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 fun one. Today we have the founder of everbowl and WeBuild, Jeff Fenster. Welcome.

Jeff Fenster: Hey, Lee, what’s going on, man? Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Let’s start with everbowl. How are you serving folks there?

Jeff Fenster: Oh, you know, we’re serving them better for you. Products every day, as many days as we can all over the country.

Lee Kantor: So now what’s the genesis of the whole idea? How did that come about?

Jeff Fenster: I mean, what’s funny is it came by by being a young dad many, many years ago, 2005. My oldest was born in about 2008. My wife and me and her were eating dinner and she wanted dessert, which was Cool Whip And my wife wanted me, wanted her to eat her vegetables, which was like some zucchini or something. And she was arguing like she just wanted her dessert. And so my wife kind of annoyed me, left and said, hey, you deal with it. And so I’m sitting there saying, hey, you know, trying to play the airplane game and doing all the fun things to get her to eat the zucchini. And finally I just said, you know what? The hell with this. I put some whipped cream or Cool whip on top of the zucchini and she ate it. No problem. And in that moment, I realized you could trick a kid to eat better for you products and food by masking it so unknowingly at the time, you know, had nothing to do with restaurants. I had some other ventures. I was, I was doing and companies I had started.

Jeff Fenster: And in 2015, when I sold my digital marketing agency and I was kind of hanging around doing nothing and driving my wife and kids crazy, my wife finally said, get out of here. You’re driving us nuts. And so in 2016, on a hobby, I decided to open up every bowl, which was really to help trick everybody to eat better for you food, because we are stuck on a fast food addiction and bad for us addiction. And it’s the, it’s the foundation of everything that’s that’s driving the problems in America. It hurts our health. It hurts our wellbeing. It it takes us away from being what we could be and making society even better. And so that was what everybody kind of started from was, I could trick kids. If I can trick a kid, I can. I could trick a grown up. And the average American eats fast food 3.2 times a week. And so all I had to do was reverse engineer why we make those choices. And instead of changing your habits, make better for you. Food fit the habit. And that was it.

Lee Kantor: So how did you build this with being a franchise in mind? Was that how it was that what you were thinking?

Jeff Fenster: No, no, no. In fact, I was the complete opposite. I would tell anyone who would listen. I will never franchise knowing nothing about it, just I assumed franchising was, from my experience having zero in the restaurant space. It was a vehicle only for the wealthy that there were winners and losers, and it just didn’t feel like authentic. And so I started everybody with the plan of just being all myself. I built it up to 28 locations in the first couple years. I started in October of 2016, and by March 15th of 2020 I had 28 never franchising. And then Covid occurred. And on March 18th, 2020, I had to temporarily lay off all my staff and shut all the doors until we figured out what was going on. And in that process, being an entrepreneur, I had 28 kitchens and I import my own products and my own proprietary ingredients. And so I said, okay, what can we do about it? What can we do right now? And so we spun up a website called later on shopify.com and started selling direct to consumer in our loyalty program, both to their house, kind of like ten bowls in a box. And we would deliver it while our stores were closed and it really started to take off.

Jeff Fenster: And so I reached out through a relationship and went to QVC and went on QVC and sold out 70,000 boxes in the first seven, seven minutes and 17 airings later, all sell outs. And we were plant based product of the year in 21 and the big deal in 21 as well. I had over 500 franchise requests coming from around the country, and I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but he hit me over the head 500 times. Eventually, I start to listen. And so, um, we decided at that time it was probably a good idea to franchise because we’re different than a lot of franchises. A lot of franchises are a name on a, on, on a door that has either a product or service that may be proprietary, maybe not, but it’s a set of systems and process. And that’s why people like franchising unknowingly, because I didn’t do it with franchising in mind. I built Everybo as a platform. And so we have a company called we build, where we build all the things that make it an edible and can control the construction and the upfront costs and the CapEx. We have uninvolved products where we import our own superfoods and source our own ingredients.

Jeff Fenster: So we have our own proprietary flavors, can control the supply chain and the logistics and the food costs. And then we have these franchise franchises, these stores that are franchises at the time, but that are able to leverage the power of lower upfront build out costs, lower ongoing food costs, and all the process and proprietary ingredients. So we are building a brand. And so it really worked out very well because we were able to provide value to the franchisee. And that’s the key thing with franchising is can you help the franchisee who becomes your customer make money? And that was the big dichotomy that I had no idea about, right? Which was when I launched my own and I was running them. I’m an operator, I’m operating restaurants, I’m operating variables. But the day I take on a franchisee, I’m no longer an operator. I’m a support company. And my customer changes from the person who walks in the door to order my product to the franchisee, because now that person is their customer and they’re my customer. And so there’s a whole lot there. So no long winded answer, Lee. But no, I had no plan on franchising. Um, but here we are.

Lee Kantor: Now when you made that transition to franchising, like you said, now your customer changed a little bit. Um, how did that impact your team? Did you have to kind of find all new people to become that support system for your franchisee to be successful, or did your existing team have whatever you needed for them to do in order to help them help your franchisee succeed?

Jeff Fenster: I mean, ultimately, the latter. There’s obviously some homegrown talent in there. Rock stars. Um, but there’s a change for all of us because I also didn’t know what I didn’t know. And so fortunately, back in 2018, um, Syria private equity, which is a pretty big franchisor, uh, they either founders of Yogen Früz and they have, I don’t know, 6000 franchises in 50 countries. Um, they made an investment in Everybo not because we were franchising, but because they knew that I was gonna eventually realize the franchise. And, uh, Aaron Saraiya even told me, he said, one day you’re gonna realize how you should be franchising this. And I want to be on your team when you do. Um, so I was able to leverage his advice and, and people inside of our organizations advice. But no, we definitely had to evolve the team. Um, it went from really just ingrown store level individuals who have grown with the company and we were just running stores to now. It’s like, oh wow, there’s a whole lot to this franchising that we had no understanding of from the second someone signs a franchise agreement, even forget pre franchise agreement, which is a whole process. Now they have expectations without a location. They’re looking for answers. And in the in the absence of clarity, whenever there’s ambiguity or there’s any unknowns, they’re going to go do what they want to do, which could really change your brand from what you think it is to what it, what you want it to be.

Jeff Fenster: And you really have to lock in process. You have to lock in the understanding that this is an individual or family or group that put in their hard earned money or their family’s money or their future into your concept. And they need to understand how to take what you’re doing and make it successful in a market that you’ve never been in, with a team that you don’t get to interview. So the idea of how you go through that process was so, so, uh, so much more massive than I had any, any idea on. And like everybody, I made a lot of mistakes at the beginning, but as you go through it, you realize what you have to do to support and to be a world class support system because it’s not, you know, the individual who buys a franchise may know nothing about real estate, may know nothing about construction or or supply chain or insurance or onboarding and hiring and recruiting and how you hire and what are you looking for in employee and how do you handle those issues? I mean, there’s a whole bunch that has nothing to do with making it possible or, you know, selling a hamburger for McDonald’s.

Jeff Fenster: So the, the key is, do you as the franchisor, the, the company us have the resources to provide that. And the real challenge is when you’re a brand new franchisor, you’re usually pretty small in store count or revenue. So you don’t have the capital to hire the team because as soon as you have one franchisee, they have the same needs as if you had 100 franchisees. Can you take them through the entire life cycle of franchising from pre sales with the FTC and that whole process all the way through to there, not only just the day they open their store, but now a year from now, because there’s so many things that you just take for granted or don’t realize are critical because either you innately are doing them on your team or it’s an individual store or box. So it doesn’t really have the same potential to have all of the weird one offs that are going to pop up. I mean, we’re still learning. I mean, I had 28 stores and I was in four markets, and I still knew very little about my business in markets that I hadn’t penetrated yet, that, you know, we were in Southern California and Arizona. Today we’re in 32 states from, you know, Massachusetts to Florida to Hawaii.

Jeff Fenster: And stores I thought were going to do terrible, have done very well. Stores, I think are going to do great, have been not so great. And you learn things like ingress, egress, where you think, oh, look how many cars per day. And the real estate looks really good. Yeah. But that street light that to get into your center is on the is, is a terrible light. It takes forever and during peak time for your business, traffic’s going the wrong way, and there’s just not going to stop what they’re doing to come to you. And you’re like, oh, well, that didn’t show up on a, on a PDF that showed me, you know, average cars per day and household income and all those fun things or how you market to a customer, right? Like you think that everyone knows you exist. I had literally over 20 stores in San Diego, and I’d run into friends or acquaintances, friends of friends in four years that I’ve been open and they’d be like, oh boy, I haven’t seen it yet. Where are you? And they’re like, I’m everywhere. I was in the stadium. I was on the outfield fence of the San Diego Padres. I was in, you know, like you, you take for granted that your marketing is not reaching the ears in the eyes.

Lee Kantor: Now, early on, you mentioned you got some financial interest and help. Um, did you was that kind of, um, was there a debate on your team whether to take that or not? Um, when you’re having a partner like that, there are certain expectations. Uh, did you, can you share maybe some of the trade offs, when it comes to having a, you know, a well-heeled financial partner like you did.

Jeff Fenster: Sure. Yeah. Um, I mean, look, I was self-funding them all to begin. Uh, I had sold a few companies and I was in a financial position to do it. Uh, but early on, people started to, you know, reach out, hey, are you looking for investors, etc.. And the first money I took was actually from some local San Diego, uh, individuals, one being a big restaurant group that owned just a lot of San Diego restaurant family. And I did that because I wanted the smart money. I wanted to know more about restaurants than I did the cash that was there. But by then writing a check, they were going to be invested into it. So I was going to get more attention and more detail. Traditionally, there is a lot of issues that come with raising money. Um, I had raised private equity capital in previous companies. It changes. It really makes it to, you know what they say a, a horse built by committee is a camel. Um, you have to fight that off because you have And you have insert, you know, insight from individuals that are not living the day to day. So they don’t understand the nuance of what’s happening, but they understand the, the 30,000 foot view of you’re running a restaurant and this is what we need you to do, and you need to focus on your prime cost and you need to focus on location and, you know, increase your AUVs.

Jeff Fenster: And like all the high level basic things that we all want to say, but what they may not feel is the, the texture and the conditions that are brewing that made you make the choices you’re making or why you may go left when it may be common thing to go right. And so you have to appreciate that when you take that money or you make that trade off. I didn’t need the money. So I was uniquely positioned to basically tell even my partners, you know, sir, that I’m not giving you a board seat. I’m not taking opinions as a as a fact. I’m taking them as a opinion and I’ll make my own decisions. Do you want to come in or not? And fortunately they did because they’ve been wonderful partners. And, you know, I have a lot of financial partners because I like to build my businesses in my life through relationships, relationship, capital. That’s what I truly believe is the most important asset we have. It’s not money and it’s not knowledge. It’s it’s knowing the right person and being able to get access to whatever you need. So, um, I’m a, I’m a team guy, so I love having a big team, but I am very, very adamant that the way my, my company is structured, whether I have half a percent of the company or 99.9% of the company, as long as I’m here, I have the say to do what I want to do.

Jeff Fenster: And the second, I don’t want to do that, I will sell that control. But, um, I don’t have to take direction from anybody, even though I, they invested money because when you invest money in a company of my size, you’re investing in me. You’re investing in, in what I’m telling you and what you believe if I’m able to accomplish this thing. And so it’s not betting the horse, it’s betting the jockey. Now, when you get to a bigger size, you’re betting the horse. But early on, I have to make so many decisions based on so many moving parts that If you don’t bet on me and you don’t trust my gut and my intuition and my business acumen, you shouldn’t give me any money. You shouldn’t make this investment. You should find a different, safer place to park your cash or to to watch it grow. Um, and so I make that clear. Now, that doesn’t mean I operate in a vacuum. I am actually the opposite. I want feedback and I have debate and I love conversations because, you know, as a in law school, I learned all about analytical approach and thinking and how to look at things from every perspective.

Jeff Fenster: And so I really try to do that. And so I have a lot of engagement day to day with all of my smart partners and people who are invested in the company. And a lot of times I go with what they want to do. Um, but I have to make the end of call because it’s my, it’s my responsibility. You know, at the end of the day, it’s my fault. Whether it’s, whether it’s my decision or was my idea or not. And so, um, when you take capital, you’ve got to realize that’s the trade off. But it’s important because we also have no debt and it’s very hard to build the franchise apparatus, the franchise support company you need to do based on royalties of a few stores. Because the second you sign to be a franchisee, I don’t collect royalties. I don’t collect any royalty until you’re open, which could be anywhere from a day to a year from now based on finding the right location, building it out and going through the process. But you still need help with real estate and onboarding and marketing and setting up supply chain and logistics and pricing and, and realizing that we have to think through the iterations of the, of the business. And then we have to train you both here and there, and we have to then open your store and then we have to be a good, uh, you know, do what we call fbc’s, but franchise business consultants to make sure that you’re making money and you understand your food costs and your hours and your weather and your competition.

Jeff Fenster: Like there’s so many things that go on and we haven’t even touched finance. We haven’t even touched your tech stack and your technology. We haven’t even touched your recipe cards and what equipment and being able to help you save money on those things, because otherwise, what’s the value of opening an ever? So we have to justify why you’re partnering with us, and what makes franchising so much more successful than opening your own is because a good franchisor provides the totality of those services and makes it to where there’s a benefit and a value to opening this, and you’re joining a family to help build a brand. And so you’re not doing it in isolation because the marketing component is the most expensive. It’s the hardest to get people to hear you and see you and listen, I mean, you’re literally screaming at a stadium, peanuts and Cracker Jacks from the upper deck. And how are you going to get people to listen? So it really, really takes a an effort. And that’s why getting that outside capital was able to allow us to, to not only, you know, spend money that isn’t just coming in through revenue and not have to take on any financial debt that would cause debt service.

Jeff Fenster: But it came with the attention of individuals who had been here before, have done it, and are doing it at a very high level and ultimately, hopefully are going to save us from paying too much dummy tax. Because once you get into the franchise business. I mean, there’s some small companies like subway and McDonald’s out there that are in this franchise space that are quite, quite, quite, quite sophisticated and large. And, um, well, they may not be my direct competitor in my industry or in my, you know, in my niche, in my type of food. That piece of real estate that I want is that’s really good. Every industry wants that or every, every type of food genre wants that. You know, you want to drive through. Good luck. Starbucks wants every drive through in America. So does Dutch brothers and McDonald’s and, and Burger King and, uh, Raising Cane’s and, you know, chick fil A, like they all want that same real estate and they all want that same center. So you don’t just compete with small companies like everybody that are trying to grow and the better for you health concept, you’re competing with everybody.

Lee Kantor: Right? And you’re also competing for the share of stomach. I mean, there’s only so many meals a day that a human’s going to consume and you want to be one of them, or at least.

Jeff Fenster: 100%, 100%. And then you got to factor in the veto, which, you know, I had no idea about until much later on. Um, where you don’t want to be by yourself in the center. You actually want to be around those people that are going to steal that share of stomach. Because if four of us are friends going up to eat, we can’t all agree on what to eat. But there’s what I want and you want right next to each other, in the center or in a in a thing. We can get what each other want in a quick serve basis and sit together and eat. And that’s why you see a lot of cohabits co tenancy of, you know, lunch concepts altogether. That’s where the birth of a food court came to be. And you don’t necessarily, unless you’re a really, really destination type brand that can pull your own customer, you don’t always want to be in by yourself. So you want to be sharing the real estate in that shopping center, with parking, with the people who may steal that share of stomach. But then you’ve got to be more specific and much more strategic on how you get the dollars, because you got to get your customer to come because now that, uh, you have less of a chance to just be the only option.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with a franchisee, um, what do you recommend kind of their playbook for penetrating a market? You said yourself that you were in a market and you were everywhere, and yet people that were close to you didn’t even know kind of what you did. So how do you help that maybe less sophisticated franchisee, Capua, kind of that brand awareness needed to even be in the consideration set when it comes to choosing what to eat.

Jeff Fenster: I would tell them to go back to just being a customer and a kid. The success for me has always come from me removing what I think I know and just saying, what would a five year old do and what would a customer do? And what I mean by that is, is discounting and giving me a Bogo or a discount to come try your product and screaming, hey, we’re so cool. Look at us in, in a social media platform where everybody else is and the attention span is there is very hard. Um, so what would a kid do in a in a playground? They’d make friends. So how do you make friends in your market? Well, throw a party or have free food. So we open every available now with what we call friends and family. We give away free food to the entire community. The opening day. Just come try it. Because whether you’re gonna buy it or not, if you don’t like it, you’re not coming back. If I make you pay for it, it may take you months to come in because of life and just busyness and whatever. I can go buy an inevitable whenever I want. So why am I coming today? So I’m open, waiting for you to come try my food, to then maybe become a regular customer. But if I give it away for free on opening day and we throw a party and we train our staff that way, and we make it part of the community, and it’s just a big, fun event.

Jeff Fenster: A lot of people will come for free. Free ball. So now, at a minimum, three, 4 or 500 people have tried the product. So now starting day two or day one A, if you will, uh, 1BI mean, if you will, I already have a large swath of the community who are interested, who have already tried it. If they like it, they’re going to come back. And now I can really start to market to that community that was aware of it, that saw it, and now is going to listen to my ads and are going to listen to my communication, because so many times we try to go, oh, I don’t want to give away free food. It’s expensive. What’s expensive is not having customers for days and days and days and days and days. Your food costs, if they are below 30%, you can give away $1,000 in free food. It’s going to cost you $300. You can go spend $1,000 on advertising on Instagram and hope to generate 300 customers. You would think that was a success. So it’s not that you’re not getting the same thing. It’s just the way we’re looking at it. One way we’re looking at a thornbush and we’re happy that there’s a rose on top.

Jeff Fenster: And one way we’re looking at a rose bush and we’re upset that there’s a thorn on it. It’s the same result. It’s just a different perspective. And so I always tell my my franchisees and everybody throw a party, have fun, make friends. Because if you do that, people are gonna come and try it. They’re gonna like your staff, they’re gonna like you, they’re gonna like what you’re offering. They’re gonna listen to you because when you have a line out the door on opening day and people are driving by, whether they’ve heard about us or not. I’ve also always looked to a large line every time, and they’re going to say, what’s going on there, what’s equitable. And this lesson came to me on a whim because when I opened my very first store, I had no idea what I was doing. I had never opened a restaurant before. I had no experience. So I said to my team members that most of them were in high school, invite a few friends over, and let’s just make some free food tonight so we can work through the kinks together. I didn’t pay attention and understand that when you tell a bunch of high school kids to go invite some friends that you were not going to have a house party, so the entire football team showed up and we had about 3 or 400 people show up to something I was expecting 15 to show up to, and that was my first store.

Jeff Fenster: But what was fun about it was I got to make friends with 300 people in Poway, which is where my first store opened, and I got to talk about the brand. I got to watch them. We got to work out the kinks for the staff and myself, and there was no expectation because it’s free. And then I took a step back and I started to look at what other brands are doing. And on 7-Eleven, 7-Eleven gives away free Slurpees and Jersey Mike’s gives away, you know, has a huge. One of the busiest days of the year is the day that they. They give it away to charity. And then you start to realize that I don’t want to be a discount brand. I don’t know that you pay for it or be free. Free doesn’t mean it’s discount free means I’m giving to the community. I’m showing you what we are about. I’m making an investment in where we are. Discount means I’m not worth what I’m asking you to pay. And when you give a Bogo, it’s what happens. And there was this new restaurant that opened in Encinitas. It’s where me and my wife live. And I swear to you, Lee, I thought that this restaurant had just opened.

Jeff Fenster: We had been talking about going there. So we finally get there and I’m asking the waitress, how long? How long you guys been open now? Three, four months. And she said, over 14 months ago for 14 months, me and my wife kept saying, oh yeah, we gotta go. We gotta go. Thinking it was still a brand new restaurant. And you know what? We go once or twice a month and it’s nicer dining. You know, average bill is probably 200 bucks when you go. So I’m spending 400 bucks a month, let’s say now. But for 14 months they got $0 from me. Not because they didn’t want to be a customer. I just hadn’t had a chance to be a customer. I hadn’t had a you know, my life didn’t allow me to go and try it to now be and give them that regular cash. Now, what if they had gotten me 14 months ago? How much better off are they and how many of me’s are there? And that’s the difference in that first and second year of making money and surviving and possibly going out of business. So if you only have a limited budget, I wouldn’t say to spend it on Instagram ads to start. I would say get the word out and have everybody in your community come try your product.

Jeff Fenster: If they don’t like it, you’re gonna find out right now, make the adjustments. If they love it, they’re going to know about it right now. And there’s nothing more powerful in marketing than customer marketing. When a customer becomes your marketing apparatus and I say lead. Have you been to that new everybody in the community? No. Oh my God, it’s so good. I went there the other night. We gotta go. I mean, it was so goodly and I’m not even an employee or an owner of the company. I’m literally a champion of this brand, all because I enjoyed it. And I get to be the hero who gets to take more people to it and feel like the community mayor. And that’s when all of a sudden you’re on to something. So I try to explain this to franchisees. They don’t all understand it. They don’t all appreciate it out the gates. Some of them are still resistant to the fact of free, um, you know, a national label day, which is every year we give away free ice labels. Our competitors do discounts. Uh, this year we gave over 26, 000 bowls away around the country doing something crazy this year. It fell on a Monday, but last year it was on a Sunday. It was our third busiest Monday of the year even though we gave away free food.

Jeff Fenster: Why? Because we’re giving away an item. And if you show up and you want a pitaya bowl, it’s not for free. So you’re gonna pay for it. But you know what? You don’t mind because it’s not an expensive item and you’re there with a bunch of friends. So everybody’s coming. They, they want add ons. They want grab and go items. They want this, they want that. They want this. But 26,000 people walk through my restaurants on on April 6th and had my product. I can’t duplicate that. I would, I loved that. And so that investment that that is on that day trumps whatever. I would have spent marketing to try to generate 26000 people to come try my product, but for free, why not? They stand in line, they get exposed, they get ingrained into our into our culture. And now we can build off of that. And you know what happens the two weeks after National Day, our sales go through the roof because the customer who hadn’t been in a while came back. The user generated content on social media from all the free food in the lines all around the country was the highest it is all year. So all the things I want came because I gave it away for free. And I made money because it was the fourth busiest Monday of the year.

Jeff Fenster: So it wasn’t free, but it was free for the consumer. But I got, as a business owner, got to generate what we’re trying to do. And so attract, don’t chase. And you attract by making friends and making it a fun environment and a fun experience. And so it it’s so simple. It’s kind of complicated. It seems too simple. It’s like, nah, come on, it can’t be that easy. Like we got to think about, you know, we gotta, we gotta do some split testing and we got all these extra things that have to happen. They don’t. It can be that simple. Kind of like getting in shape. Move your body, eat, eat, eat good food better for you food and eat less calories than you burn more calories than you eat. But yet I still want to sit on the couch and have a thing that shakes my stomach with the electric thing because it’s it seems too simple to just not have that crazy thing, right? So it’s go back to being a kid and being your own customer. You’re not gonna race somewhere because they gave you a 20% discount. But on July 11th, my kid wants a Slurpee and I’m driving by a 7-Eleven. I’m stopping. It’s free. Why not? Let’s have some fun. It’s it’s a National Slurpee Day, right? Yeah. Those are the kind of things.

Lee Kantor: I mean, I think that that’s really great common sense advice for any of the franchisors. Uh, they’re struggling and trying to Overthink something that can be as simple as make friends and be nice to people and, you know, give them free food every once in a while. It’s not, it’s not going to kill you. It’s an investment, not really an expense. But I’d like to before we wrap up, I want to make sure that we cover a little bit about the we build. How did that come into play and how are you serving your customers in that area? Because that’s also a part of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Jeff Fenster: Yeah. I mean, again, I’m, I’m a simpleton when it comes to solving problems. I’m an entrepreneur by, by definition. And it’s not because I like to be, it’s just because I don’t accept the status quo problems. And so I opened my first ever bull. Um, it was a former smoothie shop that I took over and it cost me $300,000 to build. And well, that may be cheap in the restaurant space. That to me is crazy that here it is. I’m not building, you know, a brand new Amazon, uh, headquarters. I’m building an acai bowl and smoothie shop in an existing smoothie shop. I don’t need a hoods or ovens and the infrastructure and guts was there, and yet it cost me that much money. And the question is why? I’m gonna go build 100 more of these myself. Why is it so expensive? And so when I run into a problem, a lot of people run and solve the problem and I stop and ask myself, well, what is creating this problem? And what if I do something different? Will this problem go away? So I said, well, if I’m gonna go build 100 more balls on my own, why would I want to spend 300,000 per year? That’s a lot of cash. What can I do to make it go down? And so I started my own, basically my own construction and fabrication company called we build just to build. Everybody’s not to make money, but to save money because as a franchisor, you’re selling people to buy into your business.

Jeff Fenster: And the reason they want to buy into it is because they’re going to make money. Well, making money is a return on investment. And in this space, it’s called a cash on cash return. If I invest $1 million into your concept and I make $250,000 a year profit, I have a 25% cash on cash return in four years. I make my money back. And in franchising, that’s a pretty standard good return. So before I sell more product, how can I help myself? But now. And now franchisees make more money. What if I lower the cost to build out their box? Well, now, if they made 100 grand on a $500,000 investment, that’s a 20% return. But if it’s a $400,000 investment, they still make the same hundred grand. It’s a 25% return. So they make more money. And I have a better offering by just lowering what it costs up front. So not knowing how expensive this was going to be and how much how difficult it was going to be, I launched, we built, um, to save money. And so we built has built all my bills and it has allowed us to take what was a $300,000 build out to today. You know, we just opened a store, um, uh, last Thursday in Orange Beach, Alabama. And to build out cost with equipment was under 100 grand in 2026. That’s a pretty damn good expense for, uh, I mean, an investment to open a box like inevitable where we have rebels that do seven figures.

Jeff Fenster: And that doesn’t mean they all do it. It doesn’t mean they’re all going to be under 100, but a lot of them are and can be. And we’re able to accomplish that because I don’t have to make money doing it. And I’ve invested so much money into building this out that I own both brands. I would rather make a better offer option to a franchisee, because now for the price of what used to cost me 300 grand for one, I might be able to build almost three stores in my market. So now I can launch three other bulls in my community or communities or my city for the price of one. And now I get better amortization of my marketing dollars and my food costs and my my real estate gets better. And, and more people are aware I get to leverage that with my insurance and, and, you know, my suppliers and my vendors and, and my, my, um, my skills. And if I make 100 grand on 100 grand, it’s 100% return. If I make 200 grand on 100, it’s a ridiculous return. Right? So I don’t have to be better than my competition. I could be the same and still offer a better option by lowering that. So that’s what Webull came. And you know, um, I blame Shaq because, uh, Shaq is the one who finally convinced me to, uh, build other things. But we only built edibles for a long time. And then in 2021, um, Shaq was looking at it, but it didn’t end up happening.

Jeff Fenster: But, you know, um, he asked me if I would help him with his concept big chicken. And I finally said yes. And so we started to help Big chicken. And then, uh, you know, uh, past life, but we have a lot of athletes and celebrities that are either franchisees or investors or partners of mine. And Drew Brees is our, you know, one of our largest franchisees and investors. And he said, well, hey, I want you to help me with stretch zone. Here’s one of his other concepts. And I said, sure. So we started to build stretch zone. And today, you know, we build everything from iOS fitness to wing zone Capriotti’s. Um, you know, we’re, we’ve done, uh, Sonic, um, you name it, we’ve done it, uh, cafe edibles, um, I’m, you know, fine dining, uh, Ruth’s Chris, you know, everything from that. And we have a big facility. We have a 50,000 square foot factory in Georgia. And we, you know, we do everything in-house from CNC work, all your millwork and your case line and anything wood, vinyl, signage, metal, uh, we build it all in a box. And my goal is to make it cheaper for you. So I work predominantly with franchisors or corporate teams to offer it to their franchisees because I don’t make money building one. I make money at scale, and I already have the infrastructure and the investments. So for me to, to offer it to other brands is, is now I’m able to, but I’m selective because I only want to do it if I can help them scale, because scale means I can win and they can win and the franchisees can win.

Jeff Fenster: And more importantly, now I get to work with franchisees on other brands and we can cross-pollinate, we can use real estate better. Um, and if I can’t help the franchisee, I’m not interested. I’m not here to make franchise owners money. I’m here to make franchisees money, which will make franchisors money. Uh, but that’s what’s most important. So that’s what we build does. And. I thought it was going to pay for itself after maybe 3 or 4 stores. And it took over 20. And it cost me millions of dollars of my own money. But in hindsight, it worked out very good. Had I known what it was going to take, I don’t know if I would have done it again. But, um, sometimes ignorance is bliss because it really was a differentiator for everybody because I was able to open all my stores and I’m able to progressively continue to bring the cost down. I don’t care about making money. And I when you think about construction, the whole business model is about increasing your expense because a general contractor makes a percentage of sale. So a percentage of the total build and, you know, all the trades, they don’t get to scale with you. So if I’m a plumber, I’m going to make my job here. But it’s feast or famine. So I got to charge you as much as I can while being competitive.

Jeff Fenster: And there’s change orders. And once we’re done, I don’t even care because I’m never going to see you again. The difference here is when we’re done, you’re my franchisee, I care forever. Your warranty is life because we’re still together. And so I helped you on all those fronts? Because we’re in it together. I’m a part of your business. You’re a part of mine. My brand is on your wall. So if I do a shitty job, build it. Sorry. A bad job building an enviable. My brain. And we build my brand. Everybody’s going to look bad for all those customers to come, so who cares more than I do? Nobody. So it really makes an even stronger relationship. It doesn’t mean there aren’t problems because there’s always going to be challenges and problems. But the good news is you don’t have to worry about a warranty. It’s forever. And you don’t have to worry about getting and finding your own general contractor and being a construction manager when you’ve never done that before. Because I know how to build variables. I know how to buy equipment at scale for everybody and negotiate for the best price for everybody. And as an individual franchisee, you get the full power of that. So with over 100 stores, we figured this out already. You know, we’re still learning, but we’re figuring we figured out a lot of the things that can make it. It’s still brain damage because it’s construction, but it’s, it’s, uh, it’s a lot less than it would have been.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. It reminds me of what you’re saying. Um, when a business starts, usually they’re just so laser focused on the customer. And then as they grow, the team gets laser focused on the company and the customer kind of is secondary. And then as they grow even more, then all they care about is themselves and how they can kind of win. And the company and the customer kind of suffers on that. And it sounds like you’re just laser focused on your customer, and it shows in your offerings and how you think about business. So kudos to you.

Jeff Fenster: Well, I, by the way, I’ve never heard it said that way. Lee. And I love how you just said that because I’ve that is the most accurate, uh, description and I, and I’m so thankful that you said that to me because I’m gonna, I’m gonna have to steal that and use that to my team because that is so true. The truth is we forget the customer is everything. And I have two rules that I’ve ever bought all my brands, and it’s the two core values. I have a non-negotiable and make friends and have fun. And if we’re not taking care of the customer, what are we doing? Right? It doesn’t make sense.

Lee Kantor: The whole thing falls apart. Like that’s that’s foundational.

Jeff Fenster: I mean, if you look at any brand that’s ever won in business, ever, they take care of their customer forever, right? I mean, that’s what makes chick fil A and, and in and out so special in the food space because the customer is everything. So when you lose sight of that, and I don’t understand how anyone who owns anything loses sight of that, but I guess it happens. But I mean, there’s also a matter of need and I’m not. My need is to satisfy them, and I have found that I have made all of my success and gains in my professional life have come by serving my customer, which is sometimes also my coworker. And it depends on the conversation. Um, to the best I can. And when I do that, I win every time. So why would we ever want to stop that? And I guess you’re right, as you said that, and you explained that I was thinking about it. I’m like, Holy smokes, that is exactly what happens. Um, and I’m not sure why it’s culture.

Lee Kantor: It’s a culture problem because it, it stops as you get larger. That passion of the founder usually just gets dissipated and dissipated. And then all of a sudden, you know, with, um, when there’s not clarity of communication and culture, then it just becomes every man for himself at some point. And then they’re just caring about how I can progress and how I can use this to get this next thing somewhere else. Maybe. But it just that’s why there’s a bureaucracy and politics and all that. It just is a, a de-evolution of what once was a great idea, and it just gets too big and it gets out of control because the culture isn’t strong enough to hold it all together.

Jeff Fenster: I mean, it gets hard. I will say that I, I see how there are a lot of, there’s a lot of opportunities for, for cracks in that foundation, in that culture foundation to happen for sure. Um, he goes definitely one of them. Yeah. And fortunately, I’m okay with being the dumbest guy on my team.

Lee Kantor: Right. Well, and you, I’m sure that the culture is just still within the DNA of the organization. You haven’t lost that. But as organizations grow and at one point, I’m sure you knew everybody. And then as you grow, you don’t know everybody. And then somebody else was hiring somebody. And, and especially in franchising, where these franchisees, like you said, are kind of doing their own thing, using your systems. It just gets really hard to just get that culture just locked in. So they understand that, that those conversations aren’t hard conversations. When you say, you know, make friends, they understand what that means and they understand the work that has to be done in order to do that, because you’re protecting your brand, which is their brand too.

Jeff Fenster: That’s right. I’m protecting our brand.

Lee Kantor: Right?

Jeff Fenster: And that you’re right, because there’s that theme of corporate, Corporate. And whenever I hear that, it makes me.

Lee Kantor: Right, because it’s not like you’re not in it together, that you’re this, you’re the same. They don’t understand that. That’s where I mean, I interview hundreds of franchisors and I can’t tell you how many. There’s friction and there should never be friction. You should all be trying to win the same race.

Jeff Fenster: Yeah. I mean, there is friction and there always will be friction, unfortunately, because you don’t always pick what I have learned now, and I say this to every franchisee, potential franchisee that I ever get to speak to if they’re considering a bill. And I, anyone who’s a franchisee spoke to me will attest, I say, do me a favor and find a reason to say no to us, and I’m gonna find a reason to say no to you. Because whatever your expectations are from this experience, whatever your goals and dreams are, I need to make sure I can deliver them or else there will be friction and vice versa. I need to make sure that you understand what being a franchisee is, means, and what it means to us. Because if you can’t be that, it’s going to cause friction. And so us not knowing what makes a good franchisee. You sometimes bring on franchisees early and they may not have been the right fit, or we may not have been the right concept for them where they would. They were great franchisees, but we were the wrong concept. That’s what can create that friction. And it is hard. I see that now because we’ve had to deal with, obviously, some franchisee issues like all franchisees have and will. Um, both some because there are fault and some because they’re not our fault. They were the franchisees or fault, uh, because they’re always going to step on each other’s toes because we’re learning things and we’re not McDonald’s, so we don’t have it all figured out.

Jeff Fenster: And so they believe they’re buying into a system that has no issues and no, uh, no areas of Kaizen and no areas that aren’t figured out. But I make sure everybody understands we’re a teenager. We sometimes look like an adult and sound like one, but we’re a child. And sometimes we may be young, but we have things figured out, and in some areas we are way more mature than our age. And in some areas you’re like, how do you have 100 stores? And you haven’t figured that out yet? It’s just going to happen. But we’re at that perfect stage where if you’re trying to have a, you know, on your on your teeter totter of, of opportunity and versus risk, if you want a little bit more opportunity, we’re still a great option because we only have 100 stores and we’re not McDonald’s. We’re good luck trying to get 20 new McDonald’s open. Um, but there’s more risk with us because we only have 100 stores. You know, we’re only in 32 states. We’re still figuring stuff out. We’re learning. We don’t have that, you know, 2000 unit power. So it can create friction. The key for me has always been to stop and remember, and I have to tell this to my staff.

Jeff Fenster: And this is the hardest part for franchising, if you ask me with having employees and franchisees is my employees are employees of mine. They go home, they get a paycheck, they’re here doing a job. They love the brand, they’re giving me their best, but they’re not business owners. The customer that they’re dealing with is a is a business owner. They’re actually the one who invested their money to do this thing. They are our customer. They are franchisee, but they’re not an employee. So because we want to go home on Thursday or Friday at 5:00 or 6:00 or 7:00, they have to go all weekend when they don’t have something they needed. Every moment and every moment, it’s not there. They’re out of money and they’re the business owner. That’s their employees that aren’t that are that they have to pay. It’s their customers that aren’t being served in their community. It’s their name on the on the lease and on the, on those bills. And so while they can become air quotes to sometimes as a pain in the feel like a pain in the ass, they’re the ones who are business owners. They need to be a pain in the ass. They deserve our full focus and attention and effort. And they don’t care that my employee wants to go home on Thursday.

Jeff Fenster: So I’m on the phone at 1 a.m. with sometimes with my franchisees because I know more than anybody as a business owner and entrepreneur, what it means and what it feels like when you got rent to pay. And so that’s where I have struggles that I’m always trying to remind my employees, like, remember, they’re not being difficult for the sake of being difficult. They’re business owners. We are their only solution. And in the absence of us solving it, they’re losing money by the minute and they’re responsible. And their family’s life, their family’s life savings could be involved in this if we don’t take that to the mean. To me, more than anything, to us, then this is not the right place to work. And I got to make sure that my team knows that because I took that for granted. Also, that I just assumed that my staff would think that way. But I’ve never been an employee, so I don’t I didn’t appreciate that they didn’t appreciate that they’ve never been a business owner. And what that feeling means, because it’s a very different thing when you’re an employee trying to get something done for a project and then go home and yeah, it’s bothering you and you’re passionate and you may think about it all night, but if it doesn’t work, you’re still getting your paycheck, right?

Lee Kantor: It’s I mean, that ownership mindset is so critical. And that’s why I think like employee owned businesses are a good idea. I think that the more that a person has skin in the game and understands that, I think every politician should own a business. I, I think they should feel what it feels like to miss a payroll or get close that feeling. You’re going to make different decisions when you’ve had that feeling.

Jeff Fenster: That’s right, that’s right. And you’re going to hold you’re going to hold your standards different, right? That what you’re willing to tolerate, uh, amongst the things that are not to the standard, you want them to be where you’re willing to allow. Well, we got to choose priorities. We want to do this or this as a company. They’re different when, when there are those things at stake, right? And that’s where it’s like, you know, if, if we don’t have our communication, like you said, the comms lockstep, if we don’t have the, the SOPs figured out, if we haven’t really done the work to justify why we’re doing something because take our day, we didn’t do a great job communicating the why the first, you know, call it two years ago when we had our first big swath of new franchisees, and I’m asking them to give away product, and they’ve been open only a few months and they don’t want to give away a ton of product, Even though I’m reimbursing them for it, the idea is they didn’t want to do it and we didn’t do a good job explaining the why. And so we had resistance, but we forced them to do it anyway, which creates a little bit of animosity. And then they get to see the results later. But that didn’t mean we didn’t create all that friction and issues ahead of it. Right? And so those kinds of things, it’s like we learn from it now. It’s like, okay, if we include them in the why, let them know they’re business owners. They deserve to know the why. And I’m guilty of this all the time. Trust me, if you ask my franchisees, the number one thing they’re gonna say is, I wish Jeff would slow down and tell us more, but it’s because I talk about this all day, like we just talked about this all day. I don’t remember who I did and didn’t say this to.

Lee Kantor: Right?

Jeff Fenster: I’m running a million miles an hour. I’m fighting every day for my franchisees. That’s all I focus on. But if they don’t see the why, if I don’t share with them the why, they deserve to know the why. So they deserve to be part of it. Doesn’t mean they deserve to always tell me. You know, sometimes you gotta be careful though, because when they’re included, they also want to give you their opinion and they get upset if you don’t include it. But I need to remember that too. Even though I have good intentions, right? Jay Shetty, I think, says it best. We judge others by their actions. We judge ourselves by our intentions. Um, I gotta remember that my intentions may be pure, but. But they only see and feel what the results are and the actions. So I gotta, I gotta do that same thing and hold that as a cultural standard. And so, you know, the room of Kaizen and get better is starts with us all. And franchising is a fun game. I mean, you know, I love it. I love it because it takes what is traditionally a very isolated, lonely, entrepreneurial business owner, uh, experience. And it puts a family and team together while you still get all the benefits of being that. So it’s the first time that I’ve gotten to be an entrepreneur with friends that share in my same mission, but aren’t in my same car. Um, and I, I wish I would have known about it sooner. I probably would have bought into a franchise instead of starting my own, honestly.

Lee Kantor: Well, I think it worked out better this way. And I think just to kind of put a point to this, it’s you got to kind of earn the benefit of the doubt from your people. And, um, and that’s why the culture to me is so critical. Like they have to understand that you are looking out for them and that anything you’re doing is with their best intentions. It’s not, you’re not trying to squeeze another dollar here and there. There has to be kind of the belief that you are kind of watching their back. That’s what part of what they’re paying for in that franchise fee is. They got somebody watching their back.

Jeff Fenster: That’s correct. That’s correct. But it’s hard. It’s always hard to to make sure that they feel that.

Lee Kantor: Right, right. That’s the every day. That’s your job every day.

Jeff Fenster: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: It is hard. No one’s saying it’s not hard. That’s hard is table stakes. Hard is table stakes.

Jeff Fenster: Yes. I mean, it’s hard for you to make sure that they feel that.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeff Fenster: Our personal feelings, right. Always are real, right?

Lee Kantor: 100%. That’s why also you have to choose wisely and they have to choose wisely. I mean, that’s correct. That’s all part of it too. Personal accountability. You know, you made a call. You made a choice. So kind of you’re in it now.

Jeff Fenster: Yeah. Ain’t that the truth.

Lee Kantor: So. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you. What’s the website? What’s the best way to connect with you or somebody on the team?

Jeff Fenster: Well, everbowl.com obviously for everbowl. Um, Jeff@everbowl, it’s very sophisticated email. So make sure you, uh, know how to spell it. It’s with the traditional J. Um, but no, jeff@everbowl.com is a great place. Obviously, uh, any of our 100 plus stores around the country, we’d love for you to, to go and try it. I’d love to get your feedback, if not just that, it was good. I don’t give that to the, uh, the franchisees and the customers send me the suggestions, the improvements, the ideas, because that’s what I’m, you know, that’s my role. Um, obviously social media is always a good place as well. And, um, yeah, download our app. It’s, uh, it’s where we’re trying to get more user engagement and feedback and participate in, um, all of our fun initiatives that we’re doing. We just launched a new Ltos. We’re launching a new expanded menu. So I would love, love you guys to give it a try and support our communities. And if franchising is on your radar, you know, we don’t say yes to everybody. We’re not looking to just sell franchises because that’s not been our problem. It’s finding the right group. So if this is a mission that is meaningful to you and you want to join a join the, uh, community in the, in the family and help us evolve more communities and bring better for you products. We’d love to talk about it.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.