2398 - Finding the Right Franchise Opportunity Using Proven Strategies with Rich Potter

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0:46Visit podverified.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, it's Rich Potter. Rich, you are a senior franchise business consultant with Quantum Franchise Group. You're found on the web at quantumfranchisegroup.com. Rich, it's great to have you. Hey, Josh. Thanks for having me, man. Excited to be here. You are also a franchisee of your own with Blinkboard Media. We'll talk about that in just a little bit. Before we get into that, another thing, too, you always love talking with high-level leaders and just things that they're doing on the outside, things they do for fun.

1:28I try to avoid the productive things as much as possible, but I know that you've been kind of geeking out on you're not historically a tech person, but you've been essentially vibe coding or building an app using AI tools. Give us a little peek into that. Because listen, I let this one fly because I know how fun it actually is. Like, it really does. It feels like sorcery. You know, granted, you know, in terms of code, we're not necessarily painting a Picasso or anything like that. But at least to get like an incredible MVP or whatever out, it really is. It really does feel like sorcery to me. Tell me what you've been doing.

2:11Yeah, no. So I bought a franchise six months ago that's like this indoor digital billboard franchise. And I was trying to find a way to connect a little bit better to my customers and wanted to create an app. And so I thought I'd maybe hire someone and I started looking and I'm creating an app myself. Like I'm not a tech guy. I, you know, I've been in sales my whole life. And so with the advancements in AI, you can create an app with prompts. So like I went into ChatGPT and I told ChatGPT what I was trying to do, told it like I'm going to use Base44 to create this app for my franchise, Blinkboard Media, and I wanted to do this, this, this, this, create like a prompt that I can use over here with Base44 to help me create this app.

2:57And so like it created the prompt and then I dump it into Base44 and I've just been playing with that to refining it, getting it to do what I want. And like before I thought I had to pay thousands of dollars to hire somebody and I can do it myself. It's super cool. So I've been spending my weekends and evenings just like jumping in there and fixing, you know, like improving it and adding extra things to it. And it's something I've been really passionate about the last few weeks. No kidding. So, yeah. So it's been definitely some place you've been putting your evenings then. Absolutely. Yeah, I'll go home from the office and just sit down and just play around with it.

3:36Oh, no. I don't know if you've got family or married or whatever, if that's been kind of eaten into your... A little bit. Yeah. A little bit, yeah. Trust me, I know the feeling. I just connected... And again, someone's either going to know the references or not even know what I'm talking about. But if they do, they will understand. But like I've just connected Claude and Obsidian. So Obsidian is kind of like where you build a second brain. It's kind of a notes infrastructure using Markdown. It's very universal, so you can do a lot with it. Well, you can connect Claude or Claude code with it, and basically it can design and do anything now with all of your knowledge.

4:14So I've been tracking a lot of my thinking, you know, out on walks and stuff. And so now I've got this, you know, this huge library, and Claude has full access to that and can do anything with that. And so, yeah, so it's so easy to go down these rabbit holes. And again, this is coming from someone that, you know, not necessarily super technical in your experience. And it's been rewarding for you. Absolutely. AI is just fascinating. Just the things we do with AI. I'm just really digging it. And it's only going to get easier. It's only going to get more powerful. I mean, we're playing with Tinker Toys now compared to what we're going to have a year from now.

4:52Well, Rich, let's talk about your day job. Tell me about Quantum Franchise Group. And I definitely want to get your take on what's going on in the world of franchise, right? Franchise, what's hot right now? Yeah, so I am a franchise consultant. I provide free consulting for people to help, you know, help them find their ideal franchise. A lot of people that I work with are either executives, burnt out executives trying to escape the nine to five, or they're, a lot of them are business owners. You know, they've done startups before, you know, so it's just, I help them identify the best vehicle to put their money into to start a business.

5:32And whether that's something that's a little bit more passive or something that's owner operated, we do the work together to figure out what they're trying to accomplish. And then I show them franchises based on their profile and what they're doing. So I represent through Quantum Franchise Group. We belong to the Franchise Brokers Association there in Orlando, where you're at. And we represent over 500 different franchises that we can explore with our clients. So, yeah, it's fascinating. I love it. I love helping people start businesses. I've done a couple of startups myself and I've done a couple of franchises.

6:14And I love the difference between, you know, starting it on your own can be very challenging with trying to figure out the market and trying to figure out how to launch and operate. But when you do it with the franchise, you're essentially doing it with a coach. You're doing it with a playbook. You're doing it with so much support that it's a different experience. And, you know, I really encourage even those experienced business owners to look at franchising as an option because of the support that it comes with. Well, and you and I were talking about this before we hit record. I think any of us who have been in business for any length of time, we know it's a grind.

6:56And there are a lot of risks that come with it. There's a lot of emotional ups and downs. And I think most of it stems from no one's ever done this before. Or, you know, it's like we're trying to learn from experts or whatever, you know, other folks out there. But we aren't necessarily stepping into a fully fleshed out system. Um, so if you are a believer in multiple streams and you're like, well, I don't know, maybe, you know, I'm pretty good at business. Um, uh, I think there's a case rich to be made. Uh, don't, don't start another business from scratch. I mean, unless it's truly something like, you know, you want to start building apps for people, you know, vibe coding them and it's just your passion, whatever that's fine.

7:38Um, you know, and you, you know, you don't have to make money at it, but truly, you know, So if you're looking to, you know, you know, as an investment strategy to invest in another business, you know, it's just, you know, franchise is still going to be a lot of work. And I'd love, Rich, if you could kind of give us your perspective on this. But at least there's a lot of stuff, a lot of things you don't have to figure out. Yeah, no, for sure. So, like, I've started an event business on my own with my wife. We started an e-commerce business. We've done those types of things. And you're right. There's so much trying to learn to figure it out on your own.

8:15Six months ago, you know, as a franchise consultant, I see so many different franchises. And so six months ago, this one came on my radar, the indoor billboards that I invested in with my brother. And we looked at it. It was great about it is you get to talk to owners that are already doing this before you ever invest a penny. You know, we spoke to at least a half a dozen other owners to figure out what they're doing, what it's like, the day in the life of, you know, how quick to ROI, all those things before we jump in. And then so we invested in it and we bought the Salt Lake Market where my brother lives.

8:55And the support is just incredible. And I see that with all these different systems that I represent and that I show my clients is they've figured out marketing. They've figured out, you know, what it takes to go to market and compete in your local market. There's just there's so much great stuff with franchising. And I know like in the past, franchising kind of had a bad rep, right? Like there used to be and there still is, but the franchisors were kind of in it for themselves. Right. But I've seen that change to where franchisors now, by and large, really care about their franchisees success.

9:35They are all about, you know, for their system to be successful. They need their franchisees to be successful. And it's really changed the market of franchising, I think, in the last probably five to 10 years. Well, Rich, what's hot right now in franchise? Man, I love home services and senior care. Yeah, like I stay away from the brick and mortar stuff by and large, unless my clients are very well capitalized and they're passionate about food or wellness or something like that. But home services, typically home-based, or maybe you need a small industrial space. Senior care is growing faster than any other industry out there.

10:16Like they're low investments compared to a lot of your food and beverage stuff. Like a lot of it you can get into for under$200 ,000. and incredible returns. So that's, home services actually overtook food and beverage franchises last year. Bigger market now. Yeah, well, Rich, how does Quantum work? And by the way, if you want to address why it makes so much sense for someone to work through a consultant or broker as opposed to trying to pick a franchise on their, on your own, or, you know, just like, oh, I heard this great idea and yeah, cool. I'm going to, I'm going to invest in this franchise.

11:01What's the difference? Yeah. Well, I mean, for one, there's, there's like 400 plus franchises out there. Right. And you probably haven't heard of a fraction of them. You've heard of the McDonald's and the subways. Right. And those are like the big ones, but those are not the best opportunities out there. And so why not enlist the services of someone who spends every day, you know, attending webinars from different franchisors. I attend monthly conferences to learn about different concepts. You know, I know about so many different concepts and the association I belong to has pre-vetted all of these for me, right?

11:42So they vet them once, I vet them a second time. And so like, I spend a lot of time in franchise disclosure documents, reading through earnings claims and getting to know like the ins and outs of all these franchises. Why not enlist, you know, an expert? We do it all the time with all the other stuff we do, right? Our retirement funds, we enlist a financial planner. You know, if we want to get fit, We hire a coach. It's the same type of thing. And like I said, I'm free. And it doesn't change the cost of the investment to work with a consultant like myself. Right. So plus we spend we're going to get on a few calls getting to know you and your goals and your investment level and stuff like that.

12:29We're going to really dig in before I ever show you any concepts. Like, I want to know you as a person and your skills and where you'd fit before I ever start showing you that hot, trending franchise out there. Because it may not be the best option for you. Yeah. Well, Rich, your website, by the way, I have to ask you this. Like, this is what you do. You have seen every franchise under the sun. Why did you decide Blinkboard Media? Oh, so, man, I love helping people. At the end of the day, that's what I love to do, right? So this is a franchise where I'm going in and I'm connecting the local community with business owners, right?

13:14So this franchise in particular does indoor billboards. So we take the concept of the outdoor digital billboard, we bring it indoors, and we're installing a free TV in these high traffic businesses, restaurants, gyms, salons, medical facilities. And we're giving those businesses free advertising within our network of screens, right? And then we're approaching local business owners, usually service providers, HVAC technicians, electricians, landscapers, lawyers, real estate agents, those types of businesses. And then we're selling them ad space on our TVs, right? So they're able to advertise inside of high traffic businesses, is that these people, they trust, they visit these businesses frequently, they stay inside those businesses for a long time.

13:59So there's just a built-in trust factor with that type of advertising, right? And so what it's doing is it's really connecting the community because it's hyper-local, focused advertising. And so it works. It's advertising that works. They're not wasting their advertising dollars. it actually performs well and helps them get really good brand recognition in the community so it is something that i feel like i'm i'm making good money with it i feel like i'm going to make really good money with it but i also feel like it's something that's going to help uh these business owners move the needle in their own business when they advertise with us so it's easy to sell because i believe in the product yeah yeah i'm pretty bullish on in screen you know or kind of on screen you know what we're going to be able to do and you know kind of the Just that cool experience, it just adds to the atmosphere.

14:53And it, again, creates win-win. And according to your website, it doesn't look like it costs much for the business owner to be able to put the display up. So they get a lot of benefits right out of it. So easy to sell. Rich Potter, again, your website is quantumfranchisegroup.com. when they click, when they go to your website, what do they do? So actually, so I've kind of branded my own little thing is Franchise Heroes. Franchiseheroes.co is where I like to direct people. So my personal brand is Franchise Heroes.

15:33I'm sorry, Rich, the audio muted out there. So I have your website. I've got it pulled up. Franchiseheroes.co. So, yep, that is, forget what I said earlier. If you pull that up, then we've got that link directly in the show notes right now. Rich, are you back with us audio-wise? Nope, nope. I still see the lips moving. Hey, Rich, if you hear me, I'm just going to close up and I'm going to say franchise heroes instead. I'm sorry that we said the brand. Let me redo the ending. Are you back with me? Can you hear me now? Yep, yep, yep. Let me redo the ending so I don't say the other brand. Shoot, we should have coordinated that on the front end as well.

16:21Here we go. All right, here we go. And the website, franchiseheroes.co. So do we not even say the other brand? Well, I'm not going to. I'm not going to say it. Okay, I'm just going to say it. I'm going to say when people go to franchiseheroes.co. Okay, here we go. Ready? Wait. All right, Rich. So your website is franchiseheroes.co. When somebody goes to your website, what do they do? Well, I mean, obviously just look around. You can see the process that I take my clients through. I do provide an ebook there. So download the ebook, check out more more information about my services, but I also have a quiz there you can take, uh, to kind of look through what you might match with.

17:09Um, so yeah, just, I mean, fill out the contact form, connect with me. And, uh, you know, like I said, it's free, it's free to go through the process. So why not give it a try? I love it. Yeah. I've got, I'm looking at the book right now. You didn't even ask for my email address. It's franchising as an investment strategy that you can grab and and you can start reading right now. Again, franchiseheroes.co. Rich, that's your website, and you're a senior franchise consultant. Rich, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Josh.

17:39Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. If your goal is to grow your business, increase revenue, and build authority without gimmicks, this show is designed for you. Each episode gives you practical insight from leaders who have turned trust and credibility into real business results. If you value short, thoughtful conversations that respect your time, make sure you're subscribed. We publish daily 15-minute episodes focused on growth that actually compounds. And if you're interested in being a guest or you want to turn podcast appearances into measurable business growth, visit podverified.com.

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