Matt Frentheway With Learn2Franchise/Franchoice

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Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Matt Frentheway and he is with learn2franchise. Welcome, Matt.

Matt Frentheway: [00:00:43] Hey, thanks for having me on. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about learn the franchise. How are you serving folks?

Matt Frentheway: [00:00:51] Well, learning a franchise is what I do is I help people that are interested in owning the franchise business of their own. Figure out which franchise to own. So to put it simply, I’m a matchmaker between the person that wants to own a franchise and finding the right franchise that matches up to them. So they’re super happy with it.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:08] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved in the franchising world?

Matt Frentheway: [00:01:12] Well, I came into it a little bit backwards. I’ve been an independent business owner my whole life, and back in 2014 and 2015, I partnered with a friend of mine in a boxing fitness concept called Legends of Boxing. And we had one location and we scaled it, made it successful, and we wanted to grow, but we didn’t have the capital we needed to to open up our own corporate locations. So we looked into franchising and thought that would be a great idea to do. So we made an international franchise in about 2018 and and it took off from there. And then I sold out of my partnership in that and became a franchise consultant.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:47] So you got so you got to experience franchising from the franchisor side first.

Matt Frentheway: [00:01:53] Exactly. Yeah. A lot of people that are consultants go the other way. They’re the franchisees first and then they become consultants. Some of them are franchise owners sometimes, but it’s kind of rare.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:03] So what do you think is an advantage of kind of looking at this puzzle through the lens of a franchisor?

Matt Frentheway: [00:02:09] So I’ve seen that, you know, the the the good things and the bad things about being a franchise or the what you call the ugly side of being a franchisor. So if I mean, so I know what to look out with my candidates and helping them choose a good franchise and that I can look at the pitfalls that a franchise owner may be going through or may experience if they don’t take care of it for, for example, financing a franchise or be well financed or else when they start growing, they’re not able to support their franchisees. That’s just one thing, part of the puzzle that I’m able to look at for my candidates.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:44] So now when you made the switch from being a franchise or to helping people become franchisees, obviously you were kind of enamored with the franchising system, the idea of buying a franchise that was attractive to you and you learned that through actually having a franchise. What kind of made you make this kind of in some ways a drastic switch from, you know, kind of running this empire business of businesses to helping other people just kind of get into business?

Matt Frentheway: [00:03:17] Well, so I learned through the school of hard knocks as far as being a business owner and how was I able to go back to my twenties? If I were able to go back to my twenties and instead of starting my own independent businesses and trying to figure out the hard way in the wrong way to do things and scale my businesses, I would rather own a franchise because I learned that franchises are already scaled for people. It’s just kind of a turnkey business system, especially for those people that have never been in business for themselves before and want to be. It’s a good safety net and it’s a great track to success for them to accelerate their their level of success. I wish I would’ve had that when I was in my early, early years. And so when we made a franchise, I saw that I’m like, Wow, I wish that would have existed. I want to provide this for other people too, so that people can minimize the risk and opening businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:06] So if somebody is considering a franchise, what are kind of some of the things you have to educate them about? What are some of the maybe misconceptions they think it is? And and you have kind of the experience to tell them what the reality is.

Matt Frentheway: [00:04:22] Well, I think probably one misconception that people don’t know is sometimes they think the franchise is going to do everything for them. And that’s not the case. When a person owns a franchise, they are the business owner. It’s their business. The franchise is there to help them, give them their operations systems and give them support. But the franchise is not going to do it for them. And so that’s one misconception that people need to be aware of, is that they will be in business for themselves and then you need to put the effort in. The other thing is there’s a reason they’re buying a franchise and they need to follow the system of the franchise because they’ve proven to be successful. A lot of people forget about that part and they become mavericks, so to speak, and they kind of go off the reservation and try to do things on their own and their own way, which isn’t so successful. And if they just kept it simple and followed the franchise system, they’ll be successful faster.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:13] So now doing this show for the amount of time I’ve been doing this show and I’ve interviewed franchise owners and franchisees, inevitably the franchisor gets frustrated. The franchisee is kind of, like you said, kind of doing their own thing. And the franchisee is frustrated that. The franchisor doesn’t understand my market. It’s different. And, you know, we’re different than what you had when you started. How do you help them kind of make the right choice in terms of making sure it’s a fit kind of culturally that they each understand where, you know, each of their expertise lies and what each of them are really best at.

Matt Frentheway: [00:05:54] Yeah. So it’s kind of a learning curve of being a franchisee and a franchisor. So in the beginning the franchisees super excited and once you go in and then they usually follow the system pretty well with a franchise franchisor. But then after a while, especially after they start seeing a little success, they start to think, Well, what do I need the franchise owner for? What am I paying these royalties for is being successful. And so there’s some friction there sometimes. But what they don’t realize down the road is with the franchise, they got to realize that the franchise or they have a system of other franchises across the nation where there’s sort of a mastermind type of alliance. People can share best practices and ideas. And as you know, economies change, markets change. The franchise owner isn’t always going to know the answer to all the questions, but they do have the wherewithal and the and the mental pool to pull from to make changes and pivot, which benefits the franchisee. So to put it simply, I would just tell the franchisees to be patient, trust the system, and work together with the franchise or to come up with solutions instead of trying to fight them.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:01] And then I think you brought up a really great point. One of the strengths of a franchisor, especially as it grows and it learns more, is it’s it’s kind of accumulating all this market knowledge from other people doing the work in a variety of places and locales. So they’re getting kind of more and more IP when it comes to helping the future franchisee, whereas somebody says, Oh, I know enough, I can do this on their own. Maybe as an individual you can, but you don’t have kind of that brainpower that you refer to, that mastermind kind of level understanding of kind of macro things that you might be missing just doing your work in your own kind of location.

Matt Frentheway: [00:07:43] Right? Yeah, I like to call it kind of an experience where the franchisor has a whole wealth of experience, shares with all the franchisees in their system. And so with all that, so there’s got to be one or two experiences that other franchisees have had similar to what this particular franchisee might be having in their market that the franchise can draw from to help the franchisee the struggling.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:07] Now is that one of the things you’re looking for when you’re trying to match the right franchise with the right individual, that they do kind of share the knowledge and that they are kind of proactive when it comes to letting people know best practices or, hey, they tried this thing here and it worked great and I recommend you at least experiment with it.

Matt Frentheway: [00:08:29] Yeah, definitely. That’s one thing I have my candidates, you know, they they’ve got to investigate the franchise themselves, but I coach them along the way. That’s one thing. I have them make sure they ask the franchise owner as well as the other franchisees and the system. An example, be asked a question. Tell me a time you guys came into a market or came up with something that you’d never faced before. How did you handle it? The asking the other franchisees, they can do based on their answer. It can be good. It can be bad. If it’s good, of course, you probably want to be a part of that system. If it’s bad, then you might want to move on because it may not seem like the franchisor has the wherewithal to to have the foresight to change and pivot. And that’s a great question for franchise owners, too, is you can give them scenario questions like, for example, what if what if I’m in this area and you don’t have any other franchisees in this particular area? And I’m looking at a situation where I want to work together with you, how could you help me be successful? Those type of questions are really important to ask going into the investigation process.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:27] Now, are you finding the franchisee of today is different than maybe the franchisee when you started kind of working with them? Is it like our people looking for? At one time people were buying a franchise and it was one shop in their neighborhood and you know, that was good. Or maybe they’d buy a couple around and, you know, adjacent neighborhoods. But it seems like I’m seeing a lot of folks that are kind of empire builders that are buying complementary brands and they’re building up kind of regional kind of machines to serve a whole bunch of people. Is the franchisee look a little different today?

Matt Frentheway: [00:10:02] Yeah. As far as the Empire Builders go, I yes, I think so. I don’t know if this is a brand new what I’m going to tell you if it’s a brand new concept and franchising. But it seems something that’s catching on and it’s what I call going deep or some people calling going vertical. And so what empire building builders have done in the past is they’ll buy large geographical areas. You know, they’ll buy a whole area, five or six units, ten units, and then they’ll just grow one or two at a year until they have them all up and running. The next level that a lot of folks have been doing now is they’ll do that same thing, but then they will buy another brand that’s complementary to their first brand. So they already have a customer base from the first brand that they can feed into their second brand and get successful a lot faster. And it’s in the same geographical area. So there’s some economies of scale there. So I don’t think that’s a brand new concept, but I think it’s being used a lot more than what I’ve seen in the past.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:58] So is the profile of a potential franchisee like what do they look like to you and your area?

Matt Frentheway: [00:11:06] The ones that I work with the most are usually buyer and father, usually executives. They’ve worked in corporate America. They most of them still work in corporate America, and they’re looking for a few things. The first thing is a lot of them are very diversified into real estate. They have the retirement plans, which is in stocks and bonds usually, and they want a third leg of their studio or their stool, financial stool to be more solid. So they want to own a business. And so looking at a franchise to diversify their assets, another thing they’re looking for is they don’t want to be beholden to their job their whole life. They may really enjoy their life or their job, but they don’t want to be worried about what are they going to do for money if they get laid off. And so that’s another level of protection that a lot of folks are doing in starting a franchise so that they can fall back on that in case something happens to their job. And of course, you have the final person that just does not like their job at all and they want to transition out of the job and just be a full time business owner. And so they’ll start a franchise and do that up and running until it’s paying their bills and then they can leave their job. But by and far, I’m working with a lot of executives these days. It seems like that’s the way it’s been going.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:11] And then how do they become aware of you? Are you working with like their financial advisors and wealth advisors to explain this kind of three legged stool that you described?

Matt Frentheway: [00:12:21] I do have relationships with financial advisors, but I don’t get my referrals from them per se. I do a lot of networking on LinkedIn and it’s easy to find executives on LinkedIn. And so I reach out to them and and create relationships. And then of course, my referral network, people that I’ve helped in the past refer their friends and family to me. You know, those are the most effective ways I work. But really it’s just by networking, you know, locally and or nationally on LinkedIn and then local networking groups around where I live now.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:53] Are there certain trends in franchising that you’re seeing today that like there’s this is a good opportunity for certain kinds of franchises? You know, how they have some of these trends come and go, like some things, you know, frozen yogurt was super hot a while ago or cupcakes, you know, like all of a sudden you see like five of them popping up in a in a market. Or is there a certain trends right now you’re looking at?

Matt Frentheway: [00:13:17] Yeah. And I would say since since COVID, the large trend I see is in the service industry. And so what I determine is service industry. Is where the business owners take in their service to their customer, whether it’s a business or a consumer, rather than the business or consumer coming to one place of business like a bricks and mortar place. The reason services are taking off so, so fast now is, number one, they’re less expensive. They’re faster to start. But most of them are essential businesses so they can operate during the pandemic if that ever happens. And then a lot of them are also recession resistant because they’re needed. Service is not wanted services. So for example, something as simple as roofing, if your roof falls apart, you’ve got to get that fixed. You can’t wait until you have more money. And in fact, you usually have insurance to cover that. So it doesn’t really matter what the economy is doing. The roof’s got to get fixed, the insurance will cover it, which enables the franchisee to be successful. And there’s many other services that are needed too. But that seems to be the trend right now with the recession worries and what we have to provide.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:23] So what advice would you give that person, that executive that wants to explore, you know, having a franchise as part of their wealth plan moving forward? What is kind of the baby steps they should be taking today?

Matt Frentheway: [00:14:38] Well, if they’re interested in exploring franchising, I recommend that they work with a consultant, whether it’s me or somebody else that’s going to put them way far ahead of the curve, rather than trying to do that themselves. Most people don’t know all the franchises that exist out there. There’s three or 4000 in the nation right now, and then they don’t know which ones to even look at or which are good opportunities. So working with a consultant that’s already kind of preselected, prescreened a lot of franchisees and has relationships with them will put them ahead of the curve. The consultant can also direct them to a franchise that matches up to their personality and their skill set and their budget and things like that. Basically, it’s just going to save them a lot of time and headache. That’s probably the first thing I’d recommend is working with a consultant now.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:21] And that’s an important point that you bring up. You know, just because you like ice cream doesn’t mean an ice cream franchise is the right fit for you. I mean, you’ve got to look at what kind of lifestyle you want. You want to be home in the afternoon. You want to work on the weekends and the evenings. Like there are certain things that are much beyond, you know, you having a childhood dream of owning an ice cream store.

Matt Frentheway: [00:15:43] That’s right. That’s probably one of the most important things that a consultant is going to help. Somebody, a potential franchisee do is identify the characteristics of what their ideal business is going to look like. So a good consultant is going to take the brand out of the equation, not even focus on any name or brand or what it does or anything. They’re just going to focus on what a day in the life of the franchisee. What an ideal day in the life of the franchisee they want, like what hours of operations they wanted to run in. How many people do they want to work for them? All those other things you said, identify those characteristics and then that. And then in the consulting field, go out and pick the franchises that match up to that candidate’s characteristics. So it resonates with them and it’s a good match.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:23] Yeah. And something that I think a lot of people don’t realize going in the thing that they think is the the one they should pick is rarely the one they end up with.

Matt Frentheway: [00:16:34] That’s true. So, you know, I get a lot probably the biggest question I get these days is, hey, do you work with Chick fil A? And that’s understandable. Chick fil A, super successful. And I asked them, well, what do you like about Chick fil A? And they like well, and they say it’s just so busy there. There’s always a line going out the door and around the drive thru for business. And so I like to point out to them that maybe it’s not Chick fil A. They want they just want a business that’s super popular and needed and busy. That’s the character is that they want something that they want to have a service or a business where people want to do business with it. Like Chick fil A is not necessarily Chick fil A they want.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:11] Yeah. And that’s an important distinction. And that’s why it’s important to work with a consultant like you to help them kind of ask and answer those tough questions.

Matt Frentheway: [00:17:19] That’s right. Yeah. You could ask them a lot of questions they never considered before. You know, one question I asked folks that they haven’t really considered kind of goes along the lines of begin with the end in mind. And the question is, what is your what’s your exit plan for your franchise? Do you have one right now, even if they don’t own one yet, like five, six years down the road? Or is it something you’re going to want to sell? You want to keep it and hand out your children? Do you want to open more units? That’s just one simple question a lot of people haven’t thought of before because that but whatever their answer is, is going to determine what kind of franchise they should give into as well to match up to that plan.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:53] Yeah, this isn’t like buying a candy bar when you’re leaving the grocery store. This is a big decision that you need a professional advisor to help you kind of walk through scenarios.

Matt Frentheway: [00:18:02] Right? Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:04] So, Matt, if somebody wants to learn more, what is the website?

Matt Frentheway: [00:18:09] My website is learn to franchise two is the number two. So learn the number two franchise dot com. If people want my free e-book, it’s the top industry’s top franchise industries in the nation today. It’s a great book that will explain all the industries that are on fire as far as selling right now. They can go to learn to franchise Booking.com and get a free copy of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:36] Good stuff. Well, Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Matt Frentheway: [00:18:42] Thanks. I appreciate you having me on the show, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:44] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.