Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Create wealth through Franchising. I'm your host, Kim Daly.
Whether you're a CEO, a military vet, a real estate investor, or simply in career transition and ready to take ownership of your future, with each episode, you're gonna learn valuable insights and hear inspiring stories from within the franchise industry.
On that note, my guest stories are their own. And as a franchise consultant, I do not make personal brand endorsements or earnings claims, but I do educate, motivate, and inspire dreams.
Now onto the show.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Welcome back to Create wealth through Franchising podcast and Kim Daily tv. In my studio today, another amazing focal point coach. His name is Matthew Jobe and he lives in Gross Eel, Michigan. Matt, welcome to the studio of Kim Daly, tv.
[00:01:02] Speaker C: Kim, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: It is a pleasure to meet you. You are in a seat that many of your fellow franchisee colleagues have sat in and done an amazing job just giving all kinds of great coaching advice, sharing their knowledge and their amazingness with my followers, and we appreciate it.
On this show, we want to talk about intentional ownership, and we want to start at the end. Matt loves to coach his clients to exit strategy value, so he's going to share his genius with us on that. But before we get into that topic, I want to dial it all the way back to what was happening in your life, Matt, when you decided, I got to make a change. I think I want a franchise and I want to be a coach.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's a fascinating story. Of course, to me, it is really very, very common. So I've got a number of coaches who are franchisees with the same system that come about this the same way. So we've worked at corporate America or we've created our own little space for someone else. We've created wealth and we've grown businesses. We've created these wonderful teams, and then the next year, we have to start it all over, but we get a 20% increase. So that was kind of the path that I'd taken for many, many years. I did take an early buyout with a wonderful Japanese company that was very, very generous. And 11 years ago now, I really knew that a, it wasn't time for retirement. I mean, there's only so much golf you can do. And, you know, I'm still super young. I knew that I wanted to really start my own thing, really build something for myself. This was going to be the last thing. I'm not going to go take another job. I'm not going to try to build something for someone Else I wanted to build something for myself. Now, I have in the past started a couple of companies. I also knew that I wanted to mentor and coach. That's kind of what separated me in my previous iterations, my previous career. So it kind of just fell into position here. I don't want to create it. So franchise makes a ton of sense. Right? You know, take the shortcut. Don't reinvent the wheel. I also knew that I wanted to mentor and coach. That's the why of why I do what I do. So I actually went down the franchise road with a couple of other, actually, titles. Franchise titles. And a wonderful franchise consultant, much like yourself came to me and said, you know what? You would be a good fit for a focal point.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Rise counsel.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So I started down that path and absolutely ticked all the boxes. Just a wonderful group of coaches. A system that's very, very unique. You own your own business, you own your own company, but you're just never alone. You've got the content, you've got the marketing, you've got the team. I've got five coaches with me in the state of Michigan. They're just wonderful professionals. They do a fabulous job. And we do get together on a regular basis, and we do work much like a. Even though we're our own business owners. So that's kind of my journey to get there. And that was 10 years ago. So I'm super excited and super happy to be here and looking for another 10 years, maybe.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Let's dial it back for the listeners out there. So if you are listening to this episode because you too have taken a bio and you're thinking, what's next? I'm not putting myself back into another corporate job. I'm too young to retire. As Matt said, there's only so much golf I really want to play or so many beaches I want to sit on. While that's fun, maybe there's something more meaningful that you want to do with the next decade. The last hurrah. So this is where franchising can meet you. Franchising is so much more than just food and retail. It doesn't have to look like Jersey Mike's or Chick Fil A. Most people don't want all of that. It can be a professional business to business Monday through Friday service. Like business coaching, there are thousands of options out there. And in fact, that's why Kim Daly has a job. Listen to what he said. He was looking at some options, and along came a great consultant who brought him focal point because we are trained to listen and with years of experience and knowledge and relationship, we can align opportunity to you that you may not even know exists in a franchise model. So just a little plug. So if you do get excited by this episode and you believe that it's your time at this fork in the road to actually turn left instead of right again, and you want Kim Daly to be your franchise consultant, we're going to do that. At the end of the show, I'm going to do a little call to action. But keep listening and keep thinking because many, many people who are now living their dreams through franchise ownership have stood right in that fork in the road. They have told this story to me for 22 years that I've been a franchise consultant. So you're not alone. This is why I'm here. It's fun to explore and you never know what may happen just because you are curious enough to ask some questions, meet some people. Okay, so back to Matt's story. So now he decides to become a focal point coach. And congratulations on a decade as a franchisee. That's a whole episode in and of itself. But let's dive into what you really love to talk about, which I love to talk about as well. I talk about intentional ownership from the perspective of really learning how to master your day to day activities that are essential to moving your business forward. It's kind of mindset coaching. That's really what I really excel at, Matt. But I love the niche that you bring, which is exit strategy planning. Because I think there's too many franchisees out there and even people exploring franchises who don't have a picture yet of what they could build and sell, they don't even know that they could sell it at the end. And so they leave potentially the greatest ROI in the whole thing off the table when they're exploring.
So that is the purpose of this episode, to help you listeners be as intentional as you can be. Because listen, if you come to me and you say, hey, Kim, I want to build a business to sell it in 10 years, that's one course compared to, hey, Kim, I want to build a business, get it up and going and retire into it, that could be potentially very different industries and concepts. So beginning with the end in mind is very important. So with that set up, Matt, let's dive into when should somebody start to think about building toward exit and what should they begin to think about?
[00:07:52] Speaker C: Yeah, so that is a great setup, by the way, and thank you for that. So, you know, building to sell is a concept that most entrepreneurs really aren't thinking about, they're thinking about, they're driving their passion, they're driving their expertise. You know, this is their lifestyle, this is their kind of their baby. So they're really not positioning for that transition to exit out of it. Really. The short drop dead date is going to be five years before you're even thinking about selling. But the reality is you should build your business with the end in mind, period. I don't care if you've got 20 years left in the tank. Your business should be created, started, and positioned with the transition in the end in mind. If you do that, you're going to have a much more profitable business. You're going to have a business that's definitely worth a lot more. You want to have a position of people wanting your business as opposed to you needing to sell your business. I see both ends of the spectrum. I've got current clients who are in both ends of the spectrum. I've got a client that just had unfortunate death in, in the ownership. And we're looking at kind of this fast recovery of how we can get as much out of this business with this tragedy that's coming up. And there was no plan for this if you just couldn't see it happening, number one, but there was no plan for it. So now we're kind of unpacking and doing as much as we can in the shortest amount of time to get the most value out of it. But it's not the ideal position. The ideal position, if I could come in seven years prior to this, five years prior to this even, and start working with that business owner so that they can take off for a month. And here's the litmus test. If a business owner can leave the business for six weeks or eight weeks at a time and come back to the business and it's doing as well or better, you've got a winner.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: Then the owner may say, well, if it's doing that good, why would I even need to sell it, Matt?
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Exactly. And that's the beauty of it. It gives you options. I'm not saying you need to build your business to sell. I need you build your business so that it's sellable, that it's worth more value and you can really take that trip into the sunset. And you know, and that's the other thing too. You bring up most people mentally and emotionally, they're not ready to sell. So in their mind, this is their baby. They come to work every day. So that's the other side that we as coaches in the exit strategy sphere we have to work on is giving that vision of what life past this door looks like. That's a completely different coaching opportunity, but very, very important, because if they're emotionally, mentally aren't there, it's going to be a hard transition.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: So as a franchise consultant for over two decades, I don't work with resales, if you will, but if I'm doing a territory check for a specific franchise and the franchisor manages the resales for their franchisees, they may say, hey, Kim, would your candidate be open to stepping into an established business? You know, I'll say, okay, great, let me ask. And oftentimes people love that idea because they feel like that's going to help buy down the learning curve for them. And I don't know if that's entirely true. The point is that so many times when we get involved in these resales, I just sit here and cringe because these owners have no tax returns ready. They have no valuation that they can factually, like, say, this is why I'm asking for this amount of money. It's an emotional fire sale. To your point, like, I'm just, something happened. I got to get rid of the business. I'm ready to take the loss. Okay, why would you ever do that? Or the opposite, to your point. They are so emotionally built into their baby that they're asking some value that has no bearing in reality based on what they can show because they're not organized and that I'm delivering this, you know, perfectly curated candidate who's mentally and financially and physically ready to invest in a business, and they bump up against all this, like, chaos, and oftentimes it ruins that candidate for me to even pick up their mindset to go look at other things because it's just so distracting. And then if they're like, oh, I really like this resale, but the guy's not really ready, I'm gonna wait like, dear Lord. So when I hear resale as a consultant, I honestly, I cringe. I would love it if there were more coaches out there working even just within franchising at helping owners from day one back into what do you want to build through this? With this? What kind of value do you want to build and sell? And look, if you're like, initially, hey, I think I want to do this for five to seven years and then sell it, and you get there and you're having the time of your life, more power to you. Keep going, right? But if you had planned to do it for 10 years, and at seven years, you're like, you know, you're like, all right, I can make it three more years to get the value that Matt told me.
[00:13:01] Speaker C: Right. Actually, there's three types of buyers. I mean, it's really very, very basic. Every buyer falls into one of three groups. And if you're tractable or if you're really have your business always so that it's attractive to all three buyers, obviously you've opened yourself up to even more offers, but not just more offers, your better offers and better turns. And the other side of this is, even if you're not ready to necessarily ride off into the sunset, there are plenty of buyers out there who want you to stay on that would love to have you stay on in some type of capacity. So you could make that transition, sell the business, get that capital that you need out of the business and still show up and be buddies with, you know, the guy in the doc or some of your favorite clients out there. Some people would love that. So there are opportunities for all types of sellers and all types of buyers out there. We just have to make sure that we are putting ourselves into the position that we're attractive to everybody out there.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: I love that. I love that you even know exactly that there are three different types of buyers and then how to make your business appeal to all three of those, like, that's genius right there. So it makes me want to ask the question. So when we think about a resale value, are there trends in the market, like, do certain types of businesses sell for certain valuations over others, or is it really based on the health of the business and the health of the economy in a rough way? How does an evaluation come about?
[00:14:35] Speaker C: Yeah, so that's a good question. And first and foremost, there are plenty of business valuation offers out there. Now. There are some free ones that you'll see online. And really oftentimes you get what you pay for. So it's going to be a loose valuation. But the reality is most businesses will have a multiplier of their EBITDA, of their profitability. So that'll be the standard. So you'll have a specific type. If it's a construction company, it might be 3.5 times EBITDA would be the average. Now, if your company is well run, and again, I can leave and go away for two months and come back and it's running on all cylinders, multiplier is probably going to be a little bit higher. So what we look to do is we look to increase the multiplier, but we also look to increase the Profitability. So it kind of works on two different levers. So not only are we trying to increase the profit of save for a million dollars, you know, your profitability for the year, we'll obviously try to get as much as we could over that million dollars. But more importantly, if it's a three or four times multiple, if I can raise that value, 200,000.
Well, let's think of the multiplier. 200 times four or even 200 times five, we're talking some million here, a million there. Next thing you know, it's real money, right?
[00:15:53] Speaker B: This is real money. So what I love about this is it's always time for money or money for time. So you're right. Like the new owner coming in, sees that he doesn't have to put in his time, the more money he's willing to put up for that business. I love that. Did you listeners hear what he's saying? Like, I mean, it makes me smile from ear to ear. So he knows how to help you get multiple offers, right, from different types of buyers. Because it's all intentional. He knows how to help you increase the profitability of your business so you have a better valuation, then increase the multiplier on that better evaluation. I mean, this is the power of intentional building with a coach, with people who have your goals in mind and have expertise that you don't have. And these are things that franchisors, they don't offer. This is not their job. Right. Their job was to give you the startup package to get you out of the gate, to help you remain relevant to the competition in the market, but not to help you build the life of your dreams through your business. That's a different kind of coach, a business coach. And this we're talking about is building for an awesome exit.
[00:17:07] 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.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Do you ever see your clients attracting private equity dollars to their business?
[00:17:34] Speaker C: Yeah. So that's a great question. So if you have three types of buyers, one of those buyers would be private equity. They're looking to purchase something that is going to bring them value. They don't necessarily want to run the business. They want that business to run really autonomously. In many cases. Some of them will want to run a business. It depends on the type of money you're looking at, but they're purely looking at it. As a dollar and cents, what's the upside? What can I do to affect the profitability in that case? It comes to risk. So you have to minimize risk in any type of deal that you're trying to accomplish. So when we position a business for sale, we're not only we're looking to get, you know, the most money we can, the most return on our time and equity and investment that we put in it, but we have to minimize the risk from the new buyer that comes in. If they see that, hey, I can come in and I've got $1 million EBITDA, it's probably the right factor. What are some of the other reasons why I might not want to buy it or I might want to buy it? And again, it's the risk levels. So we have to kind of look for those factors as well and mitigate.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: The risk a whole nother level. Back it up. He knows how to find the buyer, he knows how to increase the multiplier, and he knows how to help the new buyer mitigate the risks so that they're going to want that deal even more. I mean, is there anything left here?
[00:18:57] Speaker C: There is. There is one other thing. So a good coach can also offer those services for the new buyer. So not as much with private equity, but with the type of buyer that might buy business. And it's not necessarily in their wheelhouse. They're not an expert in this industry. They may want that transition. Oftentimes they want the seller to stay on for a couple of years and hit performance numbers. But a coach can help that as well, especially a coach who's been in that business for five years or six years, helping that company grow and develop and put the structures into place? Well, what better person to help that transition than a coach who knows how that company got there? There is one other thing that we can do. We can stay on after the purchase to make sure that we're hitting those targets.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: It's unbelievable. Like, I just love, because I think that candidates out there, especially who've never owned a business and going back to how we started, you're at the fork in the road and you're thinking, am I qualified to do this? How am I going to be successful? What we want you to hear is that the support is here for you. Number one, through the franchisor that I help you, Kim Daly, aligns to your goals and your interests and your finances and those core skills that you bring. But then beyond the franchisor, who's there to help guide and nurture you out of the gate and through training and getting you up and profitable. There are people like Matt, business coaches and Kim Daly who can help you especially be as intentional as you desire to be. Ultimately, having stood at the edge of the cliff, if you will, for 22 years, with thousands of people trying to say yes to their dream, I will tell you that every single candidate is looking for control. They want control over their time. They want their financial future, the legacy for their children who they spend their time with, don't spend their time with meetings they don't have to go to, meetings they want to go to. Right? It's all control. Laugh with me if you're listening, because this could be you. And so then the hardest leap to make is into this unknown where you've never owned a business, giving up all the control that you know, with a salary and a pension or whatever, 401k matching and a job you could do in your sleep, and you're giving all of that up for this unknown. So in this one episode, you see, it's not so unknown. It's unknown to you, but there are people here to meet you. We can be your safety net to help you land and to bounce softly. But to get back to the knowing of control, that's the key part. It's the biggest difference between being an entrepreneur and a franchisepreneur. And it's the biggest difference between going it alone and hiring someone like Matt who can be that coach with you. Sometimes on a weekly basis, monthly basis, quarterly basis, maybe annual basis. But if this episode has inspired you and you believe that this fork in the road that you feel yourself at today is calling you to make a different turn, I want you to follow the link right now and I will be the first one to meet you. But we're also going to put Matt's website address in the description below. Because if he's inspired you and you're like, I can't do it until I know I've put him on retainer and he's going to be my coach, you may not have to do that until you get through training with a franchise, but you may want to do that. That's why I interview people like him, so that you know he's out there, he's a resource, he's non territory based so he can work with you. If you want him to be your coach, he can be your guy. So I want to wrap this up, Matthew, by going back to your story. So you stood at the fork in the road and you knew you wanted to be A coach. You did it enough for other people. You wanted control. You wanted to do something that you could get up and be passionate about. And here you are 10, 11 years later, living that dream. Clients you said you've had for eight to nine years. So bring us home in a full circle moment and tell us how gratifying or satisfying is the quality of the life that you have today. Because you made this one decision a decade ago.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: That's why we're here, right? First and foremost, let me go back to that 10 years. I actually went down the path of Discovery Day with a different product completely. And it wasn't until I actually ran to a wonderful franchise consultant. If you're listening out there, franchise consultants work for you. They don't work for me. They don't work for the label, the name out there. They don't get paid by you, they get paid by the companies to serve you. So definitely seek out a high quality franchise consultant. It's worth every single dollar. And Kim's absolutely wonderful. She's got all the titles out there. But most importantly, she'll know your story and be able to tell you here are some options I feel are going to be best for you. So that first and foremost is the most important thing. What is your why? Why do you want to do what it is that you're seeking out and do you have the ability to do it? When does franchising make sense? So with me, I tell this story. I opened Best Buy stores in the great state of Michigan. The beauty of it was, is they actually had worked for me like 35 plus years ago at Best Buy. It was crazy. I'd hired these guys as supervisors. I was their manager and their leader. And they told me the impact that I made on their lives and that they were talking about me just the week prior to football. It was incredible.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: I love those synchronicities in life, right? When you're thinking about somebody and you haven't seen them in a long time and they call you or they email and you're like, oh my God, I was literally thinking about you.
[00:24:55] Speaker C: To have that impact, that's what really drove me. Because at the time it was like, this is what I want to do. This is crazy. This is the type of input that I want. This is the legacy that I want to leave as one who is a mentor and a leader to people that really made a difference in their life. So to me, this was my vision and this was my goal. I wanted to coach. I wanted to be that mentor and that trainer so finding focal point was great. Like I said, I wouldn't have found it not been for a great franchise consultant. Kim is the best in the business. So I hope that wraps it up tightly for you, Kim, but I truly believe that yours is the path to take in searching this out. You've got nothing to lose and so much to gain.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Thank you for that. It's an awesome story. I love that we were able to bring it, like, full circle. That's what I love about focal point coaches is they're not just business owners. They have a story, just like you, the listener. You know, they were in that same path. I was in that same path. We all have a story, and so if you believe that you're ready. I want to be your franchise consultant. And if you want Matt to be your business coach, we're going to put his URL down in the description below. Matt, thank you so much for being our special guest here today on Kim Daily tv.
[00:26:12] Speaker C: Kim, thank you for having me. It's been a true honor.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: Such a pleasure. What an amazing story. And for those of you who are listening, thank you so much for staying till the end. And please don't forget that my name is Kim Daly and I want to be your daily coach.
[00:26:31] 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 inquire at KimDaily TV. That's inquire at KimDaily TV.
