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Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have the owner of the Walnut Creek franchise of Gotcha Covered, Sabrina Martin. Welcome.

Sabrina Martin: Actually happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about got you covered.

Sabrina Martin: Sure. I would be happy to. Gotcha. Covered is a window treatment franchise, so we specialize in everything from shutter shades to drapery and soft goods. Really cool franchise. A lot of element of design in it, which is super fun. And it’s a really cool business model because you can actually operate it out of your home, or you can have a, you know, a showroom in multiple stores too. So a lot of flexibility there.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this?

Sabrina Martin: Yeah. So about a year ago, I made the decision to leave corporate. I had been in corporate healthcare, actually, for 22 years, and mostly in sales and marketing, some clinical. And I had owned my own business actually years ago. I owned a home care business. So fast forward to last September, I just really made the decision that I was putting a lot of effort in, with very little return for someone else, and I really wanted to get back to that business ownership. I started to really explore what that looked like for me. I’ve always had a interest in home improvement and design. Um, so I wanted to make a very radical change, which I did last year. I wanted to get back to business ownership, but I wanted to do it with a trusted, proven business model, which is what led me to look at franchises. I really wanted something at this point in my life that came with a proven and tested playbook, so to speak. So that really was the premise of my research. You know, what was the infrastructure, the business? What was their playbook, what was their measures of success? And ultimately, I found Got You Covered was really going to be the best fit for me to marry all of those things that I was looking for.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you first had the idea, okay, I’m going to look for a proven brand. Did you just do this search on your own, or did you find a franchise broker, or did you use the portals? Like how did you kind of go about narrowing it down? Because saying you want to own your own business and even even narrowing it down to franchises, there’s still thousands to choose from in pretty much every industry you can think of.

Sabrina Martin: You are spot on. So I started to do a little of the work on myself, and I quickly realized it was a bit overwhelming. So I did, um, reach out and network with a franchise broker who I was familiar with from LinkedIn, actually, um, who had helped a couple of other people I’ve known with other businesses. So I reached out to him, kind of told him the space that I wanted to stay in, which was really around design and home improvement, and he brought forward to me about six opportunities for me to really dive into and look at and, you know, through the process of vetting, um, each one of those out and understanding how that fit into what exactly I was looking for, you know, I quickly narrowed it down to three, then two, and then ultimately land it with gotcha covered. So I actually feel like a franchise broker was critical, at least for me, because to your point, you don’t know what you don’t know. And there’s just so much out there. And, you know, I was educated on how I should be looking at these businesses, um, which I think is critical if you’re going to make that type of investment not only financially, but in yourself and what you’re going to be doing with the rest of your, um, focus and career.

Lee Kantor: So what were kind of the priorities once you were starting to narrow it down? Were you trying to do it where it’s like it’s hands on, where you’re actually going out there and interacting with a customer, where you can manage somebody else doing that kind of work. Or do you need a location, like what were some of the kind of priorities and criteria when you were choosing?

Speaker4: That’s a really great question.

Sabrina Martin: So for me, I wanted something that I could initially be very hands on in just to understand the business and its entirety, but I want it to be able to eventually know that I could hand that off if I wanted to, and just be the manager slash owner of the business without being in the business on a day to day. Not every business has that option, you know, some require you’re going to have to live and breathe it. Some are very hands off, um, where you’re pretty much managing it from afar. To me, this was a great compromise, and that was a priority for me that I could begin as the person that put in the sweat equity, so to speak, but scale it so that I could take that step back over time and be more of the owner, just, you know, personal belief system. For me, I feel like if you’re going to be a successful owner of any business, you have to understand the business through and through. So I like the flexibility of what got you covered gave me in regards to that.

Lee Kantor: Now how, um, were you excited or nervous when it came to okay, now I got to learn this new skill. Um, you know, I was in healthcare, and now I’m in the, you know, whether it’s the, um, the a window covering business. So now how do you kind of put on this new kind of beginner’s mindset and go about the learning that you had to do in order to train so you could at first do all the jobs?

Speaker4: Yeah. I was super.

Sabrina Martin: Excited. I wasn’t I probably should have been a little nervous, but I wasn’t. Um, I was just mostly excited. I was excited to learn something new and take on this new challenge. I kind of, you know, when you’re in any career for 22 years, you kind of feel like you’ve exhausted your knowledge base. You’ve kind of reached the Reach the pinnacle of you kind of know everything. So to be at a place where I could take on this new thing and learn something new, um, was just really exciting to me, but also was really important to me to understand what was the franchise going to do for me and support me with to make sure that I was set up for success. I, you know, it shocked me, actually, how much there was to learn in window treatments. I’m sure that’s true with any new business, but I thought, oh, I have a good eye for design, you know, how hard can this be? But like all things, there was a tremendous, a lot, tremendous amount of things that, um, I hadn’t considered or contemplated that I needed to be educated on in order to be of a good service in the community and make sure that I was providing quality work. And not every franchise that I looked at, um, offered a really robust training program. Um, a lot of it was a do it yourself approach. And one of the things I liked about Gotcha Covered is it was very hands on, um, with the support system and the education very early right out of the gate, and the playbook was very strong. So that was another reason I went with that business.

Lee Kantor: Now, were you able to launch the business with just you, or did you have to hire someone at launch?

Sabrina Martin: I chose to launch it with just me. Um, that’s not true for all of the gotcha covered franchise owners. Again, there’s a lot of flexibility there in how you want to approach it. You know, I have people that I’m in the business that they’re doing it with a friend or an ex-business partner or a spouse or a sibling, or they hire an admin right out of the gate. It’s very flexible in that regard. I personally chose to just launch it with me. I’ve been in the business. I’ve been up and running since April 1st, so not a very long time, but I’ve had a lot of early success right out of the gate, and I’m at the point now where I just hired an administrative assistant. Um, and hopefully early next year I’ll be looking to bring on an additional sales rep slash designer as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, were you happy with the amount of kind of business development helped you got because this is where the rubber hits the road, right? It’s like you’re getting a proven system, but you still have to do the work. Like it’s not a magic wand where you just like show up and it’s like, oh, there’s a flow of customers coming my way. Um, are you getting enough kind of biz dev help from gotcha covered, uh, to keep you busy? Or is this something that you’re spending a lot of your time out there kind of drumming up the initial business and getting that escape velocity?

Sabrina Martin: Oh, 100%. I’m very happy with the way that Gotcha Covered lays out getting started from their training to just the roadmap to success. And what I mean by that is, um, there was a very robust six week training right out of the gate, um, right before we quote unquote, launch on our grand opening. And in that six weeks, we’re really getting all of the tools that we need and all the instruction that we need on how we’re going to hit the ground running and have those customers right out of the gate. So for example, um, everything’s documented. There’s this, you know, roadmap to success. We’re told early on to join the Chamber of Commerce, excuse me, Commerce to join a BNI group, which is a the business Networking international group. Um, just kind of all these great guidance and things. And honestly, I was one of the people that just decided to follow every single thing that they said. And as soon as I opened my doors, April 1st, I had customers. I was actually even taking appointments while I was in training, which was something that the franchise encouraged us to do, um, and supported us from the background, even though we hadn’t quite learned everything yet, we were still set up for success to go meet with some preliminary customers just so we had some closed deals.

Sabrina Martin: As soon as we, um, decided to do our grand opening. I don’t from talking to other people. I don’t think that’s necessarily very common. Um, I was very happy with that. I had a great first month. I’ve continued to have really successful, profitable Subsequent months, and I attribute that to everything was just laid out so well in terms of do this on week one, this on week two, this on week three, follow these steps. Go here, go there. And it didn’t take a lot of me having to brainstorm those ideas and figure out, well, what am I going to do next. I just kind of followed the playbook and it works. It, you know, the secrets in the, uh, whether or not you’re committed to follow the follow the guidance. And if you do, I believe, um, that set me up for very, very early success.

Lee Kantor: So you were, um, doing some of the pre-work before you launched in order to build, like, a list of people to go see once you launched.

Sabrina Martin: Yep. Absolutely correct. Yep.

Lee Kantor: And then, um, is the person who raises their hand that says, I’m interested. Is this somebody who is about to buy or considering buying? Like what? Like what’s kind of the mindset of a person right before they buy?

Sabrina Martin: Uh, so our in this business, at least the window treatment business. Um, our customer tends to be that, um, highly successful, you know, middle aged homeowner, typically, um, you know, female. And they’re either redesigning their home, updating their home, or just moved in their home. So they’re pretty committed at the point where they’re calling, uh, for a consultation and an appointment that they are going to buy something with someone. Um, I feel very fortunate. I have a 85% close rate. So I think that speaks to the fact that, yes, they’re calling me, they’re serious, they’re ready to purchase. And, you know, if you have what they’re looking for, they appreciate the time that you’re spending with them in that consultation and you’re responsive and have great follow up. Um, you know, your the chances of being successful are very high.

Lee Kantor: And then so do you have to go to their location. Is that how it’s sold or do they come to you.

Sabrina Martin: Yes. It’s all it’s all mobile showroom. So you take everything to the client. Um, which is the really the best model, because people want to see the way something is going to look in their home. Um, you know, you can anybody can relate listening to this. How many times you go to a store, you buy something, you think it’s going to look great in your house and you don’t like it, you’re going to return it. You can’t really return window treatments that are custom and cut specifically for the homeowner. So you kind of would be stuck with that. So to see that product in your home, against your lighting, against your furniture and your flooring, um, makes a big difference. So I really think that I get a lot of calls from people that go to showrooms. They’ve looked at other competitive companies, and they call me because they’re like, I just didn’t know what that was going to look like. I really needed some help in my own home.

Lee Kantor: Right. So you can you have samples that you can hold up where the window is now and they can see, okay, I like how this light is hitting this. This is a good fit, right?

Sabrina Martin: And sometimes right. Sometimes they’re surprised and they don’t like it. And they totally switch gears.

Lee Kantor: Right. Like because because it’s one thing like you said in your head and then reality.

Sabrina Martin: Right. It’s a big investment. At the end of the day, you want to get it right the first time you hopefully you’re not changing those for at least another 20 years.

Lee Kantor: Exactly. And and regarding that like how do you is there a path to get referrals or do you work with kind of referral sources. Because like you said, this is a purchase you make and then you’re not making it again for a while.

Sabrina Martin: Okay. So my referrals come, uh, you know, there’s I would say probably about 40 to 50% is just from my SEO optimization and online marketing. Um, that would be between, you know, my Google profile, my, my organic SEO, uh, marketing with my web page, which the franchise supports really heavily and does a great job with that. You know, things like Yelp and then the other portions come from my networking. I have great relationships with realtors and builders in my networking groups and the Chamber of Commerce. And then word of mouth, you know, I’m I’m at the point now, um, I’m a little over six months in, uh, and my customers are either calling me back to do more windows, or they are referring me to their neighbors and friends and family because I did a good job, thankfully. So it’s a little bit about managing all of those things and making sure that all of those, uh, wheels are in motion to to really optimize how many leads you’re getting.

Lee Kantor: So regarding the online marketing, is that something you have to do, or is that something that the franchise does on your behalf?

Sabrina Martin: The franchise does it on our behalf. They do. They have a really, um, great team that does that behind the scenes in terms of managing our website and our online presence. And as a franchise owner, you can pick and choose how much you want to invest in that particular strategy. Um, you know, over time that might become something you invest in less because you’re just so well known in the community. But in the beginning, it seems to be pretty critical, at least in this business.

Lee Kantor: And you can throttle it on and off based on your own circumstance.

Sabrina Martin: Absolutely. Yep.

Lee Kantor: And then, um, once you have now, it’s been six months, you’ve kind of lived it. Is it like you’re high fiving? This was a great decision or. This is a are you looking to expand? Like like where are you kind of mentally right now?

Sabrina Martin: So yeah, I’m I’m high fiving it like this was a good decision. So like I said a little bit earlier, I just realized I needed to hire an admin because I’m at the point where, you know, those tasks are becoming something I need to take off my plate so I can be more focused with the customers and networking and, um, you know, I was just kind of looking financially at how I’m doing so far. It looks like, you know, I definitely have enough business, uh, that I’ll be looking to hire a sales rep early next year. Um, you know, like with any franchise, you usually purchase a geography. I still have a lot of untapped business in my current geography, So initially I want to add that extra sales rep. And then beyond that I’ll look to expand territory. But um, you know, right now I’m very happy with the decision. It’s, uh, it’s been a great, you know, seven months so far. I’m right where I want it to be goal wise. Uh, a little bit ahead of it, actually, so I have no regrets. Knock on wood, things are going well.

Lee Kantor: So what is maybe a surprising, uh, rewarding part of this experience that maybe you didn’t anticipate?

Sabrina Martin: Hmm. That’s a good question. Um, obviously, when you get into business ownership, you know you’re going to work hard, but you also know you’re going to have that flexibility in your schedule. So that has been nice. You know, with corporate, I was traveling every single week across the country flying, you know, from state to state. So I’m happy that I’m not doing that anymore and that I can have the time to focus on family and friends and what’s important to me as I need it on my schedule. Um, so that’s not that’s refreshing that that has happened in reality now that I’m the owner of this business. But what’s maybe been surprising is just like how much I enjoy meeting with these clients. You know, not everyone that buys things are happy. You know, sometimes things break, like your water heater. And that’s a disgruntled person because they weren’t budgeting for this and they’re not thrilled they have to buy this. My customer base is happy. They’re about to do something fun for themselves in their house, to really brighten things up and make their spaces look even better than they look today. So they’re excited, you know, they’re like, uh, kids at Christmas. They can’t wait to get it. They can’t wait to see it in their house. So that’s been surprising and rewarding, because when you’re dealing with people that are just happy and excited and they’re looking forward to something that’s just a nice experience to be a part of, and it’s really rewarding to see that come to fruition and see, you know, just see them light up once everything’s in like, oh, I made the right decision. This looks fantastic. So that’s probably been the most surprising part. Just it’s just so fun.

Lee Kantor: And it must be nice to really kind of, um, grow these deeper roots within your community. Now you’re starting to be really, uh, invest in the human to human interaction with a lot of folks in your community that you probably weren’t before.

Sabrina Martin: Yeah, that is absolutely been a game changer for me, especially me coming from the corporate world where I never even was home, um, to now be part of the community, you know, part of volunteer work, making all these great connections with the city council members and just understanding what other resources are out there and who’s doing what and how I can help them. I mean, one of the things that I have actually liked about the BNI Group group is it’s a givers game mentality. You’re more focused on what you can do for other people than what they can do for you, but that returns itself in spades, um, to really help your business as well. But you just it’s so much more rewarding. Again, you know, not to knock corporate, but you don’t necessarily get that when you’re in the day to day, um, workforce mill, um, that you do when you’re a business owner in the community where you can contribute and give back like that.

Lee Kantor: So any advice for other aspiring business owners? Is there anything, um, you would recommend if somebody is, maybe they just got laid off or they’re thinking about making a change. Um, what are some of the things that you would recommend them doing in order to, you know, kind of navigate their next move?

Sabrina Martin: Definitely would recommend if they’re even considering looking at franchises, um, which I actually, you know, like I said, I own my own business before, which was a startup. It wasn’t a franchise. And now having done both the startup and the franchise, I highly, highly recommend the franchise. Um, I could probably spend another hour talking about the reasons why for that. But, um, definitely, if you’re looking at a franchise, work with a franchise broker, make sure you spend a decent amount of time vetting out what things you would potentially like to do, because at the end of the day, you have to like to do the work. I truly believe that in order to be successful or like the business model. And then once you start vetting these franchises, really, really, really making sure that they have a sound infrastructure for training, ongoing support, there’s, you know, coaching, mentoring, what are they going to do for your online presence? How long is their training? What does that look like? Just asking all those questions. I think people tend to go right to how much is this going to cost in franchise fees every month? It’s kind, that’s important, but so is all the other stuff. You have to understand what you’re buying. You’re not just buying that business in that name. You better be buying all this additional support and the right support that’s going to set you up for success. So I think that would be my advice.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And you want to make sure that like you said, that the why is big enough for you to be fired up about doing the work, you know. Absolutely.

Sabrina Martin: Yep.

Lee Kantor: So the Y has to be there or else it’s just another job. You just traded one job for another.

Sabrina Martin: That is spot on, Lee. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to connect with you or learn more about your franchise, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Sabrina Martin: Yep. You can find me at Gotcha Covered of Walnut Creek. Just put it in Google. My website will come right up. My phone number’s on there. Um, so is my email. Feel free to connect with me by phone. By email. Again, it’s got you covered. Walnut Creek, which is in Northern California in the Bay area, and I’m happy to talk to anyone who’s exploring this.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Sabrina Martin: Excellent. Thanks for having me on I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor we’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have the CEO with French Florist, Michael Jacobson. Welcome.

Michael Jacobson: Thanks, Lee. Wonderful to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about French Florist. How are you serving folks?

Michael Jacobson: Definitely. Yeah. So flowers are something that I don’t know. I’m going to say a couple controversial things on this podcast, so you’re gonna have to curb me if I say anything that’s too offensive. Okay.

Lee Kantor: Fire away.

Michael Jacobson: I don’t think Americans appreciate flowers enough. Okay, hear me out. Our name is French Florist, but we’re an American brand. Okay, how does that make sense? We are a company that borrows from the European way of living, and we want to bring that to America. The current American culture with flowers are, I think, so. I’ll curb myself here. I think we do appreciate flowers, but we think of them as a luxury, right? We purchase them for a birthday anniversary, even if it’s for something sad, like a funeral. And you’re sending your condolences. And no matter why or you know what you’re sending flowers for, what you’re telling the person, if you’re buying it as a gift, is that you’re thinking about them, that you care about them and and that you love them, right. And so at the really at the root of it, love is the core emotion. That is flowers. Flowers are love and flowers therefore are you know how we know that life can be beautiful? They’re the largest, most important emotion that exists on our earth, if I may say that as well. And there’s nothing that’s more powerful than love. And so that’s the industry that we get to work in. And that’s that’s a really cool thing. I don’t know if we should be treating that as a luxury. It’s a heck, I don’t know how to better show love to somebody. I will say in like, in a material way.

Michael Jacobson: Flowers are still material, but I think they’re the most immaterial material gift that somebody can give to show that you love them. I think that diamonds try to do that, but I think the diamond industry is kind of messed up and they’re really expensive. So I think flowers do the job better. And so just full circle back to the European kind of borrowing from there. If you look at Europe, the difference is that Europeans do buy flowers a lot more frequently, buy flowers for themselves, which I think is important. It’s an act of self-love and it’s a way of life. They go home and go to the bodega or whatever it might be to, and it doesn’t even they don’t even have to purchase flowers. I think that it’s a beautiful thing to go and pick flowers from your, you know, grandmother’s house and get them for free. So but it’s a different culture. It’s a different way of life. And it’s a little bit more beautiful. The way that flowers are appreciated, I think creates a little bit more of a loving world. And ultimately that’s why our company exists. Our mission, our driving force at the end of the day Um, is to create a more loving world. And I think that even if we create a 1% more loving world, that’s a worthwhile mission. So that’s what we’re up to.

Lee Kantor: So how what was kind of the genesis? Sounds like part of the Genesis was you went to Europe and you saw some things that you were like, hey, maybe this could work here. But what was like, how did you get into the the florist business?

Michael Jacobson: Lee, I wish I had a romantic story. Uh, it’s, you know, I think that, uh, we try to make life really romantic. And parts of it are definitely when I walk into the flower shop and, uh, it’s it’s a really cool feeling. It is very romantic space to be in, but, um, I know I didn’t travel to Europe, so this is how we started. I was working a really boring corporate job that I hated. Um, I’m sure a lot of folks can relate. And I was at a college, um, didn’t really want to, you know, you hear the risks of startups and how frequently they fail. So I always kind of had that fire in my belly to do something more entrepreneurial, but didn’t want to take that risk right out of college. So I joined a consulting firm. A good firm, and I learned a lot. I’m happy I did it, but it just didn’t feed that fire in my belly. So I was. After a while of working there, I was looking for my next opportunity. Uh, and when you’re looking for opportunity, it’s crazy what can happen. But, um, I got a call from my uncle. He said, hey, Mike, I I’ve been running this flower shop for 38 years. It’s called French Florist. Uh, is it one location? Just mom and pop and just kind of like any other flower shop that you might envision. You know, there’s a green and purple paint on the walls. Uh, paper flying everywhere is like four fax machines. Um, but just, you know, just a neighborhood mom and pop shop. And he said, I want to sell the business. I’m tired. I’m working six days a week, 60 hours, and I’m not making any money.

Michael Jacobson: Uh, you know, so my background is in finance as well, so I’m sure I wasn’t his first call, but, uh, nonetheless, he. I don’t know if he called a broker and the broker didn’t want to list the business. It was, um, there were a lot of kind of nuances on why that business was going to be hard to sell. Uh, but I came in and ultimately I, uh, was going to help him sell the business. So I, you know, it started out as a side project. And, uh, after a couple of months of working with him to clean up the business, get the books in a better condition, um, uh, just get everything ready to sell. Uh, I was doing due diligence on the industry as well. What other shops are doing? Well, what they’re not doing well, what multiples they’re selling for all the normal stuff to sell a business. And I realized that it wasn’t just him that was struggling. Uh, every single florist, um, is struggling with the same, if not the same, very, very similar problems. It’s either related to technology, uh, intermediaries like one 800 flowers taking massive commissions and destroying kind of the financial position of these shops. Uh, the technology supply chain is a big issue. Um, a marketing, the whole whole host of there’s like it wasn’t any one thing, but it was all of them pretty much struggling with all of those problems. An amalgamation of massive issues and the current state of the industry is it got to a very, very antiquated state. And there’s a whole story of how it got to where it is today that we can rabbit hole go down that rabbit hole if you want to.

Michael Jacobson: But it’s a very antiquated space. There’s 30,000 flower shops around the country. 99% of them are single unit owner operators. It’s a very, very fragmented space. So, you know, we have innovation in the coffee industry. Beyond Starbucks. Starbucks was kind of the genesis for consolidation. They created a brand that was consistent, reliable quality at the time. Uh, and they’re trying to make a comeback. But we have innovation beyond that. Now, our our industry, the floral industry hasn’t even had the Starbucks effect. And I don’t we don’t compare our brand to Starbucks. We’re doing things differently. But uh, but that’s how antiquated it is. It’s been stagnant for a long time. So that’s what fired me up. Um, florists were struggling. Uh, and ultimately, what that means is that if, if, if you’re not feeling good inside, you’re not going to show up for the folks around you in the best way that you can. So if the florist is struggling, that’s going to bleed into a poor consumer experience. And so I recognized, um, alongside our team, that the consumers are not receiving a product or service. That is what they could or should receive in our industry. So there’s a systemic issue. And if we could fix this one flower shop and just do it right, um, invest for the long term, you know, ten, 15, 20 year investments as opposed to like needing to maximize ROI over a 2 or 3 year period. Right? Um, that sounded pretty fun to us. So I jumped ship. And that was about seven years ago, and I haven’t looked back.

Lee Kantor: So what? Um, so you look at your your uncle’s floral floral shop and what was kind of the low hanging fruit to, to fix up to improve the situation?

Michael Jacobson: Yeah, there was low hanging fruit. Um, the very first decision that I made in the company, uh, I will tell you that florists are wonderful people. I’ve never met a florist who’s not a great person. Uh, they have huge hearts. They’re very creative. They’re very passionate. Uh, they’re not really money driven, I would say, because they’re working really hard. They love what they do, and they’re not really typically not making a lot, or at least in the past. Right. Um, and so, um, my uncle was no different. He, he was, you know, best friends with, uh, the phone salesman. And I looked at the financials. We were paying, like, $13,000 for our phones. Uh, and, you know, I came into the business and, um, do it. The right thing to do is listen and learn. Uh, I didn’t know much. And so I spent the first couple of months just doing a lot of listening. And, you know, the customer service rep that worked for us, um, said, hey, our phones are really bad, that I have a hard time hearing the customer on the other end, and they have a hard time hearing me. I’m like, perfect. We need to change phone systems. That’s an easy lift. So I looked at the phone bill. We’re paying 13 grand a year, and I went to my uncle and I said, like, why are you paying 13 grand a year? And he’s like, oh, no, it’s the best phone system. Like, here’s the contact. Um, he’s a great guy. He’ll take care of it. If there’s an issue, he’ll fix it anyways. You know, phone sales guy is not, uh, you know, um, I’ll leave it there.

Michael Jacobson: It’s so, you know, we looked at different phone systems, and, uh, we’re now now we’re paying for a way higher quality phone system that is like $120 a month, right? Or $1,000? A little more than $1,000 a year, saving 90%. So there was a ton, like, uh, I kid you not, probably about a hundred things that were kind of like that that got the business from losing money to break even or, you know, in the black, um, a little profitable and, uh, you know, so there was low hanging fruit. But the systemic issues, supply chain, marketing, tech infrastructure, um, uh disintermediating is where as well. The number one player in our space is one 800 flowers. The way that their model works, they syndicate the order that they get to a local florist, which I guess is fine. But the problem with it is they take a massive up to a 40% commission after all of their fees are considered 40% commission on that order. So the florist is getting crushed. So just, you know, we were able to get the business to a decent position by just by cleaning up, like best practice stuff. But in order to transform the business from, you know, doing 200, 300,000 to 500, 600,000 to the next year doing, I think it was like 3 million to 6 million to 9 million out of one location. Um, that there were a lot of issues that we needed to solve that were deep systemic issues. And that’s when we started to tackle those issues. That’s where we started to see real results.

Lee Kantor: And then so. So how do you go to $9 million in a single location? Is there that much floral business in a is that really the potential? So.

Michael Jacobson: Yeah, I mean, I feel like we’re just getting started, too. Yeah. It’s not only, uh, I think it’s a showcase of what the potential is. Um, but yeah, we so we were doing over 9 million out of one location, and, uh.

Lee Kantor: And that’s just local, like, that’s not we’re shipping it to, you know, all over the world. This is in one.

Michael Jacobson: Just one la store delivering within, like a 45 minute radius. Um, yeah. It’s pretty insane. Um, so we were like, wow, maybe LA is a special market and it is. La is a special market. But it’s only I can say that because I’m from here. But, uh, you know, we opened a second store. That store, uh, did over uh, or did just shy of a million in its first year. Um, we opened a third store. That one did over a million in its first year. So as we opened them up, we got better and better at them at doing that. Um, the average flower shop does around 350 K in revenue. So and we’re doing about a million in the first year. Um, so yeah, I mean, it’s.

Lee Kantor: And the drivers of that? Is it just more people ordering more often? Like what is the driver or is it? Brand new people to buying flowers. Like what do you get people to buy more often? Like are you creating more occasions for purchase? Like what drives it?

Michael Jacobson: Yeah, it’s a good it’s a good question. So there’s two types of marketing, right. There’s demand capture which people are already searching for the product. Um, for example, they search on ChatGPT.

Lee Kantor: So they’re just picking you instead of a different floors.

Michael Jacobson: Yeah. So that’s that. And then there’s demand generation, which is like, uh, right.

Lee Kantor: Someone who hadn’t thought of. Right. I hadn’t thought of giving flowers. Now I’m giving flowers from you.

Michael Jacobson: Yeah. So, um. Yeah. So both are great, uh, ways to build revenue. Um, but, uh, but no, there’s there’s really that much demand to capture. People do send a lot of flowers, and, uh, you know, we have, um, I will sit here and say, like, we do have the best customer service. We do have the best quality flowers. Um, we do have the best client experience, but we don’t stop there. Uh, we go beyond all of that and we say, like, having the best. All of those things makes a company good. But how do we make our company great? And that comes down to the emotion, uh, the experience, um, the feeling that people have when they purchase through us and, and then backing that up with a, with an incredibly strong product offering. So, um, it took a lot of that. Branding is important. Uh, but writing goes only so far as your ability to deliver against that brand promise. So you actually do have to have great operational excellence in order to execute. And so, yeah, we, uh, got really good at, um, yeah. I mean, our tech infrastructure is phenomenal. We built a ton of our own tech, so we were able to scale easily, um, supply chain. We started importing from the farms. So we’re getting better pricing, uh, and, um, higher quality flowers. So that’s a better margins for us that we can reinvest into the client experience in other ways. But also, we can pass some of that discount along to the consumer.

Michael Jacobson: So, um, you know, they’re getting really competitive pricing and then also ultimately a better product too. They’re not. The supply chain is normally, you know, grows on a farm, goes to a processor, to a consolidator, to a logistics agency in the country of origin like Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, Thailand, Holland, wherever we import flowers from. And then they land in the states at a logistics agency, they go to a wholesaler, then to the retailer, then to the consumer. Right. That’s that is a heck of a supply chain. So we cut a lot of folks out in that by importing directly from the farm and we air freight, um, everything. So, uh, we’re not shipping, you know, flowers on a boat. Um, so we’re just maximizing the, the vase life, uh, in terms of the quality of the flowers are much better purchasing through us. Um, and, uh, yeah, we developed a lot of loyalty that way. So not only did we get good at new client acquisition, but client retention was really, um, started to get good. Um, and it’s it’s there’s not. I wish I could say there’s a secret sauce to what we did. Um, but just kind of like doing the right thing and making literally every decision that we humanly could, um, rooted in how, like, is this decision going to meaningfully improve the client experience? Uh, and, uh, and that’s gotten us pretty far so far.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re trying to improve the client experience, uh, as a flower shop owner, the client is the buyer. The flowers, if you’re trying to do that in terms of being a franchisor, your client’s also the franchisee. Um, how do you kind of attract the the right franchisee to French florist?

Michael Jacobson: Yeah. That’s so good. I actually appreciate the way that you asked that question. I think a lot of franchisors sell. Uh, we don’t sell. Um, you’re not going to hear me on this podcast, say, hey, join our franchise. Um, we don’t do that. Um, we find, you know, we we showcase what we’re doing, and, um, if someone feels attracted to the opportunity, then they’ll reach out to us and we can share information in terms of, like, if it’s going to be a good fit. Um, we, I guess, like, pride ourselves on, like, as a franchisor, we are our primary job. Um, if you’re looking at the franchise owner as one of our clients, which you’re right, they are, and their experience matters. Um. Our our job as the franchisor is to make sure that we’re bringing a network of franchise owners in that create an incredible system. And it’s a big deal, because if we make, like people talk about how important hiring is, um, and it is, uh, it really is. But you can theoretically sorry to be blunt. You could fire an employee if you make a mistake. You can’t really fire a franchise owner. Uh, and even if they’re producing great, you know, unit economics are really healthy. And if they’re just, like, an asshole, uh, and other franchise owners don’t like them, or, like, we don’t want that in our system, right? So anyways, we we, uh, we just say what we’re doing out there.

Michael Jacobson: Folks will come in and they go through our process. They realize what our what our values and vision and kind of culture looks like. They talk to a lot of our existing franchise owners to say, you know, if you could go back in time, um, would you open a French florist again? And, uh, that puts a lot of really healthy pressure on us to make sure our franchise owners are really happy. Um, and so a lot of the, uh, a lot of the folks that we’ve been able to attract actually have been through stuff like this, like doing podcasts and just talking about how passionate we are about our industry. And, uh, and that’s been our primary source of leads, actually, is through podcast. Believe it or not, we do some light advertising in other areas. But uh, but yeah, we don’t we don’t. Unlike, uh, we don’t use brokers. We don’t use an outsourced sales organization. Um, a lot of it is very organic. Our cost per lead is like very, very low compared to industry standard.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re, um, kind of finding the right partner, uh, franchisee, partner, what are some of the qualities that maybe have bubbled up since you’ve been doing this for a minute? Um, what does successful franchisees, what qualities do they exhibit and what is their background like yours as finance, or are they are they former florists like that are just frustrated of making, you know, 350 and saying, I want a million. Like what? What is the franchisee profile look like?

Michael Jacobson: Yeah, we we really uh, in the early days and we’re still in the early days, uh, still kind of we feel like we’re on the ground floor just kind of getting started, which is really it’s a fun place to be. But, um, in our experience so far, we worked the, uh, almost the full spectrum, I would say, from a florist that’s frustrated and they want to convert their flower shop. We’ve done a few of those. They’ve done really well. Uh, all the way to, like, a president of a private equity firm. Hates his job and wants to quit. Uh, and decided to open up a couple French florist locations. That was interesting. Um, all the way in between, you have entrepreneurs that want to do, like ETA or search fund stuff. They’ll they’ll buy a florist and they want to convert it to a French florist. Uh, we have folks that are, um, like marine, uh, veterans and, uh, um, are looking to get into business after their career, uh, in the Marines in that case. And, uh, just an incredible amount of discipline and ability to follow a process that was remarkable. Um, uh, partner for us and everything in between. But the folks that are doing really well, um, are people that are purpose and mission driven and that, of course, uh, this is business. You’re making a business decision in a large sense. I think a lot of folks try to separate business from personal. I get it. I do it to an extent, I guess, but, um. But it’s all one life, right? Like you can’t. I don’t know if that’s fully how it works.

Michael Jacobson: And so, you know, making a decision in your life and folks that are intentional about this, where there is purpose and the work that you choose, you spend a lot of your life working and being intentional about what you go and do. We try to find people that have gone through that and maybe, you know, you worked corporate for a long time. You, you know, maybe had a lot of success in that and that should be celebrated. But maybe it’s time to be your own boss. Right. And that’s more of the traditional franchise path. Um, I think that’s a great thing. And so what I look for, and if you ask any of our team members, they’ll give you slightly different answers. Our ops team will give you an answer or, you know, everybody will give you a different answer. Mine is really from a values perspective where, um, I get that you want to make money. That’s that’s money can create freedom. And I think it’s a great thing, but, um. Okay. You made a bunch of money. Then what? What are you going to go and do with it? Do you want to go and travel, or do you want to go spend more time with the kids? You want to go and start a charity? I really don’t care what it is, but I like knowing that. Why? And I don’t want I don’t want you to open a French florist for purely for money. Um, there needs to be a deeper reason for it. And, uh, and I think that’s important. So I look for that.

Lee Kantor: Now when a person raises their hand, say, I’m interested, do they have to be the one that’s putting flowers in vases, or is it something that, um, they can be kind of, uh, not in the shop, or you want them to be in the shop? Or do they have to be artistic? You know, what about those kind of qualities?

Michael Jacobson: Yeah, totally. No, I mean, I, you know, look, I came from outside the industry. Um, you don’t want me designing. We have. I mean, that’s really where the magic happens. Uh, so. Right.

Lee Kantor: But do I have to know that or do I have to be inherently kind of creative, or is it something that you can give me a protocol to follow that I can just go, okay, this. I can make something look beautiful, even though that I’m not an artist.

Michael Jacobson: Yeah. So, no, we we recommend. Unless you feel, you know, we do work with some folks that are unbelievably creative and they will be kind of the lead designer or the lead florist in the shop. That’s what they want. Most of our franchise owners are not that way. I’m not that way. So you can run a flower shop without any experience? Um, there’s a lot of training involved. Uh, and you need to hire one of the most important hires that you will make is that lead designer. So you get that hire, right? And a lot of stuff kind of falls into place. Um, people are everything. We we can have great systems. We can have great marketing. We can have great everything. Tech. Um, right. And, uh, but the people that are running the systems, uh, are very important. It’s, um, so, so we make a big deal of hiring and, and we provide a lot of resources for that, and we’ve gotten good at it. So, um, you don’t have to have that kind of experience. What we do look for, though, are folks that are really dedicated and are willing to, like, I’ve done every job, uh, except for designing, I would say.

Michael Jacobson: But, like, delivery driver, um, shop assistant processing the flowers. I have tried my hand at design. Right. Uh, at being the manager of a store, um, being a regional manager, buying the flowers, all of the jobs that couldn’t possibly exist in running a flower shop. But, uh, and I think that it’s been really was a really great experience for me because I know how to do all of the jobs, and I won’t ask someone to do something that I wouldn’t be willing to do. And I think there’s, um, that’s a good thing. But so for our franchise owners, we want them to be kind of in the business, if you will, for, um, about six months, uh, and do all the jobs, uh, and learn it. And you don’t have to be in the business forever. I know the goal is to work on your business. Uh, but, uh, but being in your business and really learning the trade, uh, will give you a point of leverage to be able to make decisions not from the outside, but from the inside. And, uh, that’s taken us really far. And so we’re big advocates of that for our franchise owners as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned customer experience and customer success, can you give some advice to our listeners? Um, when it comes to kind of raising the game, uh, when it comes to that customer experience? Because I, uh, I mean, I had one of my favorite brands. I’m not gonna name the name of the brand that I use personally. I love the product, but I hate, hate the customer service, I would switch. Wow. Even though I love the product, I would switch because their customer service is so terrible. Um, so I am a big believer in customer experience and it doesn’t end at the transaction. So can you share some advice when it comes to, um, you know, upleveling customer experience?

Michael Jacobson: Yeah. I’ll give you one thing that’s like more strategic. That’s worked for us. Then I’ll give you one tactical thing that we’ve done that’s worked for us, that you could do for your business. The strategic one. Um, do you know Tiffany’s? The jewelry company?

Lee Kantor: Sure.

Michael Jacobson: So, look, you can go into Tiffany’s, and if you’re buying a gift, uh, presumably diamonds or something, right? Or for someone, you can go in there and you can spend $300 on, uh, on a necklace. That’s probably the cheapest thing that they offer. Um, they’ll also sell you a necklace for $30,000. Right. Uh, the the really interesting part about Tiffany’s for me is that if you buy option A or option B, both of them are going to come in that turquoise Tiffany blue box. And before the person who’s receiving the gift opens the box, the box is the first thing they see. And when you hand somebody a Tiffany’s box, that turquoise blue, it’s that color and that branding that evokes the emotional response, not even what’s in it. There is such incredible power in the feeling that’s associated with that color that they’ve been able to create. Uh, and, um, and that’s a really interesting thing where. You can spend $300 or $30,000, but you can evoke the same emotion because of not before the person even opens the box. Right? So for us, I mean, I think at French Florist, we don’t really want to sell 30,000 flowers, but, um, that’s not the goal. But if we can create a $30,000 feeling where people can walk into our store and kind of get that Tiffany Blue experience with us, even if they’re spending $20, like they can’t spend their whole paycheck on flowers, that’s fine. Uh, we don’t view flowers as a luxury in the way that Tiffany’s views diamonds as a luxury. We think everybody deserves to have flowers. Um, but we want to provide them that kind of Tiffany level experience.

Michael Jacobson: Um, and that’s. And that’s served us well. So that that’s a little bit more like kind of high level. I don’t know how helpful that is, but like one, one example of customer service more tactically that’s been good for us is when one of our core values is exceeding expectations. Uh, we we view that in a lot of different ways, but probably the most important is when it comes to our clients, uh, the folks that we serve, um, how can we exceed their expectations? And so we want to deliver ten out of ten work for them. But before that, ten out of ten ships, uh, we stop and we say, what’s the one thing that we could do to push this from a ten out of ten experience to an 11 out of ten experience? And I think I think a ten out of ten experience probably is like they have these are the best quality flowers that they’ve ever got. Um, the quality is beautiful. Uh, they called to check the status of the order. Somebody picked up within seconds and answered all of their questions. Uh, came in beautiful branding that it’s a it’s a it’s a good some maybe would somebody would even say, you know, a very, a very good experience. Um, how do you make that an 11 out of ten experience? I love what you said. The transaction doesn’t end when at the point of transaction, uh, follow up with them. Um, and what we’ve done and I think something that you could try implementing in your business as well, and we’ve seen profound results with it, is send the customer a handwritten card, like we are in the age of technology and automation and a lack of human connection more than ever right now.

Michael Jacobson: Um, and people are craving that. And if you send them, like a genuine handwritten card, just thanking them and reminding them of, like, how beautiful it is, like, especially for flowers to, um, 95% of our customers are giving flowers as a gift to somebody else. And people put so much emphasis on the recipient and how beautiful of a feeling it is to receive flowers. But what about the sender? Like, what an amazing act that they were, the spark that created that love in the world. And like they should feel like the hero, right? So we’re going to remind them that, like, what an amazing thing that they’ve just done. Uh, and it helps build loyalty, um, and done in a genuine or an authentic way. Uh, they feel that, like, we really do believe in our, uh, the power of flowers and how beautiful flowers are. And, um, we don’t even care if they purchased through us. I think if they purchased through us, they’re going to have great experience. But I think that it builds trust. Where like, hey, this is a company that understands how special flowers are, and I trust them when I do send flowers to somebody that I’m going to purchase through them. Right. So it’s not as transactional. It’s a little more relational. It’s but you do have to do it in an authentic way. Consumers are smart and they’ll see through like, you know, um, tactics that that they don’t truly believe in. So you need to find an authentic way to do it.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share about a franchisee that maybe, um, kind of got a result partnering with you and being a franchisee with you that maybe exceeded their expectations? Is there someone that in your system right now that is really killing it and maybe is obviously happy about it, but maybe a little blown away by what could be?

Michael Jacobson: Yeah, I mean, hopefully all of them. Uh, the one that comes to mind, uh, all of them are unbelievable, but are very, very first franchise owner. Uh, he worked for different franchisors before he’s been exposed to the franchise world for a long time. He left his job and said, I’ve looked at franchising for, you know, I’ve been in this ecosystem for a long time. I want to open a franchise now. I’ve seen a lot. I feel like I can make a good decision. So he looked at 5 or 6 different franchises. He ended up choosing ours, which was a nice compliment. Um, and you know, he is early of the early adopter mindset and, uh, we’re we’re still in the early adopter phase. So we’re looking for folks that are willing to kind of go through the learnings with us. But he really was just such a phenomenal partner for us. But even for him, um, you know, we’ve been able to produce great results, uh, in, in the financials, uh, reflect that. And historically, what we’ve been able to accomplish, I think that, um, he opened his first shop and especially as the very, very first owner in the system, he was expecting a lot of rough patches and maybe not hitting the numbers that we would hit. Um, but he. Yeah, no, he blew it out of the water, and he, uh, just has done absolutely phenomenal. He’s, uh, looking at open a opening, a second and third unit now. Um, so it’s, uh, it’s been good. I don’t think that we’re I don’t think we’re under delivering. I think that we continue to invest unbelievably heavily into the infrastructure and support that we’re able to provide our franchise owners as well. Um, there’s always room for improvement. We are in the early adopter stages, so there are rough patches, but like all of our franchise owners have been so good because we genuinely are trying to create a great system for everybody, um, that they’ve been working with us. And so, like, honestly, they’ve exceeded our expectations. I don’t know if we exceed theirs, but you’ll have to ask them for yourself.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Michael Jacobson: Yeah, sure. I mean, you can always reach out personally. Um, and I’m happy to direct you in the right way or have a conversation. My email is Michael at French Florist. And then if you just want to learn more information on your own, you can go to French florist franchise. Com there’s some information there. And once a month, we host something called the Discovery Days. You come in and spend like 6 or 7 hours with us. You look under the hood, look at all the tech, look at all of that. So it’s super informational and really gives you a good picture of what it looks like to run a French florist. Um, there’s always a lot of fun too. So.

Lee Kantor: And that’s online. That’s virtual.

Michael Jacobson: No. It’s in-person. You fly to Southern California and it’s, uh. Yeah, we show you the real deal for sure.

Lee Kantor: Cool. Well, Michael, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Michael Jacobson: Awesome. Thanks, I appreciate it. Same for you. Thanks for the platform. Appreciate your time.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.