The Unsure Entrepreneur

Unsure Entrepreneur feat. Gary Prenevost

KEYWORDS
franchise industry, franchise opportunities, franchise support, franchise success, franchise failure, franchise consulting, franchise options, franchise training, franchise investment, franchise growth, franchise engagement, franchise exit strategy, franchise mindset, franchise resilience, franchise awareness

SPEAKERS
Gary Prenevost, Roger Pierce

Intro 00:00
You're listening to the Unsure Entrepreneur Podcast with Roger Pierce, whether you're scribbling business ideas on a napkin or wrestling with the should I shouldn't I question. Get ready to explore the realities, the risks and the rewards of entrepreneurship as we share the stories, scars and successes of small business owners.

Roger Pierce 00:22
Hello and welcome to another edition of the unsure entrepreneur podcast. My name is Roger Pierce. I'm thrilled to introduce my guest today. Gary Prenevost is a distinguished entrepreneur author and one of North America's leading franchise experts with over 30 years of industry experience as the president of Fran Ed of Southern Ontario and eastern Canada, Gary has helped 1000s of individuals explore franchise ownership, guiding them through a comprehensive six step process that identifies the best franchise opportunities based on their unique profiles. His deep involvement in the franchise world includes his role as a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Franchise Association, where he has served for over 16 years. Gary has extensive personal experience in the franchise sector, where he has owned and operated single unit, multi unit and master franchises. His first major success in franchising came with a human skills training company where he significantly expanded the business. This hands on experience combined with his passion for helping others achieve financial and lifestyle freedom through franchising, has made him a sought after consultant and keynote speaker. In addition to his consulting work, Gary is the author of the USA Today, top selling book, unstoppable franchisee. The book has been recognized as one of the top 10 books for scaling a business in 2024 and personally, I'm proud to have known Gary for many years, and we've done some previous work together. Welcome Gary. Great to see you.

Gary Prenevost 01:46
Thank you, Roger. Definitely a pleasure to be here.

Roger Pierce 01:50
I love reading your bio. You've got so much fascinating background, and of course, I love reading the book. We're going to talk about that later on, the unstoppable franchisee. But for contacts, for people who don't know what you do or what this is all about, let's talk about the franchise industry, and maybe what you love most about franchise.

Gary Prenevost 02:08
People aren't aware of how deep the franchise industry is in the North American economy. In Canada, we're 12th, Canada's 12th largest industry. There's over 1000 different franchise browns, between 65 70,000 franchise units, depending on which survey you read. So we are in every community across Canada. Most people think about franchising as food and retail Roger, because that's the visible face of franchise. That's what we see. But there's so many different industries, 60 plus different industries, there's a lot of things that people use franchising for, and franchising, if we look at the model itself, franchising is a distribution strategy where the franchisor will present the franchisees with systems, processes, The branding, the product or services suite and the franchisee is their own small business in their communities. Executing that business model, it's an accelerated path to success and entrepreneurship start from scratch. Businesses have about a 50% failure rate in Canada, franchising is under 20%.

Roger Pierce 03:17
That’s amazing, and what a lot of people don't realize is the size and scope of the industry I've got here. 45% of all retail sales in Canada are generated by franchise businesses. It's huge, and this is comparable to states where it's about 50% of retail service revenue generated by franchises. For context, I mean, for lay people who don't know, give us an example of a couple of well known franchises.

Gary Prenevost 03:40
People think about Tim Horton, McDonald's, Canadian Tire, the retail brands, but think about sort of pro painters, or neighborly has Mr. Roger, Mr. Illustr, the different service based businesses. There's boy, there's so many different ones, any of the made businesses, like there's several maids, grounds keeping, there's lots of things that people use every day. They don't think of it as a franchise.

Roger Pierce 04:06
And there's really a franchise for every sector, isn't there?

Gary Prenevost 04:09
There is a lot of franchises are business to business. You have businesses as customers. A lot of my clients, Roger are. They come from corporate Canada or corporate us, and they're saying, I don't want to counter a cash register business. I want to drive and scale something so I want to work with the type of customers I've been working with on my career. We have those types of businesses as well.

Roger Pierce 04:31
I think that's an important takeaway. People listening realize that doesn't have to be a McDonald's Tim Hortons subway. It can be a small service based type franchise. There's lots of options out there down the road. I'm gonna ask you what what you do as a franchise consultant? So people understand that. But really franchising, there's all kinds of different price points too, and entry points aren't there?

Gary Prenevost 04:53
Absolutely. A lot of people think franchising tying back to the visible face and bricks and mortar. They think. It's expensive and unachievable. Well, you have franchises under $50,000 the occasional ones you get some of the service based businesses are that 75 to $250,000 range bricks and mortar, 250 to millions of dollars. Really depends. But we see a lot of sweet spots. If people have $100,000 of their own money available, then they get start to get into more options in Canada. Canada Small Business Finance program can finance roughly two thirds of the investment, up to half a million dollars, and that's guaranteed by the government 75% but it's still that the banks want skin in the game. The franchisors want skin in the game. So always a safe strategy is about 1/3 of your own money to be able to fund the franchise.

Roger Pierce 05:46
I’m going to pause and repeat what you just said there, because that is one of my favorite government programs, the Canada Small Business Financing Program, right? Can you expand on what that does and how entrepreneurs and franchising can take advantage?

Gary Prenevost 05:58
It's a program offered by the federal government. Through the banks, you can borrow up to $350,000 for capital expenditures, and that's bricks and mortar, the construction capital equipment. And you can borrow an additional $150,000 for working capital and franchise fees. That program is, is, I think currently it's prime plus three. There's a 2% placement fee. So it's there's some prices for it, but I think of it as inexpensive insurance for mitigating the downside risk. That 75% guarantee, if things don't work out, the government is going to cover the bank, so you're only putting a 25% guarantee on I mean, it's a very successful program. They don't have a lot of failures from that, at least in franchising, because part of the reason why franchising is so strong is the system support the coaching that franchisees get when they launch a business well.

Roger Pierce 06:50
And let's segue into that. I mean, I'm jumping around here, but these are some of the pros of franchising as an option and just for context, and I talk about this in the book I'm writing in the podcast, there are a few ways to get into business. Actually, you opened my eyes to a fourth way. Number one, start from scratch. Number two, buy an existing business, a mom or mom or pop. Websites like bizbuysell.com let you see local comedian stores or muffler shops or whatever for sale by owner. Third option is buying a franchise, which we're talking here today, you opened me to the fourth idea, which is buying a franchise for sale. So there's buying a new franchise. It's also buying one that’s already up and running, correct?

Gary Prenevost 07:30
Those are harder to find, because we'll get into that.

Roger Pierce 07:34
And you know, this is such a viable option for people, and starting from scratch is the only thing I know. And it's a tough slog, right? It's a lot of uncertainty. It's a high level of risk. You're self doubting. Maybe you've overestimated the customer market and made some mistakes with the research, buying a business for sale. Well, the downside there is you got to have some money up front, and maybe you're buying someone else's mistakes. And maybe the brand isn't really well known. Who knows? There could be some problems under the hood we don't know about during the disclosure process, but buying a franchise has got some real advantages, and maybe you can elaborate.

Gary Prenevost 08:09
In my video series, www.yourE2Ejourney.com, the journey from employee to entrepreneur, in video four, I talk about the pros and cons in depth about each one I look at a tutoring fee is going to get paid in the start from scratch. The tutoring fee, it's the least expensive to get. The advantages it's least expensive. You're going to be able to have a lot of creativity, a lot of flexibility. You get to run the business the way you want, no rules, nobody to report to. But the tutoring fee is the trial and error that often takes months and years before you really get it going. It's the cost of the mistakes and the softer cost of lost opportunity, and that lengthens the risk period from probably about the three year mark before it really starts to flow. And this is assuming somebody's going to the business full time, Roger. It takes longer. But the biggest upside is you get it right, and you're not sharing it with anybody, so you keep more of the upside. Buy an existing business now you are. You get the advantage of having proven customers, proven relationships, proven cash flow. You get to inherit staff. Most of them should be good, but the downside is it's going to be more expensive because that other person, previous owner, had gone through that grind of launch, grow, build, they put their blood, sweat and tears into it so they feel it's worth way more than what the market feels. So you might have to overpay for it with a franchise. It's the proven systems and processes so you don't have the elongated period of trial and error I look at buying a franchise is a Time Compression strategy the franchisor, because they've helped lots of other franchisees, launch, build and grow. They're going to focus you on here's what you need to do, here's the things that you need to do. To do it. Here's who you focus with, the type of customers you want, systems, processes, coaching. Once you've learned one set of skills, they're working on the next set of skills. So after you've got the foundation, now it becomes a growth acceleration strategy. You've gone from the basics of the business to accelerating to a higher level, means greater scale. You've got all that support. Coming back to tutoring fee. School of Hard Knocks would start from scratch the premium on a by paying somebody else for the business that they've built in franchising. The tutoring fee is the franchise fee and the ongoing royalties, because you're working with that system. So to me, in all cases, the underlying question is, how much value am I getting for what I have to part with in terms of capital?

Roger Pierce 10:50
Amazing. Not to undervalue the learning that you get, like you're saying, from a franchisor, it really does accelerate things. If I bought a franchise and I got through all the process, what kind of training can I expect? Typically? What kind of support is there?

Gary Prenevost 11:03
Well, I think one of the most important things is for your listeners, just because it's franchise, it doesn't mean it's good, it means it's been duplicated. Franchising is a duplication strategy. Good franchising is what I care about, and what the industry focus on. Good franchising, responsible franchising is where franchisors are doing the right things. So you're going to find that out through validation. Part of the research is talking with existing franchisees. The type of support that you should get is between when you buy and when you open. Here are the setup components. Here is what you need for real estate. Here's the footprint, type of dynamics. A lot of franchisors will have the real estate team or work with real estate professionals. Likewise, as you get closer now, it's construction, and then it's the pre marketing and grand opening. Who are you focusing SEO, all the internet marketing now that's for bricks and mortar. Without, with a service based business that's not bricks and mortar, you don't have the construction and those other elements. But there's other other steps. So the franchisor and the support people are going to be saying, here's what you need to focus on, and you're going to go to training, and then, as you get the training, here's how to get better at those skills. Here's when to utilize them. So it's the it's one thing to learn, it's another thing to implement. And the franchisor is an implementation coach. That's what they have people to do, is they have those people to help the franchisees get launched and get the customer built, and get that momentum. So I think that's a really important part.

Roger Pierce 12:37
On the downside. Can a franchise fail?

Gary Prenevost 12:41
Certainly. There's a couple of reasons why franchises fail. The banks will say the number one reason why franchisees fail is under capitalization. I think people buy business, they use all their money to get the business open, and they might plan for three, four months of working capital. To me, they're under capitalized. You should have six, 912, ideally, 12 months of reserve, there should be buffer, so you should never use all your money to get it open, and you have to rely on the plan going exactly right. The other element why businesses fail, and this is far more common, number one complaint franchisors have with franchisees Roger, is the franchisees don't follow the systems that they pay so much to get access to. That's right. I call it selective engagement. I like this part. I'll do this part, but I'm not that cold calling, that networking and engaging the community. Now just spend more money on marketing. But if they're not engaging the community, I don't care what business it is. The best franchisees become active parts of the community, and people think about community as the geographic community around their store. I look at there is a geographic community, there is a business community, businesses with the same type of customers, there is a faith community, there are ethnic communities. All of those are opportunities to mine the more that somebody is engaged and understands the community fabric in the interplay between those different communities and how they can contribute to those communities, the better they're going to do.

Roger Pierce 14:07
I was laughing at your comment about deviating from what the franchisor set out. I was re watching one of my favorite movies, The Founder, you know, the McDonald's story. Ray Kroc, I don't know how much of it's accurate, but in the early days, Ray Kroc this challenge was with first franchisees. They weren't following the menu, and some of them were selling biscuits and corn, stuff that was not burgers, fries and shakes, right? And he was quite mad at them, and had to, had to rail them, corral them back in but that's going to happen, isn't it?

Gary Prenevost 14:39
Well, the younger the franchise, the more the risk, because those systems aren't refined yet. And so there are some great opportunities with franchisors with zero 10 franchisees, but people who are comfortable with that risk have to understand that that system will evolve, and some processes that they get to start with might not continue, so the higher failure rate with younger. Franchise orders, because it's not as proven. A lot of our clients are buying franchises that are in the 10 to 5100, franchisees, and sometimes in the US coming to Canada. So it's it's proven, but there's still a lot of market opportunity.

Roger Pierce 15:14
And just so people know, I've got it here, there are 76,000 plus franchised outlets in Canada, numbers closer to 70,000 Okay, from about 1200 to 1300 franchisors.

Gary Prenevost 15:29
Yes, you know, it's interesting. These surveys around how many franchisors there are, I say 1000 over 1000 because some surveys include franchisors that are operating but are sold out, so aren't awarding new franchises. Some franchisors have moved away from the franchise model. They have some franchise so, but it's still it's over 1000 units, a lot of a lot of concepts out there.

Roger Pierce 15:56
That's a perfect segue, because you know this stuff so well. And what is a franchise consultant, and what you do at friend? I mean, I always liken it a bit to, you know, my wife's a real estate agent, and help people find the right opportunity for them. They don't work for the seller. You work for the buyer. Can you explain to me what your role is?

Gary Prenevost 16:15
I like the real estate analogy because think about people who want to the very first time they're buying a home. They probably want to work with a real estate agent who specializes in working with first time homebuyers, because they understand the landscape. The role of a good franchise consultant is about helping people guide them through a process of effective building of their model and then finding businesses that fit the model, and then coaching the research. What a lot of people do Roger, they say, I want to be a franchisee. And they go online and they type in, buy a franchise, franchise for sale, whatever the keywords are, or they go to the franchise shows, I love the franchise shows, they're a very integral part of people search. But what people are looking for is that, oh my when I see it, type of deal. And unfortunately, that doesn't happen as often as people expect, because two reasons. One, they're what I call their cone of awareness. It's like this forward facing. It might be a 2030, degree cone on the 360 degrees. What they think is a good business for them might not be what they don't think is a good business might be exactly the right business. The other element is that the people who show up on those franchise searches, the franchisors, are the ones who spend the most money in marketing, not necessarily the best opportunities. What I want people to do, what good franchise consultants do, is we start by getting people to do a very serious introspection on themselves. There's three critical resources every business owner needs. How much time are they going to put into the business, and what the structure of that time is, are they going to be full time? They can be part time. Do they want daytime hours? Like all those things become really important how much money, and I'm having realistic expectations around capital requirements and resources. And the third and the most important is transferable, leverageable skills. 90% of my clients, and I've worked with over 2000 people over the course of 20 years, 90% of my clients have bought businesses where I would have never picked it from a list, and I would have never seen myself in that business. But it takes those transferable skills they have to think about this. Whenever something goes and buys a franchise, they have to go from being really good at what they were doing in their corporate life to go to being not good and being a novice. That's something new, and they have to learn that that's going back that was on the value of a franchise. But that's where the transferable skills come in. Is where, if I know how to lead people in one category, I probably know how to lead people somewhere else. If I know how to manage processes and manage all those different components, it's having to learn to do it in a new arena.

Roger Pierce 18:49
2000 clients! You obviously know what people want.

Gary Prenevost 18:52
It's helping them define what they want, what they need, what are their most like, the must have criteria. The must not have criteria, and the would be nice to have criteria. I often use the analogy of dating, when somebody was dating and looking for their life partner. Do we not have a must have list, right? Well, the same should be in business like this is not there. This criteria is not there. It doesn't meet my needs. We look, actually look at 10 to 14 different criteria. Most people only think of three or four. How much money can I make? How many hours do I have to work? What type of customer do I want, and what type of stuff do I have, or what size of stuff? Well, they end up buying the business. They have a whole bunch of surprises because they haven't bought it through. So we take them through all those criteria. We build the look at the transferable skills and most important, what are the short term, mid term and long term, financial, lifestyle goals? The reality of most franchises, I would say over 90% of franchises, is year one is a sacrifice. Year people aren't going to buy the franchise. I'm instantly going to take money. It's you are learning the business. Three months, six months, nine months before it's break. Break even, and just because it hits break even doesn't mean you can replace your income the next month. So you have to understand what that journey is. So year one and two are the launch year and the build year. Most of my clients by the end of year two now they're hitting full stride. In other words, I describe full stride now I'm at the pace that I want to run for as many years as I have this business, that could be 710, years or longer. So I call that the main the stride phase is what you build your goals around. This is the quality of life I want. This is the income I want. This is how my life is going to be shaped. And then the third component, long term is, what is the exit strategy? How am I going to exit? Do I buy, build and sell for a premium value. Do I buy build and hire a general manager and go into the back office, type of an annuity, type of or do I buy build it and pass it on to my family and multi generational franchise? Not all franchises create that outcome. So you don't want to go and buy something that completely misses the opportunity for an outcome.

Roger Pierce 21:02
Wow, so much to unpack there. What I love about you do, though, is you really find the perfect fit, don't you? For the entrepreneur. You take a look at stuff they might not otherwise.

Gary Prenevost 21:13
No, I like to describe it as an optimal I don't believe perfection exists in nature. The optimal fit it comes back to would be nice to have, and the must have criteria and that they have maximized their skills. But an important component A lot of people don't think about, and I think it's a critical one, that you have to have fun, you have to enjoy running the business, because it's going to consume a lot of your life. It's going to compete with your family life. You can't just turn the business off at five o'clock. You're thinking about it. You and I both know this. It's like you are constantly thinking about it, working on it, anticipating and the family has to be supportive of that.

Roger Pierce 21:49
You touched upon so much there, but you also touched upon one of my favorite topics, that's the exit strategy. So many new entrepreneurs are excited about the beginning of the journey. I get it, but you're also introducing from the beginning, what's going to be the end, how you're going to get out of this business life. And is a franchise a better option for a startup entrepreneur, because it's got more value.

Gary Prenevost 22:10
It depends on the model, whether it's a franchise or otherwise exit value. I define 10 to 12 criteria of valuation. If we boil it down to the basics, the less the business is reliant on the owner, the more valuable it is building a team where the team becomes the face of the business. The type of customer Do you have a one time customer? Like when I had my construction franchise, we had one time customers the big projects, you can be very profitable with certain amount of projects, but you're always marketing, because you're have to find the next project. Some people like that. Other people say, I want a repeat customer. I want a long relationship with a customer that buys from me on an ongoing basis. So there's multiple layers of criteria that will contribute to that exit value.

Roger Pierce 22:55
Like a subscription based business is my dream.

Gary Prenevost 23:02
I think one thing that's really important for us to talk about is the sacrifice that go back to year one year two. Whether you're start from scratch, buy an existing business or buying a franchise, there is a sacrifice period with buying an existing business that's the lowest because you're walking into something existing. It's taking that business and making it yours in that conversion period. But starting from scratch or starting a new franchise, you are going what I said before, from being good at whether you've been doing up until that point, learning how to do it, you are sacrificing time to learn. You are sacrificing time to practice, what I call practice. It's actually running the business, but you're not doing it quite right. So you've got to grow, and the results are going to be sub optimal. You got to be okay with that, because that's the normal learning curve. So people think of growth when they buy a franchise. I'm going to knock the cover off the ball. I'm going to be successful right off the bat. It's actually there is that six months below the red line, the red line being break even, that you are not break even. You're contributing more money, you're contributing more time, you're having a lower quality of life because the business is taking so much out of you. This is where the family, and that's starting a franchise for starting from scratch. It's much longer than several, several months. So the family has to be ready for that and supportive. That's why we maintain the family should be involved in the search process, the research process.

Roger Pierce 24:25
No, you're right. Family support is key. That's one of the things we often talk about, paying your dues. Family support, being prepared for the emotional roller coaster ride that is self employment.

Gary Prenevost 24:35
How to square off with that, understanding the pain and intensity of sacrifice. Okay, this is longer than I thought. It's more money than I thought, but when I run the business, well, look what it can do for me. So you have to be able to build a big enough picture of how you're going to be successful and the business plan for that so that you can get through that sacrifice. Again, going back to one of the events. Of franchising is you've got that support mechanism of the franchisees, and another support mechanism most people don't think about when they're looking at franchising. I talk about this. My sixth driver in my book is the interdependence all the other franchisees. The vast majority of them, help each other in a good franchise system. They share best practices. Wow, look at what I did over here. You should try it in your market. Or, conversely, oh, man, that didn't work. Don't do that and save, save the cost of mistakes.

Roger Pierce 25:28
That's important, too. And you touched upon something earlier. What happens if I'm searching online and I engage with a franchisor directly, and I don't go through a franchise consultant like you? Actually,

Gary Prenevost 25:38
80% of people who buy franchises do exactly that. What I see is they there's a higher propensity to have more surprises and not have the as often experience as you want, because they are buying a business. I call it getting seduced by the opportunity. You do not want to get the emotion drives the business. You want logic and emotion to be aligned, and that comes through the guided research. A lot of people, when they go online, they look at one franchise, they go deep with that, and then decide to buy it. Or they say, ah, franchising, my right firm. Well, we get people to look at multiple options. Sometimes I might show four options, and none of them work. We go to a second round, and occasionally I'll go to a third round, when somebody is looking, it could take your two years. A lot of times it only takes three to four months. But it's coming back to the difference between going direct and by working with a franchise broker, is that introspection time before the search starts, what's out there and how does it fit? It's what, what do I need and want? And everything that I look at must meet my criteria. And if it doesn't meet it, I'm not going to invest time looking at.

Roger Pierce 26:53
So valuable. And people need to remember they're dealing with the seller directly in that situation, right? And it's a bit biased.

Gary Prenevost 27:01
And going back to the real estate metaphor, much like executive recruiting, I get paid by the franchisor in successful matches as the real estate agent gets paid by the vendor property. So it's a no cost service to the client. We're part of the franchisors marketing budget so that we engage people to bring them better quality candidates. So it's a very good equation.

Roger Pierce 27:23
So just to be clear on that, folks, franchise consultant gets paid by the seller, whoever that might end up being. Doesn't cost the buyer anything. They get paid by the seller, whatever you end up buying, if you buy something at all.

Gary Prenevost 27:36
And two thirds of my clients don't buy. So this, this is a learning journey, not a buying journey. Buying is something you do at the end, only when your needs and criteria have been satisfied.

Roger Pierce 27:45
That’s such an important thing to remember. Sometimes people don't find the right fit, and that's that's that happens as well. So watching the clock here a bit. Gary, I know I could talk to you all day, but I want to talk a bit about the book, The Unstoppable Franchisee, congratulations! I know you’re having a Heck of a year with this book, just for those who you haven't read it yet, and I think you can get it on Amazon. Is that right? Correct.

It's a comprehensive guide for franchisees, offering actionable strategies to drive exponential growth and sustainable success within the franchise model. The book draws the experiences of top performing franchisees and franchisors, providing readers with practical insights and the realities of running a franchise business. Now, I kind of pulled out three main drivers here. Maybe you can briefly expand on them. Number one, mastering the seven growth drivers. And then we've got enhancing the franchisee engagement. You know, the book talks about increasing engagement within the franchise system, ensuring that franchisees are not only motivated but aligned with the franchisors vision. I think that's important. And the third driver I've got here is improving profitability and exit value. You kind of talked about exit value already. Can you elaborate on some of these outcomes?

Gary Prenevost 28:55
Sure, when I when I wrote the book, I was a top performing franchisee, and I was wondering, why don't more franchisee do blank? It's not rocket science. These are just execution of the system with a little bit more refinement. And as my clients were researching businesses, I became to realize roger that every franchisor has this challenge. People get to a certain level of franchisee at franchisee performance, and they get stuck. And the corporate trainer in me is saying, opportunity, maybe there's a solution here. So I did a lot of research on what drives top performance, the top one to 4% and that's what the seven drivers were from. Was with the outcome of that research. The first one, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, driver number one is next level mindset. You have to have a mindset of opportunity and abundance, and that's going to tie to resilience. If you are the glass is half empty and you're always looking at the downside first, then it's going to be a tougher slog. It'll be more emotional draining. I'm not saying that rose colored glass, but you've got to, you've got to be a. Looking at constantly learning and constantly growing for the life of your business. And the next one is awareness. And I think awareness is such an important driver, because a lot of people get to a level of performance of their business, and they get to a comfort zone, they stop paying attention, and they plateau, and then they start declining because they're not learning more about what's happening, and they get complacent. Top franchisees are never complacent. They're looking at the comfort zone. They get to that same comfort zone after they have their sacrifice and their growth and then their plateau. Okay, what did I learn? What works? What didn't work? What are my next level goals, and what do I need to do to get to that next level? And they progress from there. So the that's how you drive greater profitability, that's how you drive greater scale, is by moving past the comfort zone. Now, a lot of my clients have bought businesses over the years. Gary, I want to protect this lifestyle. I'm later stage career. I don't want to work like crazy. But if I can get to maintaining and protecting a lifestyle, that's good. Well, that's one type of goal. I have other clients who, once I achieve a goal I set it when I and they want multiple units, multiple scales. So that's that's another element. So let's tie this to the interdependence driver. Six is great. Franchisees draw upon the knowledge, the intellectual capital, of the other people in the system, not just the franchisor. I think one of the most important cultures you've got franchisor to franchisee culture, what people are analyzing? When somebody buys a franchise, they create franchisee to customer culture. That's what they've got to build and maintain. But to me, the most important one is franchisee to franchisee, because that's where you get the best practices, and that the better you're at that the better the other two are.

Roger Pierce 31:44
“The Unstoppable Franchisee available on Amazon. There’s a passage here from one of my favorite chapters, the Pull of Entrepreneurship. Just want to read it before we close up. You've had a storied career. This is so this is so telling you write here, “35 years later, I still love the autonomy, control and responsibility, and especially the financial and lifestyle freedom of entrepreneurship and working for myself and fulfilling my entrepreneurial spirit.”

Gary Prenevost 32:11
I've had eight different businesses. I've failed at one, lost over a million dollars at some of the best lessons that I learned, and that enabled me to get far beyond that, much faster because of the lessons. I think what a lot of people don't do is they don't take time to learn the lessons from both the failures and the successes. And that's what great entrepreneurs do, is okay? Ouch, that hurt. How do I not do it again? Oh, that was awesome. How do I get more of that? And it's the lessons and constant applying, going back to that next level, growth mindset is constantly seeking the lessons. Roger,

Roger Pierce 32:47
I love it. That's perfect. I encourage people to read the book, but maybe you can give us a little closing advice here, for an aspiring entrepreneur who's curious about franchising, what's one piece of advice or a first step you'd recommend,

Gary Prenevost 33:01
I would guide them back to doing some introspection on the three primary resources. What? What is the that they bring to the table? What are their greatest skills? What do they love to do? And are really good at that? Geez, if I could do that in my new business, that would be awesome. And break it down, I like working with people. So way too big. What do you like doing with people? There's operations, there's finances, there's six to seven different components of running a business. What are you good at? What are you not good at? What is your time criteria like, how much are you willing to put in? Are you looking at full time or semi absentee? I've got a lot of clients looking at semi absentee. I want to build a business on the side. I've got great corporate horsepower. Maximize that, but I want to build something for to hedge against future uncertainty. So understand, am I full time or part time? And then make sure you punch within your weight class on the capital side of things, if, if you only have $100,000 and the businesses you like are 400 500,000 those are the best suited. Wait a few years, build the capital. But also, while you're building the capital, build the skills. Like, what are some additional skills, right?

Roger Pierce 34:09
Yeah, take the marathon, not the sprint. As I say, it's a long time coming this game of entrepreneurship. So good, excellent advice. Thank you so much for sharing all this and more. Unfortunately, that's that's all the time we have today. Hopefully we'll get you back again soon, but we appreciate what you share with me today and with our listeners. It means a lot to us. Thank you very much.

Gary Prenevost 34:29
Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to share some perspective.

Roger Pierce 34:32
Before you go, if someone wants to get in touch, what's the best way to reach you?

Gary Prenevost 34:36
www.garyprenevost.com, I've also got my video series, www.yourE2Ejourney.com. The letter E, the number two, the letter E. And that is a 12 video series that guides people through understanding this journey of transition to self employment.

Roger Pierce 34:54
I'm going to put both of those links in the show notes so it's easy for people to access those resources. And to our listeners, thank you for being here today, and be sure to return next time for more insights from the Unsure Entrepreneur.

Intro 35:07
That's it for this episode of The Unsure Entrepreneur Podcast. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss other candid conversations with small business owners. And be sure to check us out at Unsureentrepreneur.com.