Franchise Secrets Podcast

This episode of the Franchise Secrets podcast is all about virtual assistants. Erik talks with Nathan Hirsch of Outsource School about using virtual assistants as an affordable way to make your life easier and grow your business.

As a business owner, there’s no reason for you to be spending your valuable time toiling away with basic tasks. Instead, you can outsource things like social media management, scheduling, lead generation, and email management to virtual assistants so you have more time to spend on the most important responsibilities. Erik and Nathan talk about where to hire virtual assistants, what you should pay, and how to manage them so everyone can be more efficient and effective.

The Franchise Secrets podcast has a special guest this week with entrepreneur and master marketer Dan Fleyshman. Dan is the youngest founder of a publicly-traded company in history, and he’s here to share his insight and experience with you. 

Dan gives you new ideas and techniques to improve your marketing efforts and become a smarter business owner in this episode. From more guerilla-style local marketing efforts to learning how to use social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn more effectively. Dan talks about all the small and easy things you’re likely missing that could improve sales and make your businesses better.

The Franchise Secrets Podcast sits down with guest Jeff Dudan to talk about his experience as a franchisor and his new book, “Discernment: The business athlete’s regimen for a great life through better decisions.” Jeff founded, built, operated, and eventually exited the leading national franchise AdvantaClean, giving him a wealth of experience.

As a successful franchisor, Jeff opens up about the strategies he’s used when scaling a business into an emerging brand. From remaining calm and reacting to what’s actually happening during a crisis and managing your relationship equity to making good decisions under pressure, Jeff’s tips will help guide you from having a good business idea into having a stable franchising opportunity.

The Franchise Secrets Podcast returns this week with special guest Stephen Vereb, Massage Envy and Amazing Lash franchisee. Stephen takes us on a journey from being in real-estate and corporate banking to a multi-brand franchisee.

It all started with a childhood friend, who gave Stephen a copy of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” helping spark the entrepreneurial spirit to start his first franchise. From there, one location turned into two and three, forcing Stephen to learn how to scale the businesses on the fly. Erik and Stephen also talk about Franchise Tribe Mastermind and how networking has helped make him a better franchisee.

Today on the Franchise Secrets Podcast, we talk to Amy Hudson, proud franchise owner of The Exercise Coach in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Amy discusses how she went from being a High School teacher to moving across the country for the right franchise opportunities. 

Anyone getting into franchising or already a franchise owner knows how finding and managing staff can be one of the toughest parts of the business. As a successful semi-absentee franchise owner, Amy talks about her experiences building up one of the different types of franchising from scratch. From team building and employee development to a better way of viewing your staff, Amy breaks down what’s helped her franchise businesses prosper.

Today, we invite Heidi Morrissey, president, and CEO of Kitchen Tune-Up out of South Dakota. As a franchise or small business owner, surviving and scaling your business is more important than ever in this pivoting environment and economy. Heidi is an experienced business owner with lots of tips and tricks regarding sales, marketing, and training. More importantly, tune in this week and listen to Heidi’s experience and suggestions concerning pivoting franchises and surviving during unique times.

Heidi Morrissey, President and CEO of Kitchen Tune-Up comes in this week to share her experience. As a second-generation Franchise Owner, Heidi strives To help people find a career they love and to establish a healthy work/life balance. Her ultimate goal is to attract like-minded entrepreneurs to join her. She is also a trained MELT instructor who has also created a dynamic home-based career in scrapbooking and teaching classes. Prior to all of these successful ventures, Heidi was a Kindergarten Teacher

Today, our goal is to have a greater understanding of service based businesses in franchising.  Michael Kaplan, of Redhook Investments, discusses with Erik the topics of Service based franchising, expanding to other verticals, marketing, Buy/Sell Agreements, recession recession proof niches within service based industry and much more.

Michael Kaplan is the former co-owner of Zerorez Carpet and Living Services Care in Minnesota, where he successfully grew the business to over 170 employees with over $15,000,000 a year in revenue. Today, he's an angel investor at RedHookinvestments.com, helping businesses build strong leaders and realize their potential.

Today, we get tactical, practical advice on franchising from a Quick Serve Restaurant (QSR) perspective.  Lucas Mitchell, Owner of several Five Guys Restaurants, sits down with Erik to discuss researching and buying a QSR franchise, structuring an investment deal during COVID-19 and the challenges of finding the right people for leadership roles, communicating with investors, and much more.

In Lucas' 14 years of restaurant experience, he has managed teams of more than 170 employees, operated multi-unit concepts grossing over $9 million per year in revenue, and has grown customer satisfaction and revenue while at the same time decreasing expenses. Lucas is a proven leader with an eye for detail, and an unwavering work ethic.

Today, we dive into Jeremy Bollington’s journey of entrepreneurship and franchise ownership. We also talk about team leadership, the importance of communication, opportunities post-COVID, being second to market, and much more.

Jeremy is a multi-franchise partner and area representative for Blo Blow Dry Bar and Waxing the City, based out of Charleston, South Carolina.  Before Blo, Jeremy spent 25+ years as a banker in cities around the world like London, Hong Kong and New York.

On this week's podcast we talk with author, educator and former franchise owner, Christy Wilson Delk. This episode is packed with tips and advice for strategic leadership and "what to do when bad things happen".

Christy Wilson Delk was a 15-year franchise owner, well-known speaker, author of Adventures in Franchise Ownership, and a business professor at Rollins College in Florida.