Brian Beers, thank you for joining me today on Acquiring Minds. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Brian, you're the owner of dozens of Midas locations in Pennsylvania around the Philly metro area. And you've recently been a leading voice, uh, at least on my radar, of the benefits of franchises. Um, so I wanted to have you on to delve more into that topic for this audience, the the acquisition entrepreneur searcher audience, many of whom will have had contact with franchise businesses for sale, existing franchise locations for sale. Um, but before we dive into that, let's get a little bit of background on you, elaborate on these dozens of of Midas locations that you have, and we'll go from there. Yeah, sure. So, yeah, I'm 35 years old. Um, yeah, in Philadelphia, as of today, my my brother and I operate 30, yeah, Midas franchises in Philly. And then we also, part of the expansion was into North Central New Jersey and a suburb, about an hour north of, um, Philly. So, that's kind of our our radius. We How we got into it was, uh, it's a a family business. My dad got in in 1976 when he was 22 years old with his dad, so I'm like, I guess technically third generation. Um, and he he went through the process of opening new locations, acquiring existing locations. Uh, him and my uncle, you know, kind of at its peak had anywhere between like six to eight locations all in Philly. Um, and, you know, after college, I business wasn't doing too great, and I decided I'd I'd, uh, join and give it a shot and see if I could have a positive impact, and so I, uh, that's what I did. I joined and started learning and, you know, helped grow the sales, and then 2016, we decided, um, you know, we want to make more money, and my dad owned the company, so the only way that was possible was if we had more locations that, you know, my brother and I owned. So, we went out and started buying additional locations. So, we bought two, and then another one, another two, another three, five, seven, just kind of, uh, you know, group by group, started sweeping them up, and, you know, eventually bought my dad and uncle out and here we are today. Okay, and so you started that acquisition path in 2016. How many years had you been in the business under your dad at that point? six years. I was you know growing the business. Yeah, I was pretty much running the company at that point. Um and yeah, Yeah, six years. I was, you know, growing the business. Yeah, I was pretty much running the company at that point. Um and yeah, it's decided, you know, it's the only way we could grow and um so yeah, we we started started then. So you were running the company, but it was still your dad's. Yep. You and your brother started buying businesses and at some point, not first, you didn't buy your dad out first. You did you kind of circled back around to do him to buy him 20. We had probably around 20 or so under our like separate entity that my we owned and then we were able to you know, have enough money to to put together a deal. So. Mhm. Mhm. Great. And so how many locations do you have now? Did you say? today we have 30. 30. Great. And give us a sense of scale by revenue if you can. And and what what does profitability look like for a Midas franchise? Yeah, so we'll do about 36 million's our like run rate on sales. And we have about 200 employees uh between the the locations. And that you know, that how much money you can make, it really depends. Um you know, we're probably in the I don't know, 10 10%ish kind of range. Mhm. Um you know, our best locations though can make 20, like they crush it, or our worst locations can lose a 100 grand. So. Mhm. Mhm. Okay. Well, Brian, give people as I said, you know, you you've kind of become this voice out there for the benefits of franchising. Give people that that pitch for lack of a better word. Yeah, I mean, there's a there's a number of benefits, you know. A big part of it I think is I don't know, the ability you have to scale very quickly. You know, at least in in it depends all depends on the brand and stuff, but if we're talking about guys who are interested in the acquisition side of it, uh you know, there's tons of franchises out there. Tons of people that get into them and want out. They want to retire. And like if you're young and energetic and you know, you're good operator like you know, there's tons of opportunity. And so you know, if I was running Beer's Tired Auto or whatever it would be called as an independent business, I mean it would be I would be nowhere close to where I'm at today in terms of you know, the the size of the company, the the money we make, you know, my lifestyle to to be able to surround myself with you know, a really good leadership team who can handle a lot of the day-to-day that gives me freedom. I mean all that comes you know, the sales and volume and I think in a franchise system the ability to grow relatively quickly is is is what I you know, is my big pitch and you know, why I talk about it. And to be absolutely clear, you're talking about growing through acquisition. Yeah, we have we we opened two new locations, um but not all of them besides that were yeah, through acquisitions. Because if you are in a mature franchise system uh which Midas is, decades old, you really your only way to grow territories or locations is by acquiring cuz there won't be much green space if any left. Well, it depends. So in Midas's case, there's still a ton. Like people don't drive more than the zip code they're in to get their cars fixed. Like 80% of our business comes from the zip code they're in plus maybe one more. And so like I have locations that are 10 or 15 minutes apart that have zero competition from each other. So I mean I could I could probably fill in another 30 locations in our existing market. Like at least in Midas's case, that's not really a problem. The the issue more in our case is is finding real estate is you know, in prime retail locations that's 4,000 square foot that's zoned for automotive. All that makes all that's very difficult. And so especially as an independent to to try to compete with like you know, what Midas's want and what Pep Boys and Mavis and Firestone and all the all the guys are competing pretty much for that same kind of prototype. So that's the issue. But in yeah, in in other businesses, especially ones that are territory-based, uh where Midas isn't, it's cuz it's location-based. Yeah, the mature ones, a lot of them are are are scooped up or or what's left is like you know, maybe not desirable markets. Well, um let let's steel-man this argument. So, there many people in my audience, many searchers, many business people in general have for lack of a better phrase, kind of an anti-franchise bias. They don't like them um for a variety of reasons. Maybe they think that you know, the business in a box thing, while attractive, can also feel like you know, you can't bring your creativity to the table as much, you know, you're not you're not as much of your own man or woman as you want to be. That might all be kind of perceived, but then there's the very real fact of you are going into business with a franchisor, so that introduces kind of another party into the into the equation of your business, which there can be risk there. There can also, of course, be be benefit. So, address a few of those, please. Yeah, so yeah, when you first of all, the box. So, so you're going to buy a business in a box. You get a proven business model, you get a marketing plan, you get a support system, you get training, you get all this stuff. That's the benefit. The the bad side is you have to live in that box. Like, you only can provide products and services that the franchisor approves of and that fit within their business model. For example, at Midas, if I decided I wanted to start doing body work or I want to market like we do car stereos and all this stuff, like I mean, some of it I probably could do as one-offs. Like, they're not they're not going to, you know, kill me over it. But, you know, if I want to go on the radio and start talking about it, like that'd be a problem because there's other franchisees, you know, in that market that aren't going to do those things, and then that makes the brand, you know, it kind of degrades the value of the brand. Um and so, yeah, you have to play by the rules. Now, it really depends on, you know, is that the type of person you want to be? So, for me, like I'm not to say I'm not creative, I'm pretty creative. But, like I don't need to go out there and like invent a new problem or solve something. I'm I'm more on like execution and operation. So, I think for people that are really good at like just here's the playbook, go and run it. Like for those people, like fran- I think franchising's a great fit, but if you're one that like doesn't want to play by the rules and you want to to always come up with a new problem and and try to fi- find these new challenges to solve, you know, yeah, it's probably probably not the right fit. Um but if you like solving challenges or like how do we serve more customers, how do I improve my profitability, how do we drive more sales, like problems that live within this box, then yeah, I mean, franchising can can be a can be great. And in your own experience, have you ever and if so, how many times chafed against your franch- the franchise rules? Yeah, it happened last week. I I wanted to try a uh there's ton- so, in real estate, right? There's there's tons and tons of these in the northeast here in Philadelphia. There's tons of these small like three-bay service stations, right? So, the gas station or have like a three-bay three-bays, right? There's tons of them. And so, I kind of thought, "Hey, if we could like operate a Midas shop out of one of these three-bay garages, you know, overhead's very low, employee count would be low, everything would just be low, sales, yeah, lower, too. But, you know, if we could put put up a bunch of these satellite stores and then, you know, not far from existing stores, I could funnel work, too, whatever the overflow was." So, that was my concept. Mhm. And I've been thinking about this thing for years. And in previous leadership, uh they were open to it. Open to this idea. In current leadership, uh they they denied it and said uh told me no cuz they didn't like the idea of an active gas station and liability and stuff, even though we wouldn't be running the gas station. So, anyhow, I'm uh I guess I'm off that bucket and now off on to on to something else. But, um you know, and then there's like, you know, what's the future of the business side of it? Like I don't know, there's this whole thing of, you know, obviously EVs and all this stuff, which I'm you know, I don't really believe's going to be a problem in in my lifetime at least for a while. And so, but there is this question of a what what markets do we attack next, you know, and you know, I'm I'm in favor of going after glass, right? Glass is like a huge market and there's tons of there's there's there's tons of opportunity out there. Um but like that's the kind of thing that the franchisor we want we want to change the business model or {slash} add a new service line. That's something the franchisor really has to get on board and they have to lead it. Um Mhm. But then when we we get into like creativity side, you know, it's a partnership like you said and and one of the big things I always recommend to people is, you know, figuring out like to what degree does the franchisor take input from the franchisees. And so, there's some franchise like Midas is actually very good in terms of wanting feedback from franchisees, wanting ideas like what are best practices, what is working. Um and then the best ideas get spread throughout the system. So, I've I've had a number of things that we've kind of started here that or or we took an idea and perfected it or perfected the execution of the idea that Midas has then kind of taken a hold and and other people are you know, doing it across the country. And so, I think, you know, your your creativity is kind of within the reins of how do we execute the existing system better and then does the franchisor take those ideas and work them into their new playbook. And so, I think, you know, the more kind of that there's that two-way street feedback, the better it is for the franchise system and the franchisees to be have access to kind of the best practices from around the country. And if somebody is considering buying into a franchise system and they're talking to other franchisees, that's something that they should ask. How receptive to how receptive are they to the franchise or? to to new ideas? The other thing you can find out is if they have what's called a franchise advisory committee or a FAC for short, which is basically kind of like so I'm on the FAC for for Midas. And it's kind of like you know the the top guys in the country not you know obviously the the usually the biggest franchisees are on it cuz they kind of have the most influence but normally they like to have a mix of some of the biggest ones some medium sizes and some smaller one that kind of matches the you know kind of the makeup of the of the franchise e base. And so you know we meet quarterly or so and we have different committees and like it's really a good partnership to figure out you know like I'm on the new store growth committee. So I'm I'm working with franchise development and other franchisees and real estate to talk about how do we grow rooftop locations and how do we make Midas a more attractive place for a franchisee to come. There's people who are on advertising there's people who are on operations profitability. And so you know a newer franchise system may not have that just because you know they're kind of small and they just you know they're just they got a lot to figure out but Mhm. most of your older established ones uh or or most likely going to have one if they don't like I'd be a I'd be a question of well why don't you have it? How do you get feedback from these you know etc. Mhm. Mhm. Great. And just on this point about creativity before we move on. So one of the kind of big areas of creativity within any business is the marketing like how do you drive demand for your product or service? Um and but I would imagine that that's one of the play places where a franchisee is most hamstrung because the franchisor is going to be ultra protective of the brand because that's really part of the value of what you're buying with your franchise fees and that's what all the other franchisees are going to care about and that consistency and so on. So it would seem like the marketing which traditionally is where there's a lot of creativity would actually be pretty there would be pretty tight guardrails. Respond to that and and as a follow up you said you know you can have creativity in driving sales. So how does a franchisee drive sales if not with creative marketing? Sure. Yeah so the marketing side like in our case you know they they work with a marketing agency. They have like pre-canned you know things you can say. So you say I want to do direct mail on and I want to drive tires." They say, "Great. Here are like 20 different options you have on what you can say or do or or brakes or air conditioning or you know, in our case I guess this leads back to how do we to drive sales? We're really big into consumer financing. So, we have a number of programs that allow people to get 6 to 12 months if they have good credit and if they have bad credit, we have programs to help people that way, too. And so, yeah, so I'm I'm some somewhat restricted on what we can do there based off of, you know, what they've approved. But, even there like I've I've said, "Hey, I I want I want to I want to do direct mail advertising promoting our no credit needed programs, right?" And so, you say, "Well, we don't have anything." I said, "All right. Well, can you Can we get something approved?" So, then I worked with the marketing team through a number of months who go back to Midas legal and like eventually come back with like three options that legal's approved that we're allowed to say. So, sometimes the creativity like you know, out of the box, you may not be allowed to do it, but you know, if they work with you on it, a lot of times you can get your message across as long as, you know, everybody signs off on it. And yeah, so how do we drive sales? So, that's a big one for us is is that. The other things we've tried like we we set up our own call center in the Philippines that you know, all of our calls kind of got routed to that way and then we're able to record them and you know, track our ability to to set appointments. Um, you know, a lot of them have to do with kind of the internal process that we that we follow whether it's um you know, we go to sell like the the order that that we go, the the the things that we talk about like we've gone through different like Sandler sales training or Dale Carnegie like trying to implement some of those practices, but using kind of the the Midas way. Um, you know, the franchise is really it's kind of the spectrum of how much they control you or want to control you. Um, some like like Midas is kind of on the spectrum of not that not I'm not going to say zero control but but minimal control like each franchisee runs automotive shops and carries the Midas name, right? So they're like everybody does it a little bit different even within my my and my 30 stores they're all going to like check out cars a little bit differently present build estimates present estimates, right? The look and the feel is going to wear very widely based on them. Then on the the total other end of the spectrum is like a Chick-fil-A which is you know, kind of not really a franchise but but people people get the point that it that's like they are going to have the owner operator there every day and like everything is going to be two a T exactly the same, right? And then there's lots of franchises that are in the middle. And so part of it depends on you know, getting into the franchise and and really figuring out is it kind of like you are going to follow the system this is only thing you're going to do or is it kind of like you're going to run your own business you're going to share in these shared you know, brand and advertising benefits but you kind of have more of flexibility too. So there's there's a spectrum here too. Sure. Sure. And that's again something that when you're considering what franchise brand to become part of that you need to be asking about figuring that out how restrictive is the franchise or and is that something you ask or is that something that just is like it it kind of emerges on its own? depends like automotive is like there's so many different cars there's so many things that can go wrong with cars like there's so many you know, range of skill sets of technicians that they kind of have to have flexibility otherwise it would be you know, be very difficult um but I mean if you're like painting houses like you're painting houses, right? Like it it's not like it's going to be this huge like number of things that come could come up. I guess there could be different surfaces or like do we do painting do we lime washing do we do insides outsides like there could be some variability there but um it's not going to be the same as automotive. And just to be absolutely clear with people the ability to grow quickly through acquisition is because versus growing through acquisition by buying independent businesses is so frictionless in franchises because why? Paint a picture. Yeah, so a couple reasons. One is as it as an existing franchisee, there's there's minimal hoop hoops you have to jump through. Right, like if I want to buy another franchise, I'm already like approved as a franchisee, corporate has to sign off on it, but you know, in general, they're not going to hamper it as long as you're a good performing person. Versus like you want to sell to an outsider, you need to like the franchisor has to approve them, they have to go to training, there's like you know, they're going to have to finance it. There's all these things that are going to happen that that could fall through at the last moment. And the franchisor is generally going to have a lot more say in terms of do they want this person in the system or not? And just because you found someone who's willing to pay your price doesn't mean that they're going to approve it. And so that's kind of there's this kind of like guaranteed, you know, buyer component. Um You know, the other reason is like that because of that is like franchisees want to sell to other existing franchisees. And I know we'll probably going to get into this a little bit, but like generally, they're going to go to their neighbor first or somebody who they think would be a good buyer. Much and they're going to go through all those options before they ever go out to the public. And because of that, like you kind of have all these off-market private like deals. I mean, most of the stores I've purchased have been, you know, only one has been publicly advertised. All the other ones, literally, I was the only person talking to them. There was no like bidding competition, there was no, you know, like like it was just me. And so, think about that. You want to try and buy something, you're the only potential buyer and it's like it's your deal to mess up or or or deny it. Um And a lot of that is is, you know, it happens over time becoming known, liked, and trusted. Like the franchise is like a like a country club where eventually everybody kind of knows each other and they I who the good performers are cuz a lot of times corporate shares rankings, so you can kind of see who's, you know, who's at the top of the list and who's at the bottom. And, you know, over time it's it's who do you trust? And like, if you're going to sell the business, you know, most people like to care about their employees. They want to kind of hand over the business to somebody who's going to take care of their employees. You know, if you have a track record of not only do you buy other people, you perform well, but generally like you have a good reputation within the brand and kind of you know, within the employees that you know, all that just makes it, you know, an an easier transition. Mhm. And so that that's kind of like the your access to deals and and in the ability to buy quickly, but talk about integration cuz that's that's a huge sticking point in all acquisition. Um, but so much less so in franchises. Explain that. Yeah, so in every franchise, I mean, it's almost plug and play. I mean, we've bought in locations and you know, literally the point of sale stays the same, the uniforms are still the same, the core processes are the same. Right? Like, it's still a Midas, right? So, like, we can literally switch like ownership. We buy it on a on a Monday. And the only thing that changes is on Thursday or Friday when they get paid, it's like coming out of a different bank account. And and then over time, you know, we have our ways of doing things, right? The the the sales process and the marketing and whatever. But like, you know, we don't have to start that day one, right? We start to trickle that in as we as we start to you know, over time. But, you know, if I was buying an independent business, you know, let alone five in a single day or seven in a day or 20 in a day, you know, think about you're going to have different point of sales. So, you're going to have to change that like day one, you have to change it. So, then you got to retrain all these people. Then you got all these people grumpy cuz their system was so much better. And then you're going to tell them, "Well, we're not going to like do transmissions. We're not going to do this. We're not going to do this anymore." And then people are going to quit cuz people don't like change and, you know, they don't like, you know, the the guy who was the rebuilding transmission specialist or whatever like isn't going to be out of a job. And so then so now you've got turnover of of senior people. Like you're not doing all these services that you used to do that customers might be coming in for. And you're going to be remodeling the place. You're going to be telling them like you're going to follow this checklist now and they never had that before. You're going to be open Saturdays and they weren't before. And so like people are just they're going to quit and then you have to restaff the stores and all that just leads to, you know, most likely lower lower sales and just headaches that, you know, slow down the process. But franchise kind of plug and play, generally it's pretty smooth. Um you know, we have there's a obviously hiccups but um that's why. Well, for my guess one of the big points of conversation is that day one speech. So the new owner comes in and and you know, there's kind of a speech between, you know, and a and an official handoff and introduction by the old owner to the new owner. And it's also fraught it's always fraught with a lot of anxiety on on both parties' part, the new the buyer, my guest, and all the employees. I I suspect that like maybe those day one speeches don't even happen in your case or if they do it's so smooth it's like because because ultimately like like you said, I mean not much is changing and and they they may see their employer as much to as being Midas as the franchise operator or no. So talk to me talk to me about that. Yeah, so it varies. So like um so yes, I do that speech. I've done that speech, you know, 20 times. Um you know, usually usually personally. But then uh yeah, so you know, it's a handoff saying the old owner's normally saying, "Hey guys, I'm retiring. You know, meet meet Brian and Chris. Like they're your new owners. They're going to take care of you." And then, you know, we give a little background on our history. Hey, we've been in our family's been in the Midas business for you know, 45 years. We have X amount of locations. You know, we usually tell them listen, I know you're going to be scared of X Y and Z but like let us assure you, you know, we've done this X amount of times. It's going to work out. Um everybody's got a job. We always we always uh backdate tenure. So if they've been with that guy for 8 years or 4 years or 2 years or whatever, that's backdated with us. So, like um you know, for for PTO and and health insurance and all this stuff. And in a lot of cases, our benefits and pay plans are better than whatever the outgoing guy is. Like, they might go up to 2 weeks and instantly, you know, a guy might have 3 weeks vacation with us. Or we have a 401k or like we have in a lot of cases, we have a better health insurance plan. Or, you know, our comp plans, guys are making a lot more money potentially if they can if they can increase the performance. And so, you know, a lot of times, we'll we'll speak a little to that. Um but honestly, most of the guys probably don't even hear it. And then so, we usually by day two and three, like our our district managers and COO and everybody are going around, sitting down with everybody one-on-one when they have more time, trying to get to know them and um no we've never really had anybody Well, maybe one to one one or two people quit kind of on day one or two. But most of the time, people are willing to give us a shot. And you know, they the good thing once again, part of like that network is like a lot of people kind of know our names cuz we're we're pretty local. So, like especially this guy Some guys have traveled too. So, like we've bought in stores where we've absorbed employees who worked for us like in the past. Um but they'll kind of like recognize the name or they'll know we've been around and you know, we have a good reputation. So, that that's helpful. Um and by the bigger locations like we bought seven stores, you know, in a single single shot and we went over 2 days to visit everybody. But by like, you know, by day two, everybody had heard. So, it wasn't like it was this big aha uh moment. It was just a matter of like you know, you guys know they're sold and here are your new owners. So. Brian, why a couple things that when you described your how you like approach an owner to to sell and in many cases, like they weren't talking to anybody else. Mhm. A few questions. First, I know that seller financing is a big part of your acquisition strategy. So, please talk about that because that doesn't I mean, you heavily seller seller finance deals as I understand it. But so, talk first that, second, why given how kind of fertile it seemed like this kind of the Midas the market was in in Philly for a Midas roll up? And that it was a mature franchise, so there, you know, it's been around for decades. Why hadn't somebody else done this last year or 20 years ago? So, first on the seller financing, what do some of your acquisition deals look like? Almost every deal we've done has either been we bought in cash if it's like a one store deal for, you know, under 200k. Or we we seller finance it in which the seller will finance, I mean, 70%, 80%, 90%, nine My biggest deal was nine 97.5% they they seller financed. Um the last time I went to a bank for an acquisition loan was in 2016 for the first two cuz I didn't I didn't know about seller financing back then. And so, you know, kind of generally how it how it work or how I approach it and I'll go how I approach it and then how it kind of kind of works is you know, we go to the seller and say, "Listen, like this is the First of all, this is how we bought, you know, X amount of locations before. This is like the best deal for us and it's the best deal for you." And so, like you always premise it by like, "Hey, we're experienced. We've done this a lot, right?" Um is that for the seller they get they get A, there's more flexibility what the price is cuz if there's no bank has to approve, there's like not this big underwriting thing. It's kind of like, you know, we're willing to pay a premium if we feel that we're getting a good deal on the terms. And so, the price has some flexibility. Second all, they get cash flow. Like as a business owner you're used to X amount of thousand dollars per month cash flow, right? Like And so, they get to kind of continue that. So, in a lot of cases, I'm their retirement plan. Like we're going to pay them $10,000 a month for the next 10 years or whatever it is, like I'm this kind of I create this annuity that they get on a business that they understand, right? That they understand automotive versus they take this chunk of money and they stick it in the stock market or with a broker or whoever and they they really don't understand like what's going to happen to it and it's really unpredictable versus mine is like pretty stable. They're going to get to defer their taxes. So, instead of paying capital gains on this whole lump sum, which most of these guys it's going to be almost the entire balance. Like they're not going to have too much um like basis points. But instead when they sell on a seller finance, like it's an installment loan. So, they they pay the same amount just it's spread out over X amount of years. They're also going to earn interest from it. Also, rather me paying a bank, they they're going to they're going to get the money. And you know, finally like once back to that like track record is like we have a track record of doing this thing. And so, they inherently trust me and they, you know, I'm I'm like I'm like a pretty good bet. And so, um hard for an outsider to do, but once again, once you're in a system, it's it's a lot easier to build that reputation. And so, that's kind of like why they would want to do plus it's just quick, it's easy. Like they don't have to like I don't ask for tax returns. I I ask for a P&L like one P&L and that's all I really need. And so, it's just like it's quick, it's easy, it's reliable, it's cash flow, there's tax benefits, right? All those reasons. And then So, so I I'll when I talk to somebody, I I just kind of lay out those those things. And um almost every single time people are like, okay, yeah, it sounds good. Like let's see what the numbers look like. And so, And why hasn't somebody else come along and done this before you? There's other guys doing it um throughout the country like friends friends of mine. You know, but like automotive is pretty, you know, it's a local business. Like most of most owners like own stores local relatively local to them. And so, Philly like you know, it's this kind of this changing of the guard where it was, you know, back then it was it was a lot of older owners. It was really fragmented ownership. Um like the biggest the biggest player I think was us. We had six at the time. Like and then there's there's another guy who's got about 17 or so in New Jersey and Philly who's kind of like my competitor for buying these things. And he at the time maybe had like he probably had six or seven. He had probably about the same. And he's on the same path as me. He's been he's been buying up locations as well. And so a lot of it's just you know kind of the timing of it to be honest. And same same for my buddies and I got guys in Columb and South Carolina. I've got guys in Tennessee. I've got buddies in Texas like California all all running a similar playbook where they're they're younger and they're buying out the guys that want to retire and they're good operators and that's a big part of it too which we can touch on a little bit later but like a lot of times these these locations I'm buying are many of them are losing money. Like they're not doing well. And so like a lot of it is it would be hard to get financing on some of these deals. It would be impossible to get financing on some of these deals because of the lack of profitability. And so like part of the the benefit is as you get bigger like we have the ability to kind of take over a location that's losing 10 grand a month or whatever it is and like invest the money and then we sustain the the losses for x number of months till we get this thing up and going and then you know it's it's then it starts cash flowing. Like we we can talk about that a little bit later cuz I don't want to get too off the seller financing but in in a lot of cases that's like that's like a very real thing. And so that could be why other people haven't done it cuz they haven't trusted themselves as an operator to to turn it around. Yeah. And are these some of these owners who just have a one or a small amount of locations are they owner operators? Are they people who have W-2s and this was like a side thing for them? Most of them are I had one so I had one the one that that like was losing the most amount of money we're still like still struggling a little bit. Yeah he had another job that was his primary source of income I believe and like he had three stores and you know cumulatively they might have been making like 80 grand a year, but like, you know, that number is up and down and then you have like, you know, a couple pieces of equipment you got to buy or whatever it is and that could that cash flow can quickly go to zero Mhm. between three between three locations. And so he had he was selling cuz he had another job opportunity, quote unquote, and wanted, you know, kind of wanted this off his plate. But uh besides that, no, every other one has been they had been I mean we say owner operators, but it was like they were like they had no other job. They were primarily, you know, they weren't like well, some of the guys were like in the stores every day, but other ones were, you know, had general managers in place. And for a location that's not losing money, that's actually a healthy minus location, what do what do the terms look like? What like are the multiple roughly? Is it typical three-ish? You know, I think we've paid we've paid three and a half. Like, you know, you're buying more, you know, you're going to pay more and then location-wise like you know, we did a we did a deal where it was five stores. They were probably making 600k. Let me just do some rough math here. And we're we paid um all in about 2 million or we're paying for that one. Um but we paid So So that was the price. So we got one of these deals. Five stores making 600k. 2 million dollars was like the purchase price. We put $50,000 down as the So, that's the the two and a half percent deal. And we're paying that guy I want to say it's like, yeah, like 10 10 to 12k a month for the next I don't know, 13 years. Wow. Wow. the uh And the 2 million price was like inclusive of interest so principal and interest. So in total we're going to pay this guy $2 million over the course of whatever it was, 13 years. Yeah. Well, I heard I heard your points there, Ryan, and that would that there was a pretty compelling pitch for seller financing. But still, if I'm that guy with a business doing 600,000, I I'm just going to I'm I'm going to shop that around a little bit. Um and and yes, I might be used to getting, you know, monthly income and so so maybe I'm kind of married to that format for for how I see my money come in. But like kind of most people just really just want the lump sum. I mean, you know, talk to other business owners in non-franchise land or the one Brian Beers aren't buying out, and they're like, "Yeah, no thank I mean, you have to push them for even 10 or 15% seller financing, let alone 70% financing for over 13 years." So, um I just want to push back on that a little bit. I think most people just want just you know, want to the lump sum and not to have to think about it anymore, and then they'll give that lump sum to their financial advisor if they really want some sort of annuity. Yeah, that's why that's why franchising's better. I don't know what to tell you. I mean, I'm working I'm working a I'm talking to a guy now in another another another group of stores. It's like five locations. There's real estate involved. He only has like he he has one mortgage. Uh he's making he's doing very well, better than better than my store like on a per average basis. And I pitched him on a a seller finance deal that it would be you know, the worst this could be like a $7 million thing. I I pitched him on a deal of giving him like I don't know. 200k down, and I don't know 200 or 300k a year, whatever. It was like 500 all in, including the real estate and stuff. And he I mean, he was open to it. Like So so like I don't There's something about it. I don't I don't know that the guys, you know, and like part of it is like you know, like they trust me, they like me, right? Like once you're established person like you know, I I I'm more reliable than than the stock market. Yeah. Yeah. Like I I think it is but for an outsider, like if I was selling my business to an outsider, like I who like I have no idea how they're going to perform. Like I want my money. But like when you're in the system and they're you know, these are like friends of mine, too. Like I'm not some These aren't some random people. Like you know, I've known both these guys that yeah, all these guys. I mean, there's two There are two biggest stores with like five stores and seven stores. But we've done threes and twos and ones along the way. And like every single one of them, they've seen me for years at these local meetings. Like we sh- some of our stores share like geographical regions. So like our employees would sometimes go between them. We'd help each other on, you know, marketing or help each other on operational issues or different questions. Like, you know, that's like there's this whole community aspect that when you join a franchise, you become part of this community. And that like generally like they become friends of yours. I mean, I I some of my like best friends are more like, you know, closer to my age, obviously, and not not retired. But like, um you know, that there's this whole aspect. So that you're kind of like selling it to your friend in in a lot of cases or somebody you really trust. Versus an outsider, some totally random person. Like, I don't know you. Like, I yeah, I want my money. For sure. And like in the in the independent business world, like every single person is an outsider. Every single business. There's no there's no sense of community. There's no built-in trust. Uh and so I think that's like that's why this is like totally mind-boggling to to people outside of it cuz like it just doesn't it's this whole aspect that just doesn't exist. Yeah. No, it's really interesting. It it is really different. Um and appealing the more I learn about it, I have to say. Um okay. Well, you talked about, you know, to in answer to my question like why hasn't somebody done this before? And it sounds like whatever timing and now there's this changing of the guard in your market and in in other markets you named around the country where you know that other of your colleagues and friends are are active. So let's talk more abstractly, not just about Midas, but um in our pre-call, you and I had talked about like um just kind of any maybe fragmented franchise in your local market. Say I'm in Dallas or I'm in Arlington, Virginia, the DC area. Like, how could I apply you know, Brian Beer's thinking to the opportunities here if I'm starting from scratch. I'm not looking at Midas necessarily. Yeah. So, I guess it all depends on A what your goal is. If your goal like there's there's there's two ways, right? The the first way is like I'm going to go after the legacy brand that has um you know, do this roll-up where you're buying existing locations as the primary source. There's this other avenue of growth, which is through like the development arm, which is you're going to develop new locations. And I can kind of speak to kind of both. But if if you're going after this um, the roll-up strategy, generally yes, it's going to be a legacy brand, something that has been around for at least 20 years, something that has a lot of units, right? Is is a big part of it. So Midas has a thousand units or whatever. Subway, there's like, you know, 45,000 or whatever it is. There's a ton of them. Um, and then B, it's it's got to have fragmented ownership. So, it's got to be different owners, you know, if there's 20 locations in DC, like I would hope to see 15 different owners, right? If one guy owned all 20, like if I owned all 20 of them, the likelihood of anybody else coming in and buying one or two from me, like I'm not going to sell one or two. Like why would I do that, right? Yeah. They can have them all or they can have none, right? And so, that that those are kind of like two of the big ones I would look for. A lot of units, so, for example, Midas in Philadelphia, greater Philadelphia region, there's like 60 locations, right? So, check that box. And in 2016, there was highly fragmented ownership. There was probably, you know, 30 different owners, right? And then now, because of now, if anybody looked at it, like there's only probably six of us that own almost 60 of them. You know what I mean? Like over the years it has consolidated. So, what worked in Philadelphia years ago is now not really a good strategy for Midas because of us. So, those would be kind of my my two factors. And like I said, I I know other people, like I have some guys in Subway that I know, who, you know, a lot of people think Subway's like this dying brand, which they are losing locations, but the guys I talk to think it's actually a good thing, cuz it's like pruning the bush, where they're getting kind of rid of these, you know, they were over saturated in a lot of spots. So, now that kind of helps uh, make the existing source more profitable. And they're doing the same thing I'm doing. They're going, they're buying out these guys that want to retire or just like they're not good operators. They're getting them for pennies on the dollar or they're getting them seller financed. And they put in their they they're put their thing together and they're turning around and cash flowing. And so um like it's it's a I've talked to two different guys who do this in Subway and it's a very similar playbook that that I'm hearing. And Brian, do you think this is I mean I I I think this is happening now for the same reason that people are interested in acquisition entrepreneurship generally, one of the big reasons, which is silver tsunami. So there's just that Right. They the the boomers are retiring. Um and so yeah, this or changing of the guard. I like how you put that. Um okay, so that's happening not just in minus but across a lot of franchises and that's probably the reason for all this churn and activity and there's a window of opportunity here. Yep. So um so let's let's really systematize this thinking. Okay. Another thing that we all know is that there's just thousands of franchise opportunities out there. Many of them very long tail, low quality. You don't you're probably not going to waste your time on them. Um so there's probably what? 100, 200, 300 established franchise brands? Like if I want to go out and systematically apply the Brian Beers like what you're advocating, maybe look at 100 or 200 different brands in the DC area and then and then kind of like build out a database of which one seem the most fragmented in in my local market, something like that? Something like that. Yeah, I think there's about So I went through one time like they put together these different lists like franchise 400 or franchise 500 or whatever. And I think they put Right. together was Franchise Times at a 400, their top 400 by uh revenue. I think it was by franchise revenue. And of those 400, like I think 395 of them were over 25 years old. So like almost all of them were like relatively established brands that had a good amount of revenue and a good amount of locations. And so yeah, I would say somewhere in that that top 4 to 500 um potential options at least when we would look at um kind of the roll up strategy. Mhm. And then yeah, it's it's what's then you start doing some research. Like you're looking at hair salons or like you can look at you know, there's Great Clips, there's Sports Clips, right? There's like uh I don't know. I forget the others, but there's like a couple of those, right? So then you can kind of look by your market to say how many locations of each and there could be five of one and 20 of another etc. And then you can start to to get an idea from there. Mhm. And who do I reach out to? Do I just reach out to the franchisor and say, "Hey, I want into your into your network?" Or do I approach an individual franchisee? How do I Where do I start my research? Well, it's a great question. I There's There's lots of different ways you can go. I think if there's a specific look It really depends on what phase you're in. Like if you're totally totally new, like you have no idea what you're looking at. Let's pretend you know you have no idea. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple. Yeah, you could you could A start you could read the FDD, right? You could find a way to download the FDD if you want to go that way. out and just start to do some own independent research to see like do I like this? But you also kind of have to know to how to read an FDD to kind of get any value out of it. Honestly, the best thing or like what I would do is I would go to BizBuySell and you can search for existing businesses that are for sale and you in the thing you can put keyword and you can put franchise as the keyword. And so then it'll only show you franchise. Now, a lot of them will be blind, like they won't tell you what brand it is. So you have to sign the NDA and stuff. Um but I think that is probably the one of the better ways to at least start to spark ideas to see like cuz there's so much out there and you can't you don't know what you don't know until you start kind of looking through the financials, you start learning about these different franchises um to get an idea. So I would I would I would do that, right? So it's BizBuySell and you can see what's for sale. Um there's the old just drive by, right? You just know it's a Jersey Mike's and it's a franchise and you go in like you said and try and talk try and talk to the owner. I've I've done that before with other brands that we were considering. And the guy told me it was a terrible business and he was trying to sell it and you know, all these reasons it was actually pretty funny. Um There's that. There is you know, working with a with a franchise broker or consultant of somebody who is, you know, does this kind of for a living and they help kind of play match maker. Um you know, a lot of times you know, they're going to be more on the newer newer brand side like the emerging brands which I think we'll we'll probably touch on but um they'll have an idea they'll be able to help in terms of, you know, maybe finding some resales that aren't necessarily listed on BizBuySell. Um that are kind of kept more more private. Um And yeah, I think generally yeah, if if you find something you like then you can go to the the franchise order directly as well. Mhm. Okay. Um great. And one of the things that I've heard some of my guests say is like they when they started looking for a business they didn't want to do a franchise, they encountered how difficult it was to find any business to buy so then they opened their minds to buying a franchise and then when they actually looked around at some of the franchise resales that were on BizBuySell or maybe that a broker brought bought them it was often like a location doing, you know, a hundred or two hundred thousand SDE. And in our world of search like that's too small. You you know, the conventional wisdom is that you bigger is better and the sweet spot being maybe, you know, seven hundred to a million dollars in SDE. So these franchise these these franchise established franchise businesses, individual units, a hundred to two hundred SDE, way way way too small. However, now that I'm kind of hearing, you know, your playbook and kind of getting into the network with a roll up strategy might, you know, it could be you know, there's the the vision there to to grow your SDE rapidly. This might be a way in. Am I right about that? Should searchers open their minds to buying a single location doing a paltry hundred thousand dollars in SDE? Yes, as a as a beginning point. And so here's here's kind of at least how I how to approach it is it is almost it is nearly impossible to buy an existing multi-unit group of franchises doing a million 700 and million dollars or whatever that whatever number is you said. Yeah. Because like if they're already doing that, they're going to want to sell to another franchisee like me. And if it's a good business like another franchisee's going to buy it. Like why why would they why would they pass it up? And so, you know, the only reasons they would is if like let's say it was in I don't know Louisiana or some some kind of remote market that's small, there's maybe maybe they're all five Mighty Shops or whatever it is. There's no other franchisees in the market and the big guys who do fly across the country for whatever reason don't want to go to Louisiana. Maybe it's maybe there's nothing bad against those stores. They're just saying, "Hey, we don't want to be in the South. We don't want this. We don't want that." So, that would be kind of the only way you could find something would be a a group of stores that had no surrounding franchisees that wanted it and B it was in a location that the the national players don't want it. But a lot of cases the national players, if they're already going on airplane, if they think they can make money and they can get it at a decent price, aren't going to pass it up. And so, it's just it's just going to be really hard to find that. Almost impossible. Or it's like way overpriced, right? That maybe it's worth $3 million or whatever and they want $6 million for it. Yeah. And you know, the multi guys want it but like they're saying, "Listen, like it's just not worth it." And so, they may say, "Well, let me shop around. Let me see if I can get a deal." And then, you know, cuz the bigger the numbers, obviously the bigger that multiple variance becomes. So, yeah. So, it'll be hard to find. So, then then your playbook is, "All right, if I can get in this thing for they're making 100 to 200k, what do I do next?" That that's what like would spark the idea to say, "Hey, I can buy one. It's making 100. How many other locations are there? Is the fragmented ownership? Blah blah blah." Like we go down that path. Cuz to be honest, a lot of cases in mine like my stores make about 100 maybe a little bit more right now. Like And so, it's like that's not like an unusual number on a per unit basis. It's just a matter of you need, you know, you need a bunch of them to to start to make the money that you know, gets really exciting. And so, yeah, I would think you use that as a starting point to say, can we grow it from here? And if you feel that, you know, maybe it's a if it's a territory based thing and it's like that is you are landlocked, all the other surrounding guys like have no interest in selling, they appear to be really good performers, you kind of have this market that the land the other surrounding guys don't really want, you know, maybe not not the best opportunity if if you really want to grow it. Um on the other hand, you might find out, hey, that's a beginning location through talking to the franchisor and maybe the other franchisees, you find out, well, a couple of these surrounding guys, you know, maybe only have a couple years left, they have no kids in the business, you know, they're potentially open to selling down the road, like that would that would then start to be interesting to me. Mhm. Mhm. That's how I'd approach So, if I if I consider that that $100,000, $150,000 SDE single unit location, single unit franchise existing franchise business, I better be darn sure that I have done my research about other acquisition opportunities in in the neighboring area. Yeah, acquisition I I am as as much analyzing and assessing the larger market as I am that that lone location. Yeah, the lone location itself, to be honest, I mean, you're looking at it, but like to understand the franchise model to say, hey, are they how well are these guys executing the model? Like it's also possible that like that location should be making 300k and these guys are just really bad executors. So, like that would lead, hey, you can grow this thing pretty significantly and then you, you know, if you can get them to 300k each, you only need a couple more then, it's not like you need 30 of them Yeah. to make some money. Uh or you might find out, hey, they're a really good operator, right? And the thing should be making 50 and then it's like um you know, are you going to be able to sustain that? And so, those are the couple factors. And like the other part of this is is is development or kind of new greenfield territory or whatever you want to call it. That the problem the downside of legacy brands and these roll ups is a lot of times they're also located in legacy locations. In older neighborhoods that have been kind of potentially, at least in Midas's case, you know, they were great in the '50s and the '60s and the '70s, but now they're kind of like these rougher areas or there's no new development, there's no new money. And then all the new places that all the the home the housing developments are and they're building up these town centers, there's no Midas shops and there's no there's no automotive potential either. And so, you know, a lot of times to then to get into these new hot markets or these places you really want to be, you got to kind of you kind of have to to build them up either way. Um or territory-based business, same thing. They're going to be like, you know, the new place. Like, you know, in Florida, it's like Ocala is like really big and growing, right? Or the Villages are really big with all the retirement communities, which like there's no Midas shops down there. And Anyway, so, that is like the problem when you're looking at this roll up is you're generally going to be in these older areas and that you're going to have to look at potentially new either way. Yeah. Well, I I we're going to spend a minute on on looking at new franchises and just doing a traditional kind of build a location and then build out multiple locations and and explore that as an alternative. But, one thing for a couple things, you keep talking about being a good operator versus a versus a not so good operator. Um any quick bullet points on like what makes a good operator? I mean, is it hard to be a good operator or is being a good operator just like doing the work? Is there more to it? Yeah, I think a lot of it, you know, at at that point it's running it's running any business. Like, whether it's a franchise or running, you know, your own independent business. Being a good operator, the principles are really the same, which is like, you know, focus on execution. Like, doing the following the same process every day on every vehicle or every time that phone rings or whatever it is. Like, it's consistency of execution is what leads to being quote a good operator. And I think, you know, the franchise you have kind of like what is what is that What does that consistency look like? What does that playbook like look like? Obviously, they give it to you. If you have your own business, you know though, it's like it's the same principles which is like you're nice you're nice you're nice on the phone. You say yes, like you want people who want the business. So, you're not like making them monkeys like read a script. It's actually like they shouldn't have to really read the script because you want them to like want the business and have the energy to like get them in the door, not just say the words. And so, I think that's a lot of that's a lot of it. And then just, you know, hiring great people, training them, having compensation plans that are rewarding for performance. You know, you know, encouraging tenure through you know, good benefits all all those things. It's it's it's all it's there's nothing special there to be honest with you. Okay. Um and then we've been talking about um consumer franchises primarily. Uh and you know, brands which kind of brick and mortar locations. What are your thoughts about service franchises? Yeah, so tons of tons of great options out there. I mean, I we had we had operated one for for a couple years that was a um a mobile truck wash. So, it was B2B and you know, we got contracts with companies that owned large fleets of vehicles and someone had to kind of come on site and wash their tractor trailers, garbage trucks, delivery vans, that kind of thing. And so, you know, there's I think there's tons of great options out there. I think you know, there's some kind of there's pros and cons. Like the pros are generally your overhead's lower, right? Cuz you have some you're operating out of some like flex warehouse space or potentially even your home. Your you know, you can as you grow potentially you can buy more territory and still operate out of that single location. You're just like increasing your drive time. And so, all that kind of helps on that side. You know, generally they're going to be more labor based instead of like you're not selling products, right? Like they're going to be selling labor. And so, you know, it's it's you grow by you know, having more people on your payroll and like this bigger company to manage, which you know, there's pros and cons. I think some of the challenges I think I think service businesses are a little harder to to scale. I think I think you can make a lot of money. You could probably make your your million dollars, but like there's no I don't think there's there's not that many success stories of guys doing, you know, 30 million, 50 million, 100 million like there are in in some more like in the retail based franchises. In part because it's so dependent on people. So, I think you can build a really great is a why is a Midas location any less based on people since it's all people doing the work? well, so half of our business is is part like of our mix half is parts, half is service. So, like you know, we you know, obviously you we can't sell parts without without the service side of it, without the labor side of it, but like when we look at our like P&Ls it's roughly 50/50 parts and service. And so, we have margin on that and we have margin on labor. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um I didn't realize that parts was such a such a significant part of the business. Let's consider new franchise opportunities. So, the um you know, we've been spending our time talking about roll-ups, talking about mature franchise brands. How do I consider that opportunity versus you know, helping to build out new locations of a brand new franchise? I guess it's all about is there like is there a secret sauce? Like is there something that these guys are doing that they have solved new problem, they have a new product, they have a new service that is going to kind of open up a new market. Like I think those are some of the big reasons at least why I would look at like a potentially a new a new one. I mean, for example, I'm I'm personally looking at a a fitness concept. Partnered with some guys and opening up this fitness concept that uses EMS, so electronic muscle stimulation. So, you wear these body suits basically and you do a one-on-one workout. You can burn 700 calories in a 20-minute workout. It's the pitch. And so, for people who are, you know, they don't want to go to a gym, they might have a prior injury, they can't lift weights, they just like don't want to like spend an hour in the gym, but they want to, you know, they like 20 minutes and they like burning calories. Right? So obviously it targets kind of up upper, you know, middle to upper income and people who pay country club sports and etc. Um, but it's like totally brand new. It's potentially like, you know, the Orange Theory of whatever personal training, you could say. And Orange Theory is like this wildly successful brand. And so these guys kind of have this new this new like business model that no one is doing. They're going to be the first ones in the country really to to pioneer this thing. And so um so that's something like I'm excited about and potentially except we're we're we're like looking pretty pretty seriously into this thing. And kind of for all those reasons, right? It's a new concept, but that that solves a new problem and, you know, it provides a huge benefit to people that I think um, you know, would would do really well. So. Mhm. Mhm. Um, is there it? Okay. And what about one that's maybe that that's like kind of you're really taking a new concept to market and help helping with a franchise do that. Um, what about one that's maybe 10 years old? So a younger franchise where they're still green field, but it has product market fit, pretty demonstrable product market fit. Um, is there a cuz yours obviously I I'm hearing a lot of risk in yours. This is a new concept the market may or may not you know, respond to it. Um, yeah. So so maybe what about kind of the middle middle of the road there? A 10-year-old franchise. You know, they they they have a problem they solve. Like I I there's a company called Zoom Drain that I that I like. They they do drain cleaning, inspections, repairs. Um and, you know, they're in like 50 cities or or something, may maybe a little bit more. So like they're not they're not small, but they're not across the country yet. And, you know, there's a lot of things that I that I liked about I I like about them. A, I I'm a I'm a customer there, so they they did they do a really good job. That's that's part of it. B is like, you know, it's one of these lower kind of costs, relatively lower cost. I mean, 200-250 grand or so to kind of get into it. It's kind of this niche service that's like relatively simple. Like you're you're inspecting and cleaning drains is like the primary source. In most in in many states, you don't need to be a licensed plumber. So like it's it's not like you need this huge licensing thing. You need somebody who's like knows how to clean drains, but not you know, this licensing requirement. You know, the overhead's generally low and like it's a totally recession-proof business, right? Like the drain gets clogged, it doesn't matter. Like it is getting unclogged one way or another. And then you you see you got Roto-Rooter, you got some competitors, right? But like a lot of those guys are more or now shifting focus to full-service plumbing and some other some other projects where these guys are really in and down and in focused on like the specific thing. And so um there's another one I like that I think is is relatively new and it has some of the the qualities I think people people like. Mhm. Okay. That's great. Um couple more questions for you, Brian, before we close it out. So I was circling back now to just the the roll up of a legacy franchise brand. So what does it look like in your case or somebody who's successfully rolled up some locations, what does the exit look like? So, you know, yeah, like you've got so many locations. You're probably one of the biggest franchisees now in the country for Midas, I'm guessing. There aren't that many people with number four. You're there are not that many people within the franchise the Midas franchise family who could buy you. Uh I mean, maybe one of the top three or somebody in the top 10 could buy you out, but that's a small handful of people. Like that's a that's a lot of risk there. And they're scattered all over the country. Who knows if they want to buy into Philly. So, um and then you always hear about you hear about um private equity being big buyers of franchise as as with everything, but of like multiple bundles of franchise locations. Um what does should somebody pursue the strategy who's looking to sell in 7 to 10 years or is the real play here to hold on to it for a long time? It really depends on what like A, what you got to start with that end in mind, right? I think if someone wants to get in and get out in 7 years, you know, they're probably going to be selling to another existing franchisee. Like I I don't know. I think that timeline is probably relatively short to get it to a number that would attract private equity. You know, from my understanding, you know, you need at least 5 million, right, in EBITDA to be be attractive. Yeah. Um and then at that point, like, you know, obviously if you can get to 10, you got a lot a lot a lot of guys interested. And so, you know, it really kind of depends on how big do you want to big it I guess get it and then how quickly do you think you can get it there. Um but yeah, so so if you're going to stay relatively small, and by small I mean under, you know, under private equity basis, you're going to sell to another existing franchisee, either somebody kind of right below you or right above you in the rankings. So, for me, there's like another group that has 100 or so locations and they do have some locations in Philadelphia in the Northeast and like if I wanted to sell at like four or whatever, four and a half, like, I'm not going to get a huge number from them and I know that. Like, they would be the easiest, quickest way, right? Um and they are like kind of private equity backed and a family office backed. But like, you know, the the best exit for me potentially would be, you know, private equity which so but we're kind of in this no man's land we're not really big enough. We don't have enough income to kind of like get a bunch of them attractive, right? Cuz we're we're under five. And so then, yeah, our path now is like let's get this thing so it's making at least five. And then yeah, there there are a number that would be interested. I've I've spoken to a few of them just to kind of start to to understand, you know, the kind of built-to-sell mentality of what does our business need to look like in X amount of years to to to make sense. Um And so like that's how we're approaching it. Um How long until I sell? I mean, it could be 10 years. I don't really know, but like part of the whole thing is I don't know. I like to build to sell. What's the end in mind? Like what like how can I make this business as attractive as I can on the day that we're ready that we're good to go. And so uh for us I I believe that will be the exit. I think I mean, the guys I talked to, there's a number of private equity companies that are, you know, in in I mean, for me personally, in automotive, like they've done other automotive deals and franchises. They've done other franchise deals. Not Midas specifically, maybe not service, but they're they've done both automotive and they've done both uh franchising, so they they get the concept. I think that's key is finding guys who are who who who've done it before and they really understand it. Not like it's their first franchise deal. I think that would be I don't think you'd get the value that you would out of the guy who's, you know, knows what knows what he's looking at. Mhm. Mhm. So, you it does sound like you're you expect to exit, you know, not at the end of your career, but probably sometime Yeah, one day probably. sooner than that. I mean, you never know. I've The other The other option is like you get it so that the business like you have a great team in place and you're able to make you know, enough money that you can live the life you want to live and like, you know, you really then have no reason to sell it. Cuz then you sell it, it's like, well, what else would I do? Like you still need income coming in, right? So, then you going to go and like start something from the ground up all over again. But on the other hand, if I build enough people around me and have a really good team, like I I could go off and build the fitness concept to do whatever I wanted either way, right? So, like like you'd only really want to sell if you get to the point that I think it's weighing on your time or your energy or you believe that it's going to go down or like there's some sort of negative reason. Otherwise, if you can continue to build it, like you can it can support your life to do whatever you want. At at you know, whatever whatever size and just really depends on what that looks like for the individual. And how many hours a week are you putting into the business and and and your brother, Chris, as well? I don't know. I don't count them, but I I spend I don't know. Probably 30 hours a week. full time. So, almost full time still. It's hard. I mean, I don't count them. And like, you know, when you own the business, you're you're always thinking about it, right? I'm always coming up again I'm like the visionary, too. So, like on the one coming up with the ideas of oh, we should do this, we should do that. Like, you know, I never really stop. And obviously, I spend I spend time on Twitter and you know, obviously promoting my you know, this franchise side and the franchise education, which you know, I'm working on a whole thing around that. Um but but even all the like even the things I talk about there are lessons I learned in running the business. And then I get ideas from there that go in the business. So, it's hard to say. I mean, it's it's been integrated in my life for so long that um I don't really know. Okay. But um you know, you could hire an operator or an executive to take over your 30 hours a week and Yeah, I mean, we have a COO. You just choose not to. You're just because you just continue to enjoy being in the business. Yeah, we hired a COO and back in August who's taken a ton over a ton off my plate managing our kind of our district managers. And he he's amazing. Um And so, that that's been a that's been a huge a huge benefit. So, a lot of my time is is more, you know, obviously working with him to kind of train him to kind of fill as many much of my shoes as possible. Uh and then it's, you know, it's the growth. It's the expansion. It's, you know, do we go into new markets? I mean, I'm looking at new locations. Um uh you know, working the relationships with franchisees. You know, we we want to buy it's it's sometimes it's it's not necessarily like you're just going into office and doing the work. It's more the kind of the surrounding aspects of it. Sure. On the business versus in the business. Sounds like a good good built to sell approach. So, you touched on this new project of yours, kind of franchise franchise education. It's I I assume why I I started to see you all over the place about 6 months ago or so. Um one of the things we talked about on our pre-call is franchise consultants in this world of uh know, that what they are and and that they don't have the best reputation and you fully recognize that and thought you could bring something else precisely because franchise consultants kind of suffer from from uh you know, tainted reputation. Not saying you're going to be a franchise consultant, but you are going to sounds like help people find that good franchise for them, that good franchise opportunity for them. I'm putting words in your mouth. So, tell tell us tell tell us what you're doing and why and what problem you're solving that existing franchise consultants aren't already. Yeah, so I am working just to help educate people on everything we talked about today, which is that like, you know, I've franch- franchising has provided a great life for my family since 1976. Like it will continue to provide a great life for our family, you know, well, you know, for decades to come as I teach, you know, my my kid my daughters, you know, about business and and growth. And so, I I think it's a really good opportunity. I think a lot of people have these preconceived notions for whatever reason about the negativity. And I think that I think, you know, like I said, it's it's provided great life for me and obviously you have 200 plus employees. Like I'm able to provide a great life for for our team and I think um there's some really good benefits. And so, I think there's not enough people talking about it on on Twitter and on podcasts and stuff and you know, like you said, the silver tsunami's coming and there's $7 trillion of business changing hands. 10% of those are going to be franchises. So, whatever $700 billion worth of franchises will be changing hands over the next couple years and like I think it's the best possible opportunity to get into to one, whether that's a legacy roll up or whether it's you're doing a legacy's brand and then you're doing new locations or whatever it is, right? Uh tons of opportunity out there in the world. And so, uh so yeah, I've I've been on Twitter. I talk about a lot. You know, I had a lot of people come to me um kind of with questions on kind of all this stuff. So, a couple things. A, I'm putting together you know, the kind of the the course uh to to teach people, you you as much as information I can pack into there, kind of this intro to franchising about what it is, all the different fees, kind of like a realm of like here's like what the world looks like cuz there's no like perfect franchise, right? There's no franchise I could tell you and say, "Hey, go buy this. You're going to make money." cuz you know, the perfect franchise is one that matches the person to their skill sets like the things that I'm good at in my market like in Philadelphia cuz you got to be local and that like that has problems that you enjoy solving. Cuz like every business has problems. It's do you want to like deal with those types of problems? And I think if if you can find those three things let like you can make people are making money in every franchise. Like there's obviously some ones that probably are just people are set up to fail or I don't believe in the business models like but like for the most part you know, when you read through these FDDs, there's people in every single line of business who are doing really well. And so it's just a matter of finding something that that matches that. So my goal is to to help people, you know, discover what they want, what they don't want and go from there. And so in terms of the franchise consultancy, yeah, I had a lot of people coming to me one of the different ways. One of them is you find a franchise consultant who is somebody who you know, is part of this like an affiliate network. They have all these different brands that are kind of in their portfolio. They can kind of take your the things that you're looking for, you know, income goals, financial goals, different industries, etc., locations and they come to you and they present you know, a couple different options to say, "Hey, here are four or five different franchises that potentially meet what you're looking for." Um and then they kind of you know, help some help someone guide them through the process of becoming a franchisee which includes seven different calls and the FDD and franchise validation and like discovery day and there's all these there's a you know, it's it's the same process pretty much for every franchise but different steps. And so you know, the problem or the the reputation side of it is there's just there's people out there who just don't have like they were they were some corporate employee or they were like doing something and then now they're franchise consultant, right? Like they don't necessarily have the experience to to really know you know, what are the good things, what are the bad things. Like there's a lot of guys out there actually who I know who are after I said some of this stuff who who who I've I who I've since talked to who are really good. And they they they've been in the business for years, they know a ton of stuff. Um but there's others that I think just it's kind of a job and they're trying it out and like um you know, for the franchisee like signing that franchise agreement's a big deal. Like it's 10 to 20 years potentially kind of locked into this thing. And so like it's a really big deal. And so you you really want to make sure that um you know, you find one that's really good. And obviously like the better you have the the better quality people that you have on the team, the more likelihood you're going to you know, make that move. And so um so then I had all these people coming to me then uh wanting recommendations of who I should talk to and I figured um I'd become a franchise consultant. So I am I am now I've been in it since October or so. I I joined one of these networks I thought was the best one. And uh so now yeah, I'm I'm helping I I help a handful of people a month, you know, I don't have like you know, all the time in the world, but the people I have helped, I mean I I think I've done a really good job. Um and it's been fun. So. Mhm. Mhm. Well, the the question I got to ask Brian is the one that you know, people who sell education online for a living always get, which is you know, you have disposable income, quite a bit of disposable income, all this experience. Why not roll all of that income and experience into doing another franchise yourself rather than helping students? Like to operate another franchise? Yeah, like get into a Yeah, like if I come to you and I say, Brian, what you know, help me figure out what franchise to do and you can do the same analysis for yourself, you know, and then go out and you know, do another 20 locations of some other franchise while you continue to have your Midas stuff. I don't know. I part part of I so we've tried two other franchises as a franchisee and like I and in both of them I was kind of like the lead person on them, you could say. Like we had people running the day-to-day, but like, you know, kind of employees and I was kind of lead person. To be honest, both those failed and like I think a lot of it is cuz like I don't know. You start something up it but then you think it's going to be this big diversified thing like the Warren Buffett I'm going to have this like a million different companies in this like portfolio. But like unless you you I mean have really key people in place who I think can can run the ball without you like it comes down to you, right? So then I found my time was like really diversified and diluted between Minus and between these other things and kind of the new one, you know, the honeymoon phase I would start it, I'd be all into it and then I kind of like I'd lose some steam over it and then it and then it wouldn't do as well and then like something would happen in Minus and I'd like all my attention would go like we'd get a new acquisition or we'd do some like usually good things would happen and then like totally ignore the the other business. And at the end of the day both those businesses ended up losing money, significant amount of money and more just put more stress like on me. And so then you know, kind of going forward we decided um the only way we'd get into another business like that that that we would operate was if someone else like was the franchisee and we're just kind of, you know, maybe we're partners in it like this the fitness thing. Like we're going to be there kind of financially to invest, to provide our you know decades of knowledge, but you know, we're going to have someone else who's got skin in the game, who really owns it and we're there to help like add fuel to the fire, not to be the the key person. Um and then the education side I mean I I think it's fun, you know, like you know, you have no you have no cost to it, right? Like and so I can kind of turn it on, turn it off as as much as I want and it's but it's not like it's this thing where um you know, you you've got all these expenses and this overhead and um plus like I've I've made a lot of new friends. I mean, I've had people want to partner with me through that. Like I've a couple guys we're talking to who are want to be that franchisee and want us on their team. So, potentially getting equity in the business to to kind of help them accelerate. So, I think I think for me specifically, there's you know, it's not just about selling a course or making money there. It's it's really about, can I find guys who could be potential partners for us who we could, you know, back, you know, with some money, but like honestly, it's it's less about the money and more about, you know, the knowledge, which is I think, you know, where we can add a ton of experience. Um, and and and, you know, like I said, put fuel on that fire. So, there's a couple different avenues for us, but that's that's a big part of it for me is is these potential partnerships. That's great, Brian. Well, tell people how they can find you on online, please. Uh, yeah, so Twitter I'm the most active. It's @brianbeers with an I. And uh, I have a podcast as well, Business with Beers, where I have two episodes a week. Mondays drop usually some sort of episode that's a, you know, kind of more general business, like kind of whatever I'm interested in or, you know, I've had Mike McCalwitz on. I've had um, Steve Sims. I've got Cameron Harold by the time this thing launches. Uh, number of famous authors and just guys who are growing a business, scaling a business, solving problems. And then on Fridays, I do a franchise-specific episode, which could be an interview with a franchisor or successful franchisee or uh, just me speaking on a topic for 10 or 15 minutes. Uh, so, and so, um, those are the the two best ways, I'd say, is on Twitter or find me find me find my podcast. And that was Business with Beers? Business with Beers, yep. Great. Well, Brian, this has been an education. Thank you very much for coming on. Really great uh, to to understand this playbook. It sounds like it's um, could be a really great opportunity in a lot of markets around the country and one that isn't going to be here in in 5 years. So, people should really take note. Um, thank you, sir, and congratulations on quite a story yourself with the with the Midas roll-up. Great. Thanks for having me, Will. I hope you enjoyed that interview. Make sure you subscribe to the Acquiring Minds channel below. We are now publishing twice a week, so tons of new interviews and stories to come. Stories that will help you along your own path to acquiring a business.