From Corporate Exec to Franchise Freedom: How Giuseppe Grammatico Helps Others Find Their Dream Business

Jeff Kikel: [00:00:00] Hello, Freedom Nation. It's Jeff here once again with the Freedom Nation podcast and on today's show, I have Giuseppe Grammatico. He is a franchise consultant that is very focused on the consulting side of it. Much more than a lot of people I've talked to, in the franchise world.

He's not just about selling franchises. He wants to make sure that the people that he works with are getting something along the right lines and it's a good fit for them. So Giuseppe, welcome to the show, bud.

Guissepppe: Thanks, Jeff. Look at, looking forward to it. I love the Freedom Nation podcast.

I love the word freedom. So. Really excited to, to jump in and dive in today.

Jeff Kikel: Freedom is a beautiful thing, and that's what we're all working for. So, let's start off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your story? How did you get to where you are today?

Guissepppe: Yeah. First generation my family's from Italy.

They came here, opened up a restaurant. So I grew up bussing tables at a young age and, realize the restaurant business. Although I love [00:01:00] business ownership, wasn't for me because we were working nights

weekends and holidays and Christmas Eve catering and all that fun stuff. So I went to the corporate route, first person to go to college in my family worked on Wall Street, did really well.

Decided to go back to grad school, mix it up a little bit. Ended up back at Wall Street. There were actually a lack of jobs coming out of school. So, did well financially, had some financial freedom, but was miserable at the job. Didn't like it, interviewed at a bunch of places and decided, you know what, my passion, what I really enjoyed was owning a business.

I don't know where the hell to start. And I knew he wasn't a restaurant. Just like everyone else, Googling, going online, found a franchise coach and consultant, what I do today and they're like

there, there is franchising and it's not just what you see, not just, food that you eat and you see on the highway

but there's so many other options and that just completely opened up my world.

And almost 20 years later, I've owned franchises and I've been consulting for many years, helping people. Do the same thing and [00:02:00] helping them find find businesses to invest in.

Jeff Kikel: Perfect. So, let's talk a little bit about the world of being a franchise consultant. What's typically the entry point for a client coming to you?

Guissepppe: So there's different kinds of groups. The main group are corporate execs. So what's a corporate exec? Someone that's been maybe working five or 10 years corporate job. Maybe they have a fancy title like VP or a C suite and they have a few bucks to invest. Now, either they're worried about a downsizing or they've lost their job, or they're just preparing for Hey, you know what?

I want to diversify things, but in the event I lose my job, I have this safety net I created. So those are typically who contact us on occasion. We'll get a business owner that wants to maybe delve into a different industry via franchising. Maybe they're in the roofing business and they buy a painting franchise.

Just the economies of scale and the pricing will save you a lot in the long run. So, people are different stages but they're really just [00:03:00] displeased or want with their job or they just want something different. So they want to know how to go about. Finding if a franchise is a good fit and what those franchises are.

Jeff Kikel: Sure. Perfect. Now, okay. So I come to you. I'm an executive. I say, Hey, Giuseppe, I am interested in buying a franchise. What steps are you going to take me through to figure out what that franchise is going to be?

Guissepppe: Yes. So my claim, I always say in 20 minutes or less, we'll figure out together if a franchise is a good fit.

Okay. Franchise is a business. So we talk about. This is a business on training wheels, but it's still a business. A business can make tons of money. It could break even it could lose lots of money. So we talk about the three areas. Number one is, are you okay with following a process? We have a process.

And a franchisor is going to have a process. If you have trouble following our three step process, you may not be a good fit for a franchise, which is fine. That's the whole point of that call. And maybe it's a startup route. Maybe it's something you want to start from [00:04:00] scratch and not follow a system.

Number two, you have money to invest in a franchise. Franchise fees vary. I've seen them as low as 10, 000 and as high as a hundred thousand. So we need some money to be able to invest, not just in the franchise, but if you're running a business full time

do you have, who's paying your rent and kids school and health insurance and things like that?

So we talk about that. And then number three, the key area is timeframe. A franchise is you're going to be territories of availability and location. So. As long as the time frame is less than six months, we can look at specific brands or we keep

it general to say, maybe we don't look at the brands.

We just look and see if it's a good fit and then we wait at a later date on the timing. So those are the three areas that I help people in figuring out. But more importantly than anything else, once we get back, that is. What's your, why, what's the motivation from doing this?

Is it to make more money? Is it time freedom? Is it a combination? I talk about Dan Sullivan's five freedoms, the [00:05:00] time, freedom, financial freedom of purpose

freedom of location and freedom to work with the people you enjoy working with. That's the fifth one I always forget. So, but so we talk about that and if that all sounds like a good fit.

We schedule a followup call for an hour diving into the characteristics of the ideal business. So, I always say start with is a franchise or a business, a good fit, as opposed to, let me look at entrepreneur

top 500 franchise list to find out, yes, these are all great opportunities, but not really good fits for me.

Jeff Kikel: Now, do you get into the kind of location wise part of it or is that really more towards the

that next step of actually working specifically with the franchisor.

Guissepppe: Yes. Anyone we work with. So we have a 2nd call where we dive into what the ideal business looks like. And we look at things like the investment range.

The location. So to your point, where's this business located if it's brick and mortar or the territory

maybe a restoration business with [00:06:00] a two, 300, 000 population territory. So, as far as the extent I get involved in that area, we just check for availability. We check for, is the market available?

If not, where the nearby markets is there enough room for expansion? So we take a look and we also take a look for take a look at resales. Are there resales, maybe not current, my contact with the franchise or maybe knows of a family

that's ready to retire or there's something happened, life event causing that change.

So, so we do a very high level dive into the territory and then the franchise companies will do one call

and territory management, putting together the idea of territory or location.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, it's interesting. I guess, I knew that goes on in the markets but I would think in some cases it might be a little easier

to buy an existing business or an existing franchise versus, starting one up from absolute zero

is there a benefit or a difference return potential on one versus the other or is it depend on the company?

Guissepppe: It really [00:07:00] depends on the business and what you're getting it for. A business just say you tend to see numbers and this is going to be all over the map, depending on size and things

how long you've been in business and that growth what that growth has looked like.

But we see things like three to five times seller discretionary earnings. So, so the way to look at it is. Is it better to start a franchise from scratch or a new territory? I should say not from scratch, but a new territory, or I buy this existing business

but every dollar the owner was making, you're paying three to five bucks.

So you're, you are paying that premium, which is definitely could be an advantage. So. When you're doing that you're looking at two sets of books. You're doing due diligence on the franchise or, and then on the individual selling their business. So things to look at are, you want to make sure that the the company is making money that, that you're getting it for X amount.

And just say that three to five X range. But more importantly, you're looking for things like Google reviews. Are there a ton of negative reviews? Is the market just overly saturated? Does the franchisor [00:08:00] may come back and say, five, 5 percent of your current market is really where you want to be at.

And if they're at five, is there any more room for growth or am I going to have to buy additional territory? So, there's definitely two layers of due diligence. I wouldn't say one is better than the other. That there's the advantage. That cashflow, but you have you're also paying, going to be paying a premium.

When I look at service brands that don't have brick and mortar, the reality is obviously the investment

is typically in the one to $200,000 range all in, really for the first 90 days working capital marketing and things like that. But a lot of those businesses are up and running within 45 to 90 days.

So when you look at, I always say cash on cash return you put your franchise fee down, maybe. You get a loan for the rest. You could start generating revenue relatively quickly with a service based brand. But again, it really depends on that specific business and resale. And if you can get it at a significant discount, that resale could potentially be a good fit as well, or a combination of [00:09:00] a.

Of a resale and two brand new territories. You can match to it.

Jeff Kikel: Now, through your consulting process, do you work with people on the aspect of

all right, you, what you don't want to do is go out and buy a job for yourself. You're, you are buying a business and kind of how. How you're going to come into that business and run it from that perspective, or is that really on them to make those kinds of decisions?

Guissepppe: So it's my job to, to open it up the kind of open them up to what is out there. Cause a lot of people, I'll ask, they have the funds. So we've already had that conversation. Do you prefer brick and mortar versus a service based business, for example and they'll just say, I don't know.

I've never owned the business. I'm assuming a brick and mortar location can make more money. And I will tell you with 100 percent certainty, there's no correlation between the investment and the return period. It's like, I'm going to buy a penny stock or a hundred dollar stock, which is going to yield me that it makes no difference.

You have to look at the [00:10:00] financials and obviously what's to come as far as the business goes. So it's really the education aspect of saying, okay, there's no correlation. There's complete different growth strategies when you own a service versus a brick and mortar business. But ultimately, what is your current situation?

Can you afford to leave the job or is this something? That we have to look that's going to be on the semi absentee, something that's going to be part time

certain brands will require you to be full time and others will allow you to be part time. So we're going to look for different things like, okay, this business is less time sensitive, which means I can keep my job

and work nights and weekends with an empowered general manager in place to run the day to day and

do some of the hiring and firing and things that don't have to wait for me at the end of the day to get back in one.

So we talk about the different strategies and the advantages of being full time versus part time. There's also a third option, semi passive where. You essentially hire a management company to run your day to day and you're checking in [00:11:00] every other week for about an hour on a zoom call. Not the right fit for everyone, but there is a more of a semi passive play.

If you're looking, if your time is just restricted so look at your situation. The money, we look at the location, we look at the time commitment and the one missing piece

that most people just completely, they ignore, don't realize is the role in the business. A a business that has to do with massages, a business that has to do with dog waste removal and a business in restoration

water and smoke, three completely different businesses.

One is not, there's no similarities or anything. But the role in those businesses are very similar in that, you are hiring a team and you are doing the networking

you're becoming the mayor of your town, you are going to chamber of commerce events, letting people know, Hey, I'm here. This is the product we offer.

And by the way, we just started looking for some staff, can you make some recommendations? So. A lot of the, a lot of the roles are going to be similar and there are [00:12:00] certain franchises that will be more operational

and you're more behind the scenes and, reviewing KPIs, but the role is going to be the key aspect

because if you're not extroverted, if you're not able to do sales or network, and you're afraid of your own shadow, I jokingly say.

You may want to look at something else that has more of a management role management function. So it's really going down the list of these are the options, which of these options appeals to you most. And if they're not certain we dive a little bit deeper. So really just giving them everything that's out there as opposed to a portal where you're like, I like restaurants.

I like brick and mortar under a million bucks. And then it spits out, a list ours is more catered towards. Why do you like restaurants? There's a demand. People have to eat every day. There's also a high demand for other services that have much higher margins. Would you be okay to that? Oh yeah I didn't realize there were franchises outside of food.

So, so it's my job to to really educate and let people know what's out there.

Jeff Kikel: That's awesome. So at what point does your job end with [00:13:00] them? Is it all the way through to the close of it? Or do you hand them off and then you're moving on?

Guissepppe: You never get rid of me is the joke. So.

What happens is we, obviously we work closer together, we'll have three, four calls, we'll make introductions to the brands

and we speak weekly we talk, we may have referred you to three brands. So let's help you narrow in those brands. Let's talk about funding.

Let's talk about the FDD the disclosure document, excuse me, legal review and things like that. And once that decision is made to either move forward or not we'll just in this case to move forward

they're super busy in the beginning and they use me as a resource, like, Hey, can you recommend a payroll company?

The, we don't have a preferred vendor in that area or what would you do? I have a manager, I want to keep them on board. So I just spoke with someone about phantom equity and giving them a quarterly distribution without. The underlying equity being given away. So they, I get calls years down the road.

I even get calls and say, Hey, I just had someone in [00:14:00] Virginia and they contact me. I want to expand my business. What do we do? Do I add extra zip codes or do we add a complimentary brand? And I said in your case, the zip codes are sold. So we have to look at a complimentary brand. And they just purchased their second franchise end of last year.

So I'm always available. So although we're not talking daily or weekly. I'm always a phone call away and I get calls and years down down the road.

Jeff Kikel: And like even complimentary business, but do you get involved? If they want to expand to other areas and things like that, is that something you're involved in?

Or is that more now they're dealing with their folks within, that franchise?

Guissepppe: They're dealing with both. Obviously the franchise will be able to say, okay, these are the areas we have available. These are the costs and you're going to pay them directly. But the bigger, the better I guess the previous question would be let's call it Giuseppe

and tell him where he's at, where I'm at where my head's at as far as growth.

And what are the advantages of adding some additional territory with the brand versus. [00:15:00] Adding a complimentary brand in my market, keeping me closer to home. So, so I always encourage everyone definitely talk to your franchisor, but give me a call. We can talk about the different so for example, it's much cheaper to add territory to an existing, just say you have a painting business.

It's much cheaper just to add one or two extra territories, but you're going to your drive time and you're going to be much wider in the state. But instead of going that route, you have a painting business. You add a cleaning business, it's what we call vertical expansion, brand stacking, and you add a cleaning business while

the investment is going to be greater going that route, there's going to be training and the learning curve, but where do you save money?

You just service 500 painting customers that you can easily upsell into a cleaning service. So you make your money back. So maybe it's a wash at the end of the day, but two different ways. And sometimes the territory is sold. So you're forced to look at another franchise to compliment, or maybe it's a non franchise that you add

You stack onto the business as long as they don't compete and it doesn't have to be [00:16:00] a franchise, the next business.

So you have options. Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. It is nice to be able to value stack

inside of there and have all the, the complimentary businesses you and on the home, right. You took that. Yeah. You took the time to acquire that client. Now it's let's keep them, let's keep them happy and keep them busy at that

Guissepppe: point.

Not a client would love just nothing more than dealing with one, one vendor, one invoice. It makes life so much easier.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And the fact it's like, okay, we trust you. We found you. You're doing great. You're probably going to continue to do great with us and in the other sides of your business, right?

So you've got a podcast, right?

Guissepppe: We do franchise freedom. So, rolling with the word freedom. That's a big part of what we talk about.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. So what primarily you're just talking about different franchises or what do you talk about on the show?

Guissepppe: Yeah, we don't spend a lot of time on, on specific franchises.

So we talk about our processes we taught, we were just talking about our different business, our business models and

reverse engineering things and how to make and look into things. So,[00:17:00] figuring out where you want to be. So where do you want to be? And then where people get stuck, in my opinion, is how do I get there?

And then they give up and nothing ever happens of it. So I always challenge people to say. Don't worry how you're going to get there. Figure out where you want to be. 10 years retired. 10 years as we talked about having enough passive income or enough income coming in

so that you don't have to worry about ever working again.

Or just, there's just less stress because that income is coming in. So these are my goals. And then instead of asking how and where people get lost in the weeds is who can help me get there. Right. It's Jeff. It's maybe it's Giuseppe. Maybe it's somebody else, the who not how that's it from Dan Sullivan, a strategic coach. He talks about that in his very short read, but who, can definitely expedite how quickly you can get, to that goal. So, so that's really it. So, so the show is really, we have some industry professionals funding, legal estate planning, legal entities and stuff like that.

We've had a few brands on there, but we don't spend a lot of time on the brands. It's more of talking about the vehicles [00:18:00] of real estate. Is franchising better than real estate? It depends on what you're looking for. So the answer is yes and no. So, it's not, one is better. I like to diversify. So it may be stocks, real estate and franchises.

You create a portfolio. Most guys don't own the buildings that, you know, that they, their franchises operate in. So, so it's really an educational series. It's a lot of me talking about how to do due diligence properly. It talks about just, different ways of growing your business, the vertical.

Versus the horizontal expansion. So we cover it's business. And then we hone in on the various franchise aspects. So we're, I think 180 episodes websites getting updates. Our YouTube channels, the most up to date and yeah, we cover, various topics.

Jeff Kikel: Love it. Love it. Let's transition to the fast five questions.

Guissepppe: Sounds good. I don't know why it turned red there. So sorry. . Yeah, the lighting is kinda weird in this office. Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: All right let's kick off. Number one. You wake up in the [00:19:00] morning, business is gone. You have 500 bucks in your pocket laptop computer. What's the first thing you're gonna and a place to live?

What do you, what's the first thing you're gonna do?

Guissepppe: Get online. The Internet's free social media. I just actually just stole this from someone and I can't remember who it was, but documenting if I had to start all over again

and just documenting live as to what you would do daily, starting from scratch, I would put feelers out there, pulls out there, figure out a niche.

It could be consulting, it could be expense reduction for small businesses, but see what the demand is in your area. It's free utilizing all platforms, omnipresence and then stick, get super specific on a client avatar. And enroll with it and whatever that business is. So for me, it would probably be some type of business coaching or consulting

helping people get unstuck, helping them lower their expenses.

So that, that's what I would do.

Jeff Kikel: Perfect. Awesome. What's the biggest business mistake you've ever made?

Guissepppe: Business mistake is trying to be an extra in all [00:20:00] areas. I felt like I had to be the best in marketing before I hired an individual. And I realized. As a business owner and starting in my, my mid twenties, that was not my role.

My role was to be that leader and the educator and that supporter. So, hire people better than you in certain areas and your business will flourish. Nice.

Jeff Kikel: What's a good book that you'd recommend for our audience?

Guissepppe: Good book. You know what? I'm going to get off the topic of business and one that's been life changing for me that really simplifies things is the blue zones blue zones,

everyone talks about the same business book.

So the blue zones, it's all about life. It's not about business. It's not about personal. It's about having a happy and and healthy life. So the Blue Zones just talks about having a balanced life, from diet to exercise to

where the most centenarians are located in the in the world, not just the US.

And I found that life changing in simple terms, nothing complicated. Because this is all life is all about a balance. So, it's definitely changed my life. And they have 10 [00:21:00] different versions of the book. Pick anyone up. They're all great.

Jeff Kikel: And it's that's Dan Butner, correct?

Guissepppe: Yes. Dan Buettner. The Blue Zones.

Yeah. Awesome.

Jeff Kikel: Love it. Looks like there's an audible book too, for it too. So if you're one of those that would prefer to listen perfect audio book to go.

Guissepppe: I don't make any money off of it. So although Dan, if you want to send me money, you're

Jeff Kikel: more than welcome to big

Guissepppe: fan.

Jeff Kikel: What what's a tool you use in your business every day you might recommend?

Guissepppe: Aside from the CRM and I'm still testing that area, the the game changer for me is a Google calendar. It's free. And I time block, I used to do lists and things like that. I time block everything now. It's not perfect, but by scheduling an hour to write a blog or an hour to do an interview or for the show

and things like that it helps to almost guarantee it gets done every time.

Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: The cool thing now is if you, I don't know if it's on the regular one. I use the Google for Business or workspace now, 'cause I've always time blocked by time. But I actually [00:22:00] have little tags for that and it runs a little thing over on the left hand side for me.

That shows me how I spent my week.

Guissepppe: Yes. I just actually, I just noticed that I never realized it was there, so I thought that was, yeah. Some added feature, but you need the business suite for that, I believe.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Like I said, all I have is business suites. It's the only one I knew, but yeah it's good.

I always used it as just, I pull up the whole week and if it's anything related to clients or income, it's always green. And so I look for the amount of green on the tab. If there's not very much green and there's other stuff, we've got to do a little bit of shifting around that way.

Guissepppe: That green, right.

You can't be doing admin functions all day. So yeah, absolutely. It's a balance. Absolutely.

Jeff Kikel: Cool. The last question. What is your definition of freedom?

Guissepppe: My definition of freedom is we talked about the five freedoms, but for me, it's really. Having the freedom to to really do what I want when I want.

So, an example would be, I took three weeks off to travel Europe, to visit my family in Sicily and [00:23:00] always family in the Czech Republic. So, and if I wanted to check in, I could, and if I didn't want to check in, I didn't have to. So, having a team in place, managing the day to day so that you can disappear for a week in your business.

I'm not saying. Has zero effect, but you don't really have to worry about it. Things are going to be done. So it's really that peace of mind. It's not that worried. Like, okay, if I get sick, I'm going to get behind. It's going to throw my whole week off. So, for me, it used to be the importance if I had to rank and was financial always, but right now it's time.

I have two young family. We go to the soccer games. I became a soccer coach and things shift as you get older. And as they're approaching college in several years. Just trying to spend as much time together and travel the world and make memories. So, so for me, it's really doing when I want, what I want, when I want, and we try as much as we can.

Part of that is time blocking. It's saying, your clients don't know, what you're doing if you're on vacation or if you're on a podcast or a call. [00:24:00] So time block. And I would encourage everyone. When you get your Google calendar, the way to approach it is put your rocks on there, your important stuff

your kids, soccer, date night with your spouse and put all that on there and then open it up to your clients to schedule.

I think that'll make a, for me, that was a game changer.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Everybody talks about work life balance. Prioritize life, right? And and then work will just fit itself into there. It's amazing that in a void any kind of avoid seems to get filled.

Guissepppe: And if you, and I forget what is a Pareto's I'm friends with the guys at profit first

but they said if you give someone a week to complete a project or a day people figure out ways to do it.

They become more efficient. There's less waste of time and things like that. So yeah, it's called Parkinson's law.

Jeff Kikel: Parkinson's. I don't know why. Parkinson's law. Yeah. The, in, in absence of. It it, the, how does he say it? In [00:25:00] the complexity of any problem is completely related to how much time allotted to that.

So the longer, more time you have, the more complex you'll make things and to fill in that time. And I agree.

Guissepppe: It's true. Once you have a deadline or something last minute, we all figure out ways of doing it. So you're just being as efficient with your time learning to say no, I have to do that quite a bit, unfortunately, but it's just part of it.

Your time, what is your time worth? And you're allocated so many hours in a day to work. So you want to make them as green, like on your calendar as possible you admin functions

but yeah, you just gotta be efficient or else people will. People will eat up the calendar and they'll take advantage of it.

So it's happened to me, unfortunately, but yeah.

Jeff Kikel: If you don't fill it in, somebody will, don't worry

about it. So just heavy. Thank you for being on today. If somebody is interested in learning more about you or trying to get in contact with you, what's the best way?

Guissepppe: So you can go right to [00:26:00] actually I'll even simplify it.

We have a new site redirect. It goes right to our site. myfranchise roadmap.com

Go on there. You can download wrote a book during COVID back in 2020 that outlines the exact process, my exact blueprint to finding your own franchise

if you want to do it yourself or you can give me a call and we can figure out in 20 minutes together

if a franchise is a good fit, if you're not ready to chat, take advantage of the resources.

We have a webinar. If you're stuck at your job and need to know the way to get out. We did a workshop or a webinar we put together along with about 180 episodes of the podcast. So plenty, plenty of resources to check out. And that book call is right in the upper right hand corner. Feel free 20 minutes and I guarantee you'll learn something.

We'll figure out if a franchise is a good fit and we'll figure out next steps.

Jeff Kikel: I love it. And how much do how much do they pay you for that?

Guissepppe: No fee for the service. Our fees are paid directly from the franchise companies. They pay us a referral fee, just [00:27:00] like a broker, realtor, recruiter.

So no fee to you. So there's no cost whatsoever. The book is free. The workshop is free. So there's never a cost or contract ever to sign.

Jeff Kikel: Love it.

Fantastic. Thanks for being on. I appreciate it. And we'll encourage people to go that route. We'll make sure that we include that in the show notes.

So folks, if you want to link to his website, it'll be in the show notes and you can get to it

whether you're listening to us or watching us on YouTube. So thanks for everybody being on. We appreciate you. We do these shows twice a week for you. Make sure that you share this with someone. Make sure that you hit that little up vote button so that we know you exist out there and we'd love comments.

So we'll see you guys back here the very next time.