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, all the way from Las Vegas, create Chris Angel. All right, I'm just kidding. It's Criss angel, but he's not the Criss angel of Las Vegas. He's the Criss angel of Raleigh, North Carolina, and the ERA Group. Chris, welcome to the studio of Kim Daly tv.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: Thanks, Kim. Good to be here.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: How many times in your life have you heard that stinking joke?
[00:01:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I get it pretty much every day. It's always kind of funny. Even when I was in Las Vegas, I had to go to a pharmacy to pick something up, and I told her my name and she kind of looked at me. I was like, I get it all the time. So it's, you know, I. I joke around with it quite a bit.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: It's a pleasure to have you join me in studio all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina. So let's go back to the beginning of your story. What was happening in your life when you answered the call to franchising?
[00:01:38] Speaker C: You know, it's unique, Kim, because I had owned a business on my own before and sold it back in 2013. It was a business I had started from scratch. I kind of did it on my own. It was an upscale bowling venue in Raleigh. Sold it to a national player. But, you know, when you do it on your own, you kind of start from scratch. You realize that there's. It's not easy. After I sold it, I went back to work for some companies and had a good run on that front. But I, you know, had an opportunity where one of the companies I was with went public and had the chance to second time. I created where stock options weren't wallpaper. It was actually worth something. Asked my wife, I said, I'd like to buy another business. But this time I was fortunate enough that started looking at trying to find another business, met a franchise consultant, and I hadn't given it much thought. But when I started diving through it and learning more about franchising it and having Owned a previous business. It made so much sense because you're kind of, you're getting in a model that's proven you're getting in a system and processes are already in place. For me, I found the perfect fit with a national or international group that had a lot of history and successes with it. And so for me it was much easier this time around to say if I'm going to own another business. To buy a franchise was kind of a no brainer for me. I mean you step in, you run the model, you run the process, you have a lot of existing people to help you and it could not have worked out better for me. It was a great, great choice for me. And it's ironically I met my franchise consultant called me this morning. I've been doing this for over three years, we stay in touch and I just told him, I mean it's been life changing for me. It's one of the best things I've ever done.
I've had a lot of fun doing it, so I highly recommend it.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: When people say that franchising has changed your life. Franchising has changed my life. So we have that in common, Chris, and I love that you used an experienced franc choice, not even just a franchise. You know, oftentimes my followers have heard me say that the easiest people to convince of the true value of a franchise are former entrepreneurs. Because once you start a business from scratch, that's kind of like a once in a lifetime. I've been there, done that. And when you see all that you get for the price of a franchise fee and how that just buys down your learning curves and buys up that ramp up speed to your words, it's a no brainer.
[00:03:49] Speaker C: You know what's interesting, Kim, is I, I, I've been in this business for over three years and one of a good friend of mine is an investment advisor and, and I told him kind of what I'm doing right now, what I'm making, he goes, Chris, it's rare. He goes. I've ever met a business owner to go from kind of nothing to where you are in that short of time frame.
And having gone to previous business, it's no, that's not for everybody. It's just, it's a testament of I think the franchise. The group that I picked was a perfect fit. It was a good model, but it allowed me to get there much quicker than I ever could have done on my own.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: So let's talk about going from this upscale bowling. Did I hear you correct a bowling alley Business to being a business to business. Basically consultant and expense reduction consultant. So what is that perfect fit? What were the characteristics that you saw in the ERA group that made you say this is the business for me, because it's so different.
[00:04:40] Speaker C: It is, but at the same time I sat in the CFO seat and I was one of the finance officers when we were in the bowling menu. And so I say bowling, but it was restaurant entertainment. You know, it was a multimillion dollar a year business. But I was the one responsible for not just the sales and marketing, but also the finances of the business. I had a partner that manage the operations. But when I was in the finance seat, when you're starting up, at some point you have to get the profitability and dealing with the banks and all the other things as a business owner that are challenging in that business. It was fascinating because you pay a lot of people before you pay yourself. When I talked to Bill, I mean, I kind of told him because I've been down that path before. You know, we had cost of goods, we had labor, we had landlord, we had a lot of things that, that added up to where you had to pay before you get to yourself. So I told Bill, I said, you know, I can't get into something for me personally. My wife wouldn't allow me to go down the path of that same type of that same journey. And I said, you know, I need to find a business where, you know, I can start it. And the consulting business for me made sense because again, we're helping companies to manage their expenses. And I was doing that. And so it was a good fit for me. I had a 25 plus year sales background. And so again, it helped me to kind of step in there because I had a history of doing that. And so there was just a lot of the perfect fit in a sense where you know, you have to be a salesperson, but I'm also helping companies to manage expenses and try to find profitability. You know, part of my background is just processes. And so helping a lot of these executives look at how can we help beyond just saving money, it's, there's a lot of other value adds that we provide to them. As a consultant that just kind of, it was a culmination of most of my career kind of wrapped up into this one franchise. I looked at a lot of different ones, but this one just kept jumping off the charts. Again, I could not be more happy about the choice that I made because it really has been a phenomenal fit.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the Value of a really good, experienced franchise consultant that's a good listener and knows what options are out there. Because would you agree, Criss angel, that this is not a business that would have jumped off of a list? If you were looking at a top 500 list of franchises, you start doing this.
[00:06:41] Speaker C: I mean, I think most people, when they're trying to buy a business or buy into, like, from being on their own, I mean, you have different perceptions about what you really want. And. And there was great. I mean, to your point, you know, I had multiple conversations with Bill and just said, you know, a couple of me brought to me and I look at him and go, probably not a fit. But then, you know, he kept working and listening and finding and presenting me options. And then it got to the place where I'm like, we narrowed it down and narrowed it down to where, okay, you know, I got down to the final probably three, and they all were good fits. But this one in particular, when I. I sat back and reflected on my history, made the most sense for me.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: And let's talk about the quality of life difference, right? So going from a business that seven days a week, mostly busy, probably nights and weekends, to a Monday through Friday day job.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: No, I mean, you definitely, when you're on your own, but you also get to choose. I used to say when I ran my own business that I will take time over money. And I say that in the sense where you have. When you're running your own business, you have more control of your destiny by saying, when do I want to work? How do I want to work, what I want to want it to be? I often talk to people considering franchises with our. With Error group, and I tell them, I'm like, it's what you choose it to be. Do you want a lifestyle business? Do you want a business? You. You're going to knock it out of the park. It really. It comes down to the individual choice that you make as well. And so, yes, there are days that I work crazy hours, and there's days that I'm like, you know what? I can take the morning off or take the day off because I'm going to go enjoy the family afforded me. I told Bill this morning, it's like, even when I've got into this business, it's allowed me to make other connections and other things where I built my own practice. And then I've been able to develop within our own company some partnerships and some other avenues that our company wasn't considering to help the company. But at the same time, there's other opportunities that I've met with. These connections allowed me to kind of build other business ideas on top of what I do. And so you find that some of these business owners, you start down one path and I highly recommend stick to your knitting to begin with. Get success, don't try to do too much of too many things, but you get to a place where after a couple of years where you have a nice continuity and consistency in your business and cash flow, to where you can start considering, what else could I do? What are other ideas that can add value to not only my current franchise, but for some other things that I'm looking to do as well?
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I like it a lot. And I also just wanted to go back and fill in the gap too, that if you had a 25 year, you know, career in sales, you probably enjoyed that role because for so long. And that's going to be the primary skill set that you're using every day. And you're out and about meeting people and networking with people and engaging with people.
And then compare that a little bit to again the bowling alley, which maybe if you were the CFO or you were in the C suite, you weren't on the floor of your bowling alley, nobody probably knew you were the owner of that business versus here. Everybody knows you, correct?
[00:09:32] Speaker C: They do. Well, there's a lot of uniqueness in that. When I was in the sales background, a lot of what I sold at the time was kind of, what have you done for me lately? It was the type of thing I was in software sales. You can go from the hero to go from year to year because when you work for somebody else, you, you have a good year and the next thing you know you work for a company and then they come back and say, we're going to increase your quota, decrease your territory. And they're like, okay, great. You know, I just blew it out this year, but next year I'm going to struggle to make it because of all these factors that are out of my control. I used to laugh, I'm like, do they make their quotas based on a dartboard? They're literally throwing it up and saying, this is what your number is going to be. And I think a lot of people have been in sales for a long time is going to appreciate that one of these things that you just like, you go, and it's that constant grind of sales of like year to year having to perform now our business, what I love about it is you build some long term relationships and continuity of cash Flow, which was huge for me. And again, I say bowling. 60% of our revenue came from corporate entertainment. So a lot of the sales background was going to large companies and having them do events at our location. I used to joke I met more celebrities and C suite people in three years of doing that than in my 25 years out of it. Because we just had people that would show up. And I mean, you know, I could go down a litany of different people. There's Harry Connick and, and just professional athletes and things and people that own like these, you know, epic games is in our backyard. And we hosted one of their events and they're the ones that have Fortnite and, you know, they happen to rent our entire facility out for one night. There's just things like that. You know, it was fun, but it was also, I recognized that was a stressful business. What I'm in right now within this franchise, that again, I had to evaluate what was most important for myself and our family, using my skill sets and what having historical learnings to say, what could I do different this go round. And I think that's where again, I've kind of found what for me was a very good fit.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Yep. And going back to your comment about the cash flow piece. So with this business, since you're home based, because you're not, that doesn't necessarily mean you're working from home. But no one's coming to you. You're going out and driving that activity into the community. You don't have a brick and mortar location with a lease. You don't have all of the things that a lot of people think about when they think franchising. Right. I often get the question, well, do you own a franchise cap? So we are just like the franchise franchise as franchise consultants. And so what they're asking me is they expect it to look like a Jersey. Mike's right. Or Chick Fil A. It doesn't have to look like that. And that was the joy of bringing the ERA group into my podcast and interviewing a couple of you because I want to expand the mindset of my listeners so you understand that if you're on the sideline and you're like, gosh, I really love the idea of a franchise, but I'm not interested in Subway Cam. I don't want to have a big brick and mortar location. And there are lower investments that allow you to be more nimble, that allow you to make up your own schedule, that allow you to have a Monday through Friday or less than work week from the beginning that allow you to make whatever it works for your life or unlimited amounts of money in all of those characteristics would be true of this particular business and a lot of other ones, including mine. Is that true, Chris?
[00:12:44] Speaker C: 100%. I believe. For. For me, it was again, because I saw some that would have a high capital investment. And, you know, having built when we had the. The. The entertainment venue before, I mean, it was a multi. Multimillion dollar investment. And. But this. When I came into it, it just. It was not that I didn't want anything with a lot of expense. When I say you have to pay a lot of other people. Yeah, I work from home. I have the flexibility. I didn't want to have a lot of other expenses I had to pay. Now, the benefit of running a business, as you know, is that you get to. There's a lot of things. I had a good call. There was my CPA yesterday. And, like, that's the beautiful thing about running your own business. There's a lot of things in your business that become business expenses versus personal expenses. But, you know, I have the flexibility. You know, my. My wife's down the hall. My kids are down the hall. I get to go see him when I want to. But, yeah, to your point is, like, I can drive and own a business without exorbitant amount of money to get into it. And I think that was probably the surprise of me when I. When. When Bill started presenting opportunities to me was. I guess there's this perception that everything is like you said, at McDonald's or Subway or they're very expensive. And I think that's where I was pleasantly surprised. Once we kind of narrowed down and started seeing that there's a lot of different price points to get into the business. For me, it was, you know, I knew kind of what I wanted to spend to get in. It met my criteria in terms of, like, minimal expenses. I knew there was significant upside, which I'm achieving in a very short order. And so from that standpoint, it. It could not have worked out better for me. Now it's. You know, I'll be clear, too, that not everybody that gets into, like, just because you buy in there, it comes down to the individual to make it happen. And you can take two people in the same setting in the same franchise, and they will not always have the same results.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: And why is that, Criss Angel?
[00:14:24] Speaker C: I think part of it is work ethic and somebody knowing that you have to be persistent. You have to be patient. You have to understand that it is work that you have to. You know, it's amazing for me, Kim, sometimes people come in and you can't be expected that things are just going to be handed to you. You have to go and make it happen. And it's amazing that some people come in and feel like, you know, my brother owns some franchises, and we talk about this all the time where he sold one, and the person that bought it called up and he said, you know, what are you doing? He goes, are you adding new clients? He goes, no. He goes, people aren't calling me. I'm like, what do you mean? You got to go find them. You can't just expect these people are going to just show up at your door. And it's just like, you have to work. And so, yes, it. It is a job, but it is different like in anything else, because you have control over that. And again, I go back to you, make it what you want. There's people in our franchise, in our group, that live a lifestyle business. They make decent money, but they're working 15, 20 hours a week. They're in stage in life. That's what they want to do. Now we have other people in our business that work 50, 60 hours a week, and they're making by millions. Yeah, they're making very big money. And I'm like, but it's their choice. And that's the part I loved about our business, is you can kind of determine what you want it to be. And I think that's true for anybody. Most business owners, you know, you have some that are more driven than others, and depending on what you want, there's.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: So many things in there I want to like. It's so good because, you know, it's fun when people hear it from somebody else other than Kim Daly. If you're a follower of Kim Daly, perhaps you've heard many of the things that Chris has said through other videos or through podcast interviews, but here you're hearing it from a franchisee himself, right? That two people in the exact same franchise with the exact same training in the exact same environment will produce two. Two very different results. And this speaks to why I have so many videos about why earnings claims absolutely do not matter. It's not a franchise in an earnings claim. The earnings claim is there to help you wrap your arms around how money could be created. But you have to understand who you have to wake up and become and how to drive the activity of that business to then drive a successful customer relationship. And. And when you've mastered that, then you get to earn Money. So what Chris was saying is that the, the patience and the persistence and the it's, you've got to make it happen is you've got to get in there with the training they're giving you and just kind of fail forward. I'm teaching my 18 year old son, he's canvassing neighborhoods for a franchise this summer. And I said, buddy Jack, it's going to be a lot of no's and I love it as a mom. Like, I'm like, dude, if you can master this or your college like career, maybe we are going to invest in any franchi that you want to own because you will understand how to drive success in any business if you can master this. And he's so determined to because he wants to open franchises with me. But I'm like, you got to be ready to hear no over and over. Just put it in your mind and maybe it's 1 out of 20 that's going to say yes to you. Who cares? We're not listening to the 19, we're waiting for the 1. And you got to have that tenacity and whatever those skills are that you need to master that business. That's the work that you have to be willing to do, right? That's the work. It's not going to be handed to you. It's not going to be hard. It might be the hardest thing you've ever done, but to Chris's point, it's so satisfying because it's all for you. And when you learn it and you master it and you own it and control it, guess what? Nobody can take it away from you. So like that territory in corporate America that they, you know, they move it, they change all of your targets. So you do great one year and then the next year you gotta go, you know, 3x or 4x and it seems impossible. And then that doesn't happen in your own business because you're the CEO and you're going to be the one calling the shots and deciding what the goals are and then aiming for them. So that satisfaction is there, that control is there. That's why we love franchising. Chris, I think you're, you're a consultant. You know, kudos to Bill Blackman. I think he did an amazing job. Like just knowing you for 15 minutes and hearing all of the things that are just drove him to think of the ERA group. I think it's just, it's phenomenal and I'm so happy that you've been so successful. So earlier in the show you said that you know, this business, it's been life changing. Can you speak a little bit to what you mean by that?
[00:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah. And I go back to say I'll value time over money. I have more control over my destiny. I'm in my third year and I'm finally getting to where, you know, if I reflect back, you know, kind of tailing it a little bit to the prior question when I came on board, I remember asking our CEO, I'm like, I want to know the top performers because I want to spend time with the top performers to understand how they got there. And one of those individuals I was on a call with about an hour ago, he's one of my mentors. We're now partnering on deals together. You interviewed Chris and Carr earlier. We're doing things together. I mean, these are guys that. And gals internally that I work with that help me kind of find success, because when you get into it, there are common characteristics for the high performers. And so I want to go and understand from them the lessons they've learned to where I don't have to repeat those. The other thing about why is it life changing? I think because I now have.
I've gotten to a place by my third year to where we're now have increased financially to where I'm making more than I have in my life.
I have more time, you know, this summer I'll probably be gone, taking maybe three, four weeks of vacation this summer. And, you know, when you work for a company, you can't always do that.
Even like one of the trips I'm getting ready to take, I got invited to a specific event with our company in London, and I'm getting to take my wife and again, having a conversation with my CPA yesterday and goes, I smell business expense. And there's just some things like that that I'm like, I get to take my spouse with me, and yet she's part of the business now. And there's just some aspects of, like that you just. It's incorporated some things that makes it very different from like having the 9 to 5 job. I joke sometimes when everybody, you know, my wife, when we first got into this, is realizing that, you know, have. It's a big paradigm shift for the spouse when you feel like you're. You have that W2, that paycheck coming every two weeks and things like that, but I would always tell her is like, you know, just because you have that day job doesn't give you the, the. The certainty and the safety net that you think you have. And there's maybe people that are listening to this as well. They've probably been in that path in their career where at some point a company decides to have a, they're going to do layoffs or they're going to have a change, the economy's change and things like that. And you know, or you get acquired by one company and the other smaller company, they let people go. And so I feel like when as a franchise for me and owning this, I own the business, I have control, a lot more control over my destiny than any job I ever had in my past because I was always subject to, you know, what's at the whim of the management team at that time, what's the whim of who the owners are. And some days you wake up and like, whether you like it or not, they did make decisions that you can't control. And I feel like in this world I have now, there's some things, I mean, don't get me wrong, there's always things, but there's a lot more control over this than others. And there's days that, yes, there's, you feel like you get to the goal line and then something doesn't happen. It's the nature of any business you have. It's the nature of when you, when you have the day job. But in this one, you just persist through, you keep moving and then like you said, you for our business, when you get to a certain point, our clients then start bringing us more clients. When you're good at what you do at some point, then it creates a self sustained momentum. That is where that's the game changer in the business.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: So good. Here's what I heard. He's living his American dream. For those out there who are inspired to find your own definition of your American dream, you know that Kim Daly wants to be your franchise consultant and your daily coach. So this is your call to action. You heard this interview. You want to live that life? Follow the link in the description right now because I can't wait to meet you and help you find your definition of your American dream. Criss angel, you are so inspiring. I am so happy to meet you. Thank you for blessing us and sharing your amazing story right here on Kim Daly tv.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: I appreciate the opportunity.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: It's been a great pleasure. And until next time, my name is Kim Daly and I want to be your daily coach.
[00:22:41] 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 TV.
