Franchise Expert: "I Got Laid Off, Bought ONE Franchise And Became Financially Free" | Ep. 448 with Gregory Mohr Founder of Franchise Maven

0:00Going to the office, collecting that paycheck, companies give you to help you forget your dreams. At 16, Greg Mohr worked at Taco Bell. Decades later, corporate laid him off. So he used his 401k to buy one single franchise, one territory, and never needed a paycheck again. Since then, 3 ,000 people have come to him for help. He turned away 2 ,700 of them. Don't be like me and buy a job. That's basically what I did. What's the number one reason that you see that these franchisees fail? Not following the system or the processes. I had one lady who took over the Las Vegas Valley. She was the vice president in the gaming industry.

0:38And she told them...

0:43I learned that you achieved financial freedom, financial independence by owning one franchise. I would imagine most people think you need dozens. What is the truth about how much someone can make by owning a franchise? Pretty much, Dan, the sky's the limit on that one to do some extent there. It's really a matter of how much time, how much effort you put into that franchise or hiring a manager to put in that effort and time for you. But you're still putting in time and effort. You can own one and you can I did it with one in one territory. It's probably a little bit quicker to do with one franchise in multiple territories.

1:21but entirely possible. When you're looking at what franchise to go with, how does somebody know where to put their money and time? What you're going to be looking at there, Dan, and that's one of the things that we go over together when I work with my people is really, which is your background? So what do you bring to the table? What is your skill set? And really, what skill set do you like to use on a daily basis that does not feel like you're working. So what you need to look at from that franchise is what skill set does that franchise require? This way, you're utilizing what you like to do best, what makes it enjoyable for you.

2:00Also look at the culture on that. And you get together with the franchise development people, and you talk with many franchisees along the way. So kind of get a good feel for what the culture is like with that franchise, making certain that you're comfortable with it. And then there's some other little things along the way too well not maybe not so little things along the way really can you afford it and pretty much the franchise they're going to tell you if you can't afford it then they're not going to talk to you but you want to make certain that you have the money to invest they usually have a minimum uh net worth on there so you make sure your net worth is to make sure you had the money to to get that franchise up and running so you need to look at that runway on that and talking to many different franchises you'll get a good franchisees you'll get a good feel for that.

2:41It's really though challenging when you first start out yourself, same with I did when I first started looking at franchises to figure out which franchise is right for you because there's 4 ,000 franchises out there. So it can be a challenge going through there. I did that when I first started. I had about 20 different franchise development people calling me, telling me their thing was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I'm like, which one do I choose? So you can do it yourself. You just have to do a lot of research and keep checking them, see who's got the territory available. As a franchise consultant working with 400 different franchises, I can really help narrow that field down.

3:17But if you're doing it yourself and you want to do it yourself, then those are the things to look for. What skill set are they looking for? What are you doing on a daily basis? You're out there knocking on doors? Or is the franchise happy? Many, many different things to look at, but really your skill set and what you like using on a regular basis is really what's going to make a difference on that because it won't feel like work and it'll just it'll be fine. So do you suggest that people look at doing a territory where they're committing to a group or owning that territory where they get people to then franchise within or should they start at just one location?

3:59Dan it depends on really what your goal is so one of the things that I ask people is where do you want to be three five, 10 years from now. If you're looking to just immediately replace an income and you're really not looking to grow an empire, then look at one territory. Look at one territory and talk to the franchisees and find out in the franchise disclosure documents, what can you expect income wise from that one territory itself? Is that going to be enough to get you to where you want to be on there? With me, I just wanted one territory. I was fine. I saw how much they made. I said, that'll be perfect.

4:31I can get to where I want to be, financial independence with that one, because I didn't need a whole lot. You know, I lived out in the country, didn't have a whole lot of expenses. I didn't owe anybody anything. And I used my 401k plan to get the franchise. So I wasn't going into debt. So that part was really simple for me. Now for you, it may be different. So you need to look at if you're going to replace your income and if you've got a, you know, a high mid to high six figure income, you're probably going to be looking at more than one territory for that as far as an income from that one territory and look to see if, okay, that's not going to do it.

5:02then I'm going to need to add two or three territories. You say something that I think is true. Don't be a founder by a proven system. And the truth that I see is most people will fail as a founder. And it may not even be them. It's like what, 90 % fail within the first five years. Where do you see the biggest benefit of getting a franchise knowing that majority of the time you're going to fail? Well, Dan, pretty much every single one of those franchises that are out there today or founders, they've found themselves. So what you're not seeing when you're looking and getting into a franchise system is you're looking at the ones that succeeded.

5:42You're not looking at the ones that failed because they're no longer there. So now you've got the ones that have said, OK, this is what they've gone through. All the challenges to get to where they want to be. They've made the mistakes. They figured out what doesn't work. And more importantly, they figure out what has worked for them. So now they've got that system and process in place for you and you just step right into it and you utilize all the information that franchise has already gathered to who to talk to as far as how to get your clients, where to get your employees if you need them, where to find a manager, how to, if you're a service industry, how to turn that dial up so that you are now booked out eight weeks in advance.

6:23If you get too much work, dial that back, that lead source back. That's what you're looking for with a good franchise system is really just step in, follow their processes and procedures, and then you get to where you want to be probably two to three years, at least quicker than if you were to go out there and try and do the exact same thing yourself, making all those mistakes and figuring out what to do and what not to do. I think most people, when they say franchise, they think burgers and fries. But what types of franchise or what types of companies, maybe industries that are leveraging franchising?

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8:13These are things that people need every day. So you don't always think about them necessarily as a franchise and pretty much anything that has to do around the home or conversely, the the office or building as well. You know, lawn maintenance, pest control, remodeling, handyman work. A lot of those people don't don't realize how big some of those systems are. They're as big as some of the restaurant systems. But if you don't need the services or never use the services, you generally don't know about them. You've helped hundreds of people become a franchisee. What's the number one reason that you see that these franchisees fail?

8:50Not following the system or the processes on there. I had one lady who took over the Las Vegas Valley. She was the vice president in the gaming industry. And she took over the tutoring in the Las Vegas Valley. And she told them, you know, you guys, you know, girls haven't hidden up the hotels and motels in there. She said, I think that'd be a great, great way to start. You know, it's an underutilized resource. They said, well, that's not in our business model. We've never tried that before. We've never done anything like that before. You're welcome to give it a shot. But we don't have anything to go on to how to get it done.

9:27So she tried. It did not work out for her. So her first six months got off to kind of a rocky start. She then shifted back to their model, what was worked, what was a proven system, and took off from then on. So you can be creative in franchising, but you probably don't want to be creative too soon. You really want to follow that system and process and then get creative at a later point. But that's where I see people failing down in direct answer to your question, is really not thinking that you can make improvements or do something better than the franchise has already done when they've already proven out this is the way to do it.

10:02This will get you to where you want to be. Is it common for people to think that they may know more than what the franchise system knows and they try to do it on their own? Or do you find that most people stick to it? Most people stick to it. I can determine pretty quick, Dan, early on when people start, when I take them through the franchise investigation process and when they start saying things just like that, like, you know, he's doing some things or she's doing some things that aren't part right. You know, I think I can do them better. I just got to tell them, you know, if you think in that, then you really should not be getting into a franchise in the first place.

10:35You are somebody who should start your own business, create your own franchise and do it that way. So, yeah, I just I tell those folks that franchising not for you. Time to move on. I like that. I mean, save yourself headache. Right. I imagine if you help people and they're successful, they obviously are going to recommend you. But if you help somebody and they're not successful, they might even blame that almost on you, even though it was their own fault. That's that's very true. I try to be really upfront. You know, it's interesting. You say, you know, Greg, you've helped hundreds of people, you know, get into a franchise system.

11:10Well, I've probably worked with, you know, so I would say it's up to about 300 people now that I helped get into a franchise system. I would say over 14 years, about 3000 people came to me to look into a franchise. So 2 ,700 people, I helped them realize franchising was not for them. The other end of the story. Do you get people that come to you who are in the corporate life and they're daydreaming about the fact that they're making somebody else all this money and that they want to leave and they want to do their own thing? And if so, what advice do you give to them? Absolutely. I get lots of people like that.

11:43So what we're looking at there is, again, where do you want to be five, three, five, 10 years from now? What do you want to do on a daily basis? Look at the fact that it's going to take a little while to build this up. It's not going to be instant money right away. Depending on the franchise you get into, if you get into a brick and mortar, you're looking at six and nine months build out. If you're looking at a service industry, it's a little bit quicker. So you can get things built up right away. But I tell them to take a look at their finances, make it certain that they have the runway to get that business up and going.

12:15This does take a little while to do that. Make certain if they're married with kids, make certain that the spouse is involved and the spouse is going along with it and is back in the play as well. And then really take a hard look again at what do you want your day to look like on a regular basis? Are you open to getting up early in the morning or you want to sleep in? You want weekends off? Do you want nine to five Monday through Friday? So all those things, those are a lot of the things that we go over. And I advise them to really take a look at where your life, because it's not really where it is right now.

12:54Because your daily is not, because that's where you're getting out of it. There's something wrong. There's something missing on that. Want to spend more time with your kids? Then we need to look at a franchise system where it's either manager runs or you're doing a semi-absentee. So now you've got plenty of time during the day. Some people actually really like, enjoy going to an office. They just, instead of going to an office for working for somebody else, they want to do it for themselves. So if that's what you enjoy, let's take a look at the franchises where you go to that office on a daily basis.

13:20So many different things that we'll take a look at. And I'll really advise them really to take a look at your finances, make sure you got the runway for it, the money for it. And then what do you want your day to look like? Do you find it's possible that somebody could stay at their job and buy into a franchise that has more absentee so they can continue to work, continue to create cash flow from their job? It's not impossible, Dan. Probably about half my people do that.

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16:17So now you're not going to have quite as much time as you had before, but with the ultimate goal of eventually having that time or having that extra money flowing in. And so many, many different franchises can be manager run. Many cannot. Each franchise has a different rule on that. One of the things that I tell people when they're getting into a franchise and they want to do it semi-absentee and we're looking at those franchises is to talk with all the franchisees who started that out as a semi-absentee run business on there. The first thing you find out is just how semi-absentee was that in the first six months when you're building that up and then talk to the ones that have been there for a while and see is still going well.

16:57So are more people excited now to do franchising? Are there more people that want to open up a franchise or want to be a franchisee the last few years? And the reason why I ask is there's a ton of new businesses that have been opening. I think the most historic amount of LLCs that have been created the last year or two. Franchising continues to grow. COVID really made it take off because what COVID did was it shook up everybody's schedule on there. They're used to doing this one thing, going to the office, collecting that paycheck. It's a drug that companies give you to help you forget your dreams.

17:32So the business was disrupted. They said, it's time for a change, time for something different. It continues to be strong. If you look back in history, I'll make it quick. Sorry, Dan. But people used to work on the farms. Then we got the industrial age and people decided farms, they're not what we want to do. We want to get a job in an industry because you get the pension, you get the paycheck. Well, after a while, and these days, now in the past few years, working for corporate is not what it has been in the past for people. It's not quite what they have in mind. And they're going more towards independent, more towards doing things for themselves.

18:11They see a better path to financial independence by doing something for themselves and building up their own business. I like to say I was forced into it because I've been laid off more than one time. And I realized that even if you have a job and with AI and technology now, it almost seems like your job is even more temporary. And there really is no security anymore in a job. Do you feel that people will continue to be driven other places, whether it's creating a side hustle, getting into an absentee franchise? It does not, Dan. And that's what brought me here to where I am today, because I also got laid off.

18:50So, yeah, I don't know if I would have been brave enough to walk away from my job. I'd like to think I would have been eventually to walk away from the job. I got laid off and I had worked for Taco Bell. I was at my younger days when I was 16 and I worked for a master franchiser. So that got me involved in franchising. But I think people, Dan, in direct answer to your question, they are seeing the writing on the wall that there's they see layoffs all the time. I'm always in the news in the semiconductor industry that I was in. Usually every couple of years we got, we had laid up, people getting laid off and people see it every day.

19:24And they're thinking, just like you said, Dan, that there's no security like it used to be in the job at any point in time. The manager could say, your manager could tell you bye bye. And then once we get a certain age, then we kind of have that little worry there of, you know, age discrimination. You know, once you hit 50, 55, how easy is it going to be to get another job if you get laid off at the same rate, pay rate that you were getting before? That was one of my concerns when I did that. And I had just another gentleman just the other day who's a little bit younger than I was when I started.

20:01And he just got laid off and he was thinking the same thing. So he's picking it up a couple of territories and said, he'll probably still go back and get a job. But he said, I don't want to go through that layoff thing again. I don't have to ever worry about it. So I got something on the side. I build that business up. Now I get a job. I'm good. I don't get a job. I'm good too. So you were a restaurant manager. Then you became a semiconductor engineer. How did you go from that jump and then go into franchising? So restaurant was pretty easy. That's why I started out. I started out at Taco Bell, worked for a master franchisor.

20:34She owned about 50 Taco Bells. I moved up in the Taco Bell world there. Went on to manage what's called a lion's restaurant, kind of like an upscale Denny's in Northern California. Did that for 15 years. That was a lot of work. A lot of fun when you're younger, but not so much fun when you get older. So got kind of bored with that. Went back to school, got a degree in electrical engineering and physics and widened that because I was always good at math. Math was good. So it was either doctor, lawyer, or engineer because they paid the most.

21:03Or working in the forest industry somewhere because I like trees, but they didn't pay too good. So I said, can't be a doctor. I hate blood. I can't be a lawyer. I don't write very well. So I'm good at math. Engineering it is. So I went into that. While I was an engineer, though, towards the latter part, but also got a bachelor's degree in the, sorry, a master's degree in business. A friend of mine, another engineer myself, we bought dry cleaners privately owned. We bought storage units. And then I had a couple of rental properties as well as working all those on the side while I was doing my job.

21:34So I always knew that I wanted something a little bit different. And I was always each each movement. I was trying to move up, trying to improve my income and trying to look at a point in time when I didn't have to work quite as much doing it. So that's what got me into it. And then I got laid off, sold my rental properties. The dry cleaners was a privately owned. It was a challenge. My buddy that I got in there with, he really enjoyed it, learning about it. But we didn't know anything about it. So we all had to figure out, both of us had to figure out, what do we do next? What do we do when the equipment breaks?

22:09What do we dump the stuff? How do we get clients? He got into that. I was like, after I got laid off, he got laid off too. I said, I'm selling you all my stuff. I liked that franchise thing when I was doing Taco Bell. So I'm going to go back and do that franchise thing. And that's when I started looking for a franchise. I eventually found a franchise consultant to work with after those 20 different franchise people were calling me up and telling me. He did real good. I liked that. So after I built up my franchise for a while, and I was going out and talking to business owners over in the Austin, Texas area, because that's where I worked in the semiconductor industry over at Motorola in Austin, Texas.

22:46But I had a lot of driving around to do. And then I thought, you know, that franchise consultant thing was pretty cool because he got to sit at home all day and talk with people. So that's a really good use of your time. So after I built up my business, got my financial independence, I said, I got to help other people do this. So I went into, called him back and said, hey, teach me what you do. I want to do that. Work from home all day. Set my own schedule. When you get comfortable in a corporate job, at least for me too, when you're moving up, you just get comfortable and you're never really prepared, I don't think, for what could possibly happen.

23:19And I feel like the economy, like so many things are up and down. It's great to have something there that you can fall back on just in case, if not becoming your own thing. When you go into franchising, though, were you thinking about building something up to create money long term? Create money long term, Dan. That's the only thing I thought of. So create money long term. No employees. Do it at all myself. That was my real mindset. After being in the restaurant industry and having like 50 employees, you know, system managers, kitchen managers and all that. I don't want to deal with that anymore.