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 Daly tv. In my studio today, another homecoming. A full circle moment for Kim Daly, a former candidate, now franchisee for over two years, Mr. Randy Ragutos from Brookfield, Wisconsin. Randy, welcome to the studio of Kim Daly tv.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Thank you. Glad to be here.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: It is so fun to have a full circle moment going back when you met me. Do you remember how you met me? Did you meet me through social media, through a show just like this?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: We were listening to a short term rental podcast with Avery Carl and you were a guest on there. And what you were saying on the show kind of resonated with me and my wife Angie. And so we contacted you through your website.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: I love that short term shop show. Absolutely. Okay, so that means that you were thinking about or are an Airbnb investor, but we'll come back to that. So let's go back to that moment when you heard me on that show. Tell me a little bit about what was happening in your lives, professionally and personally, where you knew that what you were doing wasn't really working and you needed to make a change.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: So we're of the mindset that multiple streams of income is what creates wealth. And we had been in real estate for a few years already. We had just started our short term rental portfolio. And so that's why we were listening to the podcast, see if we get more tips and tricks. And we wanted to get into a more active business that we were able to have a lot more control and building to create more of a revenue stream that way. And I had always wanted to be a business owner and I just didn't know what direction to go in. And our kids were growing up, they were going to be in school all day, and so we figured we needed something that we're a little bit more active too. Then all of a sudden we turned on the podcast and there was Kim talking about franchises. And I was like, huh? Never thought about owning a franchise before. And then after learning what you had said, I was like, you know, franchises make a lot more sense.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Okay, so you reached out to me. So talk a little bit about. So you're building this alternative investor portfolio. The business really is the heart of the alternative investing Portfolio because the business will always produce the fastest cash flow and the most amount of cash flow that you have the most control over. Right. And I say that as an alternative investor who's financially free. But I started with the business and then I took the overflow from my business and funneled that into the passive income. That then is what actually, quote, retired me. Right.
So I love that. So are you still actively pursuing other investments or are you just all down, like hands on deck for the business to get this thing to the point where that you have the overflow?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Yes. So we are all hands on deck on the business, trying to make sure that we can build it up to where we can have the passive later.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: So what is it about the franchising model? You've been in it for a couple of years now, and then we'll get to the specific business you're in. But what is it about the franchising model that appealed to you over, say, owning a business but starting something from scratch just totally on your own?
[00:03:38] Speaker B: We liked what you said about how the franchisors have gone through all the ups and downs of figuring out at least a solid foundation and creating systems that they're able to replicate over and over again and then train people to replicate that system, which made things so much easier. We still fall on our face constantly, you know, trying to figure things out. But there have been people before us that have fallen on their face that we no longer have to do the same mistakes so they can be there.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: To wipe off the mud.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Perfectly said.
Failing forward is the way to success in business ownership, right?
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And we failed forward many, many, many times.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Now that you've been in it for a couple of years, the expectation that you brought into your business, do you feel like you've been met there? Like the collaborative environment, the having the people to get you up and brush off your knees and help you, steer you in the right direction. Has that level of support and camaraderie been there for you in your particular franchise?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: I think so. I feel just like any type of relationship, you know, it had to grow into that. I think we had to kind of get used to each other's ways, kind of adapt to how they do things, and they've been willing to adapt to how us as franchisees do things as well. So there's always that back and forth, which is nice. And they are always there if we need them. I mean, you know, because like any other business, when they're growing, there's growing pains, but eventually you know, we figure things out together. So it's kind of nice. It's like a family.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Let's give away the brand. So you ended up investing in super soccer stars. Super soccer stars. Now let's go back to the model that we built for you. Let's think about what were the characteristics of this business that appealed to you and your wife.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: We are firm believers of letting our kids kind of do screen time, like watch movies all day or play video games all day. We want them to go outside. We want all kids to do that. We were seeing a lot of an uptick in, like, child obesity because of COVID Covid, things like that. So the physical and athletic aspect of it kind of appealed to us. I mean, Angie's a collegiate basketball player. I played football and volleyball and basketball in high school. And, you know, we both go to the gym. We both like to be outside with our kids. And so just the whole being outside and running around just appealed to us a lot. Their motto is, less screen time, more green time. So, I mean, just that right there kind of was like, yeah, that's what we like.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: It resonated with you personally and what you wanted for your own family. And you're also very family oriented. Right. So being in a business that supports other families in your community. Right. I think that also is alignment with your whole family. There's, like, just that you're providing something real valuable to the people in your community. So you're out of the gate for a couple years. You're failing forward, which I love. So share with us a little bit of, like, maybe the journey, like the ups and the downs, like, some of the things that you very quickly, easily embraced, and then other things where you're like, wow, Cam, we had a really big learning curve here that, you know, we're still working through.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Our biggest learning curve, I guess, is human resources. So the hiring and retaining of our coaches. Because coaches are the image of our business and they're the lifeblood. That's the only way we can get to as many kids as possible.
So that thing. We're still trying to figure that out.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: How to hire, who to hire, like, how to attract them, how to keep.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Them, how to keep them. Yeah, I mean, I guess the nature of our business, because it's so niche. Right? I mean, you have a certain amount of hours during the day where you can coach these kids. You kind of limit the amount of candidates that you could attract. So just finding, like, the ways we can kind of get in. There is something that we're still challenged with at the moment. But the thing that we love a lot and that we've been able to embrace is just being with the kids and seeing them smile. And, you know, when you see our program implemented and the kids just loving it and singing, and then the parents saying, you know, they sing this song at dinner, you know, so. Yeah. And you know, of course the parents, they love the jersey, they love the look, it's nice. That's what we absolutely embraced, I think, is just being able to see the smiles.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: And for the listener who may not know what Super Soccer Stars is, why don't we tell a little bit about the model itself, just for context. What age of kids do you serve and what are you doing?
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Anywhere from like 12 months all the way up to 12 plus. So our bread and butter, though are like daycares, 2 to 3 or 2 to 5 year olds. So we teach an enrichment curriculum. It's not soccer. We're not trying to create the next Messi or Ronaldo. We're trying to teach, use soccer as a tool to teach growth and fine motor skills, team building skills, social skills, things like that. And so it's, it's a fun curriculum and it's completely mobile. We bring soccer to people. We don't have like a brick and mortar where people come over and bring their kids. We go to parks, we go to schools, we go to daycares, and we send our coaches there to teach our curriculum.
[00:08:29] 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, and rankings and shows others that this podcast is valuable. Now back to the show.
Super simple model, right? Love it. Love this business so much. And when you said yes back in 2023, this was a fairly young franchise at the time, right. I mean, they've gone through some pretty good explosive growth over that time. But were you one of the first, like 50 franchisees?
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we were only the second class actually, so yeah, the second training class.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Wow. Okay, so you've been also, as you're emerging and learning about how to become a business owner, you're watching this franchisor really grow up and learn how to be a franchisor to support you.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yes, definitely.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Let's talk about that a little bit. This isn't like a positive or negative. It's just an experience for the listener out there. There's an emerging brands sometimes provide the greatest opportunity for you because it allows you to come in and really Own a market. You might be the first one to carve up the map. You might be the one able to take like kind of the, the centers of influence where the best demographics for a particular business are in your area. But the trade off is the franchisor may not have every I dotted and every T crossed. And that can be a good thing and a bad thing. It's bad if you were hoping and expecting that. But if you go in eyes wide open and be like, okay, as Randy has said, we're going to help to create what that final model looks like. We're working alongside, collaboratively with our franchisor and you have that expectation. It can actually be a very fun environment for someone that's a little more entrepreneurial, that enjoys having a little more say, you know, like, I would die on the vine in some of the franchises I work with because they're 30 year old companies and every eye is dotted and it's roa or the highway. And my little entrepreneurial spirit would bump into myself all over the place. Right? So like in my journey as a franchisee, I found a company 23 years ago that gave me enough structure but enough freedom. Right. And I think that's when you join an emerging brand, you have to be of that mindset. There's enough structure, but there's enough freedom for me. And in finding what works and feeding it back to the franchise, I'm actually helping the franchisor build a better brand.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Exactly. That's exactly what we went through. Definitely are trying to grow at the same rate and help each other out in that regard.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: And so there's growing pains, but there always is going to be growing pains. Nothing is going to be perfect. And if you expect the franchise to be perfect, that's a false expectation on you, you know, the candidate or the franchisee. Because a business is a living, breathing, dynamic environment, right. That always has to be growing and changing or it's dying. You're never staying the same. You're either moving forward or you're sliding backwards. So if you're getting into a franchise with an expectation that it's all going to be a bed of roses because it's a franchise, and then you wake up and the wool is pulled over your eyes. It's literally because the wool was on your eyes. It's not actually reality. Every business is adapting. Sometimes businesses start in healthy economies and they've never been through a downtime. And so the franchisor is learning to navigate. Sometimes the franchisor opened, you know, corporate stores in A certain market or element, and then they sell a franchise into a different market that they haven't yet explored. And there's a learning curve and it's all good. This is why I tell you, you got to have more than enough money than you think. You got to have patience. You got to be willing to grow and change because to the extent that you're willing to grow and become the owner, then you will make that financial return. Right? It's not all just about transaction where, okay, we're paying the franchise fee or taking their training, and then we're going to get some executed, you know, amount of money. Like, that's not how it works at all. Right, Randy?
[00:12:19] Speaker B: No. And the good thing was when you started with us, you made sure that you hammered that into us. It's like, you know, you're going to have to work, you know, so not like some magical pill that you just take and all of a sudden you're like Superman or something.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: I love that. So you've been in the business. You're learning how to be a great boss that can magnetize yourself to the right people and then hold on to those people. And it could be that the business coaching me just wants to be like, it could be that in this type of business, you're always hiring. You know, that could be what you adopt the mindset instead of resisting. Oh, these people always quit. Just be like, that's our business. Right? And once you just kind of have a perspective, shift in your own thinking, like, hey, we are always hiring. We're always looking for our next great coach, then you're not resisting that anymore. What will happen is it's just amazing how when we shift internally, how the world shifts to match that, and all of a sudden you'll be like, where were all these coaches before? And we're always there. It's just sometimes we're blocking it by our own resistance to it.
So a little bit of my Z Suite coaching, Randy. I can't help myself. So back to your story. Okay, so you worked with the Daily Coach, and so we built this model, we found residents with this business. So share with the followers a little bit about your experience in working with me. When you think back to the experience, what were some of the highlights or what were some of the takeaways that you thought were a big advantage to the way that I coach you, the way that I worked with you, that if you didn't have that, maybe you might not have even ever invested in a franchise?
[00:13:52] Speaker B: So investing in any business is scary. It's a huge risk. That's why not everybody does it. So the best thing that could have happened to us as far as business wise is to meet you, because you not only laid everything out on the table and you were completely honest with us. You said it in a way that allowed us to see the positives of it. You let us know, like, you know, there's going to be some drawbacks and some frustrations, but that's your cue to grow. And as a person, sometimes, you know, we'd be kind of frustrated and, like, going through, like, the process, and all of a sudden, like, we have a meeting with you, and then our spirits are lifted again, and then we just have all this energy, and then we just go out and go do the work. I think definitely if we didn't meet you, we probably wouldn't be franchise owners to this day.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: And aren't you happy with the decision that you're a franchise owner?
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Most days, yeah. Like, by the end of the day, you know, you feel like, wow, I did that. I feel accomplished. There's other days where you're like, oh, man, what did I get into? But, I mean, if you don't have those days, then there's no way to. To learn and grow, right? I mean, you. You got to have those days.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: The learning curve can be steep in the beginning. It's so true. And it's not good or bad. It just is. It's just business ownership. You have good and bad days when you work for somebody else, right? So it's all a matter of, like, you know, choose your hard. I've seen that on Instagram, right? Like, choose your heart. I'm like, I love that. Right? Like, what's actually hard? You know, Is it hard to play with kids all day and get paid to do it and, you know, have your own control over the environment you're in? Yeah, it can be hard, but it also can be pretty fun, you know? So what advice do you offer to the listener who may be out there thinking about investing in a franchise, but hasn't yet reached out to Kim Daly?
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Well, reach out to Kim Daly. If you're thinking about a franchise, the only reason why you're just thinking about it and you haven't kind of crossed the line yet is probably because you don't have somebody there that can give you the type of information and experience, you know, or coming from experience. Like, you can. You can share so much experience and knowledge to anybody. You're so willing to give it. Because owning a franchise is probably like, the best way to get started and in the business world, because you don't have to figure too much stuff out in the beginning, you know, like, you kind of get your handheld for a little bit and before they send you off on your way to grow it, which is so much better than parenting because you have your first kid. I mean, people try to tell you how to parent all the time, but every kid's different, you know, so, like, all that goes out the window. All the advice is like, well, I don't know. I'm not following that advice because that doesn't work with my kid. Well, with franchise, you know, like, you kind of get that framework in the beginning, which is kind of nice, and then you can make it your own after.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Good advice. So knowing what you know now, Randy, a couple years in, would you make the same decision again?
[00:16:30] Speaker B: I think so. I think I would make the same decision. Just certain things that would change about it that would probably make things a little bit easier in the beginning. But, I mean, you don't know what you don't know.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: So, yeah, hindsight is 20 20, right? So the only way we really can know how it's going to go is to look back. Like, you can't stay on the sideline, right, and be in the game at the same time. You got to be in the game and failing forward every day. And that's when as you fail forward and you're picking up the pieces and learning, as you look back, you're like, oh, wow, if I could do it all over again, I would do it differently. But you couldn't do it all over again because you couldn't be where you are, knowing what you know. Now, if you started again. I mean, in theory, in a franchise, that's the perpetuation of the franchise process. Through validation, we learn from others what worked and what didn't work. And so then as we graduate from class, we can take what we heard in validation and try to implement that and get faster results, you know, make money faster, out of the gate, figure out how to hire the right people faster, if that's a limiting factor to growing your revenue, because you can't take on more students until you have the coach so you figure out how to solve for those problems faster. And that's the perpetuation of a franchise. Which, you know, philosophically is why I'm not a huge believer in earnings claims, because once the franchise starts to improve on all of these different factors, the earnings claims change, right? So a lot of people invest in a franchise based on the earnings claim, which is from the past performance, and yet you're investing in the future opportunity. So you're looking back to then look forward. There's something to that, but there's a lot missing. And the lot that's missing is the validation with the owners. And Randy, coming from the second graduating class in a franchise, there just wasn't a lot of hindsight, you know, so he took a lot of the hurdles from the franchisor and learning and is here. And that's why two years in, he may not feel as stable as he wishes he did. I can hear it, you know, in his thoughts about was this the right decision? But before we hit record, I asked Randy if he would be a student in the Z Suite because I love him and his wife and I have invited them and he said yes. So we're going to get him back into Kim Daewi's energy, back into the thinking from possibility mindset and teaching him how the creative process actually works so that he can create the life that he wanted the day that he signed that franchise agreement. That is why I've created the second company called the Z Suite. So I'll give a little plug for it right here. Randy, thank you so much for sharing your story, your journey for saying yes to the Z Suite, for showing up today. It's a full circle moment for me to have people in my hot seat who were candidates of mine. And it's just starting to happen over and over now. And it's just so fun to see you again and breathe a little bit of life into you and also just hear how things are going and catch up with you. Thank you so much.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: Of course. Yeah. When you sent me the message and asking me, I felt super honored. I was like, wow, she wants to be on her show. That's so cool.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Well, it's a super pleasure to have you back and I'm looking forward to getting into your mindset over there in the Z Suite. So we'll talk about that. So for those who are still with us, if you know that it's your time to begin your journey to find the perfect, perfect franchise, well, you know, Kim Daly wants to be your franchise consultant and your daily coach. So please follow the link in the description right now because I can't wait to meet you.
You can find more content just like this on my YouTube channel at Kim Daily 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.
