim Daly tv. These are all the checkboxes for Kim Daly. Matt, I'm so happy to see you again. I'm so happy for all of your success. I wish you much stability, sustainability and predictability as anyone in the world ever deserved. I give it to you.
[00:25:57] Matt Dorband: I love to hear that. And by the way, thank you for the chocolate covered strawberries for the referral. I really do appreciate that. My wife appreciates that more than I do, but thank you for that. I appreciate it.
[00:26:07] Kim Daly: Small token. You're so welcome. For those who are out there following this inspiring story, if you're ready to begin your own inspiring story from Kim Daily TV to being a candidate to then one day starring on Kim Daily tv, that's like the minor part, the bigger part is you investing in a franchise. I would love for you to follow the link in the description below right now. And for those franchisees that are out there following this inspiring story as well. If you found yourself at a tough moment, you feel stuck, you feel like business is harder than it should be, and you know that you are made for more. You know that the Zee Suite is now open to help you find even greater freedom in the same business you already own. Follow the same link. And I can't wait to be your franchise consultant or your Daily Mindset coach.
