How a Competitive Mindset Can Transform Your Franchise Journey

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Greater Perimeter. It’s time for Greater Perimeter Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Ramzi Daklouche: I’m your host, Ramzi Daklouche, where we connect with entrepreneurs, leaders and changemakers who are building great businesses and making real impact in the market. This is brought to you by the our business Sails of Atlanta, your trusted partner for buying, selling and valuing businesses with clarity and confidence. Learn more at w-w-w dot com or call us at (678) 470-8675. Today’s guest has lived the franchising journey from the ground up. He’s built, scaled, led and now mentors others to do the same. From running top performing locations to serving as CEO of a national brand and now shaping the future of franchise ownership through sweat House and Franchise Authentic, he brings wisdom, clarity and unmatched experience to the table. If you’ve ever thought about owning a business, getting into franchising or mentoring the next wave of entrepreneurs, this conversation is for you. Please welcome my guest today, Ron Taylor. Ron, how are you today? It’s been a while.

Ron Taylor: I couldn’t be any better, so thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Ramzi Daklouche: Good good good. So, listen, I know you have, uh, you know, a wealth of knowledge and a whole lot of experience. So let’s go back from the beginning. What was your first real experience with business or leadership? Was there a definite moment early on that set you as this path?

Ron Taylor: I mean, I started working in my dad’s family restaurant when I was 13 years old. So, um, when you are from a small family in southern West Virginia, if your family’s in business, you’re in business. That’s pretty much just the way it goes. So yeah, at at 13, I started washing dishes. Uh, then I ended up working at his catering business, and by 18 I was kind of overseeing the operations of the catering business. Then he opened a restaurant and I ended up working there. So, uh, I guess basically say from the from the very first time I had a job, you know, I knew what entrepreneurship looked like. I knew how difficult it was, but I knew how rewarding it was at the same time.

Ramzi Daklouche: That’s amazing. And. And when did you become your own entrepreneur?

Ron Taylor: Uh, well, I got my first experience with franchising when I went to work for Little General, which is about a fifth. It was at the time it was a 50 store convenience store chain, and we had branded food service concepts inside of our convenience stores subway, Taco Bell, Steak Escape, Godfather’s Pizza, and Baskin-Robbins. So I got to train in all of those concepts, which was fascinating. It was my first experience with franchising. Uh, actually, one of the highlights of my life was, uh, getting to meet Fred DeLuca, the founder of subway. Right. I mean, that’s like a baseball kid getting to meet Mickey Mantle. I mean, that’s great. The guy’s unbelievable. Uh, so I got to meet him, and. And then I took a little hiatus from food service and franchising. You know, had to raise a family. And then in 2006, my wife and I decided, you know, we wanted to take greater control of our financial future, and we wanted to open our own business. And that’s when we started looking into franchising. And we settled on Edible Arrangements, and we started our very first location November 30th, 2006.

Ramzi Daklouche: That’s amazing. You know, you talked about before and it’s actually published how important winning was to you from a very early age. How did that competitive mindset influence your early decisions? Um.

Ron Taylor: Yeah. I hate to lose. I hate to lose more than I like to win. Right. And there’s a difference. I think it was Billy Beane that kind of coined that phrase. But, um, I just always wanted to be competitive. I always liked the thought of Out of competition. Uh, and that’s kind of what I really drew me to. Franchising, I think, was I was going to get a basically a, a set of rules and kind of a playground to play within, like they had defined parameters. All I had to do was outwork everybody else, right? It’s, uh, it’s like that line from Days of Thunder. He was like, I don’t have to beat other cars. I just have to beat other drivers. Right. Because the stock car is a stock car. So I was like, yeah, let’s do that. I was like, ah, I you know, I feel like I can beat other drivers if I don’t have to compete with better cars.

Ramzi Daklouche: Well, yeah, that’s probably the beginning. But how did your journey evolve? Owner leader and or mentor? How has your definition of success shifted?

Ron Taylor: Yeah, I mean, first it was just trying to understand the day to day operations of the business, right. Like, so, uh, you know, I was I was inedible every single day making the baskets when we first got started and understanding what that looked like. But then you start to realize, like, if you’re really going to scale and you’re going to grow, then you have to start to build teams and put people in place so that you can start to grow your enterprise. And we grew relatively quickly with edible. We opened our second store, uh, just a little over a year after we opened our first store. Um, and, uh, the first store opened to a rousing success, and the second store did not. I mean, the second store really struggled right out of the gate. And I learned a valuable lesson that if you put the wrong person in charge, you’re going to be in trouble. So I literally had to to burn that staff down to the ground and start completely over, uh, after just about 4 or 5 months and put in a whole new staff, uh, start from the ground up.

Ron Taylor: Uh, and then as you wanted to grow, you got to get comfortable with, like, perfect is the enemy of good. I think a lot of us that are in business that are competitive, we want everything to be perfect. But as you grow and expand, you got to release some of that control and understand that you can’t micromanage every single process or every single guest. You have to really trust your people, put the right people in place. You’re going to win some. You’re going to lose some. Uh, and then eventually we grew that enterprise to nine stores in three different states. And we really did that because we had fantastic people that worked for us and made us look, you know, a lot smarter than we actually are. I mean, uh, when I, when I ended up leaving Exiting Edible in 2023, in my flagship store, the busiest store in the system for five years in a row, I had four employees there that had more than 12 years of tenure in that particular location.

Ramzi Daklouche: That’s incredible, because when you talk about winning the way you do and for competitive people that like to win and, and kind of it’s part of their, you know, makeup and DNA, typically it’s very individual. Right. But to switch that to become a team, team, uh, you know team game. Right. Team uh, it’s completely different, right? Just like any athlete that really thinks about themselves winning. And then they have to have a really good coach to kind of help them see, it’s not about you. It’s about the team. Uh, it’s the same thing. And the business is a bit different because you don’t have other coaches helping you with this. You really have to build it yourself. So you’ve been tried and true.

Ron Taylor: The older I get, uh, you know, I think as I started to mature both personally and professionally, you know, I got just as much joy out of others winning as I did me, if not even more so. Like I can tell you, probably the the best I’ve ever felt as an edible franchisee. And I did it for 18 years, right? I won franchise year. I was the top scorer in sales. I’m the only owner to ever do 2,000,000 in 1 calendar year. Like, the best moment I ever had was when my manager won manager of the year. That was.

Ramzi Daklouche: Incredible.

Ron Taylor: Because that was the first time they ever gave that award. And she had worked for me since the day I opened and before she came to work with me. Her name was Shakira. She had never had a job. She’d never worked anywhere, ever. She had four kids. She was amazing. She put her heart and soul into her business. And then for her to be recognized by the brand on stage. It was, it was. It was the best moment of my entire career.

Ramzi Daklouche: That’s incredible. Incredible. As we mature, it’s not about, you know me anymore. It’s about, you know us. And that’s incredible. You know what? You come from an entrepreneurial family. So franchising really is not natural. Actually, it’s not because, you know, you can build it yourself. So what attracts you to franchising as a model? What helps you scale your first venture or successfully? Um.

Ron Taylor: Know thyself right? Self-awareness is really what drew me to franchising. I mean, Ramsey, I’m a doer, right? I’m. I’m not creative. Like, I don’t really have a high level of creativity. You know, my daughter’s the artist in the family. She paints and sculpts and draws it. I. I paint by numbers. Right? Like, I want to follow direction. So I really understand. I have a really good understanding of who I am and who I am not. So franchising was it for me because it gave me the blueprint of what it was I needed to do and I needed to execute that blueprint. And I’ll tell you, I fought the system a little bit at first, right? I struggled because I thought maybe I was smarter than the system at the very beginning, talking about that evolution of maturity. Once I stopped that and trusted what I was supposed to be doing, everything got a lot easier. It just got a lot easier. It got a lot better. And from then on, I’ve become a thorough believer in franchising and and doing exactly what they need to do. Obviously, you’re putting local twists on it. You’re putting your own effort into it.

Ramzi Daklouche: Yeah, definitely.

Ron Taylor: Playing within those confines of what and the direction the brand gives you and executing that flawlessly, it’s going to lead to success. And I tell people all the time, I’m like, if you feel like you’re really creative and you’re entrepreneurial, franchising might not be. It might not be your way in life. You may want to do something else because you have to follow the plan.

Ramzi Daklouche: I agree with you 100%. Franchising is a great solution for a lot of people, and it’s a terrible solution for a lot of people, too, because if you’re creative and you want to come up with your own set of rules, it’s not franchise is not for you. For me, I mean, in my business today, I’ve been in merger acquisition work for over 20 years. I run companies, you know, family offices and all this stuff. And I could tell you that franchising is right for me. And even with doctor, I’m franchising because I like a set of rules. And then I do the plus one, which is what you talk about. Show me the game. I’ll do the plus one that makes me better than everybody else. And this is exactly how it works. So I think we have that in common. That’s incredible. You achieved impressive lifetime revenue, right? I mean, you’ve done a lot. And I saw your numbers. What were the top 2 or 3 decisions that perhaps I drove that kind of performance?

Ron Taylor: I, I think well, obviously getting started and getting into the brand at the right time. You know, I mean, unfortunately, as smart as we all think we are, you got to be in the right place at the right time, right? Like I landed, I landed on edible right at the right time. Like it was going, uh. But I think one thing that we did very well is we were aggressive with growth. Right? At first, we we built our own stores, and then there was, there was kind of a tipping point around 2012, 2013 where I wanted to accelerate the growth. So we got aggressive and we bought out other franchise owners. We ended up buying Morgantown, West Virginia. We bought two stores in Pittsburgh. And, um, I can tell you my accountant wasn’t wild about me purchasing those stores in Pittsburgh based on how they were performing. Uh, but my argument to him was, well, wait till you see what they do when I take over. Right? Like so there was a little bit of ego there, right? Like I still got an edge to me. I’m a, you know, I’m an entrepreneur. So we have a little we have a little bit of ego to it. Right? Yeah. We took over those stores and they were already doing well, but once we took them over, we were able to put gas on the fire on those stores.

Ron Taylor: And they just absolutely they crushed it. Now, I was servicing a lot of debt, like $20,000 a month in debt, like, so that that’s not easy, right? But, uh, as far as the cash flow perspective, they were good. So I think we stayed aggressive throughout the process, trusted the process. And when we took over stores, we implemented those particular processes and we saw them really take off. And then we started to diversify a little bit too. Right. We got into the simple Greek, uh, and we hedged our bets a little bit. So that restaurant was doing really well when edible actually went through kind of an economic ebb, right? I mean, we had like 12 consecutive years of growth at edible. So 2019 was a little bit rough, like sales dropped off a little bit. Not a surprise. Like I wasn’t shocked. I mean you have 12 straight years of growth. You go you go have a couple ups and downs after that. Um, but we had diversified into some other brands, which gave us the opportunity to kind of offset, you know, where that was going with brands that were kind of new in the marketplace. So, you know, we got lucky with some solid decision making. Um, but, you know, it was it was some skill, some luck, and, uh, it just kind of worked itself out.

Ramzi Daklouche: So in every system, any any franchise system or any system really any sport, any system, uh, there’s things that set people apart to make it more successful in operation. Excellent customer engagement. What sets you apart? And these two things. Because really, I mean, you know, whenever you do any business, retail, food, you know, edible, it’s all about the same when it comes to this operation. And there’s customer satisfaction that really drive the results besides the offering. But if you have good offering, bad service doesn’t matter. You have to have at least these first two to get the third one right. What sets you apart?

Ron Taylor: Service. Uh, it’s always been service for us, right? Like my dad told me a long, long time ago, he was like, you can have very, like, average food. It can’t be bad, right? Like, because he ran restaurants, he was like you. But if you have exemplary service and your food is just okay, he’s like, your restaurant will always be all right. So our focus was always service and servicing every guest, right. Like one thing a lot of people don’t know about edible or they may know is just how crucial the holidays are. Like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas, things of that nature. We never shut off. We never said no. Never. Like never. So. And we would do a thousand orders on Valentine’s Day. And why would we do that? Well, because every not only was it important to generate revenue for that day, but those thousand people that were receiving those orders, those are my next thousand potential customers if I execute the right way. So, you know, I get a kick out of listening to Shark Tank and people talk about customer acquisition costs. Whereas if we executed with a high level of service at edible, we actually had new customers being acquired while we were actually making money. So we almost had a negative customer acquisition cost if we could go about it the right way. So we were I like Ramsey for 18 years. I touched every guest complaint. I talked to every single person that complained. Well, luckily we didn’t have very many, right? Because I had great staff, but but nonetheless, like they got a call from the owner, either me or my wife, every single human being that had a complaint, we took care of it personally.

Ramzi Daklouche: Everyone that speaks to your success with that branch, it’s incredible. So and after this, you kind of switch from the owner operator mentality to CEO, which is a completely different, uh, you know, to see, to sit in. Right. And for national brand, what was the biggest mindset shift you take in that role?

Ron Taylor: The biggest shift in that. Yeah. Um, understanding that you you know, it. I was talking to everybody that was just me, right? Like they they were really looking out for their individual location, and I had a responsibility to the brand overall. And that was tough, right? Because I really empathized with those individual franchisees. I felt their pain. I got it right. But at the end of the day, you know, I had to prioritize the brand and making sure that the brand was in the right position to move forward. So, you know, I turned down some people for expansion. I turned down some people, uh, for new franchisees and, and made some very difficult.

Ramzi Daklouche: Decisions sitting on the other side of that chair. Yeah.

Ron Taylor: I mean, and I thought it wasn’t going to be that hard. Right. Because I’m armchair quarterback and evaluating guys like you and Tarik whatnot. Right. And being like ah like you know they don’t know what they’re doing. And then I sat in that seat and I’m like, all right this is a little bit harder than I thought it was.

Ramzi Daklouche: Maybe it was a punishment.

Ron Taylor: But it was humbling. I mean, it was humbling, but but it was great. Right. And I, I think it was it was it didn’t last as long as I would like it to, simply because of the pandemic and extraneous factors and things of that nature. But it was an invaluable experience to help me understand, and it really helps me when I’m talking to students or other people who are interested in franchising to be like, hey, let me help you understand why the brand’s doing what they do or what their perspective is and what their responsibilities are. Uh, you know, it gives you because life’s all about perspective, right? Like, yeah, if you can put yourself in the other guy’s shoes, you’re going to be a lot better off. So, uh, wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was a great experience.

Ramzi Daklouche: So what? Did you know it was the right time. How did you navigate transition from CEO back to, you know, franchisee?

Ron Taylor: Well, Simple Greek was really in a situation where as as the the CEO, I said what is in the best interest of my franchisees. Like what what do they need. And we couldn’t give it to them. Right. Like it was just the infrastructure was not there. The stores were all spread out. We were coming out of Covid. So we we said, let’s go find a brand that we can align them with that can really provide the infrastructure that these franchise needs in order to be successful. So we align the brand with Wildworks, and we sold the brand to Kellie Roddy and those guys over at Wildworks, and I still talk to John Garman and Kellie and some of those guys today. They’re great guys. They have a they have a great growing brand. They have a lot of good health food brands. Simple Greek was a great fit for them. So it was really just, you know, I had my dad always told me again, going back to all these lessons I learned from my dad, you do the right thing at the right time for the right reason. And I listen. I sold myself out of a pretty good job and a job that I really loved. But you got to do the right thing because absolutely, I can empathize with how they are.

Ramzi Daklouche: You got to make sure that people are supported as well. So that’s a that was probably the right decision for you. Okay. And then you got into sweat House and the opportunity to present today’s wellness and lifestyle market. What excited you about sweat House because that’s another franchise.

Ron Taylor: No not I mean, not another franchise. So, you know, as I’m, as I’m winding down edible and everything, I’m, I’m consuming all things franchise related, right. Like content and and podcasts and everything like that. And I heard Jamie Weeks, the founder of sweat House, who is right there in Atlanta with you, right at the corporate office, is right there in Atlanta. And just listen to him not only about the concept and what it was, but the way that they were going to do franchising differently. I mean, we have a pretty robust pipeline of stores that are set to open. We only have like 49 franchisees. Wow, I love that. Like, I, I have multiple licenses. I have, you know, the potential to get a roofer for additional licenses. So it’s kind of like, hey, I’m going to be very selective on who I choose to be a franchisee. And then I’m going to dance with who brung me, right? Like if if we’re going to expand, we’re going to give our internal franchisees the opportunity to buy those licenses first before we just go out and get 3 or 400 franchisees? Yeah, probably could have done. Um, and then I love the health and wellness space. I love the fact that it’s both physical and mental wellness. Uh, I think it’s the the direction that people are going. I think recovery is critical in everybody’s overall wellness and fitness journey. So it just really checked almost all the boxes for me.

Ramzi Daklouche: And, um, what is your vision for your locations? I know you have. I think you told me before you had 11 locations that you gotta develop. And what does expansion look like in the next couple of years?

Ron Taylor: Aggressive. I mean, we’re we’re we have two stores under construction right now. I have, uh, employees out on three additional locations. Uh, we even. Yeah, we even bought the, uh, the Madison, Wisconsin market because you can probably see the helmet up here in the corner. My daughter is a is a sophomore at UW Madison. So we’re like, well, if we’re making the eight hour trip up there, we might as well have, you know, something to do other than just take our daughter out to dinner. Uh, so I think we’re going to try to get very aggressive with it. Uh, you know, obviously funding is is a little more challenging given interest rates and things of that nature. But we’re going to navigate all that. We’ve got we’ve got a great team of owners here. Um, we’re starting to build out the infrastructure, uh, and making sure we have the foundations of great people to work these locations. But we opened the first one right here in our hometown because we wanted to make sure a, we knew how to build it, and b, we knew how to run it. We wanted to be spot on with all that before we started venturing out into additional locations that were a little bit farther away from home.

Ramzi Daklouche: So how did the market, your hometown, how did they respond to, uh, sweat house concept?

Ron Taylor: Uh, uh, you know, really well. Uh, you know, we added 56 members this month, and we’ve only been in operations for three months. Um, so yeah, I’ve been incredibly like the this community. Ramsey has always been so good to me from a business perspective, right? I mean, they helped me build I mean, I had the busiest Edible Arrangements five years in a row in Youngstown, Ohio, like most people would. If you gave them a thousand guesses, they’d never get it right, right. They would never guess that. Um, they’ve embraced me with other business concepts. They’ve done the same thing here. Uh, we have, you know, we get coverage from local television stations, they come out, they do, you know, on the spot interview types of things to let people know about it. And, uh, the response from the community has been really great. And the anecdotal feedback we’re getting from people like, I’m in, I’m in BNI, which is like a business networking group. Right. And we just have. Yeah. Perfect, right. At least half of the members are being, uh, are members of sweat House.

Ramzi Daklouche: Oh that’s incredible.

Ron Taylor: And I get so much great anecdotal feedback. Like, Ron, I have more energy in the afternoon. Ron. I’m sleeping better. Ron. I’m. I just feel better overall. Like, it’s it’s so satisfying with where I’m at in my career to be able to do something where it’s actually helping people from a physical and mental wellbeing standpoint, I couldn’t be any more blessed. Really?

Ramzi Daklouche: That’s incredible. I’m a big advocate of work, you know, work out as often as you can, find a way to work out and do it. I’m a powerlifter and I compete in powerlifting, and I, I encourage people to continue to do whatever they can to stay healthy, especially when we get to our age group. So it’s very.

Ron Taylor: On to it, right? Because you got to keep those legs strong, right? That’s the number one thing is to be able to keep your muscles strong. So you’re on track.

Ramzi Daklouche: Yes. Yeah. All right. Let’s switch a little bit. Talk about franchise authentic. That’s your latest venture I believe. What inspired the creation of this platform and what problems does it solve for future franchisees?

Ron Taylor: Well I spent so many years doing it right. And some of the things that I love doing, like I speak at different events, like I’ve spoken at Kent State University, YSU, West Virginia, which is my alma mater, which is, you know, been great. Um, and people are so under-informed about franchising, right. And then once you start to tell them, like all the opportunities, like, hey, it’s not just McDonald’s, right? Like, there’s more to it than that. They start really getting interested, right? But they don’t even know where to begin. So again, I’m kind of at that, you know, grateful point in my career where I’m not at a point where I can retire and I don’t have to earn, but can I earn and can I help at the same time? Can I can I check both those boxes if.

Ramzi Daklouche: It’s very important?

Ron Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what Franchise Authentic is all about. I’m going to be working with Ifg as a franchise consultant in their particular network, which gives me access to 600 brands. Uh, if you want to potentially franchise your business, if you have an existing business and you want to make it a franchise, I’ve already talked to a couple potential people that are on that track, uh, a chicken business and a and a churro business, uh, that are thinking about, hey, how do I franchise? And they need help creating the platforms, creating the infrastructure, creating the operations manual, things of that nature so we can do that. Um, so, you know, we really want to help. You need fractional C-suite types of things, like do you need a, you know, you can’t afford a chief operations officer, but you sure could use the advice. Like we can fill those gaps as well. Um, I’m really blessed to be working with a great partner. His, uh, his name is Giovanni Sarnoff. You might be familiar with him. He was on CNBC’s The Profit. He was the owner of Bentley’s Pet Stores. He just has a wealth of experience in, like, the retail space and growth. Development, uh, how you ascertain funds like he, he fills a lot of the gaps that I don’t understand in these types of things, or I’m not as adept in, uh, so we’re going to be working together to do this and hopefully help people. Like if if a franchise business is right for them, help them find it. If franchising their business is right for them, help them find it. If they need help with their existing business, see if we can help you write that shift and or throw gas on the fire, whichever one it may be. Uh, so. So we’re just getting started, but so far, I’m. I’m enjoying the journey. It’s it’s great so far.

Ramzi Daklouche: That’s incredible. I mean, I know you just started. Uh, do you have any success stories or breakthrough moment from someone that you’ve helped recently?

Ron Taylor: Um, I, I have, I mean, I’ve had a couple people like that, oddly enough, worked in the edible system. Uh, you know, like, for instance, we had a a young lady who, uh, this was a little while ago, but. But she called us up, and she was from Minnesota. Eugene. And Bond was her name. And she said, uh, I need to do better on the holidays. I can I come down when you guys are planning your holiday activity and just see what you plan? We’re like, sure. She flies in, we take her around to the stores and kind of go through all of our planning. And it was great because, uh, she’s she’s from Europe and, and we said, look, you can adjust this if you need to. She said, I’m not going to adjust anything. I’m doing exactly what you’re doing. Yeah. We’re like, okay, great. And she literally she tripled the amount of in store orders she was able to take on Valentine’s Day. That’s on the day of. So and think about it, she’s I mean she’s saving fees and all types of the credit card processing, all those types of things like, I mean, it was a huge boost to her so that that was a great win. That was probably one of my favorites thus far. Uh, and then, you know, I’ve had a couple other people, uh, you know, that that have known me for years, that know that now that I’m going to be having access to multiple franchise brands, they’ve already started to call me up and say, you know, I’m tired of working for somebody else. I want to take greater control of my destiny. And, uh, well.

Ramzi Daklouche: We get that in common. I get a lot of that. A lot of people want to get out of, uh, working in a system and waiting for that 3% increase at the year end, I call it. And, uh, write the review and say, I’m gonna own my own future, and I’m ready to kind of move next step. Stuff. And by the way, they come at different levels, different steps in their life, right? Some of them young, some of them right in their 40s, is really kind of sweet spot for some people after they, you know, accumulate some money and they have some, some collateral, they move into, uh, entrepreneurship, which is fantastic. Okay. Well, so.

Ron Taylor: Funny, I was at I was at WVU the other day and I had a group of HR students and like, I’m like, how many of you guys think your job will be replaced by AI in the next ten years? And like they all raised their hand. I’m like, better have a backup plan.

Ramzi Daklouche: So I’m better. No, I think I encourage it for sure. I built the company based on AI. It’s keeping me really, really busy. So I understand exactly what exactly you have to throw it. You become a mentor to many new franchisees. What’s the number one piece of advice you give someone considering ownership?

Ron Taylor: Well, we have an acronym here at, uh, Franchise Authentic called focused F.o.c.u.s and the F, It’s like we talked about a little earlier. It stands for Franchise first. Like trust the brand. Like be a franchisee. It don’t build the better mousetrap. Like if you want to do all that just don’t be a franchisee. Go do it on your own. Right. Like because I think a lot of times it takes franchisees kind of this period to get into it before they start to trust the brand. And I’m like, why don’t you cut that all out and shortcut yourself to success by just trusting the brand right from the giddy up. Right. So, um, like I said, every letter kind of stands for something different, but I, I kind of harp on that one first because I think it’s the most important. And, uh, and then also the S in focus stands for scared. Uh, I think fear is healthy as long as you understand what the fear is and you can manage it effectively. Because I go back to the old NASCAR saying that that Jeff Gordon used to say he was like, If I’m not scared, I’m not driving fast enough. So if you’re gonna run on the ragged edge, if you’re going to put your life savings or your 401 K or Rob’s plan, whatever it is, you better be a little bit afraid, right? And that fear needs to motivate you to get out there and bust your hump every single day. Or you can, you know, if you’re laissez faire about it, you don’t understand how important this is. So, you know, our job as consultants is to help them manage that fear in the upfront process and look at it objectively. But I think a little bit of that fear always has to be there and be objective. So I mean, those are kind of two of the key things that I hone in on when I’m first talking to franchisees.

Ramzi Daklouche: Yeah. And another one, I it’s funny because I know the podcast today with the, with the coach, um, mindset coach and, you know, getting out of your own way. Right? I mean, making sure you clear your head and get somebody that can help you, uh, stop the fear sometimes. Right. Just move forward. Keep moving forward. Because fear in owning your own business is very healthy. It keeps you motivated. And you wake up in the morning because you got something to do, and you don’t have a paycheck every two weeks. But also make sure you don’t limit yourself. Become limitless at times. Very very important. Very good for someone listening now saying I want to be my own boss. What is regardless, franchise or not? What’s the smartest first step they should take?

Ron Taylor: Well, I think to first of all, they have to do some really self-introspection and examination, right. Like, I think a big reason that I’ve been able to be successful is I understand what I’m good at, and I understand what I’m not good at. I do what I’m good at, and I hire for what I’m not good at. I mean, it’s pretty simple, right? Like, so people that don’t have a good level of self-awareness, they will struggle in business, in my opinion, forever. Because if you’re like, I’m great at marketing, you’re probably not. Like, there there aren’t a lot of people that are really good at it. The algorithms for social are incredibly complicated. Google search is incredibly Complicated. You’ll probably need to hire for that. Like. Right. Like, I mean, I’ve seen enough franchisees in their local social media pages to know that most people aren’t very good at it. So I know I’m not good at it. Like, I don’t even pretend. Right? So but whatever you do, whatever you’re good at, you know, kind of go that direction. And, you know, I understand passion to a certain degree, but if you’re really good at something and then you start doing it and you do it and you’re finding success with it, your passion will grow really fast, like your passion will kind of grow into it. So, you know, I wouldn’t get too excited. You might be passionate for horses. You probably don’t want to do a franchise associated with horses, right? So but yeah, on something.

Ramzi Daklouche: Yeah. And passion by itself makes you technician makes you good at what you do. Right? I mean, I may have passion for, you know, being a beautician, I may be good at doing hair, but that’s it doesn’t mean I know how to run a business. So you gotta hire people that can help you around you to grow your business. Right? And I’ve seen that a lot, especially in Non-franchise, which I kind of specialize. I mean, we have franchises, but we have a lot more non-franchise businesses for sale and they end up. I mean, some of them are very talented, something I cannot do, but they’re missing all the rest of them. And some of some of them are smart enough to say, I need help. And some of them are just kind of run day by day. Uh, the financials are all over the place because they just never take the time to kind of make sure they have people around them and spend the money they need to to get the people around them to help them out. So. Yeah.

Ron Taylor: Correct.

Ramzi Daklouche: Listen, you talked a lot about, you know, starting new businesses, franchises and all this stuff. But one thing that is true for all of this is you gotta market, right? And I’m not talking about SEO, marketing, all this stuff, but you are part of a group, you know, a closed group like Nai or Chamber or. What are those terms for every, uh, business or operation, there’s a group. Why can I advice you have for new businesses? Because a lot of people come from corporate but are in, you know, coming to these businesses and believe it just happens. Like we open the door and people come in, right. And I’ve been through this before. I opened the business. I ran a big box company. I ran companies once. I have a grand opening. People are gonna come in and have big, you know, big group of people. And no one showed up that day, right? Because the wrong business. They didn’t understand it. So what’s your how how do people connect? Not working. Let’s talk a little bit about referrals. I mean let’s talk a little bit about that because I think it’s a missing key in small business. Right. So tell me what what are your thoughts on that one.

Ron Taylor: Well, I mean, first of all, like when you’re in business, you have to be comfortable with the fact that you’re always at work, right? Like 24 over seven. So I always have merch on like my, my apparel says sweat House. It says franchise authentic. It says nothing bundt cake, whatever it may be, I’m always at work and I’m doing everything that I can throughout the course of the day to facilitate those relationships. So it’s B’nai every week. You know, those meetings start at 730 in the morning sharp, and you have to be there. It’s I do agree that we I.

Ramzi Daklouche: Do three week.

Ron Taylor: Perfect. Yeah. Right. You got it. I mean, you gotta show up. You gotta show up. 90% of success is showing up. So you gotta go to chamber events. You got to go to their power lunches. I show up at a ton of other people’s, like, ribbon cutting ceremonies. Right? Because the chamber list stuff goes right on their website. So if it’s anything relevant to me or anything in proximity to me and I don’t have something else pressing, I’m going to I’m going to the ribbon cutting ceremony, because who’s going to be there? You never know. It might be a banker who can get you financed. It might be, you know, somebody who is looking to do a deal with maybe get into franchising because they want to diversify. Maybe it’s somebody who’s looking for, uh, something for their staff in the realm of health and wellness. You got to get yourself in those vortexes, right? So because when you get caught in that cyclone, it’s going to spin you in the right direction. So I agree with you. I think there’s a lot of people that are just like, ah, you know, I’m gonna, you know, hang a shingle and people are going to show up. And don’t get me wrong, if you open a Dunkin Donuts, they’re going to come. It’s a Dunkin Donuts McDonald’s. But how.

Ramzi Daklouche: Many.

Ron Taylor: How many of those are there? Right.

Ramzi Daklouche: Like there’s not a whole lot of brands that can like if you open Chick-Fil-A, people will come to you. They want to meet you, right? Mcdonald’s, Dunkin. That’s fine. Yeah. I tell you a story that happened to me today, right? So I had a previous podcast today in person in my studio, and I met this young lady who’s a coach, and we were talking about and she mentioned the group I didn’t even know existed. But it’s like a perfect group that I need to be a part of. Right? Already sent me the information. Already did it. Last week. I go to 2 or 3 BNI because I’m part of BNI, the oldest DNA in the in the East Coast Buckhead DNA in Georgia. Yeah. So but I went I go to 23A week because there’s not a whole lot of people that do what I do in BMI. So I think, you know, yeah, last week I went to one, I got a referral from them because they may not think of me all the time, but when I’m thinking, oh, I know somebody wants to sell, I want somebody else to buy. So there’s nothing better than working going out there. This show that I’m doing right now helps me even with that. So anything you could do to be in front of people, regardless of who they are, sometimes you just never know where they’ll come from as long as you open yourself. And I use the word overused, the word curious. Be curious about people. Don’t talk about yourself. Be curious about people. And you’ll you’ll see what comes out of it. So. Yeah. Very cool. Um, what’s next for you and your team in the next 12 months? I don’t like to talk 3 or 4 years. I know a lot of people talk strategy. I like 12 months. Let’s see. What are we doing now? Any new marketing ideas or partnerships on the horizon?

Ron Taylor: Uh, well, I mean, we’re going to be getting off the ground with nothing. Bundt cake. We have a six store deal up in, um, the, uh, Massachusetts and New Hampshire market. So, uh, it’s interesting. Three former edible franchisees will be kind of partnering up to to get that off the ground up there. So we’re really looking forward to that. Kyle Dumont is going to be the operating partner in that market. And he’s I mean, he’s about the most capable 28 year old I’ve ever met in my entire life. He’s just absolutely fantastic. So we’re super excited about that. Um, and then with franchise authentic, you know, like I said, we’ve got a couple early stage meetings with some emerging brands that may look to really get into franchising, and we’d really like to help them out with that. And then, you know, find some people that that might end up wanting to navigate franchise opportunity. We called it authentic because I feel like we bring such a real world approach to everything, like I’m going to be very discerning about what brands I put together my potential client base with, right? Like, there are going to be certain things in the FTD, like if they’re in there, I’m not going to be aligning you with those particular brands.

Ron Taylor: Like I’m going to be very particular and very specific things that are, uh, you know, more franchisee leaning, uh, to make sure it’s a favorable situation for them. Because, you know, I’ve been down the road, I’ve been part of a lot of ftd’s I’ve been part of a lot of franchising, uh, franchise agreements. Uh, so, you know, I’m really going to try to help people understand that and just bring a real world, no nonsense approach to helping people figure out could they explore a new career path and just give it to them straight? And I think, you know, sometimes that you’re just going to have to look people in the eye, be like, hey, man, I don’t I don’t really think this is for you. Uh, but I think for most people, if they’re genuinely interested in being a franchisee and following franchisee guidelines or franchise guidelines. There’s a franchise out there for them, like whether they have a ton of capital, whether they have a little bit of capital, uh, you got to have effort. I’m not a fan of, you know, this semi absentee thought process behind franchising. I think that’s I think that’s crap.

Ramzi Daklouche: Anything any, any, uh, absentee or absentee is worth. You’re not worth the the not.

Ron Taylor: Not at the beginning. Right. Like, I mean like, that’s like, you know, when you when you have a kid, I always just tell them the, the analogy is like, it’s like a child, right? When it’s born, you got to do everything for it. And as it gets older, you can pay less and less attention to it. And then by the time they’re 16, they’re driving their car. All they want you to do is give them some money. So, uh, I mean, I got to that point now, right where, like, I could have probably walked into some locations and they’d have been like, how can I help you today? They would have thought I was a guest. Right? But that was not.

Ramzi Daklouche: To get there.

Ron Taylor: Though. You’re right. That was not your one or 2 or 3 like that. That that takes some time, right? Yeah. So, um.

Ramzi Daklouche: You know, good point. Also very important to kind of when people think of franchises, they need to stop thinking about only restaurants. Everything is different now.

Ron Taylor: Right? Yeah. Home services is booming. I mean, there are so many great home services brands out there. Uh, boring businesses and franchising are do phenomenally well. They do phenomenally well.

Ramzi Daklouche: So boring business and business sales do run our home. Home, uh, home business home businesses. Uh, but home services is, uh, is commanding high multiples. High multiples.

Ron Taylor: Right. But but you have to show up, right? Like, you have to be a sales person. Like you, you have to knock on doors. You have to grind it out. You have to be there. You have to be service oriented. So it takes the right person. But you know, we we all we know this, right? We have less and less free time. I don’t want to pressure wash my own house. Like I don’t want to pressure wash my driveway. Like I don’t want to cut my own grass. Like I don’t want to do any of that stuff on the little free time that I have. I want to do something enjoyable. So I just assumed wrong.

Ramzi Daklouche: That.

Ron Taylor: I’d pay somebody to do that.

Ramzi Daklouche: Absolutely, I found out, which I still think about as crazy concept, but it’s working. There is a franchise for dog poop picking up, picking up.

Ron Taylor: There’s multiple ones and they do great.

Ramzi Daklouche: Um, so.

Ron Taylor: But. Right.

Ramzi Daklouche: You know, nothing shocks me anymore as this age. I’ve seen it all. I’m sure you have to listen. You have a lot. You. I mean, your hands in a lot of different things from sweat House franchise. Authentic to, you know, nothing but, uh, bundt cake. Uh, I don’t know what else tomorrow around, but how can people connect with you? Because, you know, that was like, okay, great. You have all this information, wealth of knowledge, right? What’s the best way? What’s one of the companies you want them to connect with you on?

Ron Taylor: I think the best way to connect with me really is through franchise authentic, right. It’s just franchise authentic. Com uh, I was excited that the domain name was actually available. Uh, so yeah, that’s the easiest way to do it. You can see my story. You can understand, like what our thought process is, how we take people through the process. You can reach out and contact us directly on the website. Uh, it really gives you some insight into my background, my history. I mean, there’s plenty of pictures there. You know, when you were there, when I got to meet Shaq, that was that was a highlight of my.

Ramzi Daklouche: I have a picture with Shaq. I saw your picture on LinkedIn. I thought, should I send him my picture too? I haven’t, it was not so. It was running out of time at that time. But nice. Very nice.

Ron Taylor: Yeah, super great guy. So you know it’s the best way to kind of, you know, if you want to get a little bit of a feel for us and how we do business and me and my story, before you necessarily reach out like that’s probably the best way to do it. And then, you know, trust me, I’m, I’m my windows are open 18 hours a day. If you reach out to me, you’re going to hear from me really fast.

Ramzi Daklouche: That’s awesome. Awesome. Uh, and what’s the website again? Just for the authentic com. Perfect. Perfect. Well, listen, uh, Ron, thank you for joining us today. Your insights into leadership, franchising and business building are incredibly valuable. And I know our listeners are walking away inspired. Again, thank you very much. I really appreciate connecting with you again.

Ron Taylor: Yeah. You too. It was great to see what you’ve got going on. Like so is XR. Is that a franchise as well?

Ramzi Daklouche: Vr? Yeah. Vr is a franchise.

Ron Taylor: Vr. Excuse me. Vr. Yeah.

Ramzi Daklouche: Yeah.

Ron Taylor: That’s that. And that’s great. So you’re just handling business acquisitions, sales, mergers, things of that nature.

Ramzi Daklouche: Thank you for the for the plug. Yes I am.

Ron Taylor: Okay. I’m really I’m. I’m curious to understand.

Ramzi Daklouche: Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Taylor: I’ll have to talk catch up sometimes because I’d love to hear about it.

Ramzi Daklouche: Perfect. Thank you again.

Ron Taylor: Yeah.